In case you didn't know, SAT's are only one of MANY things used to determine who gets into college. Race for instance is far more important.
Race???? How did this not get modded as a troll, or at least funny. Race almost never figures into admissions, even before the repeal of the ridiculous affirmative action BS. SAT's can be quite important. I had some pretty good SAT scores coupled with a mediocre GPA (~50th percentile for my high school, IIRC - it was like six or seven years ago) and got into every school I applied for (some of them pretty competitive, but admittedly not Harvard, Princeton, Stanford or the like). Oh, and I'm white, by the way, so I'm pretty sure my race didn't get me in (although in California you never can tell).
You are supposed to learn English through highschool as well, if you want to get a 1500+ on your SATs. This is exactly why students get such low SAT scores in urban public schools, they dont get a focused education, when its time to take tests the test does not care how creative you are or even how intelligent you are, the only thing that matters to the SAT test is your technical knowledge.
I disagree with this. The way to get good verbal scores on SAT tests and the like is to read a lot of books throughout your life. Very little of the score comes from what you learn directly in school (at least, thats how it was for me). And offhand I would say students in urban environments get much more focused instruction than others, as it is the simple technical parts of English that are really the easiest to teach, and so this is generally the focus in less well-funded schools (which I presume is what was meant by urban public schools). The best way to teach english, now and always, is to get people to read quality literature - or even sub-par literature, if the students can recognize it as such. Teach them all the grammar rules and word definitions you want, if students don't read they won't be able to write well.
There are facts that suggest that in some cases, broadband may actually *decrease* productivity. What is the general concensus here?
Who caes if it increases or decreases productivity? Most people are concerned with broadband at home, and most of us could care less about how productive broadband is - it is largely an entertainment medium, at least for most broadband users I know. Whether broadband at work increases productivity depends entirely on what kind of business you are in, and what you are trying to use it for. Though I can't really think of any situation where it would actually be preferable to have a slower internet connection, disregarding cost issues.
I have mixed feelings about this. Sure, it would be great to have it come preinstalled but then you run into a bunch of questions:
KDE, Gnome, just X, nothing?
Mozilla, Konq?
OpenOffice, KOffice?
All of the above or nothing?
Because of the fact that there are so many choices, it would be hard to find just the right install without installing everything. Of course, supporting multiple configurations would make the script for troubleshooting huge.
I'm not sure this is such a big concern. Look at all the random crap they stick on computers that do ship with Windows preinstalled, it isn't like consumers had a choice with that either. I'd say this is really just bare-minimum support from HP. More to generate some good press with knowledgable computer types (something that I would say HP has seriously been lacking in - who actually tells their friends/coworkers to get an HP rather than a Dell). There being too many options of how a Linux system can be setup is not the reason that they are not preloading linux.
I also postulated that Arnold Schwarzenegger was refusing to be in the California debates to distance himself from the pack of other contenders, and raise his importance/stature above that of the masses.
Completely off topic, but I believe he has agreed to do one on September 24th (it was scheduled for the 17th, but just changed).
I bet it was the same thing with automatic transmission at first. A car changing gears on it's own, many of the people who were only used to manual probably didn't particularly want to make the switch. Some will switch, but the vast majority of the transition depends on time.
And then they will wake up and realize that automatics suck, and switch back to manual becaue they are more efficient (although this may become less true w/ improvements in CVT), offer superior performance (again not so true now as it once was, but in typical consumer cars it definitely is), are more fun, and are cheaper. Automatics are for old people:)
Parking assistance is another one of those things that just isn't necessary, or even particularly desirable, but which may become difficult to avoid in the future. Any word on how long it took for the Prius to park? And why, for dog's sake, put it in a prius? Put it in one of the SUVs, then maybe it will do some good.
Yeah, pretty soon it will be tough to tell if you're in the military or a software developer (if you develop software for the military I guess you're just screwed).
Same problem in the U.S., though I somehow doubt that most foreign countries allow us to export Bud or Coors, as it would probably be seen as an act of war. There are hundreds (probably thousands, but I don't drink that much beer) of great micro and mid-size breweries, probably few if any of which export to foreign countries (okay, maybe to Canada, but I mean foreign countries, not just other countries).
I'm not sure why anyone would want to hire Americans, since our cost of living has shot way beyond anything like a reasonable level. You give someone a $100k salary, and in California he can pretty much just make ends meet and maybe buy a few gadgets.
Okay, this is just gross overstatement. Even in high-cost areas around S.F. and San Jose, 100K is plenty for a comfortable living. Sure, it will be tough to afford that new house, but thats how it is for everyone. Throughout the vast majority of California, you could live very comfortably on 100K. Anyone who would even think about complaining that a hundred thousand a year is a bare minimum to survive on, even in the most expensive state in the union, needs some serious lessons in monetary responsibility. I have lived in California all my life, and I know practically no one that makes even close to a hundred grand, yet most of them live quite happily with houses and kids and cars and everything. Now, cut that number in half, and you might be correct. But you can live comfortably in any city in California for a hundred grand a year.
Because there are already too many professional games companies making games for the market to support - it is not in anybodies interest in the market for amateurs to flood the market with sub-standard crap.
Yeah, leave that to the professionals! Seriously, I've had a PS2 for a year and a half or two years now, and there are only four games for it that I have played with any regularity (I think I own five). Looking at the offerings for the other consoles it looks about the same - three or four games for each that I might actually want to play. Despite their rigorous quality controls, there is still 99% crap out there for the consoles, just crap for different reasons (i.e., not usually buggy, just totally uninteresting).
You might want to check out Chronic Logic. Specifically, Pontifex and/or Pontifex II. Pretty cool games, simple in concept (build a bridge that crosses the river) but some of the levels take a lot of thought to complete. Same guys that did the freeware (or was it shareware?) Bridge Builder a while back. Check them out, I think there is a demo available for both Pontifex and Pontifex II.
Just a little more on the subject of manuals - they can be great for tying games into the real world. Take, for instance, the manuals for Aces of the Pacific and Aces over Europe (two great WWII flight sims made by Dynamix, for the youngsters in the audience). In addition to the controls, etc., they included extensive information about the vehicles and many interesting historical facts and factoids. You didn't just learn how to play the game, you learned actual, true, historical information that both made the game a little more interesting and was even a little educational.
Give me Robosport, or give me death! Not really, it wasn't that good, but still, a unique game that was a lot of fun (especially when you consider that it came from a company that has otherwise only produced a series of Sim this and Sim that and Sim everything else).
Basically, some of us like having a manual. We enjoy reading about arcane rules while sitting on the toilet, planning what we are going to do next time we play. There is just no replacement for a book in your hands - something that we are losing with the change to smaller boxes (what was the resoning for that? To save shelf space? Whatever. Whatever cost savings this was supposed to realize certainly haven't been passed on to us consumers). Hell, back in the day even Wing COmmander came with a big 'ole book - a couple fo them in fact. One instructions, and one that was supposed to be the ship's magazine that really helped to put you in the world. It was great. Strike Commander too - anyone else remember the "ghul-ghul" story from the Strike Commander booklet? (Damn, I miss Origin. Just one more reason to hate EA.) It wasn't just about instructions on how to do things in the game, they often used to contain lots of fun material that helped to get you into the game. It used to be exciting to open game boxes and see what was inside - now, you just find a CD or two, and maybe a few ads, and anything else is just in documents on the disc. No fun at all.
I remember being a kid and picking up Simcity for the SNES and I got right into it. It was easy but that didn't mean it wasn't interesting.
I think I found your problem right there... Sim City on the SNES? You heretic! The PC is the proper forum for city building. (yes, I'm kidding. But I also disagree with you - SimCity 4 is really not much more complex if at all than the original. Not as much fun though, or else I am just getting tired of the whole idea.).
The people who play FPS games are usually not the same group of people who play RPGs (the pen and paper type) and people often forget that.
In my experience, this isn't really true. Most of the people I have famed with over the years have enjoyed a wide variety of games. Some of the same people I played D&D (and others) with way back in high school and before still get together online to play BF1942, Unreal Tournament (though not in a while - BF is pretty damn fun) and once in a great while Neverwinter Nights or even Diablo II. One fo the guys and I used to play Warcraft II over modem against each other after school back in the day. So, basically, in my experience gamers usually enjoy a wide variety of games. I don't think I know anybody who really sticks to just one kind of game.
Perhaps they should target the more advanced games to the online majority more and they will get the attention of the more tech savy people who only play good games and not Mario Kart.
Hey, quit bashing Mario Kart. I've been playing games for years, and still do a lot, almost exclusively on PC (I have a PS2, but you can only play so much GT3 before even that great game gets old...). Anyway, I just have to say that Mario Kart 64 is one of the greatest multiplayer games ever created. There is no other game that I have encountered that allows people of widely varying skill levels to play together and still have a hell of a good time. Sure, the more skilled usually win (as it should be), but even a novice has a pretty fair chance of doing well, and, most importantly, they can have a lot of fun even losing. Compare that to, say, Quake (or any other FPS) or Starcraft, where it really isn't much fun if the people playing are at widely varying skill levels. Mario Kart is an awesome game, I spent many a night playing four player Mario Kart during college with people who, like me, also played all of the latest FPSs, RPGs, strategy games, etc. Just because it is a simple game does not make it a bad game. Likewise, there are many times when I want a little more depth, and at those times I go play the Civilizations or MOOs or Patricians or Omega Tank (is that what that game was called? The one where you write scripts for your tank to follow? Pretty old, but that was cool. Too bad nothing like that is around these days).
Were they at fault for 9/11 as well? It's getting old guys.
Of course they were at fault. Didn't you read about all the terrorists learning to fly on MS Flight Simulator? You used to actually be able to crash into buildings in that game, which gave the terrorists essential training. Fortunately MS has been forced to make it so that when you hit a building you automatically restart, so now those evil terrorist types won't know what will happen when they hit a building, making future attacks much les likely. Or something like that.
Interestingly, on the chart for California it shows current load outstripping the on-line capacity, apparently with no adverse effects, while on the New York graph the load never reaches the on-line capacity. And damn, those Texans use a lot of power.
That one was caused by forest fires damaging high capacity lines, I believe in northern California. At least, thats what I remember.
Re:Interesting technology
on
NASA's Sensor Web
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Yet another new development from NASA that could have a huge impact on daily life. If these devices were strategically located worldwide it seems like much more accurate weather pattern predictions could be made. Low cost weather stations that can communicate back to a central node could automatigically predict and track weather patterns around the globe.
We can already track weather patterns all over the planet. The trouble is that this does not really solve the problem of predicting what will happen in the future - there are simply too many unkown factors affecting weather patterns for us to understand how and why they do what they do at this point. This isn't to say that a worldwide network of these semsors wouldn't be helpful, I just don't think they would solve the problems we have - satellites already give us a lot of worldwide data, but our weather forecasts beyond a few days out are still pretty unreliable (and often over much shorter time periods). If we want better weather forecasting we need to put more effort into figuring out all the factors that affect weather, which will probably require huge leaps in processing power over what is currently available - many of the world's most powerful supercomputers are already used for atmospheric modelling.
HAM radio is not only a hobby, but in my line of work it's a critical life-support resource, more so than any other technology we use (except maybe a flashlight). Tell the thousands of people whose lives have been saved through S&R or any of the other emergency situations that depend on HAM capabilities that it's not really a necessity.
I have to second this. On a class camping trip a few years back we were at a hike-in campground along the coast in a remote part of California (yes, there are still some remote parts of California). One morning while boiling water for some coffee one of the guys on the trip accidentally overturned the pot, drenching himself with boiling water. Needles to say, he received some extremely bad burns from this. We were out of cell range, no phones within 15-20 miles, and no vehicles with us. The scope of the burns was way beyond anything we could treat with the first aid equipment we had on hand. Fortunately, one of the people on the trip was an amateur HAM radio operator and had brought his portable equipment along. Unable to contact anyone nearby, he was able to contact an operator in Hawaii, who then called the police and rescue people in our vicinity, who were then able to send a truck to pick him up in just over an hour. The HAM radio probably saved this guy's life - though yes, if we had had a satellite phone along it might have done the trick (but then it might not have - after using GPS, which tends to be extremely fickle in wooded areas, I'm not at all certain that it would have worked anyway). HAM provides a long-range method of communications that we really don't have a higher-tech replacement for at this point.
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Race???? How did this not get modded as a troll, or at least funny. Race almost never figures into admissions, even before the repeal of the ridiculous affirmative action BS. SAT's can be quite important. I had some pretty good SAT scores coupled with a mediocre GPA (~50th percentile for my high school, IIRC - it was like six or seven years ago) and got into every school I applied for (some of them pretty competitive, but admittedly not Harvard, Princeton, Stanford or the like). Oh, and I'm white, by the way, so I'm pretty sure my race didn't get me in (although in California you never can tell).
I disagree with this. The way to get good verbal scores on SAT tests and the like is to read a lot of books throughout your life. Very little of the score comes from what you learn directly in school (at least, thats how it was for me). And offhand I would say students in urban environments get much more focused instruction than others, as it is the simple technical parts of English that are really the easiest to teach, and so this is generally the focus in less well-funded schools (which I presume is what was meant by urban public schools). The best way to teach english, now and always, is to get people to read quality literature - or even sub-par literature, if the students can recognize it as such. Teach them all the grammar rules and word definitions you want, if students don't read they won't be able to write well.
Who caes if it increases or decreases productivity? Most people are concerned with broadband at home, and most of us could care less about how productive broadband is - it is largely an entertainment medium, at least for most broadband users I know. Whether broadband at work increases productivity depends entirely on what kind of business you are in, and what you are trying to use it for. Though I can't really think of any situation where it would actually be preferable to have a slower internet connection, disregarding cost issues.
KDE, Gnome, just X, nothing?
Mozilla, Konq?
OpenOffice, KOffice?
All of the above or nothing?
Because of the fact that there are so many choices, it would be hard to find just the right install without installing everything. Of course, supporting multiple configurations would make the script for troubleshooting huge.
I'm not sure this is such a big concern. Look at all the random crap they stick on computers that do ship with Windows preinstalled, it isn't like consumers had a choice with that either. I'd say this is really just bare-minimum support from HP. More to generate some good press with knowledgable computer types (something that I would say HP has seriously been lacking in - who actually tells their friends/coworkers to get an HP rather than a Dell). There being too many options of how a Linux system can be setup is not the reason that they are not preloading linux.
Completely off topic, but I believe he has agreed to do one on September 24th (it was scheduled for the 17th, but just changed).
And then they will wake up and realize that automatics suck, and switch back to manual becaue they are more efficient (although this may become less true w/ improvements in CVT), offer superior performance (again not so true now as it once was, but in typical consumer cars it definitely is), are more fun, and are cheaper. Automatics are for old people
Parking assistance is another one of those things that just isn't necessary, or even particularly desirable, but which may become difficult to avoid in the future. Any word on how long it took for the Prius to park? And why, for dog's sake, put it in a prius? Put it in one of the SUVs, then maybe it will do some good.
Yeah, pretty soon it will be tough to tell if you're in the military or a software developer (if you develop software for the military I guess you're just screwed).
Same problem in the U.S., though I somehow doubt that most foreign countries allow us to export Bud or Coors, as it would probably be seen as an act of war. There are hundreds (probably thousands, but I don't drink that much beer) of great micro and mid-size breweries, probably few if any of which export to foreign countries (okay, maybe to Canada, but I mean foreign countries, not just other countries).
Okay, this is just gross overstatement. Even in high-cost areas around S.F. and San Jose, 100K is plenty for a comfortable living. Sure, it will be tough to afford that new house, but thats how it is for everyone. Throughout the vast majority of California, you could live very comfortably on 100K. Anyone who would even think about complaining that a hundred thousand a year is a bare minimum to survive on, even in the most expensive state in the union, needs some serious lessons in monetary responsibility. I have lived in California all my life, and I know practically no one that makes even close to a hundred grand, yet most of them live quite happily with houses and kids and cars and everything.
Now, cut that number in half, and you might be correct. But you can live comfortably in any city in California for a hundred grand a year.
Yeah, leave that to the professionals! Seriously, I've had a PS2 for a year and a half or two years now, and there are only four games for it that I have played with any regularity (I think I own five). Looking at the offerings for the other consoles it looks about the same - three or four games for each that I might actually want to play. Despite their rigorous quality controls, there is still 99% crap out there for the consoles, just crap for different reasons (i.e., not usually buggy, just totally uninteresting).
Ah yes, the classic Geek problem: Robovacuum or French Maid, Robovacuum or French maid...
Fortunately, I already have a girlfriend, so I guess I won't be needing that robovacuum.
(Only one slashdot reader was seriously injured due to the posting of this comment)
No, but those new Diamond Athlons will probably require some zirconium cladding for the fuel rods in the power supply.
You might want to check out Chronic Logic. Specifically, Pontifex and/or Pontifex II. Pretty cool games, simple in concept (build a bridge that crosses the river) but some of the levels take a lot of thought to complete. Same guys that did the freeware (or was it shareware?) Bridge Builder a while back. Check them out, I think there is a demo available for both Pontifex and Pontifex II.
Just a little more on the subject of manuals - they can be great for tying games into the real world. Take, for instance, the manuals for Aces of the Pacific and Aces over Europe (two great WWII flight sims made by Dynamix, for the youngsters in the audience). In addition to the controls, etc., they included extensive information about the vehicles and many interesting historical facts and factoids. You didn't just learn how to play the game, you learned actual, true, historical information that both made the game a little more interesting and was even a little educational.
Give me Robosport, or give me death! Not really, it wasn't that good, but still, a unique game that was a lot of fun (especially when you consider that it came from a company that has otherwise only produced a series of Sim this and Sim that and Sim everything else).
Basically, some of us like having a manual. We enjoy reading about arcane rules while sitting on the toilet, planning what we are going to do next time we play. There is just no replacement for a book in your hands - something that we are losing with the change to smaller boxes (what was the resoning for that? To save shelf space? Whatever. Whatever cost savings this was supposed to realize certainly haven't been passed on to us consumers). Hell, back in the day even Wing COmmander came with a big 'ole book - a couple fo them in fact. One instructions, and one that was supposed to be the ship's magazine that really helped to put you in the world. It was great. Strike Commander too - anyone else remember the "ghul-ghul" story from the Strike Commander booklet? (Damn, I miss Origin. Just one more reason to hate EA.) It wasn't just about instructions on how to do things in the game, they often used to contain lots of fun material that helped to get you into the game. It used to be exciting to open game boxes and see what was inside - now, you just find a CD or two, and maybe a few ads, and anything else is just in documents on the disc. No fun at all.
I think I found your problem right there... Sim City on the SNES? You heretic! The PC is the proper forum for city building. (yes, I'm kidding. But I also disagree with you - SimCity 4 is really not much more complex if at all than the original. Not as much fun though, or else I am just getting tired of the whole idea.).
In my experience, this isn't really true. Most of the people I have famed with over the years have enjoyed a wide variety of games. Some of the same people I played D&D (and others) with way back in high school and before still get together online to play BF1942, Unreal Tournament (though not in a while - BF is pretty damn fun) and once in a great while Neverwinter Nights or even Diablo II. One fo the guys and I used to play Warcraft II over modem against each other after school back in the day. So, basically, in my experience gamers usually enjoy a wide variety of games. I don't think I know anybody who really sticks to just one kind of game.
Hey, quit bashing Mario Kart. I've been playing games for years, and still do a lot, almost exclusively on PC (I have a PS2, but you can only play so much GT3 before even that great game gets old...). Anyway, I just have to say that Mario Kart 64 is one of the greatest multiplayer games ever created. There is no other game that I have encountered that allows people of widely varying skill levels to play together and still have a hell of a good time. Sure, the more skilled usually win (as it should be), but even a novice has a pretty fair chance of doing well, and, most importantly, they can have a lot of fun even losing. Compare that to, say, Quake (or any other FPS) or Starcraft, where it really isn't much fun if the people playing are at widely varying skill levels. Mario Kart is an awesome game, I spent many a night playing four player Mario Kart during college with people who, like me, also played all of the latest FPSs, RPGs, strategy games, etc. Just because it is a simple game does not make it a bad game. Likewise, there are many times when I want a little more depth, and at those times I go play the Civilizations or MOOs or Patricians or Omega Tank (is that what that game was called? The one where you write scripts for your tank to follow? Pretty old, but that was cool. Too bad nothing like that is around these days).
Of course they were at fault. Didn't you read about all the terrorists learning to fly on MS Flight Simulator? You used to actually be able to crash into buildings in that game, which gave the terrorists essential training. Fortunately MS has been forced to make it so that when you hit a building you automatically restart, so now those evil terrorist types won't know what will happen when they hit a building, making future attacks much les likely. Or something like that.
-1, Flamebait, -1, Troll. Do the editors have any karma left at this point?
Interestingly, on the chart for California it shows current load outstripping the on-line capacity, apparently with no adverse effects, while on the New York graph the load never reaches the on-line capacity. And damn, those Texans use a lot of power.
That one was caused by forest fires damaging high capacity lines, I believe in northern California. At least, thats what I remember.
We can already track weather patterns all over the planet. The trouble is that this does not really solve the problem of predicting what will happen in the future - there are simply too many unkown factors affecting weather patterns for us to understand how and why they do what they do at this point. This isn't to say that a worldwide network of these semsors wouldn't be helpful, I just don't think they would solve the problems we have - satellites already give us a lot of worldwide data, but our weather forecasts beyond a few days out are still pretty unreliable (and often over much shorter time periods). If we want better weather forecasting we need to put more effort into figuring out all the factors that affect weather, which will probably require huge leaps in processing power over what is currently available - many of the world's most powerful supercomputers are already used for atmospheric modelling.
I have to second this. On a class camping trip a few years back we were at a hike-in campground along the coast in a remote part of California (yes, there are still some remote parts of California). One morning while boiling water for some coffee one of the guys on the trip accidentally overturned the pot, drenching himself with boiling water. Needles to say, he received some extremely bad burns from this. We were out of cell range, no phones within 15-20 miles, and no vehicles with us. The scope of the burns was way beyond anything we could treat with the first aid equipment we had on hand. Fortunately, one of the people on the trip was an amateur HAM radio operator and had brought his portable equipment along. Unable to contact anyone nearby, he was able to contact an operator in Hawaii, who then called the police and rescue people in our vicinity, who were then able to send a truck to pick him up in just over an hour. The HAM radio probably saved this guy's life - though yes, if we had had a satellite phone along it might have done the trick (but then it might not have - after using GPS, which tends to be extremely fickle in wooded areas, I'm not at all certain that it would have worked anyway). HAM provides a long-range method of communications that we really don't have a higher-tech replacement for at this point.