Schools don't need computers. They need teachers. They need good teachers. They need good teachers who know their stuff and who are passionate about teaching. Schools need money to buy good teachers. Not many people that talented will teach for 30 g's a year when they could do any number of things and make three times that.
Everyone knows the school system sucks. It's going down the tubes. Just today I read an article in my local newspaper about how low US students scored on science tests. I remember a few years ago hearing how poorly we performed on math tests when compared to the rest of the world. What I don't recall hearing is any mention of more money for better teachers. The solution is so obvious yet all I hear is "a computer for every classroom". Bullshit. Computers don't teach people; teachers do. (Well, actually you teach yourself, but teachers motivate you.)
There are like 20 comments at this point. It is clear there is no outrage.
Why didn't I notice this earlier?
I for one am extremely outraged. I'm sick of this shit. I'm sick of being
pushed around by corps. Might makes right. It sickens me that I cannot in
good faith buy from virtually any company. I don't want my money paying for
this bullying. This ranting does nothing though. Apple's betting most people
won't care and they're probably right. Heck how many people have the balls to
even boycott RIAA member record companies? How many people have the balls to
reject bullshit dvd's? Not that boycotting them makes any difference
whatsoever. But how much of your money has gone toward buying politians? How
much has gone toward bullying PNG? Some of the money is mine. It makes me
sick. I buy this shit anymore. Even one of my favorite bands, the
anti-establishment, anti-big record comany, anti-MTV NOFX, has a lead singer
who started an RIAA member record company. How can I justify purchasing from
them any longer? Thank you. I'll go back to my cave now.
No, I am not using it. It was an example of a resolution independent windowing system. I should have been more clear. "We need this" means I want this very badly. Obviously, X apps don't work (yet...), but I dream of the day I can run a resolution independent system.
Putting the game genie in and pushing it in hard (not necessarily entering any codes) *always* made trouble games work for me. I never understood why the game genie worked without being pressed down like regular games, but shoving a game in w/o the game genie never worked...
Readability is an issue but using larger fonts works just fine.
This is why we need something like Berlin. It is resolution independent. If I want smaller windows so that I can fit more on my screen, I don't crank up the resoultion (and I may not be able to up the res depending on my hardware), I scale down my windows. I can run 1600x1200 and still have it look like a 1024x768 display only sharper. Or I can run 1600x1200 and make it look exatcly like it does in X (with smaller windows). I'm encouraged to run at the highest resolution my hardware can handle instead of lowering the resolution because of readability. I've lost nothing and gained a *ton* of flexibility, readability, and all around coolness.
I saw this interview on public television a few months ago. My brother was
flipping through the channels and I'm like "hey, that kinda looks like Linus
Torvalds". He flipped back and we're like "holy !#* that is Linus;
cool!".
It was exciting to see him being interviewed on TV. Is Jay Leno next;-)
?
Can you back this up please (though I can't back up any of my claims I do
know that I watch plenty of ads, and I am of the opinion that I watch less TV
than most)? I am seriously curious. I for one believe that TV ads are
extremely effective. Why do companies spend so much on advertising? Why are
all the stops pulled for the Super Bowl ads? Do you think companies haven't
done research on the effectivines of TV advertising?
Yeah, you might go to the bathroom or flip around during commercials, but
you'll probably catch at least the first or last commercial in the set.
While flipping around you're bound to come across some commercials.
I know as a child I saw certain toys on TV and then wanted them dearly.
I know as an adult I am subtly influenced to believe that products
advertised on TV are somehow higher quality than generic products.
I don't think anyone's arguing about the effectiveness of ads that
are watched though, only if they are watched at all. I
believe plenty of ads are watched. One doesn't have to devote full
attention to an ad to get its message anyway, the purpose of many ads being
repetition for product recognition.
I also feel that annoying ads make me not want to buy the product. However,
I don't have much faith in that statement. I see myself reaching for name
brand products when I know the generic is exactly the same. I tell myself to
not buy from company X, but deep down I trust them to make a quality product
because I've seen them on TV.
Ads have a tremendous effect on the subconscious. Consciously, I despise
many products soley because of the advertising. But I know (as do advertisers)
that simple repetition is an extremely powerful method of advertising, and it
applies to all TV ads, annoying or not. Time to dump the TV and pick up a good
book.
He's obviously ignorant of a basic fact of about copyright
law: if you own a copyright, you must enforce it, or risk losing it.
Are you sure about this? This is definitely not the case with patents, and
definitely is the case for trademarks, but copyrights? If it was the case for
copyrights, wouldn't the RIAA be outa luck by now?
Are napster/gnutella/etc really technological problems? I believe they
are social problems. They are social problems as long as any technical
attempts by the RIAA to shut them down evoke counter attempts to circumvent
the RIAA's doings (which would most certainly happen).
I'm not sure I'm thinking logically here. A technical problem (for
example) is that steel rusts. We solve this problem technically by perhaps
alloying the steel with chromium so that a protective layer of chromium oxide
forms on the surface of the steel. A social problem is that I rob banks
(for example of course). We solve this socially by removing me from society
if I rob a bank (I go to prison). Hm... we also solve this technically by
having guards or locked vaults in a bank. Can anyone state this better? I
like the quote "You can't solve a social problem with a technical solution",
but I either don't understand it or it isn't true.
Problem: RIAA is evil Solution: Don't buy music from RIAA members?
So what exactly is the point of school? Is it job training? If I need to
do math on the job, then I'll use a calculator to be sure. I'll also learn
how to use this calculator on the job or in some trade school.
The idealist in me sees school as a place to learn how to think. Learn
how to think and how to learn, and you are set for life. Become adept at
using a calculator, and you are, well, adept at using a calculator.
Now you might say that you learn how to think perfectly well while still
using a calculator to speed up the easy, repetitive stuff. I not sure I
really have any good arguments for that. I've had a simple scientific
calculator at my side for quite some time, and I don't think it hinders me
too much. Due to much repition earlier in my schooling, I am quite fluent in
addition and multiplication. Trig functions and square roots I am not so
good at, but who besides an engineer on the job needs approximate values
anyway. Basically, I did not have a calculator until I was ingrained with
the functions it could perform. I am extremely glad I did not have a
graphing calculator while learning calculus. Anecdotal evidence tells me
lack of one helped immensely.
A quarter sized disc with data on both sides? Can you print pictures or
text on these? Can you read such text? CD's are nice because they are
reasonably portable (moreso than vinyl), they are round (a beautiful shape),
you can print quite a bit on the label side in a readable size, they can be
held in one hand, and they stack much nicer than cassettes. Cassettes are too
thick for the other two dimensions, not to mention that cassettes suck. A
stack of quarters isn't much better. I imagine these quarter discs are about
the same thickness as a CD?
The biggest problem I have with CD's is the care that must be taken to avoid
scratches. I much rather see media that addresses this problem (mini disc?
flash memory?) than smaller CD's.
For example, a record company could place five albums on a disc but
keep four of them locked. Users may sample the additional material before
buying it, at which point they would receive a key either through the phone or
the Internet to unlock the albums. The cost would be much lower than a typical
purchase because the albums would be on the same disc.
And we all know the cost of the media is what keeps CD prices at $17.99
If I have a slow link and were blind I might rather download a text version and use a text to speech program.
His point is that text is a good universal format, useable by nearly everyone. The existence of a single example where the audio-to-text is not so useful does not make a text file any less universal
Your point? Are you trying to say that apt is no reason to use debian now
that it's been ported to rpm based distros? Now apt rocks, but what sets
debian apart from the others[1] in my eyes is the debian policy. Nothing's
perfect, but when I install a debian package I have a pretty good idea of
what it's going to do and where it's going to install. Some examples are/usr/share/doc/package for every package, every package giving a menu entry
to the debian menu system and therefore automatically appearing in the window
manager menus, and a strict following of fhs (maybe not strict but at least
consitent across packages[2]).
Apt only reaches its full potential when it can be used with
confidence, and I can definitely use apt with confidence on my debian
box[2]
I'm not dissing other distros. I'm simply stating that in my own
experience I feel a confidence with debian that I did not feel with the other
distros I've tried. So if one feels safe using apt on debian then apt is
most definitely a reason to use debian.
[1] Back in my distro experimenting days, I tried RedHat 5.2, Caldera ?.?,
Suse ?.?, RedHat 6.? and debian slink (2.1?). I feel safest installing
debian packages and haven't tried another distro since (for better or
worse).
[2] At least when I used debian stable. It is unfortunate that debian
doesn't release more often. But I have plenty of confidence installing from
unstable as long as I'm not upgrading libc or perl.
Of course, I realize I'm casting pearls before swine, explaining
this. Anyone who would mod up "Trolligula" without thinking can't be the
sharpest crayon in the box.
I am the sharpest crayon in the
box, and my name is Green. Due to "Screamin' Green", "Electric Lime",
"Jungle Green", "Shamrock", "Aspagarus", "Tropical Rain Forest", and "Caribbean
Green", not to mention "Forest Green", "Yellow Green", "Green Yellow" "Spring
Green", "Blue Green", "Green Blue", "Olive Green", "Pine Green", and "Sea
Green", I just don't see action anymore. I remain sharp and unbroken. Recent
rumours tried to push off brown as the sharpest crayon due to the immense
popularity of "Fuzzy Wuzzy Brown", but they simply aren't true. "Razzmatazz"
is also making a big showing, but no one knows what color that is so we can't
say which of the original 8 is sharper in disuse because of Razzmatazz.
In the most recent versions, you are able to read folders (maildir
and mbox) outside of ~/evolution
Yes but ~/evolution still exists, marring my pristine home... Seriously
though, I wish it could confine itself to ~/.evolution and ~/Mail (or
whatever).
Also, for Drafts, Sent, etc - you are able to specify whichever
folder you want to act as a Draft or Sent folder. And they don't need to begin
with a capital letter...
Excellent
and yes, Evolution supports PGP...much better than any other
clients that I've seen - linux or win32 (including mutt).
I'll have to verify this alleged superiority to mutt myself;-)
Last time I used Evolution was a few months ago when I was trying to set
up a decent email environment for my mother on our linux box. I was (and
still am really) looking for a mail client that is basically a graphical
mutt. I don't need it downloading mail, and I don't need it sending mail to
my ISP. I use fetchmail to get my family's email whenever someone goes
online (dialup). I do not want to have to be online to read email. Now
supporting pop3/imap/whatever is fine but when editing the preferences of
Evolution they seem extremely slanted toward the "this mail proggie does
*everything*; screw your fetchmail, procmail, and local mail server".
Also, I'd like a way to configure where Evolution keeps its mailboxes. I
hate that stupid "evolution" dir in my home. What's wrong with
Mail/? Is this possible in versions I haven't seen?
With my mail setup, I compose offline and send to my local mailserver. I
don't need seventeen mailboxes like "Outbox", "Drafts", "Useless Box",
"Trash". I can't recall for Evolution, but with Balsa, you cannot delete
your Outbox or Drafts. And they must begin with a capital letter,
in aesthetic conflic with my other mailboxes. I also want my "Drafts" box
to be named "postponed". And I don't want a "Trash", I want to simply
delete stuff... and on and on.
So, how configurable is Evolution (or any decent gui mail client)? Every
one I've tried goes to great lengths to act like a monolith. Not that
that's necessarily bad, but I want to configure that extra crap I don't use
out of my life
One last thing, does Evolution support PGP (surely...?).
Considering that OGG hasn't even gone 1.0, any discussion of
hardware players is immature. I imagine if somebody shipped right now, you'd
all be bitching about the old version of OGG in a couple months.
The APIs are all stable now. All 1.0 features have been implemented.
Many hardware players are upgradeable.
And the idea of "giving up" your MP3s is stupid. Re-encoding is a
bad idea, and for the next 20 years players will support MP3 files even if
considered a legacy format.
"Re-encoding" is a good idea if you have originals and
wish to stop using mp3. By "giving up" I meant "start encoding exclusively
in Ogg Vorbis and don't buy that new mp3 player". I guess it's up to
Fraunhoffer as to what mp3 will be 20 years in the future.
I emailed an mp3 radio station I once listened to and asked them to
offer a vorbis stream. They responded and stated that they've looked
into it (woohoo) because of mp3 licensing, but it would require a lot
of time and work to switch over. They implied that they intended to
switch over eventually however. A deluge of polite requests for vorbis
streams would surely speed things up.
On a slightly different note, I recently purchased some hardware for which
open Linux drivers were available. So I emailed the company and told them
that the availability of free / open drivers was the deciding factor of my
choice of their product over a competitor's (it was). We need to do
everything we can to encourage and reward good behavior in hardware
manufacturers. They do listen as evidenced by the parent.
Slashdot Mirror
Schools don't need computers. They need teachers. They need good teachers. They need good teachers who know their stuff and who are passionate about teaching. Schools need money to buy good teachers. Not many people that talented will teach for 30 g's a year when they could do any number of things and make three times that.
Everyone knows the school system sucks. It's going down the tubes. Just today I read an article in my local newspaper about how low US students scored on science tests. I remember a few years ago hearing how poorly we performed on math tests when compared to the rest of the world. What I don't recall hearing is any mention of more money for better teachers. The solution is so obvious yet all I hear is "a computer for every classroom". Bullshit. Computers don't teach people; teachers do. (Well, actually you teach yourself, but teachers motivate you.)
Like anyone ever used long division later in life...
You are right of course. It's just so disheartening to see these headlines time and again. I need an 8 mile run right about now...
There are like 20 comments at this point. It is clear there is no outrage. Why didn't I notice this earlier?
I for one am extremely outraged. I'm sick of this shit. I'm sick of being pushed around by corps. Might makes right. It sickens me that I cannot in good faith buy from virtually any company. I don't want my money paying for this bullying. This ranting does nothing though. Apple's betting most people won't care and they're probably right. Heck how many people have the balls to even boycott RIAA member record companies? How many people have the balls to reject bullshit dvd's? Not that boycotting them makes any difference whatsoever. But how much of your money has gone toward buying politians? How much has gone toward bullying PNG? Some of the money is mine. It makes me sick. I buy this shit anymore. Even one of my favorite bands, the anti-establishment, anti-big record comany, anti-MTV NOFX, has a lead singer who started an RIAA member record company. How can I justify purchasing from them any longer? Thank you. I'll go back to my cave now.
No, I am not using it. It was an example of a resolution independent windowing system. I should have been more clear. "We need this" means I want this very badly. Obviously, X apps don't work (yet...), but I dream of the day I can run a resolution independent system.
Putting the game genie in and pushing it in hard (not necessarily entering any codes) *always* made trouble games work for me. I never understood why the game genie worked without being pressed down like regular games, but shoving a game in w/o the game genie never worked...
This is why we need something like Berlin. It is resolution independent. If I want smaller windows so that I can fit more on my screen, I don't crank up the resoultion (and I may not be able to up the res depending on my hardware), I scale down my windows. I can run 1600x1200 and still have it look like a 1024x768 display only sharper. Or I can run 1600x1200 and make it look exatcly like it does in X (with smaller windows). I'm encouraged to run at the highest resolution my hardware can handle instead of lowering the resolution because of readability. I've lost nothing and gained a *ton* of flexibility, readability, and all around coolness.
I saw this interview on public television a few months ago. My brother was flipping through the channels and I'm like "hey, that kinda looks like Linus Torvalds". He flipped back and we're like "holy !#* that is Linus; cool!".
It was exciting to see him being interviewed on TV. Is Jay Leno next ;-)
?
Can you back this up please (though I can't back up any of my claims I do know that I watch plenty of ads, and I am of the opinion that I watch less TV than most)? I am seriously curious. I for one believe that TV ads are extremely effective. Why do companies spend so much on advertising? Why are all the stops pulled for the Super Bowl ads? Do you think companies haven't done research on the effectivines of TV advertising?
Yeah, you might go to the bathroom or flip around during commercials, but you'll probably catch at least the first or last commercial in the set. While flipping around you're bound to come across some commercials.
I know as a child I saw certain toys on TV and then wanted them dearly. I know as an adult I am subtly influenced to believe that products advertised on TV are somehow higher quality than generic products.
I don't think anyone's arguing about the effectiveness of ads that are watched though, only if they are watched at all. I believe plenty of ads are watched. One doesn't have to devote full attention to an ad to get its message anyway, the purpose of many ads being repetition for product recognition.
I also feel that annoying ads make me not want to buy the product. However, I don't have much faith in that statement. I see myself reaching for name brand products when I know the generic is exactly the same. I tell myself to not buy from company X, but deep down I trust them to make a quality product because I've seen them on TV.
Ads have a tremendous effect on the subconscious. Consciously, I despise many products soley because of the advertising. But I know (as do advertisers) that simple repetition is an extremely powerful method of advertising, and it applies to all TV ads, annoying or not. Time to dump the TV and pick up a good book.
Bah. C version:
faith_in_humanity--;
Are you sure about this? This is definitely not the case with patents, and definitely is the case for trademarks, but copyrights? If it was the case for copyrights, wouldn't the RIAA be outa luck by now?
While slightly different I think, it's interesting to contrast this with Lego's attitude toward hacking MindStorms.
...but, but, the RIAA is insane ;-)
Are napster/gnutella/etc really technological problems? I believe they are social problems. They are social problems as long as any technical attempts by the RIAA to shut them down evoke counter attempts to circumvent the RIAA's doings (which would most certainly happen).
I'm not sure I'm thinking logically here. A technical problem (for example) is that steel rusts. We solve this problem technically by perhaps alloying the steel with chromium so that a protective layer of chromium oxide forms on the surface of the steel. A social problem is that I rob banks (for example of course). We solve this socially by removing me from society if I rob a bank (I go to prison). Hm... we also solve this technically by having guards or locked vaults in a bank. Can anyone state this better? I like the quote "You can't solve a social problem with a technical solution", but I either don't understand it or it isn't true.
Problem: RIAA is evil
Solution: Don't buy music from RIAA members?
So what exactly is the point of school? Is it job training? If I need to do math on the job, then I'll use a calculator to be sure. I'll also learn how to use this calculator on the job or in some trade school.
The idealist in me sees school as a place to learn how to think. Learn how to think and how to learn, and you are set for life. Become adept at using a calculator, and you are, well, adept at using a calculator.
Now you might say that you learn how to think perfectly well while still using a calculator to speed up the easy, repetitive stuff. I not sure I really have any good arguments for that. I've had a simple scientific calculator at my side for quite some time, and I don't think it hinders me too much. Due to much repition earlier in my schooling, I am quite fluent in addition and multiplication. Trig functions and square roots I am not so good at, but who besides an engineer on the job needs approximate values anyway. Basically, I did not have a calculator until I was ingrained with the functions it could perform. I am extremely glad I did not have a graphing calculator while learning calculus. Anecdotal evidence tells me lack of one helped immensely.
Replying to myself, are mini disc and flash susceptible to magnetic fields? I want to add that to my criteria for the perfect media.
A quarter sized disc with data on both sides? Can you print pictures or text on these? Can you read such text? CD's are nice because they are reasonably portable (moreso than vinyl), they are round (a beautiful shape), you can print quite a bit on the label side in a readable size, they can be held in one hand, and they stack much nicer than cassettes. Cassettes are too thick for the other two dimensions, not to mention that cassettes suck. A stack of quarters isn't much better. I imagine these quarter discs are about the same thickness as a CD?
The biggest problem I have with CD's is the care that must be taken to avoid scratches. I much rather see media that addresses this problem (mini disc? flash memory?) than smaller CD's.
And we all know the cost of the media is what keeps CD prices at $17.99
If I have a slow link and were blind I might rather download a text version and use a text to speech program.
His point is that text is a good universal format, useable by nearly everyone. The existence of a single example where the audio-to-text is not so useful does not make a text file any less universal
Your point? Are you trying to say that apt is no reason to use debian now that it's been ported to rpm based distros? Now apt rocks, but what sets debian apart from the others[1] in my eyes is the debian policy. Nothing's perfect, but when I install a debian package I have a pretty good idea of what it's going to do and where it's going to install. Some examples are /usr/share/doc/package for every package, every package giving a menu entry
to the debian menu system and therefore automatically appearing in the window
manager menus, and a strict following of fhs (maybe not strict but at least
consitent across packages[2]).
Apt only reaches its full potential when it can be used with confidence, and I can definitely use apt with confidence on my debian box[2]
I'm not dissing other distros. I'm simply stating that in my own experience I feel a confidence with debian that I did not feel with the other distros I've tried. So if one feels safe using apt on debian then apt is most definitely a reason to use debian.
[1] Back in my distro experimenting days, I tried RedHat 5.2, Caldera ?.?, Suse ?.?, RedHat 6.? and debian slink (2.1?). I feel safest installing debian packages and haven't tried another distro since (for better or worse).
[2] At least when I used debian stable. It is unfortunate that debian doesn't release more often. But I have plenty of confidence installing from unstable as long as I'm not upgrading libc or perl.
I am the sharpest crayon in the box, and my name is Green. Due to "Screamin' Green", "Electric Lime", "Jungle Green", "Shamrock", "Aspagarus", "Tropical Rain Forest", and "Caribbean Green", not to mention "Forest Green", "Yellow Green", "Green Yellow" "Spring Green", "Blue Green", "Green Blue", "Olive Green", "Pine Green", and "Sea Green", I just don't see action anymore. I remain sharp and unbroken. Recent rumours tried to push off brown as the sharpest crayon due to the immense popularity of "Fuzzy Wuzzy Brown", but they simply aren't true. "Razzmatazz" is also making a big showing, but no one knows what color that is so we can't say which of the original 8 is sharper in disuse because of Razzmatazz.
Yes but ~/evolution still exists, marring my pristine home... Seriously though, I wish it could confine itself to ~/.evolution and ~/Mail (or whatever).
Excellent
I'll have to verify this alleged superiority to mutt myself ;-)
Last time I used Evolution was a few months ago when I was trying to set up a decent email environment for my mother on our linux box. I was (and still am really) looking for a mail client that is basically a graphical mutt. I don't need it downloading mail, and I don't need it sending mail to my ISP. I use fetchmail to get my family's email whenever someone goes online (dialup). I do not want to have to be online to read email. Now supporting pop3/imap/whatever is fine but when editing the preferences of Evolution they seem extremely slanted toward the "this mail proggie does *everything*; screw your fetchmail, procmail, and local mail server".
Also, I'd like a way to configure where Evolution keeps its mailboxes. I hate that stupid "evolution" dir in my home. What's wrong with Mail/? Is this possible in versions I haven't seen?
With my mail setup, I compose offline and send to my local mailserver. I don't need seventeen mailboxes like "Outbox", "Drafts", "Useless Box", "Trash". I can't recall for Evolution, but with Balsa, you cannot delete your Outbox or Drafts. And they must begin with a capital letter, in aesthetic conflic with my other mailboxes. I also want my "Drafts" box to be named "postponed". And I don't want a "Trash", I want to simply delete stuff... and on and on.
So, how configurable is Evolution (or any decent gui mail client)? Every one I've tried goes to great lengths to act like a monolith. Not that that's necessarily bad, but I want to configure that extra crap I don't use out of my life
One last thing, does Evolution support PGP (surely...?).
The APIs are all stable now. All 1.0 features have been implemented. Many hardware players are upgradeable.
"Re-encoding" is a good idea if you have originals and wish to stop using mp3. By "giving up" I meant "start encoding exclusively in Ogg Vorbis and don't buy that new mp3 player". I guess it's up to Fraunhoffer as to what mp3 will be 20 years in the future.
I emailed an mp3 radio station I once listened to and asked them to offer a vorbis stream. They responded and stated that they've looked into it (woohoo) because of mp3 licensing, but it would require a lot of time and work to switch over. They implied that they intended to switch over eventually however. A deluge of polite requests for vorbis streams would surely speed things up.
On a slightly different note, I recently purchased some hardware for which open Linux drivers were available. So I emailed the company and told them that the availability of free / open drivers was the deciding factor of my choice of their product over a competitor's (it was). We need to do everything we can to encourage and reward good behavior in hardware manufacturers. They do listen as evidenced by the parent.