Bryce did her research by visiting computer gamers, often during regional or national competitions around Britain, and giving nearly 100 of them a series of psychological tests and questionnaires.
Maybe the well-adjustedness of the subjects is what led them to be involved in tournaments in the first place. Which came first, the sociability or the 18hrs per week of gaming? The study doesn't indicate at all, and isn't designed to prove, that games lead to smarter or more well-adjusted kids. It just indicates there might be a correlation. Correlation != cause and effect. Maybe the kids are more polished & smarter than the norm because they're in a higher, more-privileged socioeconomic class, which having a computer still tends to indicate unfortunately.
No, we don't have a right to know. Ms. Tomlinson's departure is between her and her employer; not some tabloid expose for a bunch of overly curious rumor mongering conspiracy theorists. I wouldn't be surprised if the people who blurted this out on a public forum haven't been seriously bitch slapped by HR.
As a community it would be best to let the matter drop. I'm sure if you were in Anne's position you'd be severely pissed. A little perspective and some empathy would be appropriate.
I strongly disagree with this "5, Insightful" comment. Who cares about the employee-employer squabble? That's not why people are homing in on this part of the story.
The issue is that a supposedly "blow-by-blow account" was given which omits an important detail. In itself, that's not even too big deal, it could have been an oversight, but now follow-up discussion about that hole in their story seems to be actively suppressed. I've never seen that happen before on Slashdot, and I'm curious to know if tampering of the community's sentiments is actually taking place. Posting about it is definitely called for. How in the world does letting the matter drop constitute "perspective" and "empathy"?
In order to successfully pull off the ebook effort, they'll first have to pull a coup in changing millions of peoples habits from reading dead-tree format to reading off a computer screen (with associated annoyances: have to have power, might not work so well in sunlight, can be dropped and your $99 reading unit is broken). Probably this will require a relentless marketing campaign, although the web helps a lot, they can maybe do it in a generation for really wired countries.
Of course, they'll have some sort of SDBI for it, but once that's cracked by a bored teenager in Toledo, all those secure books will be downloadable and swapped around with free reign. And there'll be high demand for those, because everyone will be used to reading off an lcd screen. And the industry won't see any money from it (the Grateful Dead argument for pro-copying could be made, sure, but my intuition is that since books take so much time and effort to digest compared to bootlegs played in the background of a friend's crash pad, you won't get the same results).
Instead of an ebook initiative, from the book industry's point of view, I don't understand why they don't do everything possible to make sure people stay extremely comfortable with the quaint, warm, style of reading. They should pay big attention to cool cover art, print on the most tactile-pleasing type of paper they can find, and lace books with pheromones.
Dangerous to get too fancy with editorial notes
on
Carl Kadie Responds
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· Score: 1
[Editorial note: Federal laws concerning research on human subjects requires that data about such studies be stored securely, with a number of explicit security requirements. If Clemson faculty have no expectation of privacy when using Clemson computers, Clemson is breaking those laws if it conducts any research on human subjects (which it does) and stores the data on Clemson machines.]
Well, not quite, actually. Clemson would be breaking those laws if it's demanding to have write access to the clinical data or actively circumventing the security and tampering with data. The leaps in logic you'd have to make here to break the law -- from "no expectation of privacy" to "university must be sniffing passwords" to "clinical computer systems therefore aren't secure" to "fraudulent data!" -- are pretty tenuous. Just saying there's no expectation of privacy doesn't equal a law violation here. Also, it's not likely that a lot of raw electronic data on human subjects actually is captured and stored on Clemson machines under the rules spelled out by the federal regulations, even if trials are being conducted there. Data being stored securely at a research site usually just means that the case report forms (paper) are kept in a locked cabinet by the principal investigators office. Electronic data in clinical trials is a huge world of pain, extremely expensive because you have to be compliant with 21 CFR Part 11. So usually the data, in the form of a lot of paper, is sent to either the big pharma companies or specialists called CROs (contract research organizations), to be made electronic and locked.
Everything You Know About Africa is Wrong
on
GeekCorps v2.0
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· Score: 1
I can't bring myself to agree with a lot of the posting here, the wringing of hands and concern that before we set up Pentiums and WANs we should feed Africa, work on infrastructure, stabilize political scenes, defeat AIDS, etc. I think all those things need to be actively tackled, and are actively being addressed by those with the know-how, but some people are endowed with gifts to intuitively understand and enjoy TCP/IP and OOP instead of the engineering behind irrigation systems. For a group to forego the cushy material benefits of the Western world to share their joy...hey, let 'em rip.
Tangentially: I hadn't heard of Geekhalla before, but for the past week, I've been wondering whether volunteer projects like that existed or not. My own bent is toward medical care, and how computers make critical drug inventories and access to patient records so much more efficient. Maybe not the e-commerce stuff so much. I know first-hand that hospitals in the US don't have the slickest IT in the world due to budget constraints, so I have doubts that international volunteer groups have much at all in that department. Last night, I did a search on Freshmeat for "humanitarian", thinking I'd look into any open-source projects that might be cooking, but alas came up with zero records returned. The time isn't there for me to start my own project right now, but I'm wondering if I might clear some clutter and obligations in my life and start something. I've been reading about organization like Doctors Without Borders, wondering what people with the wiggle to understand complex information systems could do for trans-continental organizations like that, using lingua franca technology like Linux and FreeBSD. Just in the little probing I've done, it looks like there's an enormous impact computer gurus could make, and considering the level of commitment other highly skilled professionals like surgeons and physicians can make, why not IT folks?
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe the well-adjustedness of the subjects is what led them to be involved in tournaments in the first place. Which came first, the sociability or the 18hrs per week of gaming? The study doesn't indicate at all, and isn't designed to prove, that games lead to smarter or more well-adjusted kids. It just indicates there might be a correlation. Correlation != cause and effect. Maybe the kids are more polished & smarter than the norm because they're in a higher, more-privileged socioeconomic class, which having a computer still tends to indicate unfortunately.
As a community it would be best to let the matter drop. I'm sure if you were in Anne's position you'd be severely pissed. A little perspective and some empathy would be appropriate.
I strongly disagree with this "5, Insightful" comment. Who cares about the employee-employer squabble? That's not why people are homing in on this part of the story.
The issue is that a supposedly "blow-by-blow account" was given which omits an important detail. In itself, that's not even too big deal, it could have been an oversight, but now follow-up discussion about that hole in their story seems to be actively suppressed. I've never seen that happen before on Slashdot, and I'm curious to know if tampering of the community's sentiments is actually taking place. Posting about it is definitely called for. How in the world does letting the matter drop constitute "perspective" and "empathy"?
Of course, they'll have some sort of SDBI for it, but once that's cracked by a bored teenager in Toledo, all those secure books will be downloadable and swapped around with free reign. And there'll be high demand for those, because everyone will be used to reading off an lcd screen. And the industry won't see any money from it (the Grateful Dead argument for pro-copying could be made, sure, but my intuition is that since books take so much time and effort to digest compared to bootlegs played in the background of a friend's crash pad, you won't get the same results).
Instead of an ebook initiative, from the book industry's point of view, I don't understand why they don't do everything possible to make sure people stay extremely comfortable with the quaint, warm, style of reading. They should pay big attention to cool cover art, print on the most tactile-pleasing type of paper they can find, and lace books with pheromones.
Well, not quite, actually. Clemson would be breaking those laws if it's demanding to have write access to the clinical data or actively circumventing the security and tampering with data. The leaps in logic you'd have to make here to break the law -- from "no expectation of privacy" to "university must be sniffing passwords" to "clinical computer systems therefore aren't secure" to "fraudulent data!" -- are pretty tenuous. Just saying there's no expectation of privacy doesn't equal a law violation here. Also, it's not likely that a lot of raw electronic data on human subjects actually is captured and stored on Clemson machines under the rules spelled out by the federal regulations, even if trials are being conducted there. Data being stored securely at a research site usually just means that the case report forms (paper) are kept in a locked cabinet by the principal investigators office. Electronic data in clinical trials is a huge world of pain, extremely expensive because you have to be compliant with 21 CFR Part 11. So usually the data, in the form of a lot of paper, is sent to either the big pharma companies or specialists called CROs (contract research organizations), to be made electronic and locked.
I can't bring myself to agree with a lot of the posting here, the wringing of hands and concern that before we set up Pentiums and WANs we should feed Africa, work on infrastructure, stabilize political scenes, defeat AIDS, etc. I think all those things need to be actively tackled, and are actively being addressed by those with the know-how, but some people are endowed with gifts to intuitively understand and enjoy TCP/IP and OOP instead of the engineering behind irrigation systems. For a group to forego the cushy material benefits of the Western world to share their joy...hey, let 'em rip.
Tangentially: I hadn't heard of Geekhalla before, but for the past week, I've been wondering whether volunteer projects like that existed or not. My own bent is toward medical care, and how computers make critical drug inventories and access to patient records so much more efficient. Maybe not the e-commerce stuff so much. I know first-hand that hospitals in the US don't have the slickest IT in the world due to budget constraints, so I have doubts that international volunteer groups have much at all in that department. Last night, I did a search on Freshmeat for "humanitarian", thinking I'd look into any open-source projects that might be cooking, but alas came up with zero records returned. The time isn't there for me to start my own project right now, but I'm wondering if I might clear some clutter and obligations in my life and start something. I've been reading about organization like Doctors Without Borders, wondering what people with the wiggle to understand complex information systems could do for trans-continental organizations like that, using lingua franca technology like Linux and FreeBSD. Just in the little probing I've done, it looks like there's an enormous impact computer gurus could make, and considering the level of commitment other highly skilled professionals like surgeons and physicians can make, why not IT folks?