Yeah, but if the homework were only boring repetitions, the students will feel like working chore and that's bad in planting the value of discipline. Discipline ought to be fostered through the love of what the student doing and through challenge of the given problems. Definitely not chore. If you ask people who excel in their field, this is almost always the case.
Finding new Mersenne primes is not likely to be of any immediate practical value. This search is primarily a recreational pursuit. However, the search for Mersenne primes has proved useful in development of new algorithms, testing computer hardware, and interesting young students in math.
I don't understand this. Why wouldn't the people incolved in the project add the In-Depth later sparing them for the grunt work and using their knowledge much better. It seems like a win -win to me
Agreed. IMHO, for 99% people out there, they don't need in-depth FAQ for many programs. They just need on how to use the program for their purposes. However, when it comes to programming-related tools (like compilers, compiler-compiler, linker, etc), in-depth docs are a must.
Troll! Do you think you can "import" comments from previous threads and get modded up? The first part of your comment is from here. Then the second one. The third part.
Not only that, some even claims that language is human's nature and part of human evolution. The motive was that humans are social cretures. Check here for a short tutorial on "Origins of Language"
Well, if we draw some analogy to coding, my main complaint is like this: You are building a code in a public CVS where you allow everyone to commit stuff, not just to read from it. In an early stage, it's difficult for everyone to know where the book is heading -- but suddenly some wiseass jumped in pretending to know it and pour some changes all over the board. Of course you can reverse the changes, but as the original author, wouldn't you be frustrated on this? Wikibooks right now is exactly like this.
The question is not about it's open vs not open or free vs not free. I entirely support the idea and I believe it's good, but the model still needs fixing. I would argue that making textbook is like making a complex code. The starter should be the owner. He/she appoints moderators / commiters and approves changes or patches to their book. If we allow this, then I'll be glad continuing my partly written book. This way, the authors are guaranteed their rights on what to include and how. (Honestly, at the moment, I'd rather compose my textbooks in Sourceforge rather than Wikibooks because it provides stuffs I need. It has permissions, user mailing list, feedback, bug reporting, allowing contributors to join in, etc.)
Of course there are some dangers associated with my proposed model: There maybe some similar books available for the same subjects. But that also happens in real life (and also in open source -- how many text editors do we have now?). One book addresses slightly different aspects from the others. But that's good too because the user would profit from it: Garnering explanations from different sources / point of views. It would be good for Wikibooks to enable "merger" on two or more textbooks whenever possible.
Sorry but I have to say that at the current state, Wikibooks still sucks. Most part is NOT suitable for teaching in the class. Just take a look at any lessons: science, engineering, languages, etc. Many authors actually don't know what it takes to write a textbook. Most of the contents are just comparable to student notes stiched out altogether.
Not only that, how many times spammers and other contributors overwrite, nitpick, or even bend the course of the lesson altogether without giving any reasons whatsoever?? I'd rather want to have some degree of control on lessons I initiated. Wikibooks doesn't provide that. Sometimes too much freedom does hurt.
Don't get me wrong. I too contributed in it at sometime for a while. I'm just getting tired of it. I got some nitpicks on it too. See the main page, it has a selection of languages. Wouldn't it be nice that it should be moved into user preference page and stored into a cookie so that this kind of page should be encountered exactly once in a lifetime?
I would say that Wiki is great for making public encyclopedia, but not public textbooks. The model simply doesn't work, IMHO.
Can Jackie Chan really bend iron bars? (Shanghai Noons) Yes, because cotton is stronger when wet.
Is Paul Newman's stomach capable of holding 50 eggs? (Cool Hand Luke) No. His mouth would've run out of saliva or wouldn't be able to hold the water if he decided to drink.
Does that bus really have enough Speed to jump the gap? (Speed) No. It's too far, not to mention wind resistance and the angle.
Can aluminium dingy in Dante's Peak really melts? No. Aluminium would take a whole lot of stronger acid.
Can crank shaft of the 1930's truck to winch it backwards up the sand dune really set it free from the gulch? (Ice Cold Alex) Possible, although the cranker needs quite a lot of water.
Can John McClane just wrap a hose and leaps to the side of the building when it explodes? (Die Hard) Impossible. The hose wouldn't be able to hold the acceleration due to gravity
That's right. For example, CD was invented in 1979 (CMIIW). Started to be introduced in 1983. Beginning of adoption is around early nineties. So, it takes 10-15 years before it's truly popular.
But sometimes, inventions wither before they see the daylight or poorly marketed. I just hope that it will soon hits the market with the right price.
The downfall of hybridizing products like this is two fold....
For me, it's pretty clear that they're targetting teens, where cell-phones are in vogue and they're playing games too. The major flaw IMHO is the price (which is way out of range from common teenager's pocket) and the design. Games are pretty much priced right (IIRC $30, about the same price as GBA games). If they want to be a bit more aggressive, they can price it a bit lower, like $25 or even less. Now in this news they said they've fixed it. Price sounds about right, I dunno about the design. The only thing left is to drag major game producers in, which is pretty hard due to the first failure.
But the difference is that they choose NOT to play catch up, at least for now. Which is good for open sourcers. We don't know about later strategies, which I think Microsoft will someday reconsider. Even then, it's a very different playground and it's a lot harder because what can you do to recoup lost market to beat a free price? You bet it bundling a whole lot of another package in... But can MS escape from DOJ's eyes? I'd say it's very hard...
Of course there are technology that open source provides and MS doesn't and vice versa. So, future can't be outright easy to predict.
What we need is to make open source be a tempting platform for (all) companies to build new technologies in, not just porters. Once we managed to do that, MS would be forced to play catch-up in a hard way or die...
Or, creative people can turn this into "game-nanny" kind of stuff. This could be good or bad, as what net-nanny kind of software did... Having "game-nanny" may encourage adult-content games (and probably the game producer also cooperate). Hmm... lots of possibilities....
For Moderator: They are on crack and did terrible injustice for dolo666. awx should be modded as flamebait, not dolo666 as offtopic because he has a good point.
These stupid act of random injustice seems to be rampant in Slashdot nowadays.
Okay, so go ahead and mod this down. For I have spoken.
It's easy to make a lot of noise about software you're going to write. It's a lot harder to be quiet and write software that will someday make a lot of noise.
That's right... It would come out worse if the users caught the fanfare but later be disappointed for the lack of features / stability / what have you... IMHO, it's harder to regain someone's trust than to obtain it in the first place.
Slashdot Mirror
pushed into the anals of history
What a nice expression ;). It's annals.
it really IS no longer your computer.
No, but I think that implies the computer is being 0wn3d. ;)
You're talking about motivation, not discipline.
Old adage says: Good discipline always spring out of good motivation.
Yeah, but if the homework were only boring repetitions, the students will feel like working chore and that's bad in planting the value of discipline. Discipline ought to be fostered through the love of what the student doing and through challenge of the given problems. Definitely not chore. If you ask people who excel in their field, this is almost always the case.
From here:
Finding new Mersenne primes is not likely to be of any immediate practical value. This search is primarily a recreational pursuit. However, the search for Mersenne primes has proved useful in development of new algorithms, testing computer hardware, and interesting young students in math.
It's been a while. Dr. Knuth already finished pre-fascicle 4. Get it here. It's far from done (well, according to his plan).
No, look at the page title, it's "marketing:". I think that makes the whole thing cheap. ;)
I think much of the tricks are covered in Bit Twiddling hacks here.
I don't understand this. Why wouldn't the people incolved in the project add the In-Depth later sparing them for the grunt work and using their knowledge much better. It seems like a win -win to me
Agreed. IMHO, for 99% people out there, they don't need in-depth FAQ for many programs. They just need on how to use the program for their purposes. However, when it comes to programming-related tools (like compilers, compiler-compiler, linker, etc), in-depth docs are a must.
Troll! Do you think you can "import" comments from previous threads and get modded up? The first part of your comment is from here. Then the second one. The third part.
Moderators wake up!!!
It's more like "Let It Be"
When I find myself in times of trouble
The FBI comes to me
Speaking terrorism, let it be...
Are you sure? J2EE is 1.4 already.
Yeah and the spam host will be called Spam Host for Internet Telephony.
:P
Sorry, can't help it...
Not only that, some even claims that language is human's nature and part of human evolution. The motive was that humans are social cretures. Check here for a short tutorial on "Origins of Language"
the evil SCOmonsters that try and terrorize the city everyday.
You mean, SCOzilla? :-P
Well, if we draw some analogy to coding, my main complaint is like this: You are building a code in a public CVS where you allow everyone to commit stuff, not just to read from it. In an early stage, it's difficult for everyone to know where the book is heading -- but suddenly some wiseass jumped in pretending to know it and pour some changes all over the board. Of course you can reverse the changes, but as the original author, wouldn't you be frustrated on this? Wikibooks right now is exactly like this.
The question is not about it's open vs not open or free vs not free. I entirely support the idea and I believe it's good, but the model still needs fixing. I would argue that making textbook is like making a complex code. The starter should be the owner. He/she appoints moderators / commiters and approves changes or patches to their book. If we allow this, then I'll be glad continuing my partly written book. This way, the authors are guaranteed their rights on what to include and how. (Honestly, at the moment, I'd rather compose my textbooks in Sourceforge rather than Wikibooks because it provides stuffs I need. It has permissions, user mailing list, feedback, bug reporting, allowing contributors to join in, etc.)
Of course there are some dangers associated with my proposed model: There maybe some similar books available for the same subjects. But that also happens in real life (and also in open source -- how many text editors do we have now?). One book addresses slightly different aspects from the others. But that's good too because the user would profit from it: Garnering explanations from different sources / point of views. It would be good for Wikibooks to enable "merger" on two or more textbooks whenever possible.
Sorry but I have to say that at the current state, Wikibooks still sucks. Most part is NOT suitable for teaching in the class. Just take a look at any lessons: science, engineering, languages, etc. Many authors actually don't know what it takes to write a textbook. Most of the contents are just comparable to student notes stiched out altogether.
Not only that, how many times spammers and other contributors overwrite, nitpick, or even bend the course of the lesson altogether without giving any reasons whatsoever?? I'd rather want to have some degree of control on lessons I initiated. Wikibooks doesn't provide that. Sometimes too much freedom does hurt.
Don't get me wrong. I too contributed in it at sometime for a while. I'm just getting tired of it. I got some nitpicks on it too. See the main page, it has a selection of languages. Wouldn't it be nice that it should be moved into user preference page and stored into a cookie so that this kind of page should be encountered exactly once in a lifetime?
I would say that Wiki is great for making public encyclopedia, but not public textbooks. The model simply doesn't work, IMHO.
Summary:
Yes, because cotton is stronger when wet.
No. His mouth would've run out of saliva or wouldn't be able to hold the water if he decided to drink.
No. It's too far, not to mention wind resistance and the angle.
No. Aluminium would take a whole lot of stronger acid.
Possible, although the cranker needs quite a lot of water.
Impossible. The hose wouldn't be able to hold the acceleration due to gravity
That's right. For example, CD was invented in 1979 (CMIIW). Started to be introduced in 1983. Beginning of adoption is around early nineties. So, it takes 10-15 years before it's truly popular.
But sometimes, inventions wither before they see the daylight or poorly marketed. I just hope that it will soon hits the market with the right price.
The downfall of hybridizing products like this is two fold....
For me, it's pretty clear that they're targetting teens, where cell-phones are in vogue and they're playing games too. The major flaw IMHO is the price (which is way out of range from common teenager's pocket) and the design. Games are pretty much priced right (IIRC $30, about the same price as GBA games). If they want to be a bit more aggressive, they can price it a bit lower, like $25 or even less. Now in this news they said they've fixed it. Price sounds about right, I dunno about the design. The only thing left is to drag major game producers in, which is pretty hard due to the first failure.
Just my 2c
But the difference is that they choose NOT to play catch up, at least for now. Which is good for open sourcers. We don't know about later strategies, which I think Microsoft will someday reconsider. Even then, it's a very different playground and it's a lot harder because what can you do to recoup lost market to beat a free price? You bet it bundling a whole lot of another package in... But can MS escape from DOJ's eyes? I'd say it's very hard...
Of course there are technology that open source provides and MS doesn't and vice versa. So, future can't be outright easy to predict.
What we need is to make open source be a tempting platform for (all) companies to build new technologies in, not just porters. Once we managed to do that, MS would be forced to play catch-up in a hard way or die...
Or, creative people can turn this into "game-nanny" kind of stuff. This could be good or bad, as what net-nanny kind of software did... Having "game-nanny" may encourage adult-content games (and probably the game producer also cooperate). Hmm... lots of possibilities....
Just my 2c
Time to burn some karma....
For Moderator: They are on crack and did terrible injustice for dolo666. awx should be modded as flamebait, not dolo666 as offtopic because he has a good point.
These stupid act of random injustice seems to be rampant in Slashdot nowadays.
Okay, so go ahead and mod this down. For I have spoken.
No, you must read the title: if quake takes fragging to whole new level. That's an "if" with a capital I and F. :)
It's easy to make a lot of noise about software you're going to write. It's a lot harder to be quiet and write software that will someday make a lot of noise.
That's right... It would come out worse if the users caught the fanfare but later be disappointed for the lack of features / stability / what have you... IMHO, it's harder to regain someone's trust than to obtain it in the first place.