As a radical suggestion, somewhere in the long summer vacations, after the 2pm finishes... Get off your lazy asses and come up with say ten tests throughout the course.
Writing as the son of father who was professor at the local university, I can attest to all the hours he spent agonizing over grade decisions over issues similar to the one in the article. (He rewarded improvement).
Lazy teachers may exist, but in my experience, they are far and few between.
I'm completely okay with rewarding students for improvement and for avoiding making them want to stop trying. Though dropping classes is also an option.
But not in grade school. That option is not available.
Or maybe I just go to a really crazy school (Caltech)
If you want quality professional teachers who know when to "pull a kid aside" and give them some targeted help to pass a class, then you have TO PAY THEM.
OK...
For the record, IANAT...I used to be until I realized I was carrying the burden of absent parents and ignorant policy makers.
I am not a teacher either, but I used to work for a man elected to the school board of one of the "elite" school discricts in CA and I've heard ALL the dirt.
Mandating that everything is at least 50%, even when a student gets a 0%, is a terrible idea.
A decade ago, when I was taking (for me extension) accounting classes at the insistence of my father, the first midterm exam had such low results that the professor suggested that folks in the class reexamine their choice of major. (That class was also where I first heard of derivatives, though only as a student question that was not answered).
Oh yes, this is a terrible, terrible idea. Gee, considering the total failure of the US accounting system over the recent past, maybe standards should have been much tougher.
My "day-to-day" supercomputer is a 2048 processor machine made up of generic Intel cores all running a slightly modified version of Suse Linux. This is a great machine for development _and_ for execution. My users have no trouble using my software and the machine... because it's just Linux.
I am in awe of you, sir.
May I ask out of curiosity, how long it takes to compile the kernel on such a magnificent beastie?
I honestly don't get the need for LSB. Perhaps 10 years ago when we still had problems with RPM, but not today. Most people will never need to download software that isn't in the Ubuntu (or insert favorite distro here) repositories.
LSB specified file system layout when I was in the business about 10 years ago (I shared in the pain of converting Turbolinux from/usr/man ->/usr/share/man, etc. etc.).
Library version numbers are still important. C++ binaries are notoriously sensitive to gcc version and we must be able to support truly alien (ie non-distro software).
We will have truly arrived as a desktop O/S when it is possible to buy from Blizzard a World-of-Warcraft.tar.gz tarball that will Just Plain Work no matter which Linux distro we are using. Never mind packaging issues, though it would be nice to have RPMs of WoW.
2. Don't enter your real birthdate anywhere online.
It's already online somewhere. My DOB appears on my passport and CA driver's license and lord only knows how many different computers throughout the world since I travel a lot and I'm always required to provide my DOB.
3. Don't use your real zip code.
Eh? The "zip code" (postal mail code) of the place where I met my wife is the only info that is secure, but it's only security through obscurity - there is no door-to-door postal mail there.
The lesson learned is that identity theft has been made trivial.
He found a pretty blatant flaw in the system -- in that the password reset function was woefully inadequate for figures who live a very public life since all the questions pertain to the customers private life.
Strike the "a very public life" part and I agree.
Except for the "where did you meet your husband/wife" question, all of that information tends to be on people's resumes.
Yeah, the whole "EA is fucking us!" thing might be true then.
They produce half-assed games that either suck if they don't crash, or suck because they do crash. A couple of their Sims titles on GBA were not too bad though.
I'm really, really pissed at their stuff on PSP though. Computers and electronics should *never* crash, ever, and games that crash deserve their own ring in hell.
Or you could just EA pulled their heads out of their asses lol.
Impossible to believe based on what they sell. I used to think the crap Konami sells in the domestic Japanese sports market was the lowest of the low, but thankfully, Tiger Woods 2008 for the PSP has proved me wrong. And how they can find a way for a Sims game to crash, like The Castaways is beyond me.
Way to go EA! Whatever it is your QA guys are smoking, please send some my way in lieu of a refund. Thanks!
Add in a promise to completely disable all drm if/when they shut down the servers and I think you could get most people onboard.
Maybe, but EA's rep is shot with me. The last two games I've bought with their name on them crash often enough to make them unwinnable and what's the point in playing a game like that? I already have a family subscription to World of Warcraft...
EA - you suck! Or you just have no clue how to program a PSP, or maybe both. At least Blizzard doesn't kill me and make me restart every time I reach a new level after doing something hard.
is it considered okay to use hire a dozen people with bullhorns to spew political rhetoric around someone's house at midnight?
s/at midnight/before dawn/
Yes, that's standard political campaigning where I live.
The problem is his DELIVERY of it to people who do NOT want it.
No. That is as misguided a statement as the law that was struck down. The problem is economic - the economics of email, where all the costs are borne by the recipient, are broken and encourage spamming.
I get a lot of email I do NOT want that is not spam.
I have a big problem with geographics-based laws being applied to the internet. My email goes to a mail server in Virginia. I work in California and live in the Philippines. What jurisdiction applies to me in an anti-spam law?
I also have a problem with any law that curbs legitimate usage of something, in this case anonymity, to the detriment of law-abiding people. The solution to email spam is very simple. Attach electronic postage to each email message payable to the recipient, drop any message without attached payment. Spam problem solved.
Linux is poorly documented, has little to no code reuse, no real design (leading to modules being rewritten to fix bugs and design flaws while introducing even more), a ton of race conditions (causing stability and security issues), and scales very poorly in an SMP setting (the BKL is a joke).
Interesting misinformation considering that SGI will be selling 4k CPU boxes running Linux in the near future.
The last traces of the BKL are in the process of being removed and the major SMP scalability issue remaining has to do with CPU masks being passed on the stack.
An interesting design misfeature was found and fixed the first time Linux was booted on one of those monster boxes - percpu kernel threads were being created as children of init(8) and wait system calls were taking a horrendous amount of time.
Re:Can you change the world in MMO's?
on
Quests
·
· Score: 1
The fact that the world doesn't react to any changes that players make is what gives a certain 'pointlessness' to the game as the only thing that can change in the world is you
There is a limited amount of world changing in WoW. The zones in Outlands have zone-wide buffs that depend on certain PvP goals. The town of Halaa in Nagrand (and the merchants there) is only available to the faction which controls it. Capture all the towers in the desert and the Terokkar Forest gains a factional buff for six hours, etc.
WotLK promises changeable scenery and that sounds pretty cool.
Yes, he's exaggerating, but his point is valid. It's very rare when meta-moderating that I find a downmod that doesn't have to be marked unfair.
Such is my experience too and since I browse at -1, I see a lot of posts that deserve to be at -1.
Why is it that I have never, ever to the best of my recollection, been asked to meta-moderate moderation on a goatse link post? I suspect the editors, who have infinite mod points, moderate those down themselves and are not subject to meta-moderation.
Slashdot Mirror
As a radical suggestion, somewhere in the long summer vacations, after the 2pm finishes... Get off your lazy asses and come up with say ten tests throughout the course.
Writing as the son of father who was professor at the local university, I can attest to all the hours he spent agonizing over grade decisions over issues similar to the one in the article. (He rewarded improvement).
Lazy teachers may exist, but in my experience, they are far and few between.
I'm completely okay with rewarding students for improvement and for avoiding making them want to stop trying. Though dropping classes is also an option.
But not in grade school. That option is not available.
Or maybe I just go to a really crazy school (Caltech)
You do. Fleming, forever! and Dabney eats it!
If you want quality professional teachers who know when to "pull a kid aside" and give them some targeted help to pass a class, then you have TO PAY THEM.
OK ...
For the record, IANAT...I used to be until I realized I was carrying the burden of absent parents and ignorant policy makers.
I am not a teacher either, but I used to work for a man elected to the school board of one of the "elite" school discricts in CA and I've heard ALL the dirt.
Sigh.
When I was going to grade school, there were
"President's physical fitness tests" that were required of everyone. I think that was Dick Nixon's idea.
Mandating that everything is at least 50%, even when a student gets a 0%, is a terrible idea.
A decade ago, when I was taking (for me extension) accounting classes at the insistence of my father, the first midterm exam had such low results that the professor suggested that folks in the class reexamine their choice of major. (That class was also where I first heard of derivatives, though only as a student question that was not answered).
Oh yes, this is a terrible, terrible idea. Gee, considering the total failure of the US accounting system over the recent past, maybe standards should have been much tougher.
I click on the buttons and Nothing Happens. Slashdotted?
Defocus, defocus, defocus ... God dammit to bloody hell ...
My "day-to-day" supercomputer is a 2048 processor machine made up of generic Intel cores all running a slightly modified version of Suse Linux. This is a great machine for development _and_ for execution. My users have no trouble using my software and the machine... because it's just Linux.
I am in awe of you, sir.
May I ask out of curiosity, how long it takes to compile the kernel on such a magnificent beastie?
Telnet is useful for debugging all kinds of different network protocols, including problems with MSExchange. Been there, done that.
Do you mean to tell me you have not written and debugged a sendmail.cf file?
Now, get off my lawn.
I would rather drop $1000 on another lens for my DSLR than on a TV that I only watch at most 2hrs any given day.
"Only" 2 hours?
Sigh.
I honestly don't get the need for LSB. Perhaps 10 years ago when we still had problems with RPM, but not today. Most people will never need to download software that isn't in the Ubuntu (or insert favorite distro here) repositories.
LSB specified file system layout when I was in the business about 10 years ago (I shared in the pain of converting Turbolinux from /usr/man -> /usr/share/man, etc. etc.).
Library version numbers are still important. C++ binaries are notoriously sensitive to gcc version and we must be able to support truly alien (ie non-distro software).
We will have truly arrived as a desktop O/S when it is possible to buy from Blizzard a World-of-Warcraft.tar.gz tarball that will Just Plain Work no matter which Linux distro we are using. Never mind packaging issues, though it would be nice to have RPMs of WoW.
2. Don't enter your real birthdate anywhere online.
It's already online somewhere. My DOB appears on my passport and CA driver's license and lord only knows how many different computers throughout the world since I travel a lot and I'm always required to provide my DOB.
3. Don't use your real zip code.
Eh? The "zip code" (postal mail code) of the place where I met my wife is the only info that is secure, but it's only security through obscurity - there is no door-to-door postal mail there.
The lesson learned is that identity theft has been made trivial.
He found a pretty blatant flaw in the system -- in that the password reset function was woefully inadequate for figures who live a very public life since all the questions pertain to the customers private life.
Strike the "a very public life" part and I agree.
Except for the "where did you meet your husband/wife" question, all of that information tends to be on people's resumes.
It's just a flawed system, *period*.
Yeah, the whole "EA is fucking us!" thing might be true then.
They produce half-assed games that either suck if they don't crash, or suck because they do crash. A couple of their Sims titles on GBA were not too bad though.
I'm really, really pissed at their stuff on PSP though. Computers and electronics should *never* crash, ever, and games that crash deserve their own ring in hell.
For EA, fucking customers is a way of life.
Or you could just EA pulled their heads out of their asses lol.
Impossible to believe based on what they sell. I used to think the crap Konami sells in the domestic Japanese sports market was the lowest of the low, but thankfully, Tiger Woods 2008 for the PSP has proved me wrong. And how they can find a way for a Sims game to crash, like The Castaways is beyond me.
Way to go EA! Whatever it is your QA guys are smoking, please send some my way in lieu of a refund. Thanks!
Add in a promise to completely disable all drm if/when they shut down the servers and I think you could get most people onboard.
Maybe, but EA's rep is shot with me. The last two games I've bought with their name on them crash often enough to make them unwinnable and what's the point in playing a game like that? I already have a family subscription to World of Warcraft ...
EA - you suck! Or you just have no clue how to program a PSP, or maybe both. At least Blizzard doesn't kill me and make me restart every time I reach a new level after doing something hard.
Ummm... How many companies have managed to successfully stop all forks of a product without killing the current product?
Heh, like Lucid Emacs?
I think the real question is not whether Jabber's open-source status will be impacted, but whether Cisco will try to be all redactive
Bah.
THEY^H^H^H^HWE CANNOT DO THAT.
Any questions?
Disclaimer: I work for Cisco, primarily supporting Open Source within the company. I do not speak for Cisco.
Hmm. I don't have a drinking problem. I drink, I get drunk, I play World of Warcraft. No problem!
Or something like that.
Hmmm, I got modpoints today, I play WoW, *and* I'm a zealot and a troll
Hmm, three out of four ...
Now, where do I have to go to get my copies at 12:01, the day of release?
is it considered okay to use hire a dozen people with bullhorns to spew political rhetoric around someone's house at midnight?
s/at midnight/before dawn/
Yes, that's standard political campaigning where I live.
The problem is his DELIVERY of it to people who do NOT want it.
No. That is as misguided a statement as the law that was struck down. The problem is economic - the economics of email, where all the costs are borne by the recipient, are broken and encourage spamming.
I get a lot of email I do NOT want that is not spam.
I have a big problem with geographics-based laws being applied to the internet. My email goes to a mail server in Virginia. I work in California and live in the Philippines. What jurisdiction applies to me in an anti-spam law?
I also have a problem with any law that curbs legitimate usage of something, in this case anonymity, to the detriment of law-abiding people. The solution to email spam is very simple. Attach electronic postage to each email message payable to the recipient, drop any message without attached payment. Spam problem solved.
I do not have a common name. The facebook, linkin, etc. entries are for people who are not me.
Reputation goes both ways too, and I want prospective employers to google me, just so long as it's really me.
Linux is poorly documented, has little to no code reuse, no real design (leading to modules being rewritten to fix bugs and design flaws while introducing even more), a ton of race conditions (causing stability and security issues), and scales very poorly in an SMP setting (the BKL is a joke).
Interesting misinformation considering that SGI will be selling 4k CPU boxes running Linux in the near future.
The last traces of the BKL are in the process of being removed and the major SMP scalability issue remaining has to do with CPU masks being passed on the stack.
An interesting design misfeature was found and fixed the first time Linux was booted on one of those monster boxes - percpu kernel threads were being created as children of init(8) and wait system calls were taking a horrendous amount of time.
The fact that the world doesn't react to any changes that players make is what gives a certain 'pointlessness' to the game as the only thing that can change in the world is you
There is a limited amount of world changing in WoW. The zones in Outlands have zone-wide buffs that depend on certain PvP goals. The town of Halaa in Nagrand (and the merchants there) is only available to the faction which controls it. Capture all the towers in the desert and the Terokkar Forest gains a factional buff for six hours, etc.
WotLK promises changeable scenery and that sounds pretty cool.
Yes, he's exaggerating, but his point is valid. It's very rare when meta-moderating that I find a downmod that doesn't have to be marked unfair.
Such is my experience too and since I browse at -1, I see a lot of posts that deserve to be at -1.
Why is it that I have never, ever to the best of my recollection, been asked to meta-moderate moderation on a goatse link post? I suspect the editors, who have infinite mod points, moderate those down themselves and are not subject to meta-moderation.