The ME plan *does* include a significant sum for teacher education on computers and how to integrate them for classroom use. The laptop program won't be starting up until 2002, so they'll have 2 years to hopefully get the teachers trained up to an appropriate level.
If you haven't already, check out the Open Directory Project at www.dmoz.org. It's like Yahoo!, only fluff-free, and volunteer-edited, so it's about as up-to-date as such things get. Because it is volunteer-edited, it tends to be spotty -- some areas are really well done and thorough, others not so much so. Overall, I find it meets my needs better than anywhere else does. And, in the grand tradition of open source, if I look for something and can't find it there, if I find it elsewhere, I can add it into the directory, so no one else has to suffer from the lack.
As a computerless person, forced to surf from public terminals and thus unable to use bookmark files, I can definitely see the use of personalized portals. I have made myself a bookmarks page online with links to some pages I like that are difficult to find/type/remember so that I can access them easily (most URLs I just memorize & type in manually). I can't stand commercial portals, and generally don't use them myself, but I can imagine other people in a position like mine using them in the same way I use my bookmarks page.
[Darn! It was looking for a while there like I would actually have a chance at making an original comment.]
Even though you could quibble that the details of "Pi" weren't purely technically accurate, it still suceeded in making programming seem exciting without devolving into stupidity.
I thought "Pi" was an incredible testament to the captivating beauty of mathematics, though I was rather irked by the person leaving the movie theater in front of me, whose response to it was "That's why I'll never take mathematics." Grrr! I didn't hear anyone use "Basquiat" as an excuse for not taking up painting, nor would anyone exit a film about Poe swearing that they'd never take up poetry.
I became completely infatuated with Illuminati after a friend taught me to play on his copy of the original tabletop game. My local games shop had packages of 12 INWO starter decks for sale for $10, so I decided to try the newer game on the reputation of the old.
The CCG drove me crazy! The original Illuminati was complicated enough -- it takes new players forever to learn the rules. A friend and I, both familiar with the original game's rules, spent an entire evening trying to learn INWO, and failed miserably.
I think what is important isn't getting a 'geek girl,' necessarily, but getting a woman who has a measure of intellectual curiousity. Having a girlfriend who understands perfectly everything you say about your geekly pursuits isn't the most important thing. Even if she doesn't know better than to freak out at a Javascript error, if she's willing to learn, or at least to understand your obsession with computers without sharing it, that sounds like someone worth dating. I don't mind if people don't understand the subjects I'm interested in, or understand them enough to know that's not where their interests lie, but I can't stand people who just don't care about intellectual pursuits. If you're the kind of person who gets really excited about ideas, it can be excruciating to try and share your life with someone who doesn't care about the life of the mind.
Of course, I'm not a geek guy, so I suppose I can't really speak for them, but I know that's what I want out of a boyfriend.
My theatre, unfortunately, had a large number of semi-rowdy teenagers, who annoyed the h*ck out of me by shouting out how lame they thought the movie had been while I was sitting, quietly stunned, through the credits.
The Blair Witch Project, was, however, the only movie I can remember which has inspired me to strike up a long, in-depth conversation with the stranger in the seat next to me. I can't say it was a great movie, but it left me with a lot to talk and think about.
I think another problem is that we don't get well-rounded views of people - we're all in our little niches here on the net. We can discuss geek stuff here, digital video on my digital video forum, etc, but there's no place where we can get together as people.
That's one problem I have with Net socializing. If you try to meet people in forums that aren't topic-specific, you usually end up in unintelligent, boring conversations that don't go much of anywhere. I have fairly good luck socializing enjoyably on topic-specific forums, but there, you can only talk about a few limited subjects without getting yelled at for being Off Topic. Neither system seems particularly conducive to meeting and chatting.
I agree. We do have to create our own myths; I think it's very important that we learn to do this instead of accepting the ones other people try to feed us. I voted Deserved because I think the Star Wars hype is different from most movie hype in the sense that it's a myth that we really *did* create. I don't like movie advertisers telling me what I should be excited about, and it does make me a little sick to go to the store and see Phantom Menace characters plastered over every product. That kind of hype does piss me off, just as did the hype for Godzilla, Stargate, Independence Day, et cetera, ad nausem. Star Wars is different, though, because, unlike those movies, there's real, grassroots excitement for the movie as well as the corporate-produced hubbub. Years after the original Star Wars trilogy was released, and years before anyone thought that a second trilogy was a possibility for the near future, lots of people still loved Star Wars, not because a marketing campaign suggested that we should, but because we wanted to. The excitement that flowed through the people standing with me in the hour-long line for tickets last Wednesday was something that we had created in ourselves and in each other, something we could really enjoy as our own, regardless or even in spite of the corporate-imposed hype for the movie.
Like you say, there are so few things that can draw our society together today with any sincerity of emotion. Star Wars itself isn't, and shouldn't be seen as anything more than something fun and lighthearted, but that's a really important role for it to fill. I think it's wonderful that people around the country and around the world can get together for a couple of hours and enjoy themselves, sincerely and communally. With all the problems nationalist and religious fanaticism create today, it's good to know we still have the capability to get excited about something that is harmless.
Last fall I visited the Computer Museum in Boston , whose gift store had a wide variety of items made from old circuit boards -- binders, notebooks, planners . . . I think they even had a breifcase. I bought a gorgeous pair of earrings there made from chip frames.
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The ME plan *does* include a significant sum for teacher education on computers and how to integrate them for classroom use. The laptop program won't be starting up until 2002, so they'll have 2 years to hopefully get the teachers trained up to an appropriate level.
If you haven't already, check out the Open Directory Project at www.dmoz.org. It's like Yahoo!, only fluff-free, and volunteer-edited, so it's about as up-to-date as such things get. Because it is volunteer-edited, it tends to be spotty -- some areas are really well done and thorough, others not so much so. Overall, I find it meets my needs better than anywhere else does. And, in the grand tradition of open source, if I look for something and can't find it there, if I find it elsewhere, I can add it into the directory, so no one else has to suffer from the lack.
As a computerless person, forced to surf from public terminals and thus unable to use bookmark files, I can definitely see the use of personalized portals. I have made myself a bookmarks page online with links to some pages I like that are difficult to find/type/remember so that I can access them easily (most URLs I just memorize & type in manually). I can't stand commercial portals, and generally don't use them myself, but I can imagine other people in a position like mine using them in the same way I use my bookmarks page.
[Darn! It was looking for a while there like I would actually have a chance at making an original comment.]
Even though you could quibble that the details of "Pi" weren't purely technically accurate, it still suceeded in making programming seem exciting without devolving into stupidity.
I thought "Pi" was an incredible testament to the captivating beauty of mathematics, though I was rather irked by the person leaving the movie theater in front of me, whose response to it was "That's why I'll never take mathematics." Grrr! I didn't hear anyone use "Basquiat" as an excuse for not taking up painting, nor would anyone exit a film about Poe swearing that they'd never take up poetry.
I became completely infatuated with Illuminati after a friend taught me to play on his copy of the original tabletop game. My local games shop had packages of 12 INWO starter decks for sale for $10, so I decided to try the newer game on the reputation of the old.
The CCG drove me crazy! The original Illuminati was complicated enough -- it takes new players forever to learn the rules. A friend and I, both familiar with the original game's rules, spent an entire evening trying to learn INWO, and failed miserably.
Of course, I'm not a geek guy, so I suppose I can't really speak for them, but I know that's what I want out of a boyfriend.
My theatre, unfortunately, had a large number of semi-rowdy teenagers, who annoyed the h*ck out of me by shouting out how lame they thought the movie had been while I was sitting, quietly stunned, through the credits.
The Blair Witch Project, was, however, the only movie I can remember which has inspired me to strike up a long, in-depth conversation with the stranger in the seat next to me. I can't say it was a great movie, but it left me with a lot to talk and think about.
That's one problem I have with Net socializing. If you try to meet people in forums that aren't topic-specific, you usually end up in unintelligent, boring conversations that don't go much of anywhere. I have fairly good luck socializing enjoyably on topic-specific forums, but there, you can only talk about a few limited subjects without getting yelled at for being Off Topic. Neither system seems particularly conducive to meeting and chatting.
I agree. We do have to create our own myths; I think it's very important that we learn to do this instead of accepting the ones other people try to feed us. I voted Deserved because I think the Star Wars hype is different from most movie hype in the sense that it's a myth that we really *did* create. I don't like movie advertisers telling me what I should be excited about, and it does make me a little sick to go to the store and see Phantom Menace characters plastered over every product. That kind of hype does piss me off, just as did the hype for Godzilla, Stargate, Independence Day, et cetera, ad nausem. Star Wars is different, though, because, unlike those movies, there's real, grassroots excitement for the movie as well as the corporate-produced hubbub. Years after the original Star Wars trilogy was released, and years before anyone thought that a second trilogy was a possibility for the near future, lots of people still loved Star Wars, not because a marketing campaign suggested that we should, but because we wanted to. The excitement that flowed through the people standing with me in the hour-long line for tickets last Wednesday was something that we had created in ourselves and in each other, something we could really enjoy as our own, regardless or even in spite of the corporate-imposed hype for the movie.
Like you say, there are so few things that can draw our society together today with any sincerity of emotion. Star Wars itself isn't, and shouldn't be seen as anything more than something fun and lighthearted, but that's a really important role for it to fill. I think it's wonderful that people around the country and around the world can get together for a couple of hours and enjoy themselves, sincerely and communally. With all the problems nationalist and religious fanaticism create today, it's good to know we still have the capability to get excited about something that is harmless.
Last fall I visited the Computer Museum in Boston , whose gift store had a wide variety of items made from old circuit boards -- binders, notebooks, planners . . . I think they even had a breifcase. I bought a gorgeous pair of earrings there made from chip frames.