I believe your premise has some merits (obviously, bright students should be allowed to progress), but I don't think it is a terrible idea to, at the end of every unit/chapter/major concept, quiz the class and let students take turns teaching other or flailing on a chalkboard in front of the class. Sure there's some pressure but you get used to it, and better because any job has a habit of putting you in the spotlight from time to time.
Sometimes it is incredibly instructive to "teach" another student, or at least be able to do a presentation of some sort and reframe the concepts in your own words, because it forces one to approach a topic/problem from another method (i.e., "how can a person not as familiar with me understand my thoughts?") that might not have otherwise come up, and in those moments, you personally grow in your understanding and expertise by wrestling with the topic, even when the topic seems "remedial".
The more optimistic (perhaps?) way of looking at "remedial" is "foundational". If you do not have a solid foundation, then you do not truly understand the concept, no matter how much you can convince yourself and others that you are an expert. At the suggestion of another discussion on/. a few days ago, I looked into the Force Concept Inventory (FCI), which is a standard test of sorts to fish out misconceptions of basic physics. Fascinating topic, in which the lead author specifically points out that many people -- even graduate students in physics -- significantly screw up on what should be "remedial" topics if you have had any physics course. They aren't mathematics problems with crazy solutions, they are straight-forward conceptual problems that immediately are solved, if one properly understands "remedial" physics, i.e., how to properly quote and use Newton's laws. In other words, you can get significantly far in schooling while still retaining incorrect or incomplete concepts of other things, which are only noticed when forced to use concepts and, as the author of the FCI points out, personal interviews where students are forced to explain their reasoning. The key is putting a student in a position where an explanation is required. I'm speaking in terms of the STEM fields where critical reasoning is key, I couldn't speak for a subject such as music. Maybe music is more memorization and doesn't require such explanations?
This all being only an example of course, but if there is a way to double check a student truly understands a concept or philosophy or what have you before throwing them to the next challenge, I support it, and forcing one to be able to explain a concept or methodology to others is a fantastic way of doing so. Much rather that the gifted students refine their ideas and grow while helping the lower-performing students, than to let the gifted students move on to another topic without any verification that they truly understand the material and not simply found a way to feign understanding on the exam/project. To counter your Einstein argument, Feynman was also a brilliant physicist but had a way of talking with the public and students about it and bringing the level down. I personally think being able to function brilliantly and describe it to others is a mark of a well-developed understanding and intellect.
Personally I like OpenSUSE. Not quite as fast a release cycle but enough to keep up. Terrific KDE implementation (which is the default) and you can find package repos for nearly anything, and they update issues very rapidly. Just this morning it updated me to Firefox 8, before 8 was even listed on Mozilla's website. I had no idea it was released yet! They're really on top of things and can't wait for their next release next week.
I don't think people are *stupid*, per se. Many people try to learn about topics and despite what the media would have you believe, many people are perfectly civil in their disagreements. Understanding the situations is not beyond most people. Everyone has basic logic skills (even if they claim a math phobia).
The problem relies more on the fact that people are *impulsive*, and don't give themselves enough time to form a valid opinion or wait for the science to come in. We as a species are not terribly good at long-term thinking and delayed gratification, and are suffering for it. But I wouldn't call that stupidity. Plenty people know better, but impulses get the better of them.
THIS. Holy shit do students not understand how data isn't perfect. Every course, I get questions about "Why do I get an acceleration due to gravity of 9.7? I thought it was 9.8, your equipment is broken.". They don't understand error bars, significant figures, propagation of errors, etc. You have to make them very comfortable before they start writing out what they see and providing appropriate error analysis, otherwise they just play with the equipment for an hour and then write down what they think you expect them to say.
In some sense I agree, but in proper context. The idea of a person working hard on their own and producing good results completely independently seems almost antiquated.
I would argue that we need to keep high ethical expectations on our students (in the sense of, all data portrayed should be correct and accurately reflect the situation, not distort evidence or hide bad engineering decisions), BUT why should they work alone and never talk to anyone else about the work or discuss it? Most important work is done as part of a team effort, so if they want to "cheat", let them do so. Let them work together in a group and share their ideas and work toward a larger goal. If the group wants to allow a slacker to earn a grade off their work, fine, but they also have the option of reporting the student to their "boss" (the professor) and getting him "fired" (earning an F) if all he does is chat around the water cooler everyday while they work. I haven't personally tried this method yet but have heard of other instructors awarding grades based on a grade of the project itself, and a weighting of the grades your group-mates assign you on a self-reporting sheet. Probably the method needs some tweaking to make it as fair as reasonable, but as you point out, the world is not always fair so perhaps students should just get used to it if they don't agree with their classmates' assessment.
Mostly, I never understood why it was the end of the world if people cooperated, or if you were able to use references during an exam. I think you would get a laugh out of any professional engineer if you tried to claim you would do anything important off the top of your head and not with any references (whether they book format, AutoCAD, graphing calculators, whatever) -- not to mention doing it on your own without someone else double checking it.
I haven't noticed anyone bring this up yet, but I thought this was the main goal of the Nepomuk project? (in KDE)
Well, maybe not do away with files themselves but rather how we store and access them. Rather than digging around in folders, we tag new files when we save them and search based on tags, i.e., what the file is used for or what it contains. I think that's a fantastic idea that needs more time to grow. I hate dealing with folder hierarchies, especially because I often run into the situation where a certain document can properly belong in one of several folders, and then I never know where to keep it so I don't lose it. The ability to throw all my documents in one folder and tag them with as many tags as necessary and then search for what I need (or rather, create "virtual folders" that sort things based on tags no matter their location) is really great step out of that annoyance.
The legal/paperwork headache is very unfair. Here you are trying to grieve and spend time with family/friends and push away from the world a bit to recompose yourself, and various businesses and legal entities continually call you and shove papers in your face to sign and ask where the money will come from. It'd be great if there was some sort of legal protection that said no one is allowed to harass you for a couple weeks.
Granted I am not an expert on computer filesystems, but this is what I'm curious of. Multimedia formats like OGG are containers, yes? My understanding is it embeds a video, audio, subtitles, into this one container. I imagine it as holding a few other files inside, reminiscent of me zipping up a few files together (perhaps like ODT?). This could be flawed understanding I admit, but bear with me.
Wouldn't it be possible to make a "universal" file container, in that any other file type could be imbeded with a text file that listed: what type of file it is, what program it is associated with, owner, creation/mod dates, and especially, tags and other types of metadata? (perhaps, author/composer as necessary, things like the publisher or journal it appeared in for pdf, if the main file is source code then the metadata can specify what language it is written in, etc.).
Then we can get away from every file having different extensions to everything being a container that declares what the file is used for, etc. I mean, they sort of will have extensions, but not in the file name. And anything you change carries over with the file.
(not just a reference, but unfortunately I agree that while it sounds great in theory, it is pretty idealistic and doesn't factor in the profit motive of corporations right now; if federal loans are thrown out at the same time new regulations are written on what banks/universities can do with students, that might work, but I know Ron Paul would not go for more regulation)
I think its more that he's trying to say: we can continue doing what we're doing now, but without the bureaucratic overhead of a cabinet level office and all of the secretaries and administrators that go along with it.
If the original submitter has time/money to put together a computer from the parts, I would recommend this. I bought a crazy machine for maybe $300 total, similar in specs to what you suggest. 8 GB of RAM is cheap these days, get a good efficient multi-core of some kind, fast drives. I recommend NewEgg but perhaps you can find better deals shopping around more. I have several HDD in my tower and switch between them as needed to install different OSes and tinker.
According to his plan for America, he intends on cutting a lot of the war budgets, ending rebuilding programs in Iraq, and stopping foreign aid. He seems to be addressing a lot of the budget. Now, whether it is a good plan or not is another story.
One thing I am disappointed in is all of the cuts to departments that aid the poor the most (or general public, like USGS and NOAA), but it specifically says in his plan document that he will fight to keep the Bush tax cuts in effect. I suppose he's trying to remain ideologically pure, and getting rid of the tax break is "equivalent to a tax increase". But I'm not sure that's the best decision.
Unity is different, in a good way
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I certainly wonder that too. Unity isn't my favorite (I enjoy KDE) but I certainly have nothing against Unity in general. I'm happy using it too on workstations at work. For ages I have been putting the KDE panel on the left side anyway so it feels natural to me. I enjoy it on widescreen monitors because they often don't have much vertical space. Why take up more vertical with a start menu in the "traditional" place when it can take up some of the copious amounts of horizontal I have? Webpages and documents scroll down, not sideways. Let windows and widgets line up horizontally so I can read windows and toolbars simultaneously! It makes sense to me, which is why I started putting the KDE panel there on my own.
I have been with linux for a long time, and one thing that makes me curious about Unity is the sentiment. Generally before now, there were many comments to the effect of "Well if Windows users weren't so tied to their desktop metaphor and willing to try new things, they may find out the superiority of Linux and switch for good!". Now that there is a new DE for Linux in the running, the community is now "I hate it, it's DIFFERENT.". I admit that is a bit of exaggeration, because certainly the first few releases of Unity had some bugs and not much configurability, but it is growing and getting better. But like the gentleuser whom started this thread pointed out, "icons on the left side" were annoying and different, and so it isn't just an issue with bugs when users are complaining. Of course, this doesn't mean you can't have a favored DE as I do, but I don't understand the hate and unwillingness to spend a couple weeks with Unity to see if you *really* might enjoy and benefit from a slightly different workflow. May learn something about yourself along the way. And if you still really don't like it, keep in mind everyone is different, and that is 100% ok.
If you think the federal government is inefficient, just wait to you see what fifty state governments working independently on the same things can come up with.
I don't know, competition can do wonders. All it takes is a couple states doing awesome things, and every other state will start to ask "Well why can't we have that too?". Keeping up with -- and trying to smash and overpower -- the Joneses. Will it work out that way? Not sure, but I can hope so -- and it sure is nice to think that your local government and local taxes hold more water. Live in a community that is set up the way you like it, and pay only the things important to you. Rather than having the federal government take so much of your money and decide to give it to other states that need money but don't want to raise taxes on the "job creators" to pay for their own stuff. Seems much more fair, and quite possibly a way to touch off enough competition to improve the quality for everyone.
I've read several times (here's an example citation: http://ctsportslaw.com/2008/05/22/ncaa-study-shows-that-most-athletic-programs-lose-money/ ) that all but the most well-known universities actually lose money on their sports programs as a whole. Football brings in a lot, at least at more well-known schools, but think of all the other sports few give a shit about but cost money to get uniforms and equipment and pay a coach. On the whole, sports lose money at all but the top universities. That's money taken away from educational programs just because a couple people want to play cricket or whatever in college. I would feel better just giving out scholarships with that money rather than buying unnecessary sports equipment, stadiums, etc. Money much better spent.
Personally, I think it's a bubble that will deflate. Oh it will be awful for a few years but my hope is that tuition will dramatically drop off and re-normalize with income rates. From my experiences, its not far from wall street -- the people actually doing the work (instructors, graduate students) get shit for income, and the administrators walk away with insane packages and perks. Plus, every university seems to be in this big "We can't be a real university without 12 gyms on campus, a pool, a starbucks on campus..." phase. Completely unnecessary construction projects. It's school, not a vacation. You don't need a damn gym on campus. If you want one, go buy a membership elsewhere, why should everyone's tuition go up to cover a building you're going to use maybe 3 times while a student? (I know, there are some that do make use of it but the majority of students have either never been in the gym, or went a couple times just to say that they go to the gym and be trendy). Stop wasting money on those projects and give kids scholarships, give instructors resources they need, and lower the damn tuition if you have that much surplus. Agencies always have this "We have to spend every penny or we'll lose funding next year!" phobia too. Maybe we need some type of new law; if you meet the quality metrics while reducing costs, everyone in the department gets a percentage pay raise. But there's too much emphasis on spending right now. I've been in several institutions where its a mad rush to buy 5000000 pens and reams of paper and new computers and all just to use up the budget so no one can claim that you need a budget cut. ("You didn't spend it all, so we'll assume you don't need it anymore".) Well, maybe you do need a budget cut if you can't spend it on the students. But if the department needs to keep savings around for sudden replacement parts or last-minute hires, that should be acceptable to have a budget surplus that is earmarked. Something has to be done to make more sensible policies.
If universities stopped trying to be retirement communities and focused on education, and distributed resources more fairly to departments rather than to the university president and deans, I don't think tuition would be near as much as it is now. To be fair, that isn't just universities; unrealistic expectations of parents and students chip in here. Parents, just because the school has a pool doesn't mean it has good educational opportunities. Set some priorities!
Oh that and textbooks. I'm highly interested in duplicating California's open source high school textbook thing, for colleges. There's no reason basic physics and engineering textbooks written 50 years ago that haven't changed all that much (not that the fields haven't changed, but that the basics of the fields are the same since Newton) get the cover photo changed every year and then cost $200+ anyway.
The government throws so much money at wasted projects that I really often feel like we'd be better off throwing it at students. How much was lost in the Solyndra deal? $500 million or so? We could have taken that and sent nearly everyone to college FOR FREE this past year, and debt wouldn't even be an issue. And it would be an investment in the future of the country, more so than the Solyndra deal turned out.
I feel as though if I have a savings account for accidents, why should I have to buy car insurance? Usually I'm told something to the effect of "well they have to make it law or there would be too many people driving around causing accidents and not paying for it". OK, so how is that ok but health insurance is off-limits? Seems like people without health insurance going to emergency rooms are also not paying and racking up bills. Nobody has been able to give me a straight answer. I suspect much of it is irrational hatred of Obama. But I would love to hear a rational argument, either for or against, why I need health and/or car insurance. The government has been mandating one for ages and the other more recently, and so I'm trying to reconcile it in my head (though its likely futile I'm sure, society doesn't have to always do things that are rational and consistent).
I think that's the point of the parent post: if a large segment of the young population is exposed to the idea that "science and math are cool!" as they grow, then they will grow up into a generation of kids whose social acceptance is "math is not hard and scary, why didn't you learn it on sesame street like I did?".
I for one hope that comes to pass. Not that everyone will become scientists, and that's fine. But it's a shame how few people in society seem to have basic logical thinking skills.
I'm somewhat convinced that part of the skyrocketing costs are partly because (1) they are tricking high school students into believing they absolute need a college degree from their "big name", when they are not even of legal age yet and therefore have no real grasp of money, what things should really cost, how long it takes to get a job and pay it back, etc., (granted the parents should be there to guide on finances, but if your parents never went to college, then they are just as gullible about what is involved); and (2) administrators are giving themselves a pat on the back in the form of big bonuses for doing such a thing. Of course state schools have the added expense of losing taxpayer funding, but I think its mostly marketing to get extra for the administrators. I worked for a university and I certainly never saw pay raises or benefits bumps, but the administration sure did (was even a story in the local newspaper about how the administrators were giving themselves overtime pay for their regular duties but they refused other faculty and myself any sort of extra compensation when we were required to stay late or work beyond our job description or take on an extra course load; that story was not denied by the university president and he even apologized for it, and it just disappeared, I wish the public was more outraged about stuff like this)
Whatever happened to the "Jetpack" thing they talked about a while back? My understanding (albeit from only very casual reading, I'm no extensions developer) was that it would allow a more robust extension system where things like release version number wouldn't screw with your extension unless there was a crazy legitimate change to the API. In other words, most extensions could just keep on trucking as-is because the basics of a web browser are set.
Did Jetpack not materialize yet, or has it just not been widely adopted yet? If it hasn't been fully realized, then I think Mozilla should try its best to get that idea finished before messing with releases anymore, to grant some feel of stability to the extensions. I suppose I could have misunderstood the project as well, but that's why I'm asking.
Their versioning scheme is funky now, but aside from/.ers, how many users really care what version number it is?
Firefox 5 looks exactly like 4. As pointed out in comments here, many people didn't even realize Ubuntu and the like already updated to Firefox 5 in the background! Seems mostly under the hood changes, little more snappy, but nothing dramatic. This is more like 4.0 -> 4.1 or possibly even 4.0->4.0.2 in the old versioning scheme. Complaining about it is like saying "Why is Firefox making me upgrade from 4.0 to 4.0.1, they should stand by their initial release!!". It got patched for security and stability updates, and it updates automatically, just like it has done every month or so in the past. All that has changed is the versioning naming system.
You can argue that the new version numbers are kind of stupid, but its nothing new in terms of update behavior. Plugins possibly could be a slight problem initially if they are tied to a specific version, but noscript et al still work fine for me without any problems right after the update (YMMV), so I'm guessing the ones still currently developed have already adjusted to Firefox 4/5 and the new schedule.
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I believe your premise has some merits (obviously, bright students should be allowed to progress), but I don't think it is a terrible idea to, at the end of every unit/chapter/major concept, quiz the class and let students take turns teaching other or flailing on a chalkboard in front of the class. Sure there's some pressure but you get used to it, and better because any job has a habit of putting you in the spotlight from time to time.
Sometimes it is incredibly instructive to "teach" another student, or at least be able to do a presentation of some sort and reframe the concepts in your own words, because it forces one to approach a topic/problem from another method (i.e., "how can a person not as familiar with me understand my thoughts?") that might not have otherwise come up, and in those moments, you personally grow in your understanding and expertise by wrestling with the topic, even when the topic seems "remedial".
The more optimistic (perhaps?) way of looking at "remedial" is "foundational". If you do not have a solid foundation, then you do not truly understand the concept, no matter how much you can convince yourself and others that you are an expert. At the suggestion of another discussion on /. a few days ago, I looked into the Force Concept Inventory (FCI), which is a standard test of sorts to fish out misconceptions of basic physics. Fascinating topic, in which the lead author specifically points out that many people -- even graduate students in physics -- significantly screw up on what should be "remedial" topics if you have had any physics course. They aren't mathematics problems with crazy solutions, they are straight-forward conceptual problems that immediately are solved, if one properly understands "remedial" physics, i.e., how to properly quote and use Newton's laws. In other words, you can get significantly far in schooling while still retaining incorrect or incomplete concepts of other things, which are only noticed when forced to use concepts and, as the author of the FCI points out, personal interviews where students are forced to explain their reasoning. The key is putting a student in a position where an explanation is required. I'm speaking in terms of the STEM fields where critical reasoning is key, I couldn't speak for a subject such as music. Maybe music is more memorization and doesn't require such explanations?
This all being only an example of course, but if there is a way to double check a student truly understands a concept or philosophy or what have you before throwing them to the next challenge, I support it, and forcing one to be able to explain a concept or methodology to others is a fantastic way of doing so. Much rather that the gifted students refine their ideas and grow while helping the lower-performing students, than to let the gifted students move on to another topic without any verification that they truly understand the material and not simply found a way to feign understanding on the exam/project. To counter your Einstein argument, Feynman was also a brilliant physicist but had a way of talking with the public and students about it and bringing the level down. I personally think being able to function brilliantly and describe it to others is a mark of a well-developed understanding and intellect.
Personally I like OpenSUSE. Not quite as fast a release cycle but enough to keep up. Terrific KDE implementation (which is the default) and you can find package repos for nearly anything, and they update issues very rapidly. Just this morning it updated me to Firefox 8, before 8 was even listed on Mozilla's website. I had no idea it was released yet! They're really on top of things and can't wait for their next release next week.
I don't think people are *stupid*, per se. Many people try to learn about topics and despite what the media would have you believe, many people are perfectly civil in their disagreements. Understanding the situations is not beyond most people. Everyone has basic logic skills (even if they claim a math phobia).
The problem relies more on the fact that people are *impulsive*, and don't give themselves enough time to form a valid opinion or wait for the science to come in. We as a species are not terribly good at long-term thinking and delayed gratification, and are suffering for it. But I wouldn't call that stupidity. Plenty people know better, but impulses get the better of them.
THIS. Holy shit do students not understand how data isn't perfect. Every course, I get questions about "Why do I get an acceleration due to gravity of 9.7? I thought it was 9.8, your equipment is broken.". They don't understand error bars, significant figures, propagation of errors, etc. You have to make them very comfortable before they start writing out what they see and providing appropriate error analysis, otherwise they just play with the equipment for an hour and then write down what they think you expect them to say.
In some sense I agree, but in proper context. The idea of a person working hard on their own and producing good results completely independently seems almost antiquated.
I would argue that we need to keep high ethical expectations on our students (in the sense of, all data portrayed should be correct and accurately reflect the situation, not distort evidence or hide bad engineering decisions), BUT why should they work alone and never talk to anyone else about the work or discuss it? Most important work is done as part of a team effort, so if they want to "cheat", let them do so. Let them work together in a group and share their ideas and work toward a larger goal. If the group wants to allow a slacker to earn a grade off their work, fine, but they also have the option of reporting the student to their "boss" (the professor) and getting him "fired" (earning an F) if all he does is chat around the water cooler everyday while they work. I haven't personally tried this method yet but have heard of other instructors awarding grades based on a grade of the project itself, and a weighting of the grades your group-mates assign you on a self-reporting sheet. Probably the method needs some tweaking to make it as fair as reasonable, but as you point out, the world is not always fair so perhaps students should just get used to it if they don't agree with their classmates' assessment.
Mostly, I never understood why it was the end of the world if people cooperated, or if you were able to use references during an exam. I think you would get a laugh out of any professional engineer if you tried to claim you would do anything important off the top of your head and not with any references (whether they book format, AutoCAD, graphing calculators, whatever) -- not to mention doing it on your own without someone else double checking it.
Wasn't aware of the history, thanks for your response.
I haven't noticed anyone bring this up yet, but I thought this was the main goal of the Nepomuk project? (in KDE)
Well, maybe not do away with files themselves but rather how we store and access them. Rather than digging around in folders, we tag new files when we save them and search based on tags, i.e., what the file is used for or what it contains. I think that's a fantastic idea that needs more time to grow. I hate dealing with folder hierarchies, especially because I often run into the situation where a certain document can properly belong in one of several folders, and then I never know where to keep it so I don't lose it. The ability to throw all my documents in one folder and tag them with as many tags as necessary and then search for what I need (or rather, create "virtual folders" that sort things based on tags no matter their location) is really great step out of that annoyance.
The legal/paperwork headache is very unfair. Here you are trying to grieve and spend time with family/friends and push away from the world a bit to recompose yourself, and various businesses and legal entities continually call you and shove papers in your face to sign and ask where the money will come from. It'd be great if there was some sort of legal protection that said no one is allowed to harass you for a couple weeks.
Granted I am not an expert on computer filesystems, but this is what I'm curious of. Multimedia formats like OGG are containers, yes? My understanding is it embeds a video, audio, subtitles, into this one container. I imagine it as holding a few other files inside, reminiscent of me zipping up a few files together (perhaps like ODT?). This could be flawed understanding I admit, but bear with me.
Wouldn't it be possible to make a "universal" file container, in that any other file type could be imbeded with a text file that listed: what type of file it is, what program it is associated with, owner, creation/mod dates, and especially, tags and other types of metadata? (perhaps, author/composer as necessary, things like the publisher or journal it appeared in for pdf, if the main file is source code then the metadata can specify what language it is written in, etc.).
Then we can get away from every file having different extensions to everything being a container that declares what the file is used for, etc. I mean, they sort of will have extensions, but not in the file name. And anything you change carries over with the file.
I believe that's:
1. Cut Funding
2. ???
3. Profit!!
(not just a reference, but unfortunately I agree that while it sounds great in theory, it is pretty idealistic and doesn't factor in the profit motive of corporations right now; if federal loans are thrown out at the same time new regulations are written on what banks/universities can do with students, that might work, but I know Ron Paul would not go for more regulation)
I think its more that he's trying to say: we can continue doing what we're doing now, but without the bureaucratic overhead of a cabinet level office and all of the secretaries and administrators that go along with it.
If the original submitter has time/money to put together a computer from the parts, I would recommend this. I bought a crazy machine for maybe $300 total, similar in specs to what you suggest. 8 GB of RAM is cheap these days, get a good efficient multi-core of some kind, fast drives. I recommend NewEgg but perhaps you can find better deals shopping around more. I have several HDD in my tower and switch between them as needed to install different OSes and tinker.
According to his plan for America, he intends on cutting a lot of the war budgets, ending rebuilding programs in Iraq, and stopping foreign aid. He seems to be addressing a lot of the budget. Now, whether it is a good plan or not is another story. One thing I am disappointed in is all of the cuts to departments that aid the poor the most (or general public, like USGS and NOAA), but it specifically says in his plan document that he will fight to keep the Bush tax cuts in effect. I suppose he's trying to remain ideologically pure, and getting rid of the tax break is "equivalent to a tax increase". But I'm not sure that's the best decision.
I certainly wonder that too. Unity isn't my favorite (I enjoy KDE) but I certainly have nothing against Unity in general. I'm happy using it too on workstations at work. For ages I have been putting the KDE panel on the left side anyway so it feels natural to me. I enjoy it on widescreen monitors because they often don't have much vertical space. Why take up more vertical with a start menu in the "traditional" place when it can take up some of the copious amounts of horizontal I have? Webpages and documents scroll down, not sideways. Let windows and widgets line up horizontally so I can read windows and toolbars simultaneously! It makes sense to me, which is why I started putting the KDE panel there on my own.
I have been with linux for a long time, and one thing that makes me curious about Unity is the sentiment. Generally before now, there were many comments to the effect of "Well if Windows users weren't so tied to their desktop metaphor and willing to try new things, they may find out the superiority of Linux and switch for good!". Now that there is a new DE for Linux in the running, the community is now "I hate it, it's DIFFERENT.". I admit that is a bit of exaggeration, because certainly the first few releases of Unity had some bugs and not much configurability, but it is growing and getting better. But like the gentleuser whom started this thread pointed out, "icons on the left side" were annoying and different, and so it isn't just an issue with bugs when users are complaining. Of course, this doesn't mean you can't have a favored DE as I do, but I don't understand the hate and unwillingness to spend a couple weeks with Unity to see if you *really* might enjoy and benefit from a slightly different workflow. May learn something about yourself along the way. And if you still really don't like it, keep in mind everyone is different, and that is 100% ok.
If you think the federal government is inefficient, just wait to you see what fifty state governments working independently on the same things can come up with.
I don't know, competition can do wonders. All it takes is a couple states doing awesome things, and every other state will start to ask "Well why can't we have that too?". Keeping up with -- and trying to smash and overpower -- the Joneses. Will it work out that way? Not sure, but I can hope so -- and it sure is nice to think that your local government and local taxes hold more water. Live in a community that is set up the way you like it, and pay only the things important to you. Rather than having the federal government take so much of your money and decide to give it to other states that need money but don't want to raise taxes on the "job creators" to pay for their own stuff. Seems much more fair, and quite possibly a way to touch off enough competition to improve the quality for everyone.
Citation?
I've read several times (here's an example citation: http://ctsportslaw.com/2008/05/22/ncaa-study-shows-that-most-athletic-programs-lose-money/ ) that all but the most well-known universities actually lose money on their sports programs as a whole. Football brings in a lot, at least at more well-known schools, but think of all the other sports few give a shit about but cost money to get uniforms and equipment and pay a coach. On the whole, sports lose money at all but the top universities. That's money taken away from educational programs just because a couple people want to play cricket or whatever in college. I would feel better just giving out scholarships with that money rather than buying unnecessary sports equipment, stadiums, etc. Money much better spent.
Personally, I think it's a bubble that will deflate. Oh it will be awful for a few years but my hope is that tuition will dramatically drop off and re-normalize with income rates. From my experiences, its not far from wall street -- the people actually doing the work (instructors, graduate students) get shit for income, and the administrators walk away with insane packages and perks. Plus, every university seems to be in this big "We can't be a real university without 12 gyms on campus, a pool, a starbucks on campus ..." phase. Completely unnecessary construction projects. It's school, not a vacation. You don't need a damn gym on campus. If you want one, go buy a membership elsewhere, why should everyone's tuition go up to cover a building you're going to use maybe 3 times while a student? (I know, there are some that do make use of it but the majority of students have either never been in the gym, or went a couple times just to say that they go to the gym and be trendy). Stop wasting money on those projects and give kids scholarships, give instructors resources they need, and lower the damn tuition if you have that much surplus. Agencies always have this "We have to spend every penny or we'll lose funding next year!" phobia too. Maybe we need some type of new law; if you meet the quality metrics while reducing costs, everyone in the department gets a percentage pay raise. But there's too much emphasis on spending right now. I've been in several institutions where its a mad rush to buy 5000000 pens and reams of paper and new computers and all just to use up the budget so no one can claim that you need a budget cut. ("You didn't spend it all, so we'll assume you don't need it anymore".) Well, maybe you do need a budget cut if you can't spend it on the students. But if the department needs to keep savings around for sudden replacement parts or last-minute hires, that should be acceptable to have a budget surplus that is earmarked. Something has to be done to make more sensible policies.
If universities stopped trying to be retirement communities and focused on education, and distributed resources more fairly to departments rather than to the university president and deans, I don't think tuition would be near as much as it is now. To be fair, that isn't just universities; unrealistic expectations of parents and students chip in here. Parents, just because the school has a pool doesn't mean it has good educational opportunities. Set some priorities!
Oh that and textbooks. I'm highly interested in duplicating California's open source high school textbook thing, for colleges. There's no reason basic physics and engineering textbooks written 50 years ago that haven't changed all that much (not that the fields haven't changed, but that the basics of the fields are the same since Newton) get the cover photo changed every year and then cost $200+ anyway.
The government throws so much money at wasted projects that I really often feel like we'd be better off throwing it at students. How much was lost in the Solyndra deal? $500 million or so? We could have taken that and sent nearly everyone to college FOR FREE this past year, and debt wouldn't even be an issue. And it would be an investment in the future of the country, more so than the Solyndra deal turned out.
I feel as though if I have a savings account for accidents, why should I have to buy car insurance? Usually I'm told something to the effect of "well they have to make it law or there would be too many people driving around causing accidents and not paying for it". OK, so how is that ok but health insurance is off-limits? Seems like people without health insurance going to emergency rooms are also not paying and racking up bills. Nobody has been able to give me a straight answer. I suspect much of it is irrational hatred of Obama. But I would love to hear a rational argument, either for or against, why I need health and/or car insurance. The government has been mandating one for ages and the other more recently, and so I'm trying to reconcile it in my head (though its likely futile I'm sure, society doesn't have to always do things that are rational and consistent).
I think that's the point of the parent post: if a large segment of the young population is exposed to the idea that "science and math are cool!" as they grow, then they will grow up into a generation of kids whose social acceptance is "math is not hard and scary, why didn't you learn it on sesame street like I did?". I for one hope that comes to pass. Not that everyone will become scientists, and that's fine. But it's a shame how few people in society seem to have basic logical thinking skills.
I'm somewhat convinced that part of the skyrocketing costs are partly because (1) they are tricking high school students into believing they absolute need a college degree from their "big name", when they are not even of legal age yet and therefore have no real grasp of money, what things should really cost, how long it takes to get a job and pay it back, etc., (granted the parents should be there to guide on finances, but if your parents never went to college, then they are just as gullible about what is involved); and (2) administrators are giving themselves a pat on the back in the form of big bonuses for doing such a thing. Of course state schools have the added expense of losing taxpayer funding, but I think its mostly marketing to get extra for the administrators. I worked for a university and I certainly never saw pay raises or benefits bumps, but the administration sure did (was even a story in the local newspaper about how the administrators were giving themselves overtime pay for their regular duties but they refused other faculty and myself any sort of extra compensation when we were required to stay late or work beyond our job description or take on an extra course load; that story was not denied by the university president and he even apologized for it, and it just disappeared, I wish the public was more outraged about stuff like this)
Whatever happened to the "Jetpack" thing they talked about a while back? My understanding (albeit from only very casual reading, I'm no extensions developer) was that it would allow a more robust extension system where things like release version number wouldn't screw with your extension unless there was a crazy legitimate change to the API. In other words, most extensions could just keep on trucking as-is because the basics of a web browser are set.
Did Jetpack not materialize yet, or has it just not been widely adopted yet? If it hasn't been fully realized, then I think Mozilla should try its best to get that idea finished before messing with releases anymore, to grant some feel of stability to the extensions. I suppose I could have misunderstood the project as well, but that's why I'm asking.
Their versioning scheme is funky now, but aside from /.ers, how many users really care what version number it is?
Firefox 5 looks exactly like 4. As pointed out in comments here, many people didn't even realize Ubuntu and the like already updated to Firefox 5 in the background! Seems mostly under the hood changes, little more snappy, but nothing dramatic. This is more like 4.0 -> 4.1 or possibly even 4.0->4.0.2 in the old versioning scheme. Complaining about it is like saying "Why is Firefox making me upgrade from 4.0 to 4.0.1, they should stand by their initial release!!". It got patched for security and stability updates, and it updates automatically, just like it has done every month or so in the past. All that has changed is the versioning naming system.
You can argue that the new version numbers are kind of stupid, but its nothing new in terms of update behavior. Plugins possibly could be a slight problem initially if they are tied to a specific version, but noscript et al still work fine for me without any problems right after the update (YMMV), so I'm guessing the ones still currently developed have already adjusted to Firefox 4/5 and the new schedule.