It's not as different as you seem to think (though I would call it the days of MacOS 8 and Netscape 3.04). Fundamentally, the biggest changes are in terms of content and connectivity. By the late 90s, I was using routers to share dial-up connections over a network, so the only changes there are the hardware/software for the router, network speed, and provider of the line. Floppy disks were largely on their way out by 1997, with various interim solutions failing to take hold and CD-Rs gaining popularity (plus, there were networks); USB's rise was right around the corner. If anything, web browsers were faster back then because sites weren't so content-heavy and loaded with scripts. People had Geocities web pages instead of Facebook pages and sent each other stupid forwarded e-mail messages instead of stupid cat GIFs posted on Facebook. People infected their computers with malware from floppy disks used in lab computers and MacUser shareware CDs instead of malware from web sites and e-mail. The user sure hasn't changed much in 15 years.
If you think 1997 was so much different from 2012, you're the one with the short memory. Since the late 1990s, it has been rare to find a home, office, or dorm room without a computer. In 1995, at a tech school, only two other people on my floor of 40+ students had their own computer. Most people checked their e-mail on a dumb terminal in the lounge. By two years later, almost everyone had their own computer and the dumb terminals had all been scrapped.
Back up two more years to 1993 and even computers in homes were somewhat uncommon. Many students still wrote papers on typewriters (though they had some fancy electronic features). Home network connectivity was largely limited to AOL, CompuServe, or Prodigy, plus a few local BBSs that were largely abandoned by that point. If you had a pager (not even a cell phone, a pager!), people assumed that you were either a doctor or a drug dealer.
Let's go all the way back to 1982, 15 years before that far-off world of 1997. Home computing was in its infancy and was limited to only the most serious hobbyists. Most phones still used rotary dials. A cell phone was something rich people had in their cars, like the guy on the show Vega$. Schools made copies with mimeograph or ditto machines and everything was covered with purple ink. The Apple IIe that was practically standard in schools for the better part of a decade had not yet been released. The only "cable" television most people had was from the cable running up to the antenna on the roof. People shopped at home out of paper catalogs and called or mailed in their orders. Department store checkout registers did not commonly have bar code scanners. If you paid with a credit card (more likely a store card), you would be asked if you wanted your carbons.
30 years later, a cell phone in your pocket can replicate pretty much everything in that last paragraph. But even 15 years ago, the infrastructure was in place to support everything that you can do today. Computers and networks got faster, operating systems and browsers got more features, and life began to take shape around computing devices.
So basically:
2012: "Oh boy, a 3TB hard drive! I need to update my Facebook status and torrent some HD movies."
1997: "Oh boy, a 4GB hard drive! I need to tell everyone on AIM and download some MP3s."
1982: "Oh boy, a second floppy drive! I need to call the one other guy I know who has a computer to make copies of Pac-Man and Space Invaders."
Just about all of my engineering exams used option (D): let the students make their own. Teach them the material, tell them that they can bring a sheet of notes (or more), and let them figure out how to go from point a to point b. If they can't handle that, then what are their chances of figuring it out during the limited time of an exam? They have people, books, and the internet available to them well in advance of the need date, just like they would in a real job. At some point, they will be stuck in a room for a short period of time with no outside help available and people asking them questions that they had better know how to answer - just like a real job. You will not always have unlimited time and resources at your disposal; the students might as well learn this while they are still taking classes.
Right, which is precisely why I got a second camera to complement my dSLR. I love my dSLR for the reasons you list, but ultimately, the best camera is the one that you have with you.
Been there, done that, never used the thing. About five years ago I bought a compact camera using this reasoning, but I rarely found myself in a situation where I felt like bringing a camera with me but didn't want the DSLR. I took maybe three pictures with it back in 2007 and haven't even gotten them off the card yet. The convenience seems like it should be worth it, but the compromises are just too great for me; I can't even go back to my old DSLR because of the big drop in image quality and capability. If I want to take pictures, it's no big deal to toss the camera and two or three lenses in a bag. If I don't, then I still have a cell phone for random stuff of little consequence - my pockets are full enough as it is, so even adding a compact camera is extra stuff to carry, plus different memory cards and batteries to deal with, different controls to figure out, and a big handicap in performance. I just don't see the middle ground, but that's just me. The best camera for me is the one that can get the shot. If I don't have it with me, then I just look and get on with my life.
Well, if that was the plan, then it worked too well; most of the cables and chargers that I've had for more than two years are completely useless due to wear. At first I thought it was the port, but a rarely-used cable worked perfectly while the others couldn't even get a momentary connection with any amount of wiggling. So much for not needing to replace all of your cables when you get a new phone...
everyone? In my circle, ownership of DSLRs seems to be going up quite rapidly.
And there's the problem - forget camera phones, DSLRs are becoming the new low end. DSLRs are the new big thing, but people want to use them like they use their cell phone cameras (point in the general direction, mash a button, post on Facebook). As a result, there's a big race to see who can make the cheapest DSLR, at the expense of quality of course (the reputation for higher quality is based partly on reputation from older models, so the perceived quality will remain as actual quality falls). Better quality is available, but the gap between the top of the low end and the bottom of the high end will grow, just like it did in the case of stereo equipment and every other piece of commodity hardware that started as a niche product. Most people who purchase a DSLR these days will seldom, if ever, change the lens. Few will ever use a mode other than Auto. And composition? Even among professionals, composition skills are far from a given. But megapixels? Everyone loves more megapixels, so just cram them in, image quality be damned! Manufacturers will design their products with this in mind, trying to woo customers with fancy gizmos, big numbers, and low prices. This will erode sales in the mid-range and stagnation in that product class (upgrading to the fancy doo-dads of the low end without actually making any improvements) will drive customers to the next tier up (typically full-frame for the prosumer crowd), further reducing the market. Mix in how the current economic conditions result in price increases at the high end (due to the strength of the Yen against the US Dollar) and you get the same scenario described in the article - crap quality for the masses and a high price tag for anything better. This has happened countless times before and will happen again many more times. The moral of this story is simple - buy quality while you still can.
While I am tempted to agree with this, I fear that reality isn't on our side here. There are two separate factors at work here clouding the issue. First, people who had this technology 20+ years ago were likely to be hobbyists and enthusiasts and not simple users, who make up the vast majority today. You can't expect everyone to be an expert in everything, so any technology that becomes mainstream will be dominated by users who treat it as a mysterious black box (this trend didn't start with computers and won't end with them either). Brace yourself though, computers are increasingly being designed to function accordingly, making it more difficult to be a casual hobbyist in order to simplify the user experience. Hardcore hobbyists will always find a way, but it will be more difficult to take advantage of features beyond the advertised mass-appeal feature set (particularly in areas that conflict with the desires of our corporate masters).
Second, the depression-era mentality of reusing and repairing everything until there's nothing left to work with is likely to die with us. I don't really know why this happened, but I would guess that cheap replacements, fast-evolving product lines, pop culture distractions, and flimsy plastic are key factors. Looking back at my own childhood, I would also point a finger at today's overly risk-averse parenting methods that restrict kids from learning about the world in an attempt to keep them safe. Everything real that we played with in our childhoods is being replaced by a fiercely-marketed "safe" alternative. Even many of the toys from that era have since been deemed unsafe and have been replaced. The problem with this mentality of raising kids in a safer alternate reality is that it leaves them unprepared for the challenges they will face in the real reality. Chemistry sets no longer contain chemicals. Woodworking kits no longer contain wood. Do they even allow kids to use electricity, fire, metal tools, or sharp objects anymore? Sure, there are safety concerns to be aware of (hence the need for parental supervision, which should always be a given with anything), and doing something can still be beneficial without any real-world applications, but replacing something real with a "safe" alternative adds another layer between doing and understanding. All of this extra safety only serves to delay the introduction of key life lessons while protecting against the occasional splinter, cut, scrape, etc. (which kids will still find a way to cause). If you don't learn to interact with real things early, you might not get used to thinking inside the black box, instead forever treating it as an unchangeable entity that either works or is trash.
4. Generate parity files so you can detect and correct data corruption; an extra 5-10% of data can quickly find and fix the occasional accidental overwrite or bit error. The crap-ton of DVD-Rs (or some other optical media, since DVD-Rs are a bit small for large quantities of photos these days) comes in handy here if the corruption was passed along through the backup chain and is too extensive to recover from the available parity files (in this case, the parity files tell you what you need to find and let you know when you have a good version). It's an extra step, but you can just do it once per set of photos and forget about it until you have a problem or want to feel proactive about data protection.
Maybe you should read more carefully. On all the carriers I've activated global roaming (T-Mobile, AT&T, Verizon - I can't imagine Sprint being different), when activating, you are expressly advised that billing reconciliation with international providers may take several weeks and "charges may not be reflected until a later bill".
Did you read the rest of the post? Maybe YOU should read more carefully, this had nothing to do with international providers, it was a case of the domestic carrier changing the plan after the fact against the wishes of the customer. I'm pretty sure I mentioned that...
In reality, they just left the service on until well after I had returned, then retroactively changed my plan back to my regular data plan for the days I hadn't requested it. And a couple that I had.
Yeah, there it is. I agreed to unlimited data for the days specified and still had this unlimited data plan active for a period of time afterward. There could be no data charges involving international providers until the global data plan was deactivated, which happened long after I had returned. The charges appeared because they retroactively canceled my global data plan two days before I requested it to be canceled. I'm not sure how much clearer I can make this. When a charge can show up has nothing to do with whether a charge should be possible in the first place.
Sometimes this excessive billing happens retroactively, making it impossible for the customer to keep track of charges or receive notification of reaching limits. I recently added a global data plan (at a rate of about $1 per day over my regular data plan) for an overseas trip and was shocked to see a $130 data charge that didn't show up until a couple of weeks after the trip. I had told the carrier beforehand the days on which I would need the global data plan (with an extra day on either end of the trip just in case), thinking that they would set it up to be active on those days. In reality, they just left the service on until well after I had returned, then retroactively changed my plan back to my regular data plan for the days I hadn't requested it. And a couple that I had. In order to save me a couple of dollars, they stuck me with $130 in data charges. Luckily, they fixed it without much trouble, but it shouldn't have gotten this far. These plan changes had to be made over the phone with no written confirmation of what had been requested and what was to be provided and no notification of the retroactive changes was given until it showed up on my bill (which was a tangled mess of charges and refunds). But hey, they might have lucked out and gotten an extra $130 for their incompetence.
When I taught, we had a fool proof way to stop illegal cheat sheets. Just let the students bring a cheat sheet.
This is basically how it works in engineering exams - either one sheet of notes is allowed or the exams are open note / open book. Hilarity ensues when students who didn't bother to learn the material try to cram all of the course material onto one sheet (usually by scanning multiple pages and printing them out together at such a small size that you would need a magnifying glass to read anything). I would just add key concepts to a running list as the course went on, usually only adding three or four lines per exam. And then I would go through the exam without referring to my sheet (because the process of isolating the key concepts forces you to learn them).
High-tech anti-cheating systems just aren't particularly useful for most engineering exams. Most methods of cheating are either easy to spot by a live proctor ("I wonder why that guy keeps looking at his left shoe...") or take too much time to be effective on a fast-paced exam. In the end, the results often don't even justify punishing the cheater. The worst case I ever saw was a guy who had his eyes practically glued to the exam next to him and did nothing to hide it. I considered reporting the incident, but realized that it didn't matter after I finished grading the exam; his efforts only got him 13 points (out of 100). If you don't know the material, cheating at the last minute is pure desperation, not a recipe for success.
Homeworks are another matter, but with group collaboration encouraged, cheating just has to be accepted and marginalized by minimalizing the impact of homework on the overall grade in favor of exams and projects. At worst, bad cheating on routine homework assignments is insulting to the grader and singles you out as a target. If you're too lazy to even cheat properly, you're just wasting everyone's time.
Of course, this viewpoint is really limited to engineering, and even then probably only certain disciplines (and I've been out of the loop for a decade or so). Written assignments are always risky, but in-class essays and presentations are an easy low-tech solution. Even just the occasional Google search can have significant benefit; the professor in one of my grad classes tended to assign essays as homework assignments and would routinely run web searches on key pieces of the answers that were turned in. Inevitably, he would find something copied verbatim without citation, even though it was stated up front that he would be checking the web (and it was a small class of less than 20 people). Though I suppose that doesn't make a strong case for these detection systems preventing cheating... Maybe instead of focusing on analyzing the assignments, teachers should work on getting to know their students. That's not exactly practical in many situations (especially in larger classes and with overworked teachers), but the alternative of a never-ending cat-and-mouse game doesn't look much more promising. Encouraging an adversarial relationship already makes people distrust other authority figures, I don't see it helping education outside of impersonal exam-processing facilities (which seems to be the conclusion of the article as well).
I spent a month in NZ at a friends house a year ago, and the internet connections where like we had in Finland 10 years ago... Or even worse. They had an ADSL connection limited to 1Mb/s down (and very slow up) with a 2GB monthly limit. After the limit is full it would throttle down to 5KB/s for the rest of the month. The price of the connection was more then I payed for a full rate (8/1) ADSL back at home, with no caps. I guess if this was somewhere far in the countryside I could understand it, but it was in one of the better areas of Auckland!
I spent two weeks in New Zealand earlier this year, and the countryside is lucky to have wired telephones. The North Island wasn't too bad (cell phone service available except where terrain blocked, somewhat slow but reliable free wireless at one hotel), but the South Island felt like a completely different country. If it was available, internet access at hotels tended to be slow and pricey (browsing web sites was often difficult or impossible and 10 cents per megabyte was typical) and prices were similar at internet cafes. Many hotels were stuck with satellite internet, so this is understandable. Cellular service (my unlimited data plan only cost about a dollar a day above what I paid in the US) fell off to nothing as soon as you left any densely populated area but was very good in any of the major cities. I can't speak to residential connectivity, but the image presented to visitors is not a pretty one, especially when you get out of the cities; it's so bad that you have to actually go outside to entertain yourself. They're just lucky that there's so much to see and do over there...
Re:Was Not Impressed at All
on
Lost Ends
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· Score: 5, Insightful
They could have done a lot of neat things with tying down loose ends, explaining the island and completing their work. Instead they gave us this. And finally I see no further point in discussing it because there's no hope of ever explaining anything.
The final twist was that the show wasn't about the island at all, it was about a bunch of annoying characters. I passed on the first season because I had no interest in a "bunch of people stuck on an island" show (without even a million dollar prize), but decided to watch when it looked like the show was more than that. Surprise, surprise, it wasn't. It was a good show, and the ending was fitting, but it's still frustrating for the creators to basically say that all of the mysteries never really mattered. The numbers? Just numbers. Walt? He's busy trying to live while being officially dead. The rules? Oh, that was just a Jacob thing, he's gone now. The Frozen Donkey Wheel? That's just the magical escape hatch, no big deal. The statue? Just a statue that got hit by a ship a while back. The smoke monster? Hey, Target has smoke detectors for $10.99. And the light? Just leave the key in the ignition and the world won't end. What was the point? As Charlton Heston would say, "It's people. Lost is made out of people."
The trick is to call the $9.99 $10.00 and then stop looking at the damn number.
Do that often enough and you end up in the opposite situation - you end up reading $9.00 as $10 because you're used to the extra 99 cents, thus making prices seem higher than they are. Everything seems a lot more expensive in countries where merchants don't engage in psychological warfare with their customers (though prices usually are higher due to taxes and different purchasing habits, but that's a different issue). Don't get me started with the recent trend of never listing the single purchase price on groceries (5 for $5.55, 3 for $11.75, 7 for $69.93, etc.). All of this only reinforces one simple fact that nobody ever wants to point out (especially if they are running for public office) - people are stupid. Not specific individuals, but the entire species. We spend our entire lives trying to avoid being total morons, usually in the most superficial and totally ineffective ways. Make people feel smart and they'll gladly do any number of stupid things. After all, if 1 for $1 is a good deal, then 9 for $9.99 must be a great deal, right?
Also, 500 words is not a long essay. And standardized tests and grades are a poor judge of talent.
Agreed on both points. I think what all this boils down to is that the key to getting better answers is to do away with the questions. More schools are making SAT scores optional because, while it makes for easy racking and stacking, it tells you very little about the applicant beyond "alble/unable to score well on a big test." In reality, most of the application items are little more than good/neutral/bad check boxes (insert generic off-topic D&D joke here if you must). Outside of the truly exceptional and the painfully unqualified, most applicants are largely indistinguishable when judged by the typical criteria.
And then there's the essay. This should be an opportunity for the applicant to fill in some of the gaps left by the application, but all too often it is filled with trite nonsense like the example essay. The alternative is the set of mini-essays, but I personally despise that sort of application (any school that required one of those types of applications was immediately crossed off my list). Judging from the comments here, people tend to strongly prefer one, the other, or something else entirely. Maybe there's some utility in using the format to narrow the focus to particular personality types, but I don't see how employing a rigid structure in this part of the application is any more useful than requiring SAT scores.
My own opinion is that all of this should be optional but encouraged, with no limitations or requirements. Applicants who don't include something aren't penalized, but those who do have the advantage of presenting a more complete picture of themselves to the admissions staff (and anyone who sends a thousand-page manuscript is automatically rejected, no matter how ornate the binding is). The minimum/maximum lengths and BS topics absolutely have to go. Giving examples of preferred topics is helpful, but any required elements will make the essay less about the applicant and more about the requirement. Opening this part up to more than just essays (while requiring that it be the applicant's own work) is probably ideal, but I can understand why an admissions office would want to avoid truckloads of abstract sculptures and creative uses of fecal matter.
Personally, it didn't take me long to realize that I could just take something that I wanted to write and fit that to the essay topics. Once you understand the purpose of the essay, it becomes a simple matter to come up with an answer without knowing the question. When I applied to college, I wrote one essay and sent it with each of my applications. Aside from the 500-word limit (mine is 1850 words), it fits the topic of the MIT essay in question (not perfectly, but it wouldn't take too much massaging to fix that). It didn't get me into Harvard or anything, but it served its purpose and didn't require any effort to be wasted on bullshitting.
DRM has nothing to do with pirates. The goal of DRM is to give the content providers full control of the distribution system, right up until the point where the light hits your eyeballs (and I doubt they'll stop once they get that far). Ideally, they would want every viewer to pay every time their content is heard or viewed, but for now they'll settle for ensuring that every view is through an approved path that they have been directly compensated for. This ensures that people aren't using content in any non-approved manner, regardless of whether such non-approved use is legal. The pirates may be inconvenienced, but they will continue to operate. The real payoff is in convincing the public that following the **AA's mandates is perfectly acceptable, thus allowing them to do as they please with home entertainment, without regard for individual rights.
This is a dangerous path to go down, but we're already a fair way along and there seems to be no way back. HDMI and Firewire are already locked down, so it's not surprising that they want to turn off component. Regardless of their "pre-DVD release" example cited in the article, it is clear that if this is allowed, it would be applied to all HD content across the board by default, except where otherwise required by law (e.g., DTCP). From there, it's only a small step to disabling SD video altogether (after all, everyone has an approved HD viewing device now, right?).
The biggest threat to this industry isn't the pirates, it's a population that believes that how they view content should be up to them and not dictated by a higher power. This is the mentality that allows people to justify turning to piracy when the legal route is too difficult. Rather than making the legal route easier (as the music industry seems to have figured out in only a decade or so), the MPAA is committed to creating a world where they are an altruistic god showering the people with "high-value content," asking only for our money and obedience in return. The scariest part is the thought that some of the people in control might actually believe that what they are doing is for the public good.
I wonder how many idiots are going to post in this thread just to get the April fool achievement.
That one's probably just a joke anyway. And considering that this is a real feature, I doubt these posts would count. Anyone who posts here just to get a possibly-fake achievement truly is an April Fool. Um... Conficker made me do it.
This is common, but from a kid's perspective, most would rather be sitting quietly or reading a book than doing more *work* than everyone else has to do.
You try "sitting quietly" for an hour of so in an exam room. It is just so much more fun than work, especially when it's a multi-day test - oh boy, another hour of sitting quietly tomorrow! Let me tell you, I would have gladly read the phone book if it had been an option, but outside material (even if it was only for use after the test) was never allowed in these tests when I was in high school way back in the olden days of the 1990s. In fact, I did manage to pass some time after a math test once by staring at log tables, so I imagine that a phone book would have been good for at least an hour. You were lucky if you could even get a piece of paper to doodle on in these types of tests. I remember that I was only able to get through one of them because I had a few Weird Al albums memorized, and that wore thin after two or three days. As far as I'm concerned, "sitting quietly" is nothing short of psychological abuse. And yes, I am bitter; some things just can not be forgiven.
all I had to do was call them up and have them change the MAC address in the system.
You say this as if it is a simple task. I spent two months trying to get them to do just that, and eventually I just gave up. You see, my cable modem (which had been running for over six years straight at this point) kept losing connections. I thought it would be a simple matter of swapping it out for another modem (which I just happened to have on hand), but things are never simple with Comcast.
My real problem was that the other modem had been used on a Comcast account that had been canceled a few years earlier. By "canceled," I mean "some brain dead idiot manually deleted all account information from their databases instead of just changing the account status like anyone with half a clue would have done." Now, complex databases don't like people mucking about with them, and the cable modem MAC address database was not particularly pleased. It lost all connection to the account information, but it still knew that, somewhere, a modem with that MAC address was in use by someone. The account information could not be retrieved by any method - even with the account number, subscriber's name, address, and phone number, date of last billing, etc., nothing came up. The MAC address always came up as in use, but there was no indication of where or when it was in use. The system, as they say, was hosed.
This might have been an easy fix if they had gotten a database tech to simply go into the errant database and wipe out the last traces of the account that apparently never was. This never happened. Instead, the phone tech told me that I needed to take the modem to a payment center, where they would be able to assist me. They always say this when they don't know what to do - it is always a lie. If you do go to the payment center, they will either tell you that the phone tech should have been able to do it or say that the phone tech is an idiot for even suggesting that the payment centers know anything about cable modems (tip to Comcast payment center employees: a small box with "CABLE MODEM" written on the top in big letters is not a wireless router). Now I'm going back and forth with the phone techs and payment center people, and everyone says that it will just take another hour, or another day, or another offering to the demon god of Comcast to exorcise the phantom cable modem MAC address. They all lied. Nobody ever did anything to solve the problem.
I finally gave up and bought a new modem. I was moving anyway, so I figured I could just get a complete fresh install while my old setup was still running to avoid any downtime (my cable box was also getting a bit flaky). I checked to make sure that they had service at the new location, and everyone assured me that they did. The address wasn't in their database though, so I would need to go to a payment center to have it added. Again, a total load of bullshit, but at least this was the kind that didn't persist. Once the address was in the database, I just had to wait for the install. Then my move date changed, so I had them change the install and disconnect dates. Then my television went blank.
I'll skip over this part, but 24 hours and three calls later, my service was back on after being disconnected on the old disconnect date. Internet service never went down (that MAC address database is quite stubborn apparently). Finally, the new install date rolls around, and the random install contractor shows up half an hour early. And leaves less than half an hour later after being unable to find a Comcast line on the pole. A few more calls to Comcast yield nothing - they are unable to confirm or deny whether they in fact have service at my location. They scheduled a new install date after resolving something, but random install contractor still couldn't find any sign of Comcast equipment on the pole. Customer service even told him that there were no Comcast customers on the street (when I asked, the answer was "Oh sure,
Perhaps if people, oh, I don't know... didn't live 30 miles from where they worked?
This is the price you pay for opportunity. Living where you work basically limits you to big city office jobs and small town service jobs. You are simply not going to have every opportunity available in every community. People no longer feel tethered to the place they grew up and are spreading out to get an education and seek better employment. This severs the link between home and work, and once that link is broken, people will choose work for the career opportunities it provides and home for the quality of life; the two are often separated by at least 5-10 miles. Once this happens, areas become optimized for their predominant use, further reinforcing the concept. You no longer have a guarantee of affordable housing near every workplace; in fact, areas with more job opportunities tend to have extremely high housing costs. Areas with more affordable housing attract people as employment grows, overloading the existing service infrastructure and generating secondary commercial areas to meet growing needs. Employers take note of this and move their operations to the growing commercial districts, continuing the cycle until it becomes impractical for them, pushing all affordable housing far away. The only way to stall this progression is to remove opportunity - new industry, new career fields, etc. The more options you give people, the more things will be spread out.
1) Free stuff. I know its stupid, but free stuff really will get you some attention. But DON'T go overboard.
It's not stupid, it is absolutely essential. Who wants to be stuck with a reputation for having crappy freebies? I happen to have a bit of experience in this area:
Many college students at these fairs aren't looking for jobs, they are just getting a feel for the job opportunities when they graduate. In many cases, they may not even have a clue about what to look for in an employer. The free stuff gives them an excuse to talk to company reps they might have otherwise ignored. Never underestimate the power of free stuff. It also doesn't hurt to share some of your goodies with other company reps, particularly those in less popular fields. Think about it, if you see a guy at a booth playing with a roomerang, wouldn't you try to find the company giving them out?
Before I got to high school, my leisure-time writing had a very concise, to-the-point style. High school taught me that to succeed, I had to pad my 300-word essays out to 500 words. I didn't have to actually say anything more, mind you, but if I wanted a good grade I had to use more words to do it.
My high school experience was similar, almost. For my Senior year English class, I had the option of taking an advanced class that would result in two courses worth of credit from a major university. Due to a clerical error of some sort, I was left off the list and was stuck in regular honors English instead. The "college" class met for an hour and a half every day and had 500-word essays due every week. The students were seriously stressed out, but at least it was preparing them for college, right?
My English class on the other hand was much more relaxed. Since most people opted for the other class, we were left with nine students. A typical 45-minute class started with us (including the teacher) arranging our desks in a circle and involved reading out loud (of both the course material and student essays, with some of the teacher's work from college mixed in) and a discussion of the material. Essays were typically assigned for each major work or collection of works, but there was no required length and the choice of topic was up to the student. Saying that I did well in this class would be an understatement.
Standardized testing was another matter. I took the writing SAT II shortly after they started offering it and the results were dismal. The essay "topic" was an abstract statement that didn't even make sense. I spent most of the allotted time trying in vain to think of something to write, finally scribbling down some nonsense at the end (I don't even know if I finished it).
So what were my college English classes like? They met for about 50 minutes per day, 4 days a week. The class size tended to be small, probably less than 20 students each. Classes involved casual discussion and small group work. Assignments tended to be open-ended without strict length requirements. In other words, the non-college English class was more like what I encountered in college than the actual college English class.
The final irony in this story came when the teacher of the college-equivalent English class (and my Junior year English class) retired. This is when I found out that his favorite term paper in all his years of teaching (or so I was told, this may have been a slight exaggeration) was one that I had turned in at the end of my Junior year. It wasn't the assigned paper though - when everyone else was frantically proofreading, revising, printing, etc., I was putting together a second term paper, purely for fun. Now, the actual text was only one paragraph long, and it only had one source (which contained even less text), but it was more of a piece of concept art than a term paper (it merely took the form of a term paper). Despite not counting for a grade, this paper would be remembered while the "real" papers would fade into obscurity. Creativity triumphed over formulaic works, calling into question the value of rigidly structured assignments that resist innovation and mold young minds into cookie-cutter mental drones.
Now if only I'd had this story when I had to write that damn SAT II essay...
I have a Konika-Minolta Maxxum 5D with the 18-70mm kit lens.
In general, kit lens = low cost, low performance. Kit lenses may produce good results in favorable conditions, but they tend to be poor in low light.
I hesitate to be changing lenses since that would introduce dust. (the downside of digital: no film advance to get rid of the dust)
The dust issue isn't as bad as some people make it sound. Unless you frequently change lenses in extreme conditions or frequently use small apertures (around f/22 or so), basic routine maintenance will keep most dust under control.
Messing with the camera is also a good way to lose the opportunity to take the picture.
Without the right equipment, you risk not being able to get the picture at all. If you select the equipment you need beforehand and make changes as the situation changes, this shouldn't be a problem.
As I said, I hate flash photos. I never use the flash. The whole point of buying a camera with a big sensor was to get decent low-light performance so I wouldn't depend on a flash.
I think you misunderstand what the larger sensor does for you. With a larger sensor, you can expect to get an additional two to three stops of useable ISO. This allows you to get pictures of moving subjects in low light when used with the proper lenses. If anyone told you that you could use the kit lens at full telephoto in low light, you were lied to.
In addition to all the image-related problems I mentioned, flashes greatly annoy the subject and ruin the mood.
In extreme conditions, flash is your only option. The autofocus illuminator on a decent flash will also greatly improve focusing in low light. If you automatically dismiss a tool, you'll miss out on opportunities.
I usually use ISO800 and f/5.6 at 70mm (105mm equivalent).
f/5.6 won't cut it for low light; f/2.8 is even debatable. Based on the shutter speeds you're getting, it looks like you need another two or three stops, which would mean f/2.0-2.8. It doesn't look like there are many fast primes for the Minolta mount; either the KM 50mm f/1.4 or 85mm f/1.4 might work for you, but the 85mm is a bit expensive and availability of both appears to be very limited. A fast zoom might be easier to get; Tamron makes a 28-75mm f/2.8 that gets fairly good reviews, a 28-105mm f/2.8, and has a 17-50mm f/2.8 due out soon. KM also has a 28-75mm f/2.8. Sigma also makes a 70-200mm f/2.8 lens for the Minolta mount, so that might be a better option if you could use some extra reach. You might want to check out the DPReview Konica Minolta SLR Forum for more information.
Grrr. That's all I want. I'm pissed that my expensive dSLR can't do it. WTF? I got the biggest sensor I could afford. (largest of the APS-C ones) I even got physical (not software) image stabilization.
I have a feeling that the camera can do it, but you don't know how to do it. First of all, while IS helps when shooting handheld at low shutter speeds, it won't stop motion. If you're trying to get good handheld low light pictures, you'll need to start with a fast prime (f2.0 or better). A fast zoom (f2.8) may work in well-lit indoor environments. Next, you'll need to boost the ISO to at least 800. Without knowing what camera you have, I can't tell you how high you can go before noise becomes overwhelming. Canon's DSLRs give decent results at ISO 1600, Nikons are a little bit behind, and I don't know where the other brands stand. This should be enough to get you at least a 1/60s exposure in decent indoor lighting.
I hate flash photos. I suppose a set of remotely operated flashes could work great, but let's not go there. The sliver of shadow on one side (usually right or bottom) is nasty. The light fall-off with distance is nasty. The reflections are nasty. The red-eye is nasty. The light fall-off with angle is nasty.
You can't change the laws of physics, but you can get rid of the shadows by diffusing the flash. Something like a Lightsphere or a Sto-fen Omnibounce should do the trick. Even without a diffuser, you shouldn't be getting much redeye except at large distances (and even then it can be corrected in software). How far away is your subject and what flash are you using?
I just want to take a zoomed-in photo of an active baby 20 feet (6 m) away in a room lit by a plain ordinary bulb. Why is this too much to ask? My eyes are over 30 years old, and I can see the baby just fine.
I'm sure your camera can see the baby just fine too, but your eyes aren't trying to freeze motion (and they aren't zooming in on your subject, further reducing the amount of light to work with). You'll probably want a lens equivalent to Canon's 85mm f1.8 or 135mm f2L.
Furthermore, paying someone more does not automatically mean they'll be better employees.
But paying too little virtually guarantees that they will be worse. The issue here is minimum necessary competency vs. minimum possible cost. When you go the latter route, you'll get projector malfunctions that take too long to fix, missing faucet handles in the bathrooms, etc. (sorry, I don't go to movie theaters much, so my list of complaints is a bit small). This issue is in no way limited to theaters of course.
And why do you think things are so expensive?
Because idiots will pay for it. I don't buy for a second that the prices need to be where they are; it's a captive market, so they will charge whatever they can. If people would stop buying that crap (what, you can't go 2 hours without eating something?), then prices would come down.
No argument there, but that's hardly something controllable by the theater owners.
The theaters can't control the quality of the movies, but they do control what movies get how many screens for how long. Much of this is decided by popularity, so not going to bad movies would be a step in the right direction ("If the movie stinks, just don't go!"). However, the theaters sometimes do things that defy all profit - take Serenity for example. Theaters started dropping Serenity after two or three weeks, when it was making more money per screen than many movies with many more screens.
So you can fit fewer people into a theater, which means less revenue per showing, which means losses increase, which means either (a) higher ticket prices, (b) higher concession prices, (c) a combination of A and B, or (d) the theater goes out of business.
Maybe I'm just lucky, but most of the showings I've been to lately wouldn't have been affected by removing half of the seats. Except for something like Harry Potter on opening weekend, do theaters ever fill up?
Which, again, reduces revenue. Are you willing to pay higher prices to get fewer ads? I'd bet not.
I would rather pay a slightly higher ticket price and not get ads beamed at me than pay for the advertising through product prices. Advertising is a scam - who do you think pays for the ads? More ads equals more costs, more waste, and more annoyance.
The real problem here isn't the theaters though, it's the people who go to the movies, probably mainly teenagers with more money than sense. Theaters know that they make more money from exploiting kids who have no concept of the value of money than they lose by chasing off people who want quality and value. Theaters profit from their place in modern culture, not from the value they provide. Why do people go to the movies every weekend? Because that's the accepted norm. Why do they pay $20 for popcorn, soda, and candy? Because that's what you do at a movie. Anything that changes the status quo is a threat to theaters, and that is why they want to keep DVD releases as far away from theatrical releases as possible, even for movies they won't give screens to. One small cultural shift could wipe the industry as it exists today off the map.
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It's not as different as you seem to think (though I would call it the days of MacOS 8 and Netscape 3.04). Fundamentally, the biggest changes are in terms of content and connectivity. By the late 90s, I was using routers to share dial-up connections over a network, so the only changes there are the hardware/software for the router, network speed, and provider of the line. Floppy disks were largely on their way out by 1997, with various interim solutions failing to take hold and CD-Rs gaining popularity (plus, there were networks); USB's rise was right around the corner. If anything, web browsers were faster back then because sites weren't so content-heavy and loaded with scripts. People had Geocities web pages instead of Facebook pages and sent each other stupid forwarded e-mail messages instead of stupid cat GIFs posted on Facebook. People infected their computers with malware from floppy disks used in lab computers and MacUser shareware CDs instead of malware from web sites and e-mail. The user sure hasn't changed much in 15 years.
If you think 1997 was so much different from 2012, you're the one with the short memory. Since the late 1990s, it has been rare to find a home, office, or dorm room without a computer. In 1995, at a tech school, only two other people on my floor of 40+ students had their own computer. Most people checked their e-mail on a dumb terminal in the lounge. By two years later, almost everyone had their own computer and the dumb terminals had all been scrapped.
Back up two more years to 1993 and even computers in homes were somewhat uncommon. Many students still wrote papers on typewriters (though they had some fancy electronic features). Home network connectivity was largely limited to AOL, CompuServe, or Prodigy, plus a few local BBSs that were largely abandoned by that point. If you had a pager (not even a cell phone, a pager!), people assumed that you were either a doctor or a drug dealer.
Let's go all the way back to 1982, 15 years before that far-off world of 1997. Home computing was in its infancy and was limited to only the most serious hobbyists. Most phones still used rotary dials. A cell phone was something rich people had in their cars, like the guy on the show Vega$. Schools made copies with mimeograph or ditto machines and everything was covered with purple ink. The Apple IIe that was practically standard in schools for the better part of a decade had not yet been released. The only "cable" television most people had was from the cable running up to the antenna on the roof. People shopped at home out of paper catalogs and called or mailed in their orders. Department store checkout registers did not commonly have bar code scanners. If you paid with a credit card (more likely a store card), you would be asked if you wanted your carbons.
30 years later, a cell phone in your pocket can replicate pretty much everything in that last paragraph. But even 15 years ago, the infrastructure was in place to support everything that you can do today. Computers and networks got faster, operating systems and browsers got more features, and life began to take shape around computing devices.
So basically:
2012: "Oh boy, a 3TB hard drive! I need to update my Facebook status and torrent some HD movies."
1997: "Oh boy, a 4GB hard drive! I need to tell everyone on AIM and download some MP3s."
1982: "Oh boy, a second floppy drive! I need to call the one other guy I know who has a computer to make copies of Pac-Man and Space Invaders."
Just about all of my engineering exams used option (D): let the students make their own. Teach them the material, tell them that they can bring a sheet of notes (or more), and let them figure out how to go from point a to point b. If they can't handle that, then what are their chances of figuring it out during the limited time of an exam? They have people, books, and the internet available to them well in advance of the need date, just like they would in a real job. At some point, they will be stuck in a room for a short period of time with no outside help available and people asking them questions that they had better know how to answer - just like a real job. You will not always have unlimited time and resources at your disposal; the students might as well learn this while they are still taking classes.
Right, which is precisely why I got a second camera to complement my dSLR. I love my dSLR for the reasons you list, but ultimately, the best camera is the one that you have with you.
Been there, done that, never used the thing. About five years ago I bought a compact camera using this reasoning, but I rarely found myself in a situation where I felt like bringing a camera with me but didn't want the DSLR. I took maybe three pictures with it back in 2007 and haven't even gotten them off the card yet. The convenience seems like it should be worth it, but the compromises are just too great for me; I can't even go back to my old DSLR because of the big drop in image quality and capability. If I want to take pictures, it's no big deal to toss the camera and two or three lenses in a bag. If I don't, then I still have a cell phone for random stuff of little consequence - my pockets are full enough as it is, so even adding a compact camera is extra stuff to carry, plus different memory cards and batteries to deal with, different controls to figure out, and a big handicap in performance. I just don't see the middle ground, but that's just me. The best camera for me is the one that can get the shot. If I don't have it with me, then I just look and get on with my life.
Well, if that was the plan, then it worked too well; most of the cables and chargers that I've had for more than two years are completely useless due to wear. At first I thought it was the port, but a rarely-used cable worked perfectly while the others couldn't even get a momentary connection with any amount of wiggling. So much for not needing to replace all of your cables when you get a new phone...
everyone? In my circle, ownership of DSLRs seems to be going up quite rapidly.
And there's the problem - forget camera phones, DSLRs are becoming the new low end. DSLRs are the new big thing, but people want to use them like they use their cell phone cameras (point in the general direction, mash a button, post on Facebook). As a result, there's a big race to see who can make the cheapest DSLR, at the expense of quality of course (the reputation for higher quality is based partly on reputation from older models, so the perceived quality will remain as actual quality falls). Better quality is available, but the gap between the top of the low end and the bottom of the high end will grow, just like it did in the case of stereo equipment and every other piece of commodity hardware that started as a niche product. Most people who purchase a DSLR these days will seldom, if ever, change the lens. Few will ever use a mode other than Auto. And composition? Even among professionals, composition skills are far from a given. But megapixels? Everyone loves more megapixels, so just cram them in, image quality be damned! Manufacturers will design their products with this in mind, trying to woo customers with fancy gizmos, big numbers, and low prices. This will erode sales in the mid-range and stagnation in that product class (upgrading to the fancy doo-dads of the low end without actually making any improvements) will drive customers to the next tier up (typically full-frame for the prosumer crowd), further reducing the market. Mix in how the current economic conditions result in price increases at the high end (due to the strength of the Yen against the US Dollar) and you get the same scenario described in the article - crap quality for the masses and a high price tag for anything better. This has happened countless times before and will happen again many more times. The moral of this story is simple - buy quality while you still can.
While I am tempted to agree with this, I fear that reality isn't on our side here. There are two separate factors at work here clouding the issue. First, people who had this technology 20+ years ago were likely to be hobbyists and enthusiasts and not simple users, who make up the vast majority today. You can't expect everyone to be an expert in everything, so any technology that becomes mainstream will be dominated by users who treat it as a mysterious black box (this trend didn't start with computers and won't end with them either). Brace yourself though, computers are increasingly being designed to function accordingly, making it more difficult to be a casual hobbyist in order to simplify the user experience. Hardcore hobbyists will always find a way, but it will be more difficult to take advantage of features beyond the advertised mass-appeal feature set (particularly in areas that conflict with the desires of our corporate masters).
Second, the depression-era mentality of reusing and repairing everything until there's nothing left to work with is likely to die with us. I don't really know why this happened, but I would guess that cheap replacements, fast-evolving product lines, pop culture distractions, and flimsy plastic are key factors. Looking back at my own childhood, I would also point a finger at today's overly risk-averse parenting methods that restrict kids from learning about the world in an attempt to keep them safe. Everything real that we played with in our childhoods is being replaced by a fiercely-marketed "safe" alternative. Even many of the toys from that era have since been deemed unsafe and have been replaced. The problem with this mentality of raising kids in a safer alternate reality is that it leaves them unprepared for the challenges they will face in the real reality. Chemistry sets no longer contain chemicals. Woodworking kits no longer contain wood. Do they even allow kids to use electricity, fire, metal tools, or sharp objects anymore? Sure, there are safety concerns to be aware of (hence the need for parental supervision, which should always be a given with anything), and doing something can still be beneficial without any real-world applications, but replacing something real with a "safe" alternative adds another layer between doing and understanding. All of this extra safety only serves to delay the introduction of key life lessons while protecting against the occasional splinter, cut, scrape, etc. (which kids will still find a way to cause). If you don't learn to interact with real things early, you might not get used to thinking inside the black box, instead forever treating it as an unchangeable entity that either works or is trash.
4. Generate parity files so you can detect and correct data corruption; an extra 5-10% of data can quickly find and fix the occasional accidental overwrite or bit error. The crap-ton of DVD-Rs (or some other optical media, since DVD-Rs are a bit small for large quantities of photos these days) comes in handy here if the corruption was passed along through the backup chain and is too extensive to recover from the available parity files (in this case, the parity files tell you what you need to find and let you know when you have a good version). It's an extra step, but you can just do it once per set of photos and forget about it until you have a problem or want to feel proactive about data protection.
Maybe you should read more carefully. On all the carriers I've activated global roaming (T-Mobile, AT&T, Verizon - I can't imagine Sprint being different), when activating, you are expressly advised that billing reconciliation with international providers may take several weeks and "charges may not be reflected until a later bill".
Did you read the rest of the post? Maybe YOU should read more carefully, this had nothing to do with international providers, it was a case of the domestic carrier changing the plan after the fact against the wishes of the customer. I'm pretty sure I mentioned that...
In reality, they just left the service on until well after I had returned, then retroactively changed my plan back to my regular data plan for the days I hadn't requested it. And a couple that I had.
Yeah, there it is. I agreed to unlimited data for the days specified and still had this unlimited data plan active for a period of time afterward. There could be no data charges involving international providers until the global data plan was deactivated, which happened long after I had returned. The charges appeared because they retroactively canceled my global data plan two days before I requested it to be canceled. I'm not sure how much clearer I can make this. When a charge can show up has nothing to do with whether a charge should be possible in the first place.
Sometimes this excessive billing happens retroactively, making it impossible for the customer to keep track of charges or receive notification of reaching limits. I recently added a global data plan (at a rate of about $1 per day over my regular data plan) for an overseas trip and was shocked to see a $130 data charge that didn't show up until a couple of weeks after the trip. I had told the carrier beforehand the days on which I would need the global data plan (with an extra day on either end of the trip just in case), thinking that they would set it up to be active on those days. In reality, they just left the service on until well after I had returned, then retroactively changed my plan back to my regular data plan for the days I hadn't requested it. And a couple that I had. In order to save me a couple of dollars, they stuck me with $130 in data charges. Luckily, they fixed it without much trouble, but it shouldn't have gotten this far. These plan changes had to be made over the phone with no written confirmation of what had been requested and what was to be provided and no notification of the retroactive changes was given until it showed up on my bill (which was a tangled mess of charges and refunds). But hey, they might have lucked out and gotten an extra $130 for their incompetence.
When I taught, we had a fool proof way to stop illegal cheat sheets. Just let the students bring a cheat sheet.
This is basically how it works in engineering exams - either one sheet of notes is allowed or the exams are open note / open book. Hilarity ensues when students who didn't bother to learn the material try to cram all of the course material onto one sheet (usually by scanning multiple pages and printing them out together at such a small size that you would need a magnifying glass to read anything). I would just add key concepts to a running list as the course went on, usually only adding three or four lines per exam. And then I would go through the exam without referring to my sheet (because the process of isolating the key concepts forces you to learn them).
High-tech anti-cheating systems just aren't particularly useful for most engineering exams. Most methods of cheating are either easy to spot by a live proctor ("I wonder why that guy keeps looking at his left shoe...") or take too much time to be effective on a fast-paced exam. In the end, the results often don't even justify punishing the cheater. The worst case I ever saw was a guy who had his eyes practically glued to the exam next to him and did nothing to hide it. I considered reporting the incident, but realized that it didn't matter after I finished grading the exam; his efforts only got him 13 points (out of 100). If you don't know the material, cheating at the last minute is pure desperation, not a recipe for success.
Homeworks are another matter, but with group collaboration encouraged, cheating just has to be accepted and marginalized by minimalizing the impact of homework on the overall grade in favor of exams and projects. At worst, bad cheating on routine homework assignments is insulting to the grader and singles you out as a target. If you're too lazy to even cheat properly, you're just wasting everyone's time.
Of course, this viewpoint is really limited to engineering, and even then probably only certain disciplines (and I've been out of the loop for a decade or so). Written assignments are always risky, but in-class essays and presentations are an easy low-tech solution. Even just the occasional Google search can have significant benefit; the professor in one of my grad classes tended to assign essays as homework assignments and would routinely run web searches on key pieces of the answers that were turned in. Inevitably, he would find something copied verbatim without citation, even though it was stated up front that he would be checking the web (and it was a small class of less than 20 people). Though I suppose that doesn't make a strong case for these detection systems preventing cheating... Maybe instead of focusing on analyzing the assignments, teachers should work on getting to know their students. That's not exactly practical in many situations (especially in larger classes and with overworked teachers), but the alternative of a never-ending cat-and-mouse game doesn't look much more promising. Encouraging an adversarial relationship already makes people distrust other authority figures, I don't see it helping education outside of impersonal exam-processing facilities (which seems to be the conclusion of the article as well).
I spent a month in NZ at a friends house a year ago, and the internet connections where like we had in Finland 10 years ago... Or even worse. They had an ADSL connection limited to 1Mb/s down (and very slow up) with a 2GB monthly limit. After the limit is full it would throttle down to 5KB/s for the rest of the month. The price of the connection was more then I payed for a full rate (8/1) ADSL back at home, with no caps. I guess if this was somewhere far in the countryside I could understand it, but it was in one of the better areas of Auckland!
I spent two weeks in New Zealand earlier this year, and the countryside is lucky to have wired telephones. The North Island wasn't too bad (cell phone service available except where terrain blocked, somewhat slow but reliable free wireless at one hotel), but the South Island felt like a completely different country. If it was available, internet access at hotels tended to be slow and pricey (browsing web sites was often difficult or impossible and 10 cents per megabyte was typical) and prices were similar at internet cafes. Many hotels were stuck with satellite internet, so this is understandable. Cellular service (my unlimited data plan only cost about a dollar a day above what I paid in the US) fell off to nothing as soon as you left any densely populated area but was very good in any of the major cities. I can't speak to residential connectivity, but the image presented to visitors is not a pretty one, especially when you get out of the cities; it's so bad that you have to actually go outside to entertain yourself. They're just lucky that there's so much to see and do over there...
They could have done a lot of neat things with tying down loose ends, explaining the island and completing their work. Instead they gave us this. And finally I see no further point in discussing it because there's no hope of ever explaining anything.
The final twist was that the show wasn't about the island at all, it was about a bunch of annoying characters. I passed on the first season because I had no interest in a "bunch of people stuck on an island" show (without even a million dollar prize), but decided to watch when it looked like the show was more than that. Surprise, surprise, it wasn't. It was a good show, and the ending was fitting, but it's still frustrating for the creators to basically say that all of the mysteries never really mattered. The numbers? Just numbers. Walt? He's busy trying to live while being officially dead. The rules? Oh, that was just a Jacob thing, he's gone now. The Frozen Donkey Wheel? That's just the magical escape hatch, no big deal. The statue? Just a statue that got hit by a ship a while back. The smoke monster? Hey, Target has smoke detectors for $10.99. And the light? Just leave the key in the ignition and the world won't end. What was the point? As Charlton Heston would say, "It's people. Lost is made out of people."
The trick is to call the $9.99 $10.00 and then stop looking at the damn number.
Do that often enough and you end up in the opposite situation - you end up reading $9.00 as $10 because you're used to the extra 99 cents, thus making prices seem higher than they are. Everything seems a lot more expensive in countries where merchants don't engage in psychological warfare with their customers (though prices usually are higher due to taxes and different purchasing habits, but that's a different issue). Don't get me started with the recent trend of never listing the single purchase price on groceries (5 for $5.55, 3 for $11.75, 7 for $69.93, etc.). All of this only reinforces one simple fact that nobody ever wants to point out (especially if they are running for public office) - people are stupid. Not specific individuals, but the entire species. We spend our entire lives trying to avoid being total morons, usually in the most superficial and totally ineffective ways. Make people feel smart and they'll gladly do any number of stupid things. After all, if 1 for $1 is a good deal, then 9 for $9.99 must be a great deal, right?
Also, 500 words is not a long essay. And standardized tests and grades are a poor judge of talent.
Agreed on both points. I think what all this boils down to is that the key to getting better answers is to do away with the questions. More schools are making SAT scores optional because, while it makes for easy racking and stacking, it tells you very little about the applicant beyond "alble/unable to score well on a big test." In reality, most of the application items are little more than good/neutral/bad check boxes (insert generic off-topic D&D joke here if you must). Outside of the truly exceptional and the painfully unqualified, most applicants are largely indistinguishable when judged by the typical criteria.
And then there's the essay. This should be an opportunity for the applicant to fill in some of the gaps left by the application, but all too often it is filled with trite nonsense like the example essay. The alternative is the set of mini-essays, but I personally despise that sort of application (any school that required one of those types of applications was immediately crossed off my list). Judging from the comments here, people tend to strongly prefer one, the other, or something else entirely. Maybe there's some utility in using the format to narrow the focus to particular personality types, but I don't see how employing a rigid structure in this part of the application is any more useful than requiring SAT scores.
My own opinion is that all of this should be optional but encouraged, with no limitations or requirements. Applicants who don't include something aren't penalized, but those who do have the advantage of presenting a more complete picture of themselves to the admissions staff (and anyone who sends a thousand-page manuscript is automatically rejected, no matter how ornate the binding is). The minimum/maximum lengths and BS topics absolutely have to go. Giving examples of preferred topics is helpful, but any required elements will make the essay less about the applicant and more about the requirement. Opening this part up to more than just essays (while requiring that it be the applicant's own work) is probably ideal, but I can understand why an admissions office would want to avoid truckloads of abstract sculptures and creative uses of fecal matter.
Personally, it didn't take me long to realize that I could just take something that I wanted to write and fit that to the essay topics. Once you understand the purpose of the essay, it becomes a simple matter to come up with an answer without knowing the question. When I applied to college, I wrote one essay and sent it with each of my applications. Aside from the 500-word limit (mine is 1850 words), it fits the topic of the MIT essay in question (not perfectly, but it wouldn't take too much massaging to fix that). It didn't get me into Harvard or anything, but it served its purpose and didn't require any effort to be wasted on bullshitting.
(Padding to reach 500 words.)
>If their DRM only effected pirates,
DRM has nothing to do with pirates. The goal of DRM is to give the content providers full control of the distribution system, right up until the point where the light hits your eyeballs (and I doubt they'll stop once they get that far). Ideally, they would want every viewer to pay every time their content is heard or viewed, but for now they'll settle for ensuring that every view is through an approved path that they have been directly compensated for. This ensures that people aren't using content in any non-approved manner, regardless of whether such non-approved use is legal. The pirates may be inconvenienced, but they will continue to operate. The real payoff is in convincing the public that following the **AA's mandates is perfectly acceptable, thus allowing them to do as they please with home entertainment, without regard for individual rights.
This is a dangerous path to go down, but we're already a fair way along and there seems to be no way back. HDMI and Firewire are already locked down, so it's not surprising that they want to turn off component. Regardless of their "pre-DVD release" example cited in the article, it is clear that if this is allowed, it would be applied to all HD content across the board by default, except where otherwise required by law (e.g., DTCP). From there, it's only a small step to disabling SD video altogether (after all, everyone has an approved HD viewing device now, right?).
The biggest threat to this industry isn't the pirates, it's a population that believes that how they view content should be up to them and not dictated by a higher power. This is the mentality that allows people to justify turning to piracy when the legal route is too difficult. Rather than making the legal route easier (as the music industry seems to have figured out in only a decade or so), the MPAA is committed to creating a world where they are an altruistic god showering the people with "high-value content," asking only for our money and obedience in return. The scariest part is the thought that some of the people in control might actually believe that what they are doing is for the public good.
I wonder how many idiots are going to post in this thread just to get the April fool achievement.
That one's probably just a joke anyway. And considering that this is a real feature, I doubt these posts would count. Anyone who posts here just to get a possibly-fake achievement truly is an April Fool. Um... Conficker made me do it.
This is common, but from a kid's perspective, most would rather be sitting quietly or reading a book than doing more *work* than everyone else has to do.
You try "sitting quietly" for an hour of so in an exam room. It is just so much more fun than work, especially when it's a multi-day test - oh boy, another hour of sitting quietly tomorrow! Let me tell you, I would have gladly read the phone book if it had been an option, but outside material (even if it was only for use after the test) was never allowed in these tests when I was in high school way back in the olden days of the 1990s. In fact, I did manage to pass some time after a math test once by staring at log tables, so I imagine that a phone book would have been good for at least an hour. You were lucky if you could even get a piece of paper to doodle on in these types of tests. I remember that I was only able to get through one of them because I had a few Weird Al albums memorized, and that wore thin after two or three days. As far as I'm concerned, "sitting quietly" is nothing short of psychological abuse. And yes, I am bitter; some things just can not be forgiven.
all I had to do was call them up and have them change the MAC address in the system.
You say this as if it is a simple task. I spent two months trying to get them to do just that, and eventually I just gave up. You see, my cable modem (which had been running for over six years straight at this point) kept losing connections. I thought it would be a simple matter of swapping it out for another modem (which I just happened to have on hand), but things are never simple with Comcast.
My real problem was that the other modem had been used on a Comcast account that had been canceled a few years earlier. By "canceled," I mean "some brain dead idiot manually deleted all account information from their databases instead of just changing the account status like anyone with half a clue would have done." Now, complex databases don't like people mucking about with them, and the cable modem MAC address database was not particularly pleased. It lost all connection to the account information, but it still knew that, somewhere, a modem with that MAC address was in use by someone. The account information could not be retrieved by any method - even with the account number, subscriber's name, address, and phone number, date of last billing, etc., nothing came up. The MAC address always came up as in use, but there was no indication of where or when it was in use. The system, as they say, was hosed.
This might have been an easy fix if they had gotten a database tech to simply go into the errant database and wipe out the last traces of the account that apparently never was. This never happened. Instead, the phone tech told me that I needed to take the modem to a payment center, where they would be able to assist me. They always say this when they don't know what to do - it is always a lie. If you do go to the payment center, they will either tell you that the phone tech should have been able to do it or say that the phone tech is an idiot for even suggesting that the payment centers know anything about cable modems (tip to Comcast payment center employees: a small box with "CABLE MODEM" written on the top in big letters is not a wireless router). Now I'm going back and forth with the phone techs and payment center people, and everyone says that it will just take another hour, or another day, or another offering to the demon god of Comcast to exorcise the phantom cable modem MAC address. They all lied. Nobody ever did anything to solve the problem.
I finally gave up and bought a new modem. I was moving anyway, so I figured I could just get a complete fresh install while my old setup was still running to avoid any downtime (my cable box was also getting a bit flaky). I checked to make sure that they had service at the new location, and everyone assured me that they did. The address wasn't in their database though, so I would need to go to a payment center to have it added. Again, a total load of bullshit, but at least this was the kind that didn't persist. Once the address was in the database, I just had to wait for the install. Then my move date changed, so I had them change the install and disconnect dates. Then my television went blank.
I'll skip over this part, but 24 hours and three calls later, my service was back on after being disconnected on the old disconnect date. Internet service never went down (that MAC address database is quite stubborn apparently). Finally, the new install date rolls around, and the random install contractor shows up half an hour early. And leaves less than half an hour later after being unable to find a Comcast line on the pole. A few more calls to Comcast yield nothing - they are unable to confirm or deny whether they in fact have service at my location. They scheduled a new install date after resolving something, but random install contractor still couldn't find any sign of Comcast equipment on the pole. Customer service even told him that there were no Comcast customers on the street (when I asked, the answer was "Oh sure,
Perhaps if people, oh, I don't know... didn't live 30 miles from where they worked?
This is the price you pay for opportunity. Living where you work basically limits you to big city office jobs and small town service jobs. You are simply not going to have every opportunity available in every community. People no longer feel tethered to the place they grew up and are spreading out to get an education and seek better employment. This severs the link between home and work, and once that link is broken, people will choose work for the career opportunities it provides and home for the quality of life; the two are often separated by at least 5-10 miles. Once this happens, areas become optimized for their predominant use, further reinforcing the concept. You no longer have a guarantee of affordable housing near every workplace; in fact, areas with more job opportunities tend to have extremely high housing costs. Areas with more affordable housing attract people as employment grows, overloading the existing service infrastructure and generating secondary commercial areas to meet growing needs. Employers take note of this and move their operations to the growing commercial districts, continuing the cycle until it becomes impractical for them, pushing all affordable housing far away. The only way to stall this progression is to remove opportunity - new industry, new career fields, etc. The more options you give people, the more things will be spread out.
1) Free stuff. I know its stupid, but free stuff really will get you some attention. But DON'T go overboard.
It's not stupid, it is absolutely essential. Who wants to be stuck with a reputation for having crappy freebies? I happen to have a bit of experience in this area:
1997 Free Stuff Awards
1998 Free Stuff Awards
1999 Free Stuff Awards
2000 Free Stuff Awards
Many college students at these fairs aren't looking for jobs, they are just getting a feel for the job opportunities when they graduate. In many cases, they may not even have a clue about what to look for in an employer. The free stuff gives them an excuse to talk to company reps they might have otherwise ignored. Never underestimate the power of free stuff. It also doesn't hurt to share some of your goodies with other company reps, particularly those in less popular fields. Think about it, if you see a guy at a booth playing with a roomerang, wouldn't you try to find the company giving them out?
What I don't get is when do people have time to use WiFi at an airport?
When they fly from Logan.
Before I got to high school, my leisure-time writing had a very concise, to-the-point style. High school taught me that to succeed, I had to pad my 300-word essays out to 500 words. I didn't have to actually say anything more, mind you, but if I wanted a good grade I had to use more words to do it.
My high school experience was similar, almost. For my Senior year English class, I had the option of taking an advanced class that would result in two courses worth of credit from a major university. Due to a clerical error of some sort, I was left off the list and was stuck in regular honors English instead. The "college" class met for an hour and a half every day and had 500-word essays due every week. The students were seriously stressed out, but at least it was preparing them for college, right?
My English class on the other hand was much more relaxed. Since most people opted for the other class, we were left with nine students. A typical 45-minute class started with us (including the teacher) arranging our desks in a circle and involved reading out loud (of both the course material and student essays, with some of the teacher's work from college mixed in) and a discussion of the material. Essays were typically assigned for each major work or collection of works, but there was no required length and the choice of topic was up to the student. Saying that I did well in this class would be an understatement.
Standardized testing was another matter. I took the writing SAT II shortly after they started offering it and the results were dismal. The essay "topic" was an abstract statement that didn't even make sense. I spent most of the allotted time trying in vain to think of something to write, finally scribbling down some nonsense at the end (I don't even know if I finished it).
So what were my college English classes like? They met for about 50 minutes per day, 4 days a week. The class size tended to be small, probably less than 20 students each. Classes involved casual discussion and small group work. Assignments tended to be open-ended without strict length requirements. In other words, the non-college English class was more like what I encountered in college than the actual college English class.
The final irony in this story came when the teacher of the college-equivalent English class (and my Junior year English class) retired. This is when I found out that his favorite term paper in all his years of teaching (or so I was told, this may have been a slight exaggeration) was one that I had turned in at the end of my Junior year. It wasn't the assigned paper though - when everyone else was frantically proofreading, revising, printing, etc., I was putting together a second term paper, purely for fun. Now, the actual text was only one paragraph long, and it only had one source (which contained even less text), but it was more of a piece of concept art than a term paper (it merely took the form of a term paper). Despite not counting for a grade, this paper would be remembered while the "real" papers would fade into obscurity. Creativity triumphed over formulaic works, calling into question the value of rigidly structured assignments that resist innovation and mold young minds into cookie-cutter mental drones.
Now if only I'd had this story when I had to write that damn SAT II essay...
I have a Konika-Minolta Maxxum 5D with the 18-70mm kit lens.
In general, kit lens = low cost, low performance. Kit lenses may produce good results in favorable conditions, but they tend to be poor in low light.
I hesitate to be changing lenses since that would introduce dust. (the downside of digital: no film advance to get rid of the dust)
The dust issue isn't as bad as some people make it sound. Unless you frequently change lenses in extreme conditions or frequently use small apertures (around f/22 or so), basic routine maintenance will keep most dust under control.
Messing with the camera is also a good way to lose the opportunity to take the picture.
Without the right equipment, you risk not being able to get the picture at all. If you select the equipment you need beforehand and make changes as the situation changes, this shouldn't be a problem.
As I said, I hate flash photos. I never use the flash. The whole point of buying a camera with a big sensor was to get decent low-light performance so I wouldn't depend on a flash.
I think you misunderstand what the larger sensor does for you. With a larger sensor, you can expect to get an additional two to three stops of useable ISO. This allows you to get pictures of moving subjects in low light when used with the proper lenses. If anyone told you that you could use the kit lens at full telephoto in low light, you were lied to.
In addition to all the image-related problems I mentioned, flashes greatly annoy the subject and ruin the mood.
In extreme conditions, flash is your only option. The autofocus illuminator on a decent flash will also greatly improve focusing in low light. If you automatically dismiss a tool, you'll miss out on opportunities.
I usually use ISO800 and f/5.6 at 70mm (105mm equivalent).
f/5.6 won't cut it for low light; f/2.8 is even debatable. Based on the shutter speeds you're getting, it looks like you need another two or three stops, which would mean f/2.0-2.8. It doesn't look like there are many fast primes for the Minolta mount; either the KM 50mm f/1.4 or 85mm f/1.4 might work for you, but the 85mm is a bit expensive and availability of both appears to be very limited. A fast zoom might be easier to get; Tamron makes a 28-75mm f/2.8 that gets fairly good reviews, a 28-105mm f/2.8, and has a 17-50mm f/2.8 due out soon. KM also has a 28-75mm f/2.8. Sigma also makes a 70-200mm f/2.8 lens for the Minolta mount, so that might be a better option if you could use some extra reach. You might want to check out the DPReview Konica Minolta SLR Forum for more information.
Grrr. That's all I want. I'm pissed that my expensive dSLR can't do it. WTF? I got the biggest sensor I could afford. (largest of the APS-C ones) I even got physical (not software) image stabilization.
I have a feeling that the camera can do it, but you don't know how to do it. First of all, while IS helps when shooting handheld at low shutter speeds, it won't stop motion. If you're trying to get good handheld low light pictures, you'll need to start with a fast prime (f2.0 or better). A fast zoom (f2.8) may work in well-lit indoor environments. Next, you'll need to boost the ISO to at least 800. Without knowing what camera you have, I can't tell you how high you can go before noise becomes overwhelming. Canon's DSLRs give decent results at ISO 1600, Nikons are a little bit behind, and I don't know where the other brands stand. This should be enough to get you at least a 1/60s exposure in decent indoor lighting.
I hate flash photos. I suppose a set of remotely operated flashes could work great, but let's not go there. The sliver of shadow on one side (usually right or bottom) is nasty. The light fall-off with distance is nasty. The reflections are nasty. The red-eye is nasty. The light fall-off with angle is nasty.
You can't change the laws of physics, but you can get rid of the shadows by diffusing the flash. Something like a Lightsphere or a Sto-fen Omnibounce should do the trick. Even without a diffuser, you shouldn't be getting much redeye except at large distances (and even then it can be corrected in software). How far away is your subject and what flash are you using?
I just want to take a zoomed-in photo of an active baby 20 feet (6 m) away in a room lit by a plain ordinary bulb. Why is this too much to ask? My eyes are over 30 years old, and I can see the baby just fine.
I'm sure your camera can see the baby just fine too, but your eyes aren't trying to freeze motion (and they aren't zooming in on your subject, further reducing the amount of light to work with). You'll probably want a lens equivalent to Canon's 85mm f1.8 or 135mm f2L.
Furthermore, paying someone more does not automatically mean they'll be better employees.
But paying too little virtually guarantees that they will be worse. The issue here is minimum necessary competency vs. minimum possible cost. When you go the latter route, you'll get projector malfunctions that take too long to fix, missing faucet handles in the bathrooms, etc. (sorry, I don't go to movie theaters much, so my list of complaints is a bit small). This issue is in no way limited to theaters of course.
And why do you think things are so expensive?
Because idiots will pay for it. I don't buy for a second that the prices need to be where they are; it's a captive market, so they will charge whatever they can. If people would stop buying that crap (what, you can't go 2 hours without eating something?), then prices would come down.
No argument there, but that's hardly something controllable by the theater owners.
The theaters can't control the quality of the movies, but they do control what movies get how many screens for how long. Much of this is decided by popularity, so not going to bad movies would be a step in the right direction ("If the movie stinks, just don't go!"). However, the theaters sometimes do things that defy all profit - take Serenity for example. Theaters started dropping Serenity after two or three weeks, when it was making more money per screen than many movies with many more screens.
So you can fit fewer people into a theater, which means less revenue per showing, which means losses increase, which means either (a) higher ticket prices, (b) higher concession prices, (c) a combination of A and B, or (d) the theater goes out of business.
Maybe I'm just lucky, but most of the showings I've been to lately wouldn't have been affected by removing half of the seats. Except for something like Harry Potter on opening weekend, do theaters ever fill up?
Which, again, reduces revenue. Are you willing to pay higher prices to get fewer ads? I'd bet not.
I would rather pay a slightly higher ticket price and not get ads beamed at me than pay for the advertising through product prices. Advertising is a scam - who do you think pays for the ads? More ads equals more costs, more waste, and more annoyance.
The real problem here isn't the theaters though, it's the people who go to the movies, probably mainly teenagers with more money than sense. Theaters know that they make more money from exploiting kids who have no concept of the value of money than they lose by chasing off people who want quality and value. Theaters profit from their place in modern culture, not from the value they provide. Why do people go to the movies every weekend? Because that's the accepted norm. Why do they pay $20 for popcorn, soda, and candy? Because that's what you do at a movie. Anything that changes the status quo is a threat to theaters, and that is why they want to keep DVD releases as far away from theatrical releases as possible, even for movies they won't give screens to. One small cultural shift could wipe the industry as it exists today off the map.