Well, I work for the state, so we're pretty tightly bonded to MS, as most large organizations are. I also work with non-profits, and they're largely bound to MS as well, mainly because there aren't many tech savvy people in non-profits. Though I think the Montana Legal Services Association uses a lot of open source I think they're using squirrel mail, some open source online time clock, and are talking about using Sunbird, the Mozilla calendar project (they don't run Exchange and they have no calendaring at the moment. . . )
I find it interesting how you state that you're working in a "small town law practice." I'm assuming the link to Smith Jewell is because that's where you work.
Having relocated from Cincinnati, OH to Helena, MT at the end of July, I have a hard time accepting that Missoula is a small town. Still, it's definitely nice to see a fellow Montanan on/.
This thread is a bit outdated, but I thought I'd reply. The points you raise are generally valid, but that's why I mention the idea of a killer app of sorts. Maybe someone someday will come up with a way that computers can effectively be used. There are definite niches in which they can make things easier. Labview software in chem labs can make titrations much easier to execute, explain, and understand. And I've seen some excellent uses of Geometer's Sketchpad in the classroom as well. Same thing with graphing calculators.
And moving beyond the lecture model, computers offer tons of potential - distance learning, online classrooms, time-shifting of teaching, adaptive lessons, and perhaps other uses that aren't even dreamt of yet etc etc - but none of this is to the point yet where it's generally superior to established methods.
As for repetition being key to learning - I've got to disagree, since repetition doesn't usually help with true understanding, but instead encourage rote memorization - i.e. in calculus someone may be able to apply the power rule or the quotient rule, but that doesn't mean they understand a derivative, or why they're using the quotient rule. Technology can easily show a student this, leading to deeper understanding.
In my mind, it's attitudes like your post that make it harder for teachers to implement tech in the classroom - we need people who are experimenting and trying new things to make classrooms better . . . though perhaps the biggest change we need is to move away from our traditional teacher/student/lecture/classroom model and become more adaptive to students' needs in general . . .
While I agree in spirit with what you've said, it's worth noting that for computers to effectively be used in the classroom, we're asking a lot of our teachers. In my mind, for a school to justify using a computer in the classroom as a teaching aid, a teacher has to be comfortable with the tech, realize that a computer crashing isn't the end of the world, and then come up with innovative ways to use a computer, so it's not just a glorified blackboard. In my experience teaching, most schools (K-12) are still at the point where computers (and more tech oriented stuff in general) are just sort of gee-whiz devices, with lots of bells and whistles.
There's definitely still a lot of entrenched teachers who are thinking "Why bother?" when it comes to computers, as there may be relucatnace to learn something new, and also the benefits from bothering to learn it are slim to none - i.e. they've been teaching for 20 years, and it's worked so far, why switch now?
Part of me thinks it's going to take a killer app of sorts for computers to really take off as learning tools - classroom management you already see them being used (worksheets, networked grade programs, e-mail, etc), but as teaching devices, they're not quite there . ..
Anyway, to get back to the original "hello world" example, teachers who can do that, are going to be more likely to take risks and experiment using the technology in the classroom, than the teacher who all they can do is use the internet and office apps. So, there is definitely some benefit to having teachers who are traditional hackers of sorts . . . though it's disappointing sometimes to realize how few teachers are like this . . .
Okay, so let's say my mother's hair catches fire. While I don't expect everyone to respond the same way, I'm not going to think because the odds somehow were against my mother that the cell company is suddenly evil. Would I hope that the company would do the right thing and cover any damages/medical? Sure.
The grandparent mentioned the odds are something like 1 out of 2 million. Would you prefer the cell companies re-engineer their batteries, perhaps resulting in bulkier or more expensive phones? At some point, the investment isn't worth the return . . . much like the scene in Fight Club where they're discussing that it's cheaper to deal with the defects than to do recalls . . .
Being a former Cinci resident, I was a bit curious about these guys, and google-stalked them . ..
Looks like they all went to St. Xavier, a pretty well respected (in both athletics and academics) prep school.
Here's a picture of Ben when he was a junior, winning a theater award for sound production.
Meng's got a website here that's a bit outdated, but considering the projects were from his junior year in high school, rather impressive. Seems he was a HAM radio guy.
Running out of time, the first link I found for Justin Rigling was this link. One more connection to the guy, since I use to work for AK Steel. The little blurb about the scholarship does make him sound like a stereotypical geek (JETS, Science Olympiad, Robotics, Math, and Photography clubs, etc etc). A bit of a contrast to his sister. Not exactly what you'd expect from the son of a steelmaker . ..
As others have said, donating old tech to such organizations doesn't really help them. I spent the last year with AmeriCorps working on setting up after school computer labs. I worked with the local library, Boys and Girls Clubs, etc. In most cases, these organizations had closets full of old systems that they wanted to get rid of, but couldn't afford to because of the costs involved to dispose of them properly.
The kids I worked with also knew the difference between a "fast" computer, and a dinosaur - when you have at least one decent machine around, who's going to use the older machines? The kids will all queue up to use the "fast" machine.
If you think that they'd make good servers running various daemons - you're wrong unless you're willing to donate the time to admin the box. Non-profits are stretched thin as is - "good" tech people in non-profit are hard to find . ..
This seems to address the professional aspect pretty well, but not really the personal.
Granted, I'm 25 so using the cell to call my friends as we organize a trip to the bars or a round of golf is second nature. So, how do you handle these social things?
Do you have any data to support that high schools are teaching less novels than in the past? I know at my high school, the books read included:
To Kill a Mockingbird Animal Farm Catcher in the Rye A Separate Peace Lord of the Flies The Chocolate War The Chosen Bell Jar All Quiet on the Western Front Great Gatsby
Now, not all students read these, but while I was a long term sub for 2 months, these are the books I saw students reading (One of the english teachers said that he aims for 2 books a quarter.)
Note, that since we were limited to novels, I didn't include the Shakespeare I witnessed as well.
I don't think there's a decline in teaching novels, but in my view it's more of an attention span issue. Before the long term sub assignment, I subbed for an english teacher, and got a standard sub lesson plan - have the students spend the period reading Animal Farm. I personally think it's a great book, and I spent the periods that I was there re-reading the book, and thinking "Wow, this is so good, there are so many discussion topics you could have, so many ways that you can relate it to teens, the news, etc etc." The standard student response? "This is so dumb" and "It's so long!"
It's not that schools aren't doing novels anymore, it's that students are reading them anymore - anecdotal evidence of this is how many of the English teachers were giving students in class time to read, or reading the books aloud as a class, because the students tended not to read the books at home.
If you read the article, you would have realized that some of the newer cars require a wireless signal, in addition to the key, to start. While I hadn't heard of this, I'd imagine it's similar to keys with chips in them to prevent people from duplicating them . . . an electronic system working synergistically with the mechanical locking mechanism . . .
Umm . . . excuse me? Stop the problem at the source? If that were the case wouldn't we have eliminated the drug "epidemic" in the States?
Until you eliminate the demand, their will always be people trying to serve that demand . . . yes, this is better than spyware or mandating ISPs to regulate content, but it's not a solution . . . it's a stopgap measure . . .
The project website is here where it mentions the top score is 20,000 so far . . . that's a lot of city blocks to have run - even if you assume they maximized each power pellet (4*(200+400+800+1600)), that leaves 8000 points, and at 30 points per block, that's 266 blocks . . . I guess they beat the board a couple times?
Bleh, from the sounds of it, I'd guess it was your teachers who didn't really understand how to effectively use hands-on methods to teach. Lots of teachers out there currently think that if the students go through a guided activity (whether it be from a worksheet, computer program, whatever) the students are going to learn the underlying concepts.
Acitivities are best used to either introduce the concepts, and then lean into the more formal methods, or to show a real world example. I.e. having students measure the rise and the run of steps to visualize slope in a more concrete manner, and discussing the pitch of roofs isn't going to be enough for most students to generalize their knowledge of slope, but it's a great way of adding to their breadth of knowledge.
Heck, when I teach slope, one of the best tools I use to demonstrate that slope is a rate of change (laying the foundation for calculus) is by using a motion detector and the graphing calculator overhead. We plot position versus time, and I ask for volunteers to come and make the plot have an intercept of 3 meters, and a slope of -0.5 meters/second. This is a great way of driving home what positive and negative slope means, what the intercept is, etc etc.
Another thing, get rid of calculators in school, make kids learn how to do math rather than relying on a calculator.
While you didn't state exactly to what degree you meant this, do you really think it's a good idea? I teach high school math, and while I might decry the lack of mental math skills that many of the students have (i.e. not being able to multiply 50 * 50, or 16 divided by 2), I wouldn't say lose the calculator.
The question is whether you think a student is learning math, or if a student is learning critical thinking (not that the two are mutually exclusive.) I'd rather have a student who can setup a word problem into the relevant equations and punch the relevant keys on their calculator, rather than a trained monkey who can multiply a and b in their head.
At the other end of the spectrum, graphing calculators are an awesome classroom tool. Being able to graph a function near instantly, rather than calculating five or more y values for graphs, finding some graph paper, and then plotting the points lets one actually teach. Using the old paper and pencil method you'll be lucky to get one done in ten minutes the first time you're teaching it, and then if you want them to actually learn to plot it by hand, it'll take a good 3 days or so of class time before most of your class has grasped it.
With the graphing calculators, you can easily get into really looking at the graphs. You can even write simple programs to teach concepts such as slope (i.e. have the calculator draw a line and the student is prompted for the slope), intercepts, etc. This isn't even looking at how useful the calculators are for illustrating derivatives, integrals, rotational volumes, etc etc
Like I said, you didn't state exactly to what degree you'd like to eliminate the calculator, but that's a pretty extreme position . . .
Re:Three things about the mini...
on
iPod Mini Sells Out
·
· Score: 4, Informative
This thread over on DPReview talks about why the mini iPod drive doesn't work, as opposed to the muvo2 drive. Rumors are that newer Muvo's are using the same drive as the mini does now, so you can't stick them in a camera . . .
I think the reason that coins make the best 1 out of 2 decision makers is that they're nearly ubiquitous . . . almost anyone can flip a coin, just as well as almost anyone can pick heads or tails, and no matter what this study says, a coin seems fair, which is good enough for most.
I wonder how much collaboration really occurs? The article talks about how having three now lets them build a team, but I wonder if that means a team that collaborates and really works on projects together, or a team that divides up the tasks, and then it all comes together after everyone has done their part.
I imagine the builders generally build by themselves, so I wonder how a team-build would work . . .
I haven't read their 37 page PDF about how the robot works, but I did watch the video. If your argument is that the art is in the challenge, then I think the challenge aspect here is huge. Having time to mount the two stepper motors, calibrate the cable lengths (though this may be automated - the can was pulled to either side at the beginning of the video, maybe letting the robot figure out the length of the cables?), and have enough time for the robot to do it's thing seems rather challenging to me.
Not to mention before hand they'd have to get the image into a format they can use (again, I didn't read if the creaters have a program that can take any vector based graphic or what). Add in that to get beyond black and white (not even grey tones as the robot doesn't feather the paint or anything), you'd have to overlay multiple layers of color, the challenge goes up, and if you had to create a separate image for each layer and figure out how they'd overlay/interact, then I'd say the challenges are quite significant indeed.
Granted, most of this art is going to be more like logos since you can't do shading to achieve the familiar bubble letters you see, but I'd say it's still art . . .
The theater thing is a black eye, but man, did it have potential. The movie Traffic was set in Cinci, and supposedly the scenes where she's walking down the street to get some cocaine or what not were filmed on Vine. The part of Vine where the theater is located is the kind of street where you'll have cars crawling along, crowds on the sides of the street, and people yelling out "what you need? what you need?" as you drive on by. I've never had any one actually approach my vehicle with a bucket of dirty water and a rag, but that's the kind of feeling it has.
It's an area that could really use some development, besides the stores selling gold chains, caps, and clothing with wrought iron grates in their windows and doors. The theater was pitched as a venue that would start the revitalization process and bring more business to that part of town. (Sort of like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the new baseball stadium helped downtown Cleveland.)
Maybe I just bought into Brown's hype, but I really did think there was potential - the building is a classic old theater, that still has it's marquee outfront. I could have seen it becoming a nice concert venue - I think because of the large marquee outfront, I always envisoned it becoming something like the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago.
Of course, it could have ended up like Bogarts and Short Vine, but I'd say that's much better than the feeling one has driving down Vine . . .
You think the iPod is too big, and the mini is just right
4 gigs of music at 192 kbps gives you ~2 days of continuous music. (Calculated here.) That's enough to last a week or so, and with firewire transfer speeds, changing playlists isn't that big of a deal
You want the newest, coolest thing
You're an Apple fan-kid
I'm sure I've left off some potential reasons, but those are the ones that came to mind right away.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, I work for the state, so we're pretty tightly bonded to MS, as most large organizations are. I also work with non-profits, and they're largely bound to MS as well, mainly because there aren't many tech savvy people in non-profits. Though I think the Montana Legal Services Association uses a lot of open source I think they're using squirrel mail, some open source online time clock, and are talking about using Sunbird, the Mozilla calendar project (they don't run Exchange and they have no calendaring at the moment. . . )
I find it interesting how you state that you're working in a "small town law practice." I'm assuming the link to Smith Jewell is because that's where you work.
/.
Having relocated from Cincinnati, OH to Helena, MT at the end of July, I have a hard time accepting that Missoula is a small town. Still, it's definitely nice to see a fellow Montanan on
This thread is a bit outdated, but I thought I'd reply. The points you raise are generally valid, but that's why I mention the idea of a killer app of sorts. Maybe someone someday will come up with a way that computers can effectively be used. There are definite niches in which they can make things easier. Labview software in chem labs can make titrations much easier to execute, explain, and understand. And I've seen some excellent uses of Geometer's Sketchpad in the classroom as well. Same thing with graphing calculators.
And moving beyond the lecture model, computers offer tons of potential - distance learning, online classrooms, time-shifting of teaching, adaptive lessons, and perhaps other uses that aren't even dreamt of yet etc etc - but none of this is to the point yet where it's generally superior to established methods.
As for repetition being key to learning - I've got to disagree, since repetition doesn't usually help with true understanding, but instead encourage rote memorization - i.e. in calculus someone may be able to apply the power rule or the quotient rule, but that doesn't mean they understand a derivative, or why they're using the quotient rule. Technology can easily show a student this, leading to deeper understanding.
In my mind, it's attitudes like your post that make it harder for teachers to implement tech in the classroom - we need people who are experimenting and trying new things to make classrooms better . . . though perhaps the biggest change we need is to move away from our traditional teacher/student/lecture/classroom model and become more adaptive to students' needs in general . . .
While I agree in spirit with what you've said, it's worth noting that for computers to effectively be used in the classroom, we're asking a lot of our teachers. In my mind, for a school to justify using a computer in the classroom as a teaching aid, a teacher has to be comfortable with the tech, realize that a computer crashing isn't the end of the world, and then come up with innovative ways to use a computer, so it's not just a glorified blackboard. In my experience teaching, most schools (K-12) are still at the point where computers (and more tech oriented stuff in general) are just sort of gee-whiz devices, with lots of bells and whistles.
.
There's definitely still a lot of entrenched teachers who are thinking "Why bother?" when it comes to computers, as there may be relucatnace to learn something new, and also the benefits from bothering to learn it are slim to none - i.e. they've been teaching for 20 years, and it's worked so far, why switch now?
Part of me thinks it's going to take a killer app of sorts for computers to really take off as learning tools - classroom management you already see them being used (worksheets, networked grade programs, e-mail, etc), but as teaching devices, they're not quite there . .
Anyway, to get back to the original "hello world" example, teachers who can do that, are going to be more likely to take risks and experiment using the technology in the classroom, than the teacher who all they can do is use the internet and office apps. So, there is definitely some benefit to having teachers who are traditional hackers of sorts . . . though it's disappointing sometimes to realize how few teachers are like this . . .
Okay, so let's say my mother's hair catches fire. While I don't expect everyone to respond the same way, I'm not going to think because the odds somehow were against my mother that the cell company is suddenly evil. Would I hope that the company would do the right thing and cover any damages/medical? Sure.
The grandparent mentioned the odds are something like 1 out of 2 million. Would you prefer the cell companies re-engineer their batteries, perhaps resulting in bulkier or more expensive phones? At some point, the investment isn't worth the return . . . much like the scene in Fight Club where they're discussing that it's cheaper to deal with the defects than to do recalls . . .
Being a former Cinci resident, I was a bit curious about these guys, and google-stalked them . . .
.
Looks like they all went to St. Xavier, a pretty well respected (in both athletics and academics) prep school.
Here's a picture of Ben when he was a junior, winning a theater award for sound production.
Meng's got a website here that's a bit outdated, but considering the projects were from his junior year in high school, rather impressive. Seems he was a HAM radio guy.
Running out of time, the first link I found for Justin Rigling was this link. One more connection to the guy, since I use to work for AK Steel. The little blurb about the scholarship does make him sound like a stereotypical geek (JETS, Science Olympiad, Robotics, Math, and Photography clubs, etc etc). A bit of a contrast to his sister. Not exactly what you'd expect from the son of a steelmaker . .
Okay, enough being a stalker . . .
As others have said, donating old tech to such organizations doesn't really help them. I spent the last year with AmeriCorps working on setting up after school computer labs. I worked with the local library, Boys and Girls Clubs, etc. In most cases, these organizations had closets full of old systems that they wanted to get rid of, but couldn't afford to because of the costs involved to dispose of them properly.
.
The kids I worked with also knew the difference between a "fast" computer, and a dinosaur - when you have at least one decent machine around, who's going to use the older machines? The kids will all queue up to use the "fast" machine.
If you think that they'd make good servers running various daemons - you're wrong unless you're willing to donate the time to admin the box. Non-profits are stretched thin as is - "good" tech people in non-profit are hard to find . .
This seems to address the professional aspect pretty well, but not really the personal.
Granted, I'm 25 so using the cell to call my friends as we organize a trip to the bars or a round of golf is second nature. So, how do you handle these social things?
Do you have any data to support that high schools are teaching less novels than in the past? I know at my high school, the books read included:
To Kill a Mockingbird
Animal Farm
Catcher in the Rye
A Separate Peace
Lord of the Flies
The Chocolate War
The Chosen
Bell Jar
All Quiet on the Western Front
Great Gatsby
Now, not all students read these, but while I was a long term sub for 2 months, these are the books I saw students reading (One of the english teachers said that he aims for 2 books a quarter.)
Note, that since we were limited to novels, I didn't include the Shakespeare I witnessed as well.
I don't think there's a decline in teaching novels, but in my view it's more of an attention span issue. Before the long term sub assignment, I subbed for an english teacher, and got a standard sub lesson plan - have the students spend the period reading Animal Farm. I personally think it's a great book, and I spent the periods that I was there re-reading the book, and thinking "Wow, this is so good, there are so many discussion topics you could have, so many ways that you can relate it to teens, the news, etc etc." The standard student response? "This is so dumb" and "It's so long!"
It's not that schools aren't doing novels anymore, it's that students are reading them anymore - anecdotal evidence of this is how many of the English teachers were giving students in class time to read, or reading the books aloud as a class, because the students tended not to read the books at home.
If you read the article, you would have realized that some of the newer cars require a wireless signal, in addition to the key, to start. While I hadn't heard of this, I'd imagine it's similar to keys with chips in them to prevent people from duplicating them . . . an electronic system working synergistically with the mechanical locking mechanism . . .
Umm . . . excuse me? Stop the problem at the source? If that were the case wouldn't we have eliminated the drug "epidemic" in the States?
Until you eliminate the demand, their will always be people trying to serve that demand . . . yes, this is better than spyware or mandating ISPs to regulate content, but it's not a solution . . . it's a stopgap measure . . .
This extension will fix that little issue . . .
he said RTFM, not RTFA . . .
no, that's your Rice Krispies . . . but you forgot the snap ;)
Electric assist bikes or add-on's aren't uncommon.
Google for more if you're interested . . .
The project website is here where it mentions the top score is 20,000 so far . . . that's a lot of city blocks to have run - even if you assume they maximized each power pellet (4*(200+400+800+1600)), that leaves 8000 points, and at 30 points per block, that's 266 blocks . . . I guess they beat the board a couple times?
Bleh, from the sounds of it, I'd guess it was your teachers who didn't really understand how to effectively use hands-on methods to teach. Lots of teachers out there currently think that if the students go through a guided activity (whether it be from a worksheet, computer program, whatever) the students are going to learn the underlying concepts.
Acitivities are best used to either introduce the concepts, and then lean into the more formal methods, or to show a real world example. I.e. having students measure the rise and the run of steps to visualize slope in a more concrete manner, and discussing the pitch of roofs isn't going to be enough for most students to generalize their knowledge of slope, but it's a great way of adding to their breadth of knowledge.
Heck, when I teach slope, one of the best tools I use to demonstrate that slope is a rate of change (laying the foundation for calculus) is by using a motion detector and the graphing calculator overhead. We plot position versus time, and I ask for volunteers to come and make the plot have an intercept of 3 meters, and a slope of -0.5 meters/second. This is a great way of driving home what positive and negative slope means, what the intercept is, etc etc.
While you didn't state exactly to what degree you meant this, do you really think it's a good idea? I teach high school math, and while I might decry the lack of mental math skills that many of the students have (i.e. not being able to multiply 50 * 50, or 16 divided by 2), I wouldn't say lose the calculator.
The question is whether you think a student is learning math, or if a student is learning critical thinking (not that the two are mutually exclusive.) I'd rather have a student who can setup a word problem into the relevant equations and punch the relevant keys on their calculator, rather than a trained monkey who can multiply a and b in their head.
At the other end of the spectrum, graphing calculators are an awesome classroom tool. Being able to graph a function near instantly, rather than calculating five or more y values for graphs, finding some graph paper, and then plotting the points lets one actually teach. Using the old paper and pencil method you'll be lucky to get one done in ten minutes the first time you're teaching it, and then if you want them to actually learn to plot it by hand, it'll take a good 3 days or so of class time before most of your class has grasped it.
With the graphing calculators, you can easily get into really looking at the graphs. You can even write simple programs to teach concepts such as slope (i.e. have the calculator draw a line and the student is prompted for the slope), intercepts, etc. This isn't even looking at how useful the calculators are for illustrating derivatives, integrals, rotational volumes, etc etc
Like I said, you didn't state exactly to what degree you'd like to eliminate the calculator, but that's a pretty extreme position . . .
This thread over on DPReview talks about why the mini iPod drive doesn't work, as opposed to the muvo2 drive. Rumors are that newer Muvo's are using the same drive as the mini does now, so you can't stick them in a camera . . .
I think the reason that coins make the best 1 out of 2 decision makers is that they're nearly ubiquitous . . . almost anyone can flip a coin, just as well as almost anyone can pick heads or tails, and no matter what this study says, a coin seems fair, which is good enough for most.
hmm, are you suggesting that all I have to do is flip a coin and get tails to disprove the existence of gravity? :P
I wonder how much collaboration really occurs? The article talks about how having three now lets them build a team, but I wonder if that means a team that collaborates and really works on projects together, or a team that divides up the tasks, and then it all comes together after everyone has done their part.
I imagine the builders generally build by themselves, so I wonder how a team-build would work . . .
I haven't read their 37 page PDF about how the robot works, but I did watch the video. If your argument is that the art is in the challenge, then I think the challenge aspect here is huge. Having time to mount the two stepper motors, calibrate the cable lengths (though this may be automated - the can was pulled to either side at the beginning of the video, maybe letting the robot figure out the length of the cables?), and have enough time for the robot to do it's thing seems rather challenging to me.
Not to mention before hand they'd have to get the image into a format they can use (again, I didn't read if the creaters have a program that can take any vector based graphic or what). Add in that to get beyond black and white (not even grey tones as the robot doesn't feather the paint or anything), you'd have to overlay multiple layers of color, the challenge goes up, and if you had to create a separate image for each layer and figure out how they'd overlay/interact, then I'd say the challenges are quite significant indeed.
Granted, most of this art is going to be more like logos since you can't do shading to achieve the familiar bubble letters you see, but I'd say it's still art . . .
The theater thing is a black eye, but man, did it have potential. The movie Traffic was set in Cinci, and supposedly the scenes where she's walking down the street to get some cocaine or what not were filmed on Vine. The part of Vine where the theater is located is the kind of street where you'll have cars crawling along, crowds on the sides of the street, and people yelling out "what you need? what you need?" as you drive on by. I've never had any one actually approach my vehicle with a bucket of dirty water and a rag, but that's the kind of feeling it has.
It's an area that could really use some development, besides the stores selling gold chains, caps, and clothing with wrought iron grates in their windows and doors. The theater was pitched as a venue that would start the revitalization process and bring more business to that part of town. (Sort of like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the new baseball stadium helped downtown Cleveland.)
Maybe I just bought into Brown's hype, but I really did think there was potential - the building is a classic old theater, that still has it's marquee outfront. I could have seen it becoming a nice concert venue - I think because of the large marquee outfront, I always envisoned it becoming something like the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago.
Of course, it could have ended up like Bogarts and Short Vine, but I'd say that's much better than the feeling one has driving down Vine . . .
- You think the iPod is too big, and the mini is just right
- 4 gigs of music at 192 kbps gives you ~2 days of continuous music. (Calculated here.) That's enough to last a week or so, and with firewire transfer speeds, changing playlists isn't that big of a deal
- You want the newest, coolest thing
- You're an Apple fan-kid
I'm sure I've left off some potential reasons, but those are the ones that came to mind right away.