From a strictly literary perspective, all those typos are a dramatic, no, stunny portrayal of the inherent violence of language, a gesture toward the impossibility of all communication. [SIC]
That might be an accurate assessment of The Tempest, but a humanities class that would make a question like that the central part of an assignment--and then accept that answer and give it full credit--would be a pretty boneheaded course. Sort of like a physics class that, after two weeks of study, demonstraction, and discussion, asked what the acceleration of gravity in a vacuum was.
In both classes, we should assume more more complicated assignments. Part of the problem may be humanities teachers who still their their course like some cartoon version of art appreciation: listen to the teacher talk about how great the art is, then spit it back to them on the text. In some ways, paradoxically, its been the failure of old school faculty to engage with the complexities of postmodernism and cultural students that brought us to this point. Pomo gets a bad rap in lots of places, but a well-taught class in postmodern theory can be as difficult as a well-taught course in physic or engineering. (Unfortunately, what sometimes happens is a humanities prof or grad student picks up some pomo text and, suddently enlightened, springs their half-formed notion on bewildered students.) I'll admit that a lot of pomo writing is so hard to read it looks immature (Derrida's famous "There is nothing outside of the text"), but I could also say the same thing about an integral or the results of a materials stress test--intepreting any of those things requires some background education. The problem of postmodernism (and a lot of literary work) is that since everyone *uses* language every day, they expect *all* language to be transparent.
How far back do you mean by "olden"? There's always been copyright infringement, although I'd have to grant that P2P has changed the cases from one-to-one duplication into one-to-ten-thousand duplication.
The most difficult aspect of copyright, though, isn't such relatively straightforward things as to whether or not it's illegal to copy a song (it was illegal to copy that LP to a cassette and it's illegal to copy that CD to MP3 and distribute via napster--it's hard to argue that point). The problematic part are the ongoing and invasive extensions to copyright as it was originally laid out.
Copyright was intended to be a limited right, a small gift allowed to creators in order to encourage them to create more. The focus was initally primarily on public good rather than private profit. But over the last several decades, the terms of copyright have been extended by decades; the types of things that can be copyrighted have been extended; and the rights to legal fair use have gradually been beaten away by media corporation lawyers. The p2p thing is only a smokescreen being used to justify restricting rights even further.
The novice user's point of view or intentions may be part of the problem; I know that users I'm teaching new concepts to are often frustrated because I'm asking them (or requiring them, in the case of my students) to learn broad, longterm concepts rather than only quick but limited use functions. This sort of teaching (both broad concept and functional information) is great, but it doesn't happen as often as it seems people think.
Way too often, the person teaching linux isn't actually doing much in the way of *teaching*. They're throwing information at the new user, hoping that the user will learn to swim. Most of the time, the user just gets out of the pool. Good teaching requires an overarching structure or plan, small chunks of detailed (functional) information, space for the learner to experiment and try things out, and recovery or troubleshooting fixes to get them back on track. In too many cases, all they get is the second item, small detailed information.
(I was going to do an extended metaphor about looking out windows, but that seemed pretty goofy.)
Absolutely right, to some extent (how's that for hedging?). This isn't just a textbook problem: type "man whatever" and tell me that the OS accomodates novice users.
Not that there shouldn't be access to expert materials like man pages in linux, but that the man page still constitutes the norm rather than the exception to designing linux help. I can't tell you the number of times I've watched a linux expert try to explain something to a novice in a discussion like this:
E: You just need to chmod the files.
N: I need to what?
E: Chmod the files.
N: Ch... Mod?
E: Yeah. (Begins drumming fingers on desktop because he's anxious to change the permissions on the files.)
N: What files?
E: Here. (Grabs keyboard, whacks thirty keys in eight seconds, types ls and eighty files whip by on the display while E turns white.) Yeah! You're on the Web! Let's light that candle, Mr. B!
N: (whimper)
You get the picture. Getting linux to the mainstream is going to require both a reconfiguration of how the OS treats users, one that doesn't dismiss or ignore experts, but that offers multiple paths for experts, intermediates, and novices in the same space. How many linux developers usability test their apps or docs? How many force themselves to sit back and take a deep breath while their novice friend thinks for a second?
@johndan (whose hyphen and tilde keys are broken)
Disclaimer: I'm an academic and I've written several textbooks (although none about linux). On the other hand, I also run a usability lab.
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From a strictly literary perspective, all those typos are a dramatic, no, stunny portrayal of the inherent violence of language, a gesture toward the impossibility of all communication. [SIC]
That might be an accurate assessment of The Tempest, but a humanities class that would make a question like that the central part of an assignment--and then accept that answer and give it full credit--would be a pretty boneheaded course. Sort of like a physics class that, after two weeks of study, demonstraction, and discussion, asked what the acceleration of gravity in a vacuum was.
In both classes, we should assume more more complicated assignments. Part of the problem may be humanities teachers who still their their course like some cartoon version of art appreciation: listen to the teacher talk about how great the art is, then spit it back to them on the text. In some ways, paradoxically, its been the failure of old school faculty to engage with the complexities of postmodernism and cultural students that brought us to this point. Pomo gets a bad rap in lots of places, but a well-taught class in postmodern theory can be as difficult as a well-taught course in physic or engineering. (Unfortunately, what sometimes happens is a humanities prof or grad student picks up some pomo text and, suddently enlightened, springs their half-formed notion on bewildered students.) I'll admit that a lot of pomo writing is so hard to read it looks immature (Derrida's famous "There is nothing outside of the text"), but I could also say the same thing about an integral or the results of a materials stress test--intepreting any of those things requires some background education. The problem of postmodernism (and a lot of literary work) is that since everyone *uses* language every day, they expect *all* language to be transparent.
How far back do you mean by "olden"? There's always been copyright infringement, although I'd have to grant that P2P has changed the cases from one-to-one duplication into one-to-ten-thousand duplication.
The most difficult aspect of copyright, though, isn't such relatively straightforward things as to whether or not it's illegal to copy a song (it was illegal to copy that LP to a cassette and it's illegal to copy that CD to MP3 and distribute via napster--it's hard to argue that point). The problematic part are the ongoing and invasive extensions to copyright as it was originally laid out.
Copyright was intended to be a limited right, a small gift allowed to creators in order to encourage them to create more. The focus was initally primarily on public good rather than private profit. But over the last several decades, the terms of copyright have been extended by decades; the types of things that can be copyrighted have been extended; and the rights to legal fair use have gradually been beaten away by media corporation lawyers. The p2p thing is only a smokescreen being used to justify restricting rights even further.
I was sort of confused about how this ended up on /., but I'm really confused that people found its relevance worth complaining about.
- Johndan
The novice user's point of view or intentions may be part of the problem; I know that users I'm teaching new concepts to are often frustrated because I'm asking them (or requiring them, in the case of my students) to learn broad, longterm concepts rather than only quick but limited use functions. This sort of teaching (both broad concept and functional information) is great, but it doesn't happen as often as it seems people think.
Way too often, the person teaching linux isn't actually doing much in the way of *teaching*. They're throwing information at the new user, hoping that the user will learn to swim. Most of the time, the user just gets out of the pool. Good teaching requires an overarching structure or plan, small chunks of detailed (functional) information, space for the learner to experiment and try things out, and recovery or troubleshooting fixes to get them back on track. In too many cases, all they get is the second item, small detailed information.
(I was going to do an extended metaphor about looking out windows, but that seemed pretty goofy.)
Not that there shouldn't be access to expert materials like man pages in linux, but that the man page still constitutes the norm rather than the exception to designing linux help. I can't tell you the number of times I've watched a linux expert try to explain something to a novice in a discussion like this:
You get the picture. Getting linux to the mainstream is going to require both a reconfiguration of how the OS treats users, one that doesn't dismiss or ignore experts, but that offers multiple paths for experts, intermediates, and novices in the same space. How many linux developers usability test their apps or docs? How many force themselves to sit back and take a deep breath while their novice friend thinks for a second?
@johndan (whose hyphen and tilde keys are broken)
Disclaimer: I'm an academic and I've written several textbooks (although none about linux). On the other hand, I also run a usability lab.
Absolutely correct. Capitalism is the best working example we have of a consensual hallucination.