I care about Linux, not Xfree. Perhaps its time that Xfree gets a (Linux)fork.
Xfree is like Mozilla, because of all these people trying to make it compatible with every OS and make it run the oldest software, it cannot compete with anything released in the last 5 years.
Re:How about this Idea.
on
MIT Roofnet
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· Score: 1
Well, once WiFi becomes popular, hahaha the same movement which is destroying the record companies will destroy the phone companies, especially cellphones. I mean I can see WiFi completely replacing the telephone for most situations.
I can also see myself outside walking around and talking on my wifiphone.
Re:So if you run kazaa through something like this
on
MIT Roofnet
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· Score: 1
If its a WiFi mesh P2P network, what ISP?
There is no ISP, theres just a bunch of people connected to a WiFi P2P network
This issue was already raised in regards to free public wifi hotspots already, and in that case, its actually much more of a concern. But I suspect that if the admins don't keep logs, the RIAA will just try to hold them responsible instead. Though it may be, legally, a tough sell.
So make it distributed, and then the RIAA will have to sue every single college student because they wont know who the admin is.
I'm not talking about WiFi which connects to the internet, I'm talking about using WiFi for a private file sharing network thats 100% annonymous, unless they have cameras everywhere around campus watching everyone they wont know who does what.
Re:So if you run kazaa through something like this
on
MIT Roofnet
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· Score: 1
The university will not kick you out for sharing mp3 files, they may suspend you for a while. Even if they did kick you out, you'll go somewhere else and they'll get less money so its usually illogical to kick someone out for something as harmless as this.
And don't you think MIT has some clever way of finding people ? I'm sure they do.
No actually they dont. There is no way to figure out who does what on WiFi. Its completely annonymous.
Re:We can do better than the mac implementation.
on
Xr Renamed to Cairo
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· Score: 1
Desktop users dont want that. Thats what a company wants. Companies buy what is cheapest and most thin,
If you want backward compatibility why not use the old version? People like you would tell KDE not to upgrade to QT4 because it breaks backward compatiblity.
Ok Fossil, have fun running AfterStep, Fluxbox or any of the others on the old version of Xfree. Let those who want to progress have progress, stop holding the Linux community back with your nonsense!
is something that Microsoft would do, not engineers who actually care about the technical side of things.
Why is backward compatibility so important to engineers who create Xfree86 when they only use Linux to create Xfree86?
How about this Idea.
on
MIT Roofnet
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Could a wireless mesh network such as this, then allow voice communication?
Say I wanted to call someone across town via a wifi phone, could I connect to the wifi network and have unlimited free phonecalls? I think that would be even more useful than the internet.
So if you run kazaa through something like this
on
MIT Roofnet
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
How could the RIAA figure out who is who, and from what computer?
This idea isnt new
on
MIT Roofnet
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· Score: -1, Redundant
I read someone else, I think a company was developing this technology and using lasers or something from roof to roof and building to building.
Gorilla is a start. I think however there should be no more bitmap / pixel based interfaces. This is 2003 and Linux should just go 100 percent SVG. People who want to use pixels can use their 486.
Linux needs to prepare to take on Windows on the Desktop, this is going to require that Linux is cutting edge.
Isn't this a disk space vs CPU tradeoff?
Most people have more free CPU power than diskspace. Most people have 2ghz cpus, and super powered Gforce video cards which just dont get used at all except for a few tasks. Dont you think its time our software catches up to the hardware?
The worse that can happen is make more people buy video cards and upgraes which will give us jobs again.
Here is what I think the Linux GUI needs.
on
Xr Renamed to Cairo
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
I think the whole friggin GUI should be vectors. The Icons should be vectors, and these vectors should be manipulated in realtime via the video card/hardware.
Forget software rendering, we need hardware rendered GUI, using SVG for the interface and icons.
We also need to somehow maybe via OpenGL or some technique, to get the special effects of the video card applied to the GUI.
Then someone can write KDE4 or whatever, and the eyecandy/special effects should be plugins, a person should be able to code an effect via a scripting or programming language, someone should be able to download say, the motion blur or sparkle plugin, and then I click it and suddenly my menus motion blur or sparkle with fairy dust when I move them.
You could break the effects up into groups.
Scaling effects Trails for cursor Trails for menu Icon effects/animations
etc, and when this is done, then people can write themes easily etc and we can innovate.
The key should be a system that allows a newbie who isnt a coding genius to actually manipulate a video card either via scripting, or some high level interface.
What I want is complete revamping of the X protocol with backward compatibility maintained (permanently), such that new apps can take advantage of new server-side widgets without breaking compatibility. Wouldn't it be sweet if GTK+ apps could run as well over a 256kb/s line as XAW apps do?
I dont care so much about backward compatibility and I dont think most desktop users do. Servers sure as hell wont be running this. But if back compatbility is so important that can be handled to.
QT3 has translucent menu items and such. I haven't checked to see if they cheat by reading from the screen, or if they have implimented an alpha layer.
Fake translucency is not what people want, we want alpha channeling. This will only happen when the whole interface changes from pixel based to SVG based and then an OpenGL backend to access the video cards.
I think Evas has the right idea here, now its just time to have X catch up to it.
We can do better than the mac implementation.
on
Xr Renamed to Cairo
·
· Score: 1
We can, should and MUST do better than MacOSX. We must also do better than Microsoft. If we are to compete with these rich billion dollar companies, Linux must simply be better. A person should be able to SEE that Linux is better and not just a clone.
How about some innovation?
You have no need to upgrade.
on
Xr Renamed to Cairo
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Cairo is not for you! someone like you should use the old version of Xfree86 because you dont like cutting edge, you dont like polish, you dont need eye candy.
But please do not hold the rest of us back because you dont want progress.There's the commandline and original Xfree86 for people like you, we also need to attract desktop users, and this requires eyecandy.
They will not switch from Windows if Windows is better.
Why are we posting this when this happened like a month ago?
Anyway where can I donate money to Cairo development?I mean I dont have A PHD in software engineering and cannot help with the actual development, so how about accepting donations people?
New jobs aren't created instantaneously. It might take a year, but more than likely it will take five years, or ten years or longer.
We dont have 10 years, the population is increasing at too great of a rate. This country will completely crumble and fall apart if we are in a recession for 10 years.
This is the same thing that happened to manufacturing. The "goods" (computer chips / VPN support) are now being produced somewhere else (Taiwan / India). This transition is not slow at all. If you really sat down and thought about it, this shift could be predicted 10-15 years ago. And if we think about it now, there's another industry that many times is overpaid (looking at it globally) that will be outsourced abroad soon as well. The finance sector? Possibly...
Why is this a good thing? We'd all have jobs if we kept the jobs in our country! Look, it doesnt matter who does the freakin job, at long as we all have a job! When over 5% of us do not have a job then that means millions of people do not care how cheap the new computers are, they cant pay their rent!
But imagine if the manufacturing jobs never went overseas. Imagine if market efficiencies didn't exist and the US just tariffed foreign goods so that anything imported was 3x as expensive.You wouldn't have an IT job, there wouldn't be Slashdot, we'd all be working in manufacturing, clinging on to something we were good at 50 years ago.
Bullshit, absolute bullshit. First you ignore the fact that our population increases every year. You are assuming that if we dont outsource that there arent people willing to do it here. Lets see we have millions of illegal immigrants, at least 10 million of them, we have legal citizens, over 5% of them dont have jobs at all. You dont know anything do you? There is a SHORTAGE of jobs, a SHORTAGE. We have no reason to export ANY jobs right now.
Slashdot would still exist if we did not export all our manufacturing jobs, yes computers would be slightly more expensive, but we'd all have more money. You don't seem to connect the dots, more jobs = more people with money, and more people with money = more demand. Perhaps if we had more jobs people would spend more, and when you spend more, it creates more jobs, we could manufacture computers and export them to other countries. Sure other countries could get into the manufacturing business and we could buy from China, if its cheaper, my point is, we should also keep our own industries.
And this is not to say we're not good at manufacturing now, or good at IT now -- it just means that it is time for us to find the next thing we're good at.
We cant keep doing this, cant you see? There a limit to the amount of labor based jobs that we actually need. We are going to get to a point where all the jobs we have left are goofy retail and artistic type jobs. If you didnt notice the trend, our economy is losing jobs and they arent being replaced, at the same time our population continues to increase. What will happen when our population increases by say 10 million and we have a 10% unemployement? Its going to happen because the population increases at a rate thats far faster than the rate of jobs being created!
We get really good at something, specialize in it, make tons of money, and 20-30 years down the road (because face it, jobs were not going to Indians in 1985) other people EVENTUALLY learn how to do it and then do it cheaper.
Jobs werent going to Indians because the internet wasnt around like it is today, but sweatshops did exist, your Nike sneakers came from there, and despite your claims, cheaper labor does not and never has translated to cheaper products! I am not against other people having jobs we no longer need, the problem you refuse to see is, we are giving away jobs we DO need. We have a huge labor force of illegal immigrants, we have a huge labor force of unemployed, plus we have people living in trailors, living on welfare, and the prison population continues to increa
How did you manage to get the govt to foot your college bill and living expenses? Even with grants etc I always had to pay my own rent, utils, food, and various other expenses.
Financial AID is what its called. Live on campus and the gov will pay for living expenses.
I'd join the military if they had a branch that only defended.. and to me that doesn't mean attacking other countries 'in defense'. I don't believe in attacking other countries and I'm not willing to do so even to get a paycheck.
I agree, so join the peacecorps, I might do that. I dont like the idea of attacking other countries either.
Well first no one wants to live in welfare, people who do this dont have many other options. Their options, join the military, go to college, or go on welfare.
Not everyone is smart enough for college, not everyone is discplined enoutgh for the military, so this leaves welfare, usually women who arent as accepted into the military.
Considering that I'm in the same situation as you, I'm going to college, I figure if I cant find a job, I'll go to college, get an education and the gov will pay for it.
The US population goes up while the number of jobs go down, does it matter if toys are cheaper when I cant pay my expensive rent or buy food due to no job?
That only benefits rich people.
"so the country benefits from our old job being done and us working at a new job. Why should we expect people who are not affected to be sympathetic?"
What new jobs have been created?
Re:Technically thats supposed to be impossible.
on
MIT Everyware
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· Score: 1
Yes thats exactly why I got a B. Good professors calculate the grade correctly.
I didnt DESERVE an A, so I didnt get one, I deserved a B, I got a B. Sure I got all As and only had a C on one paper, fact is that brought my average down to a B, so I got a B. I did the calculation myself and knew I had a B weeks before the end of class.
Re:Try going to public school.
on
MIT Everyware
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· Score: 1
Absolutely not, schools usually dont research things which dont have potential for profit either. Sure MIT may have the money to research any little thing but the majority of schools use research to help pay their bills.
MIT has been known to do research for the government, and for corporations.
Re:Try going to public school.
on
MIT Everyware
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· Score: 1
Yes but not everyone is given that option. Sure I'm willing to learn WITH other people but most of the time people refuse to go at my pace, or they just arent interested.
I dont know anyone who wants to discuss string theory, or talk about genetic algorithms, its interesting to me but most people think its too geekish and nerdy to talk about.
Even the MIT students I've spoke to dont seem to talk about this stuff to the degree you mention outside of a classroom.
You are right I can learn from other people through discussion, debate, and exchange of ideas, but that cannot happen because most people do not want to exchange ideas. Most people think of school as work, they get out and they want to go party, not talk about science.
I guess most of my friends are the artsy type and not the nerd types who spend their time trying to learn how to create artificial lifeforms or discuss the new research going on with nano technology.
Not to mention unless you have access to a state of the art lab, you cant test any of your theories out. Yes I know you are going to say "Well yeah thats what MIT is for!"
But MIT is very elite, one of the most selective colleges in the country, is it worth it? I am not so sure since most of this research could be done in the private sector.
Re:Technically thats supposed to be impossible.
on
MIT Everyware
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· Score: 1
While there is a certain, tiny fraction of the population who is bright enough and self-motivated enough to pore over all the coursework that is equivalent to a degree, they are certainly very far from the norm. That is to say, Joe Blow will never know as much as an MIT grad.
I consider myself Joe Blow, there is nothing preventing me from gathering just as much if not more knowledge than an MIT grad. It's all about invested time, if I invest more time and I focus more, I gain more knowledge and faster. Its that simple. Most MIT grads just happened to go to good high schools, very few are self taught/self motivated. When the majority of MIT students come from ghettos and trailor parks thats when I'll believe that they are a genius and self motivated. I can respect that because it proves without a doubt that they know more than me because they worked harder, not because it was "given" or "spoonfed" to them.
Only the most elite of the motivated might ever hope to, and I assert they would still get more out of actually attending a good university. Working alongside the best, brightest, and most hardworking is absolutely invaluable.
What you refuse to understand is, alot of very elite motivated intelligent people do not get into MIT, this can be for very trivial reasons, such as not having the skills in math, or not being well rounded enough. This has absolutely nothing to do with their intelligence, their ability to work hard, or their willingness to learn.
You assume that everyone at MIT is there because they work the hardest, or because they are the smartest and I'm making the case that its not true, there are people who are smarter and who work harder, who focus more and who accomplish more however perhaps that person did bad on their SAT, or didnt take the SAT at all, perhaps that person did not learn in a very balanced way and so they know everything there is to know about a specific set of subjects but absolutely nothing about another.
MIT selects the most well rounded balanced student, not the most intelligent or hardest working. Someone can be a complete nerd and do nothing else in their life but study one thing, like say computers and not make it into MIT because this person didnt student doesnt know English or Math, does this mean that this student cannot be successful? No, it simply means that the current filtering method favors the well rounded generic genius over the very focused specialized genius.
The industry is the exact opposite as it favors the very focused specialized highly skilled genius over the well rounded genius. That is the point I try to make when I say certification often is more important than a degree from MIT.
Re:Thats not what I meant.
on
MIT Everyware
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· Score: 1
MIT+ or anything similar would be an infringement on the MIT name. Furthermore, numerous standardized tests already exist that do what any tests over the MIT OCW would cover (see: GRE, etc.)
MIT+? Thats not something you could easily prove in court, but still they could name it something else.
Sure theres numerous standardized tests, but that doesnt stop more from being created. You have Cisco, you have Network+, you have Microsofts networking test, and I think Novell might even have one.
Each company wants specific knowledge from their workforce, alot of companies might want a person to have knowledge based on the OCW, and something like IT-OCW+ would be a vague enough name to actually be used as a certiifcation.
Re:This idea is genius.
on
MIT Everyware
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· Score: 1
ah so you actually go to school inn the same area as me, in the same state.
Well, the students spend so much time working outside of class because the classes are a bit more demanding than your typical class. It is MIT by the way so a person has to be in great mental condition to be successful in such a high stress environment.
I mean how many people do you know, who are smart enough to go to MIT and party their way through without studying? Wouldnt you spend your free time studying if you are at MIT?
Slashdot Mirror
I care about Linux, not Xfree. Perhaps its time that Xfree gets a (Linux)fork.
Xfree is like Mozilla, because of all these people trying to make it compatible with every OS and make it run the oldest software, it cannot compete with anything released in the last 5 years.
Well, once WiFi becomes popular, hahaha the same movement which is destroying the record companies will destroy the phone companies, especially cellphones. I mean I can see WiFi completely replacing the telephone for most situations.
I can also see myself outside walking around and talking on my wifiphone.
If its a WiFi mesh P2P network, what ISP?
There is no ISP, theres just a bunch of people connected to a WiFi P2P network
This issue was already raised in regards to free public wifi hotspots already, and in that case, its actually much more of a concern. But I suspect that if the admins don't keep logs, the RIAA will just try to hold them responsible instead. Though it may be, legally, a tough sell.
So make it distributed, and then the RIAA will have to sue every single college student because they wont know who the admin is.
I'm not talking about WiFi which connects to the internet, I'm talking about using WiFi for a private file sharing network thats 100% annonymous, unless they have cameras everywhere around campus watching everyone they wont know who does what.
The university will not kick you out for sharing mp3 files, they may suspend you for a while. Even if they did kick you out, you'll go somewhere else and they'll get less money so its usually illogical to kick someone out for something as harmless as this.
And don't you think MIT has some clever way of finding people ? I'm sure they do.
No actually they dont. There is no way to figure out who does what on WiFi. Its completely annonymous.
Desktop users dont want that. Thats what a company wants. Companies buy what is cheapest and most thin,
Desktop users buy whatever looks best.
If you want backward compatibility why not use the old version? People like you would tell KDE not to upgrade to QT4 because it breaks backward compatiblity.
Ok Fossil, have fun running AfterStep, Fluxbox or any of the others on the old version of Xfree. Let those who want to progress have progress, stop holding the Linux community back with your nonsense!
is something that Microsoft would do, not engineers who actually care about the technical side of things.
Why is backward compatibility so important to engineers who create Xfree86 when they only use Linux to create Xfree86?
Could a wireless mesh network such as this, then allow voice communication?
Say I wanted to call someone across town via a wifi phone, could I connect to the wifi network and have unlimited free phonecalls? I think that would be even more useful than the internet.
How could the RIAA figure out who is who, and from what computer?
I read someone else, I think a company was developing this technology and using lasers or something from roof to roof and building to building.
Gorilla is a start. I think however there should be no more bitmap / pixel based interfaces. This is 2003 and Linux should just go 100 percent SVG. People who want to use pixels can use their 486.
Linux needs to prepare to take on Windows on the Desktop, this is going to require that Linux is cutting edge.
Isn't this a disk space vs CPU tradeoff?
Most people have more free CPU power than diskspace. Most people have 2ghz cpus, and super powered Gforce video cards which just dont get used at all except for a few tasks. Dont you think its time our software catches up to the hardware?
The worse that can happen is make more people buy video cards and upgraes which will give us jobs again.
I think the whole friggin GUI should be vectors. The Icons should be vectors, and these vectors should be manipulated in realtime via the video card/hardware.
Forget software rendering, we need hardware rendered GUI, using SVG for the interface and icons.
We also need to somehow maybe via OpenGL or some technique, to get the special effects of the video card applied to the GUI.
Then someone can write KDE4 or whatever, and the eyecandy/special effects should be plugins, a person should be able to code an effect via a scripting or programming language, someone should be able to download say, the motion blur or sparkle plugin, and then I click it and suddenly my menus motion blur or sparkle with fairy dust when I move them.
You could break the effects up into groups.
Scaling effects
Trails for cursor
Trails for menu
Icon effects/animations
etc, and when this is done, then people can write themes easily etc and we can innovate.
The key should be a system that allows a newbie who isnt a coding genius to actually manipulate a video card either via scripting, or some high level interface.
What I want is complete revamping of the X protocol with backward compatibility maintained (permanently), such that new apps can take advantage of new server-side widgets without breaking compatibility. Wouldn't it be sweet if GTK+ apps could run as well over a 256kb/s line as XAW apps do?
I dont care so much about backward compatibility and I dont think most desktop users do. Servers sure as hell wont be running this. But if back compatbility is so important that can be handled to.
QT3 has translucent menu items and such. I haven't checked to see if they cheat by reading from the screen, or if they have implimented an alpha layer.
Fake translucency is not what people want, we want alpha channeling. This will only happen when the whole interface changes from pixel based to SVG based and then an OpenGL backend to access the video cards.
I think Evas has the right idea here, now its just time to have X catch up to it.
We can, should and MUST do better than MacOSX. We must also do better than Microsoft. If we are to compete with these rich billion dollar companies, Linux must simply be better. A person should be able to SEE that Linux is better and not just a clone.
How about some innovation?
Cairo is not for you! someone like you should use the old version of Xfree86 because you dont like cutting edge, you dont like polish, you dont need eye candy.
But please do not hold the rest of us back because you dont want progress.There's the commandline and original Xfree86 for people like you, we also need to attract desktop users, and this requires eyecandy.
They will not switch from Windows if Windows is better.
Why are we posting this when this happened like a month ago?
Anyway where can I donate money to Cairo development?I mean I dont have A PHD in software engineering and cannot help with the actual development, so how about accepting donations people?
New jobs aren't created instantaneously. It might take a year, but more than likely it will take five years, or ten years or longer.
We dont have 10 years, the population is increasing at too great of a rate. This country will completely crumble and fall apart if we are in a recession for 10 years.
This is the same thing that happened to manufacturing. The "goods" (computer chips / VPN support) are now being produced somewhere else (Taiwan / India). This transition is not slow at all. If you really sat down and thought about it, this shift could be predicted 10-15 years ago. And if we think about it now, there's another industry that many times is overpaid (looking at it globally) that will be outsourced abroad soon as well. The finance sector? Possibly...
Why is this a good thing? We'd all have jobs if we kept the jobs in our country! Look, it doesnt matter who does the freakin job, at long as we all have a job! When over 5% of us do not have a job then that means millions of people do not care how cheap the new computers are, they cant pay their rent!
But imagine if the manufacturing jobs never went overseas. Imagine if market efficiencies didn't exist and the US just tariffed foreign goods so that anything imported was 3x as expensive.You wouldn't have an IT job, there wouldn't be Slashdot, we'd all be working in manufacturing, clinging on to something we were good at 50 years ago.
Bullshit, absolute bullshit. First you ignore the fact that our population increases every year. You are assuming that if we dont outsource that there arent people willing to do it here. Lets see we have millions of illegal immigrants, at least 10 million of them, we have legal citizens, over 5% of them dont have jobs at all. You dont know anything do you? There is a SHORTAGE of jobs, a SHORTAGE. We have no reason to export ANY jobs right now.
Slashdot would still exist if we did not export all our manufacturing jobs, yes computers would be slightly more expensive, but we'd all have more money. You don't seem to connect the dots, more jobs = more people with money, and more people with money = more demand. Perhaps if we had more jobs people would spend more, and when you spend more, it creates more jobs, we could manufacture computers and export them to other countries. Sure other countries could get into the manufacturing business and we could buy from China, if its cheaper, my point is, we should also keep our own industries.
And this is not to say we're not good at manufacturing now, or good at IT now -- it just means that it is time for us to find the next thing we're good at.
We cant keep doing this, cant you see? There a limit to the amount of labor based jobs that we actually need. We are going to get to a point where all the jobs we have left are goofy retail and artistic type jobs. If you didnt notice the trend, our economy is losing jobs and they arent being replaced, at the same time our population continues to increase. What will happen when our population increases by say 10 million and we have a 10% unemployement? Its going to happen because the population increases at a rate thats far faster than the rate of jobs being created!
We get really good at something, specialize in it, make tons of money, and 20-30 years down the road (because face it, jobs were not going to Indians in 1985) other people EVENTUALLY learn how to do it and then do it cheaper.
Jobs werent going to Indians because the internet wasnt around like it is today, but sweatshops did exist, your Nike sneakers came from there, and despite your claims, cheaper labor does not and never has translated to cheaper products! I am not against other people having jobs we no longer need, the problem you refuse to see is, we are giving away jobs we DO need. We have a huge labor force of illegal immigrants, we have a huge labor force of unemployed, plus we have people living in trailors, living on welfare, and the prison population continues to increa
How did you manage to get the govt to foot your college bill and living expenses? Even with grants etc I always had to pay my own rent, utils, food, and various other expenses.
Financial AID is what its called. Live on campus and the gov will pay for living expenses.
I'd join the military if they had a branch that only defended.. and to me that doesn't mean attacking other countries 'in defense'. I don't believe in attacking other countries and I'm not willing to do so even to get a paycheck.
I agree, so join the peacecorps, I might do that. I dont like the idea of attacking other countries either.
Well first no one wants to live in welfare, people who do this dont have many other options. Their options, join the military, go to college, or go on welfare.
Not everyone is smart enough for college, not everyone is discplined enoutgh for the military, so this leaves welfare, usually women who arent as accepted into the military.
Considering that I'm in the same situation as you, I'm going to college, I figure if I cant find a job, I'll go to college, get an education and the gov will pay for it.
The US population goes up while the number of jobs go down, does it matter if toys are cheaper when I cant pay my expensive rent or buy food due to no job?
That only benefits rich people.
"so the country benefits from our old job being done and us working at a new job. Why should we expect people who are not affected to be sympathetic?"
What new jobs have been created?
Yes thats exactly why I got a B. Good professors calculate the grade correctly.
I didnt DESERVE an A, so I didnt get one, I deserved a B, I got a B. Sure I got all As and only had a C on one paper, fact is that brought my average down to a B, so I got a B. I did the calculation myself and knew I had a B weeks before the end of class.
Absolutely not, schools usually dont research things which dont have potential for profit either. Sure MIT may have the money to research any little thing but the majority of schools use research to help pay their bills.
MIT has been known to do research for the government, and for corporations.
Yes but not everyone is given that option. Sure I'm willing to learn WITH other people but most of the time people refuse to go at my pace, or they just arent interested.
I dont know anyone who wants to discuss string theory, or talk about genetic algorithms, its interesting to me but most people think its too geekish and nerdy to talk about.
Even the MIT students I've spoke to dont seem to talk about this stuff to the degree you mention outside of a classroom.
You are right I can learn from other people through discussion, debate, and exchange of ideas, but that cannot happen because most people do not want to exchange ideas. Most people think of school as work, they get out and they want to go party, not talk about science.
I guess most of my friends are the artsy type and not the nerd types who spend their time trying to learn how to create artificial lifeforms or discuss the new research going on with nano technology.
Not to mention unless you have access to a state of the art lab, you cant test any of your theories out. Yes I know you are going to say "Well yeah thats what MIT is for!"
But MIT is very elite, one of the most selective colleges in the country, is it worth it? I am not so sure since most of this research could be done in the private sector.
yeah but your AVERAGE is what decides your grade.
That is BS.
While there is a certain, tiny fraction of the population who is bright enough and self-motivated enough to pore over all the coursework that is equivalent to a degree, they are certainly very far from the norm. That is to say, Joe Blow will never know as much as an MIT grad.
I consider myself Joe Blow, there is nothing preventing me from gathering just as much if not more knowledge than an MIT grad. It's all about invested time, if I invest more time and I focus more, I gain more knowledge and faster. Its that simple. Most MIT grads just happened to go to good high schools, very few are self taught/self motivated. When the majority of MIT students come from ghettos and trailor parks thats when I'll believe that they are a genius and self motivated. I can respect that because it proves without a doubt that they know more than me because they worked harder, not because it was "given" or "spoonfed" to them.
Only the most elite of the motivated might ever hope to, and I assert they would still get more out of actually attending a good university. Working alongside the best, brightest, and most hardworking is absolutely invaluable.
What you refuse to understand is, alot of very elite motivated intelligent people do not get into MIT, this can be for very trivial reasons, such as not having the skills in math, or not being well rounded enough. This has absolutely nothing to do with their intelligence, their ability to work hard, or their willingness to learn.
You assume that everyone at MIT is there because they work the hardest, or because they are the smartest and I'm making the case that its not true, there are people who are smarter and who work harder, who focus more and who accomplish more however perhaps that person did bad on their SAT, or didnt take the SAT at all, perhaps that person did not learn in a very balanced way and so they know everything there is to know about a specific set of subjects but absolutely nothing about another.
MIT selects the most well rounded balanced student, not the most intelligent or hardest working. Someone can be a complete nerd and do nothing else in their life but study one thing, like say computers and not make it into MIT because this person didnt student doesnt know English or Math, does this mean that this student cannot be successful? No, it simply means that the current filtering method favors the well rounded generic genius over the very focused specialized genius.
The industry is the exact opposite as it favors the very focused specialized highly skilled genius over the well rounded genius. That is the point I try to make when I say certification often is more important than a degree from MIT.
MIT+ or anything similar would be an infringement on the MIT name. Furthermore, numerous standardized tests already exist that do what any tests over the MIT OCW would cover (see: GRE, etc.)
MIT+? Thats not something you could easily prove in court, but still they could name it something else.
Sure theres numerous standardized tests, but that doesnt stop more from being created. You have Cisco, you have Network+, you have Microsofts networking test, and I think Novell might even have one.
Each company wants specific knowledge from their workforce, alot of companies might want a person to have knowledge based on the OCW, and something like IT-OCW+ would be a vague enough name to actually be used as a certiifcation.
ah so you actually go to school inn the same area as me, in the same state.
Well, the students spend so much time working outside of class because the classes are a bit more demanding than your typical class. It is MIT by the way so a person has to be in great mental condition to be successful in such a high stress environment.
I mean how many people do you know, who are smart enough to go to MIT and party their way through without studying? Wouldnt you spend your free time studying if you are at MIT?