It strikes me all the pseudocode is there just to cover up the lack of real material in the article. Yes, some high-tech workers don't have sex high on the priority list. It happens in Silicon Valley and I've seen it happen in Michigan (not a jab at the Geek Compound; I have friends in Michigan parts of this article describe). So some geeks like alternate sexual methodologies. So? I think that the article would have fit in one page without all the bad (and sometimes buggy) pseudocode.
I completely agree. It feels like one of those memos from some wannabe tech manager. Tries way to hard to use code and buzzwords. It's annoying.
In fact, I'd have to argue that various bits of alternative sexuality don't have precise protocols. Not being into all the alternatives I cannot comment on them, but I don't think there's a big book of algorithms for going about alternative sexual practices.
People don't have precise protocols. Those from a similar culture have an easier time getting on because they know what to expect from each other. But you still have problems even when the culture is the same because people can be so individual. This accounts for foreigners having a harder time dating in another culture. They're too different and so both the foreign dater and the potential datee may be reluctant to get involved. After all, isn't dating hard enough without having to overcome cultural and language barriers?
It's just that high-tech workers know what they want. They're not about to go and not communicate their needs because they think that doing so would be filthy. We know what we want, not that we have a precise checklist.
I don't think that those in the tech industry know what they want any better than the average person. That is, they've got an idea, but the details aren't really worked out. They do tend to be less prone to letting other people influence what they want, which can be an asset.
I think the difference is that geeks tend to be shy and/or introverted. They also tend to live in their heads quite a bit, or at the very least, prefer the company of someone with two brain cells to rub together. These traits limit the field of potential candidates by quite a bit.
I have a Mac and Win95 on my desk side by side. I tend to use the Mac for most of my work because I find that it's more stable. It is not unusual for me to run 5 or 6 apps simulataneously, switching among them frequently. I rarely have to reboot it When I do, it's usually because Communicator went south. I'd stay away from Communicator (yea, iCab), but I need to test with it for work.
I find that extensions on the Mac is probably the biggest reasons for the Mac becoming unstable. It's rare to find a Mac without 3rd party extensions installed. Poorly written Mac apps is probably the second biggest reason. I simply don't use apps that tend to crash my system. For what I work on, there has always been an alternative out there.
Needless to say, I've been less than impressed with Win95's stability. MacOS X looks like it will have some interesting features, especially some of the UNIX and Next things. Cocoa is very intriguing. I could do without the Aqua interface, though. The dock could also stand to be smaller. I prefer to run 832x624 on a 17" monitor and I really don't want to have to get a larger monitor.
First of all, most people don't realize that there is rarely a pure version of the MacOS running on any given Mac. Typically, it is modified by 3rd party extensions which modify the OS. I have seen many cases where these extensions cause the OS to become unstable in circumstances where it would not without those extensions.
While memory protection is a weakness on the Mac, it is still the poorly written application that was the cause of the crash. The memory API for the Mac is very easy to use and I haven't seen any code which uses it properly to have any memory-related crashes. It's nice to have an OS that protects you from poorly written code, but it does not mean that the OS that lacks memory protection is unstable.
Secondly, it's Mac (short for Macintosh), not MAC (not short for Machine from Apple Computer). I know it's stupid to complain about, but it's a bit of a pet peeve for me.
As for Win9x, I often need to reboot it. In my experience, it's virtually a guarenteed necessity when an app crashes. NT is better, especially in regard to the handling of a crashed app. My problem with NT is that you have to play with it alot to get it to work on a given configuration. Even then, sometimes it forgets and you have to start over. It is also _very_ processor and memory hungry.
This reminds me of some things that I used to witness in school. At the time, I didn't understand why they happened. I remember incidents like peers getting better report card grades than me (they tended to advertise their grades), even though they had worse test and assignment scores. I also didn't understand the point of education because the overwhelming majority of it for me consisted of lectures and repeating it verbatim on tests and assignments. I know now that this not educating; it's operant conditioning.
I can identify some of the things wrong with the US educational system. I guess one of the biggies is that education is not something that can be quantified, but our system is set up based on the assumption that it is (test scores mean everything). Mix in the politics and an anemic budget and it's easy to see where teachers could become discouraged to the point of making a career change or just not caring anymore.
I've seen several people here assert that the education systems in some other countries are better than in the US. I don't doubt it, but I wonder where the differences are. Are we trying to spred ourselves too thin, where another country only concentrates on the brightest 10%? Or perhaps American culture gets in the way.
And even after enumerating what's wrong, it's even harder to figure out what to do about it.
> Good Educational software should teach something > (not just provide a better chalk board), never > crash, have as few modes as possible ("I hit a > button and it put me here where am I?"), be > exciting, and be very secure...
This is a lovely vision, but virtually impossible to create. There are too many components in a computer's system that rely on the work of other people. The quality of the software in terms of speed, stability, and security is only as good as the weakest link. You can get pretty close with the right choice of tools, though.
As for "teach[ing] something", this is a very, very vague thing to say. What is the difference between teaching and the chalkboard example that you give? Computers were designed to be tools. They store and process information. They do not think (except perhaps in some abstract experiements in AI, but even that's debatable).
The key to understanding today's educational software is to realize that it was conceived as a teacher's aid (like manipulatives), not a teacher's replacement.
Another potentially contributing factor is state adoption committees. They review the educational products that come out and approve, recommend, or mandate certain products (depending on the state and the product). Naturally, the company who wants to make money tries to impress committees that mandate. State editions are not uncommon for this reason. Sometimes I wonder if this interferes with what the teacher has to work with. I guess it depends on the committee.
Money alone won't cut it, but I agree, the US educational system is often underfunded, especially when it comes to paying teachers. There's another problem, though. The screening process for teachers seems to be suboptimal. I am amazed at what it takes to become a teacher (at least in the Northeast US, especially CT). There's all of this certification and degrees and student teaching, etc. And with all of that training, there's way too many teachers who don't seem to be able to teach well. Thank goodness most who make it through the process can teach. Some of them are even exceptional.
In the meantime, there are people who don't have an degree in education, certification, etc. that may be better qualified to teach their area of expertise, but aren't allowed. I wonder how many truly qualified people who have considered teaching don't get involved because it's so costly in money and time.
I also wonder why it isn't mandatory for teachers to take updater courses on educating. I'm thinking a semester-long night course every few years. This is also something that should be paid by the school. Any supplemental training that the teacher might want should be on the teacher.
It's no wonder that there are so many teachers in this country that don't know what to do with a computer in their classroom.
> I don't think he was arguing against an "hour" or > whatever, I think he was more afraid of education > moving toward replacement of books with computers > with interactive lessons (i.e., a lot more than > an hour). On the face of it, that doesn't sound > all that bad (wouldn't interative be better than > just reading?
As I remember it, adults thought very highly of you if you spent much of your free time reading, but were very suspicious of you if you spent it in front of a computer (at least back in the '80s). I find this so ironic now because lately we've been talking about how in the future, it may be possible to have a device that basically looks and feels like a book, but is actually a computer with electronic paper. You would just download the contents of this books and, viola, you have this year's textbook.
Personally, I think too much of anything is bad (including reading). It usually means that you're deficient elsewhere.
I work in the educational multimedia division of a very large textbook publisher. In particular, I work on their web content, but my company also makes CDs to go with the books. AFAIK, the work that we do is sold for at most "at cost" as an incentive for using the textbooks.
I've definitely observed a large range in computer literacy among teachers. Most tend toward the very basic user end, if they've had the chance to use a computer. I wonder if they ever updated the college curriculum for teachers to include using the computer in education. Or any other technology that went mainstream in the last few decades.
My take on it is that the computer is sort of like an interactive television. You can find some great material out there, but there should always be some discussion about what you saw. A computer certainly not a replacement for a teacher. The teacher should act as guide for finding information and activities (on and off the computer), leading discussion, and trying to providing additional material where necessary.
Unfortunately, this doesn't happen alot of classrooms. Sometimes it's because the teacher only lectures about the required elements and assigns work. Sometimes it's because the school isn't providing adequate support for the teacher.
Anyway, I am very interested in any suggestions for making computers more palletable to teachers. This need not be limited to the web, since I also enjoy working on pet projects.
Why qualify that as pre-college? My experience in a state university was that the percentage of quality educators was not much different than in the public school. The relationship is definitely different (they regard you as an adult). But most university professors (if they bothered not to stick us with a TA for the whole semester) tended to lack passion or communication skills or both.
I've been using the Mac since it first came out. It is relatively stable as compared to Windows (i.e. the OS iteself very rarely crashes). It seems like the larger the marketshare of a platform, the more unstable the user experience is. Sometimes it's due to corporate arrogance (like at Microsoft), but more often it's due to a larger number of low quality developers attracted to the platform for all of the wrong reasons.
The Mac was never intended for the hobbist. It was intended to be used by a someone who is relatively computer illiterate. Even still, I enjoy programming it and find that it's the best choice for me for other productivity.
Linux is a very inviting system for the hobbist, so I think that the Mac's popularity would not have had too much of an impact on Linux, except perhaps on hardware. Windows, however, probably never would have existed if the Mac had dominated the PC. OS/2 also probably would have had a better shot of living. (Hard to picture MS and IBM developing OS/2 as their last, best hope.)
...However, he seems to be excusing the violent and destructive behavior of some of the "protesters" ("rioters" is more accurate in their cases). I don't care how angry you are over what the WTO is doing -- that does not give you justification to destroy others' property.
I went back and reread Katz's article. While I did not see any outright condemnation of the violence, I also didn't see any advocacy of it. Instead, Katz seems to be saying something like: The media has totally missed the boat on why the protestors were there. Isn't that the real story? Let's take a look at what they're saying.
Regardless whether you agree with Katz's analysis, he's right to focus on what the protestors are saying. I find the context of violence underscores the gravity of these issues.
In the meantime, the mainstream media has found a sideshow in the rioting and Seattle's reaction. I'm not sure what the bigger criminal aspect to the rioting was: the property destruction or the distraction that it caused.
The issue is not that trade is bad. Trade is a tool. It can be used by the members of a society to make everyone's life better. It can also be used to disadvantage another, such as with sanctions.
Trade for trade's sake does not make sense for society. It may satisfy an individual's desire for power, but humans have other needs such as physical and mental health. The one with power may be able to use his/her/its power to escape the negative consequences. But society as a whole ends up on the losing end when its needs are disregarded by the powerful in favor of making the power play.
No, you're not an oddity. It can be frustrating to be seen as something other than "just one of the guys" when you really want a romantanic relationship. Especially when the guys that you're hanging with (or at least a subset of them) are the ones you consider datable. The good news is that a romantic relationship is possible. The bad news is that you have to overcome the introvertedness and let them know in no uncertain terms that you're interested. You might risk losing that person as a friend, but nothing ventured, nothing gained.
I ended up marrying my best friend, but I had to kiss him one night, just out of the blue. We had a very close, platonic relationship at the time, so I'm not recommending this for everyone, but it felt right at the time.
It makes no sense to approach this from the perspective of what kind of worker is better: contractor or employee? I've met some contractors who turn in a terrible performance (especially if management is easily snowed), and I've met some employees who do the absolute minimum or less. Likewise, I've met some contractors who will do whatever they can to get the job right and I've met some salaried employees who will put in the extra hours to finish the project on time and in style.
It makes more sense to me to approach this from the standpoint of what are the pros and cons of each for my situation.
Employee Pros: 1. Employees will gain institutional knowledge (i.e. they know the way the company works and the projects that they have worked on).
2. Managment can more accurately assess what sort of performance they can expect as well.
3. If you salary the employee and give benefits, it will usually be more cost effective.
Employee Cons: 1. There may not be enough work to justify a full-time employee or work may be very sporatic.
2. The employee can stagnate if left to do the same work year after year.
Contractor Pros: 1. You can get a specialist for the job that you need (although it's very rare to find the _exact_ skill set that you're looking for).
2. Contactors often have a broad range of experience which can give them special insight into a job (seeing the machine instead of the cogs).
Contractor Cons: 1. It can be very expensive. It's not unusual for contractors to charge twice what an employee would be paid for the same job.
2. There are no guarentees that the contractor is going to be a skilled and diligent worker. If you're short on time, this can be especially dangerous.
I have one caveat about contractors: you need to be able to verify that you are getting what you asked for, even if you're going through an agency. Most companies I've contracted with just assume that they are getting someone qualified. If you need a DEC C programmer familiar with DECForms on a VAX, then you need be able to find this out at the interview that you're getting someone who can do this. I've worked through several agencies who never verified that I had the skill set that I claimed to have. I know that they have sent unqualified people to interviews (I've interviewed some of these contractors myself on behalf of the contractee).
I don't think that was it. AntiOnline seems to be back (for the moment). There's an editorial at http://antionline.com/archives/editorials/packetst orm.html that includes a copy of the letter JP sent to Harvard. There's some explicit descriptions of the alledged sexual and libelous content. -Jennifer
The thing that makes me wonder is why any company will still deal with MS. I know that MS is powerful and if you can get in with them, you'll have an advantage. I can certainly see where ActiveState would be in the driver's seat if they were the sole source of the "MS Approved" Perl distribution. But I can't think of a single deal that MS has made where the other party didn't get screwed. I guess Barnum was right.
I know it's premature to judge MS on their Perl efforts, but their history makes this smell bad (and a bit like Java). As for me, I need to run my scripts on three different platforms (one of them Win32). I hope they don't decide to redefine the behavior of existing functionality to be more Win32 dependent, ahem, I mean savvy.
Can't wait to see "MS's" latest innovation heralded in the press.
This article is an example of something that's been bothering me for a long time. I'm tired of hearing about how perfect life is if you're white, how horrible it is if you aren't, and that everything that happens in the world is based on the color of your skin.
I grew up in a family of various skin colors and social backgrounds. As a result, I had the pleasure to meet an even more diverse group of people (friends and colleages of my mom and stepfather). I also had the unfortunate (but valuable) experience of meeting racial intolerance. And I am/was a geek.
My experience has led me to this conclusion. Intolerance and oppression is wrong. It doesn't matter if it's because you're shy or black. It just plain wrong. As a society, we seem to have convinced ourselves that it's OK under certain circumstances ("It's natural for boy's to be aggressive", "She's antisocial; she should learn to fit in"). The exeception is when the child acts because the victim has a certain skin color or religion. This is because we're sensitive to these issues. And even then, in certain households or communities, it goes uncorrected.
As for the article, I find it annoying. How dare you tell me that my pain is more trivial than yours! You know nothing of my life. I know nothing of yours, and so I won't judge how much pain you've been through. Yes, life sucks. But there are problems here that we're all a part of. Instead of a big pitty party and playing "My Problems Are Bigger Than Yours", it would be refreshing to hear some ideas about what to do about it.
You're an adult now. It's very likely that you either have your own children or influence others' children. Now that you're aware that what you did was wrong, maybe you will be able to explain why it's wrong to today's children, so that they won't going around in ten years thinking about their "Tanya".
BTW, I was a "Tanya". If you do see her at a reunion, in a mall, etc., think carefully about what you say to her. The last thing you want to do is sound patronizing. It's one of my sore spots and I wouldn't be surprised if it is for her.
On a separate note: This whole geek discussion has made me think about how these attitudes affect us as people in the computer science field. The teasing that is described here reminds me of the name-calling that I get when I say I use non-Windows platforms (BeOS, Linux, MacOS, Solaris), although the present name-calling is a little less childish (usually).
I'm starting to think that just because we mature, this sort of persecution doesn't go away. It just gets redirected and if that's true, I think it's holding us all back.
It was diverse in major but was it diverse in culture. Actually, when it comes to major, we were all techies, just different disciplines in technology. The engineering school was a bit stuffier than the rest, but we're still all techies at heart. It also helped that NJIT has an honors college with an private lounge and computer lab. The geeks end up congregating there and it's like an in-person/. group. You find out that you're not alone.
What I was talking about was a complete and voluntary segregation, but as I think about it, perhaps it's not such a good idea. Once these kids are out in the "real world" (whatever that is), they still have to interact with the same people, only now as adults. It would probably just deepen the divide.
Another problem with this idea is that I've seen kids who have been victims become the tormentor when put into a group of victims. It seems to be a power thing. Maybe we should be trying to segregate the bullies.
On the upside, if we put a concerted and consistant effort into a special institution, we, as a society, may end up with more adults reaching a greater potential.
I'm still worried about the standards used to qualify a kid as "gifted", even in the current programs (for those schools that have them). I'm even more concerned about the people who are administering these programs.
I went to Engineering school as well (NJIT), but in the US (I'm from NJ). I'm told from some of the profs and alumni that it used to be socially different when it was just an engineering college (Newark College of Engineering). Everyone was male and wore suits. Now it's a technological university with many technology-based majors and a very diverse place. Still largely male (when I went, it was 6:1 male:female), but about half the students were from out of the country and from many parts of the world. In an environment like that, intolerance for geeks doesn't make sense when there are so many others who are even more different. Not that I think that intolerance is OK, regardless of who is being subjected to it.
The campus is located in the middle of Newark which is definitely inner city urban. NJIT campus backs up to Central High, which has a large student body. There was a great culture clash between the students attending the university (especially the students from the suburbs) and the high school kids. Again, who cares about geeks when there are even more different (and dangerous, in the minds of the ignorant) people to worry about?
I think you need to go further with that idea. I came from a school system where you basically had three choices for high school. There was the "regular" high school, vocational high school (your trade-school), and Catholic high school. There was precious little difference (although, fewer shop kids, but these weren't the people causing me problems in the first place!).
How about if we had public schools for the gifted? It's not cost effective to set one up for each community. If they had a few broadly regional schools throughout the country, it might be worth it. Of course, it would require dorms and maybe other extra costs (better teachers, security), so there would be extra cost, but the payoff might be worth it, as far as society goes.
I'm a bit concerned about what would qualify a student for getting in, though. I was definitely an outsider and I test pretty high, depending on what day of the week you catch me, but I was not grouped with the "gifted and talented" throughout public school. Only when I got to college was I put into the honors program. I think it had something to do with the fact that I had a higher GPA than many honors students in high school and they get a point added to their GPA for each honors class they take (that last bit's there just to justify my opinion that my school had misgrouped me, not because I wanted to toot my horn). So, my question is, who do we put in charge of deciding who's eligble for this hypothical special school when so many normals are out there running the show?
I think you're on the right track. It's much bigger than that though. The majority are sheep as far as I can tell and it seems to be a self-feeding cycle. The sheep are uncomfortable with the non-sheep, so the ones that are afraid enough will try to make you conform. Students will provoke and adults, who are supposed to be above doing that, will look the other way. It actually explains Windows quite well.
Some of the unpleasantness of high school is common to all kids. It really is just part of life. Sometimes it sucks. But the more severe problems of physical abuse really should be dealt with. I wonder what would happen if you took them to the police. I know it sounds a bit severe but getting beat up in the locker room or thrown through a window is _assult_ and illegal. If the teachers and parents aren't doing anything about it, I believe the law is supposed to cover this.
Not that their credibility is looking all that good as it is, but this can only hurt them in the anti-trust trial. Mindcraft was an "independent" lab that contradicted what Apple was saying about Microsoft trying to undermine Quicktime for Windows. Mindcraft released a fix that would make most of the problems go away, but I wonder if that fix wasn't given to them by Microsoft to patch Microsoft's code instead of Quicktime.
I agree that there is nothing that could be done to completely eliminate the possibility of this happening. However, I also believe in moderation. I don't believe in a gun ban, but I also believe in a little more accountablility and preparation than we take right now. It seems to to me that it's odd that we require people to pass a drivers examine (written and behind the wheel) to get a license to operate a vehicle, but there is no requirement, other than age and being a non-felon, to use a gun.
Of course, there's also the issue of bombs, which as far as I know, are just illegal. So it's not just a gun issue.
I believe that this incident is a result of some things that are really wrong in our society. You can't blame it solely on the media or the internet. They just provide information. How we use and let that information effect us was formed before we got the information. This sort of thing starts at home and in the community.
The one thing that everyone keeps saying is that they learned that it _can_ happen here, but I don't think they really believe it. But the truth is, it really can happen here, not because Littleton, CO is a Brady Bunch community, but because the problems that I perceive that precipitated this are so typical of American culture. Those problems are that we live in diverse communities, but we still only get to know those that we would categorize as "one of us". We ignore, sometimes with effort, the warnings, to make ourselves feel a little safer (for a while). It's become a way of life for many parents to not hold their kids responsible for their actions.
I've personally observed that last one for the last 15-20 years, and then watched those parents wonder why when their kid does something like this.
So, in response to the question, if we were to institute a gun control policy tommorow, it would not have made much difference. Too much of our society is screwed up to be cured by some overnight policy fix. If we put into practice, not just something that holds gun owners accountible for the use of their weapons (by them and others), _and_ make other changes to our society in terms of being a little more aware that we live among human beings, which are dangerous animals, and giving kids a sense of responsiblity, maybe then we will be less likely to see this sort of problem.
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It strikes me all the pseudocode is there just to cover up the lack of real material in the article. Yes, some high-tech workers don't have sex high on the priority list. It happens in Silicon Valley and I've seen it happen in Michigan (not a jab at the Geek Compound; I have friends in Michigan parts of this article describe). So some geeks like alternate sexual methodologies. So? I think that the article would have fit in one page without all the bad (and sometimes buggy) pseudocode.
I completely agree. It feels like one of those memos from some wannabe tech manager. Tries way to hard to use code and buzzwords. It's annoying.
In fact, I'd have to argue that various bits of alternative sexuality don't have precise protocols. Not being into all the alternatives I cannot comment on them, but I don't think there's a big book of algorithms for going about alternative sexual practices.
People don't have precise protocols. Those from a similar culture have an easier time getting on because they know what to expect from each other. But you still have problems even when the culture is the same because people can be so individual. This accounts for foreigners having a harder time dating in another culture. They're too different and so both the foreign dater and the potential datee may be reluctant to get involved. After all, isn't dating hard enough without having to overcome cultural and language barriers?
It's just that high-tech workers know what they want. They're not about to go and not communicate their needs because they think that doing so would be filthy. We know what we want, not that we have a precise checklist.
I don't think that those in the tech industry know what they want any better than the average person. That is, they've got an idea, but the details aren't really worked out. They do tend to be less prone to letting other people influence what they want, which can be an asset.
I think the difference is that geeks tend to be shy and/or introverted. They also tend to live in their heads quite a bit, or at the very least, prefer the company of someone with two brain cells to rub together. These traits limit the field of potential candidates by quite a bit.
-Jennifer
I have a Mac and Win95 on my desk side by side. I tend to use the Mac for most of my work because I find that it's more stable. It is not unusual for me to run 5 or 6 apps simulataneously, switching among them frequently. I rarely have to reboot it When I do, it's usually because Communicator went south. I'd stay away from Communicator (yea, iCab), but I need to test with it for work.
I find that extensions on the Mac is probably the biggest reasons for the Mac becoming unstable. It's rare to find a Mac without 3rd party extensions installed. Poorly written Mac apps is probably the second biggest reason. I simply don't use apps that tend to crash my system. For what I work on, there has always been an alternative out there.
Needless to say, I've been less than impressed with Win95's stability. MacOS X looks like it will have some interesting features, especially some of the UNIX and Next things. Cocoa is very intriguing. I could do without the Aqua interface, though. The dock could also stand to be smaller. I prefer to run 832x624 on a 17" monitor and I really don't want to have to get a larger monitor.
-Jennifer
First of all, most people don't realize that there is rarely a pure version of the MacOS running on any given Mac. Typically, it is modified by 3rd party extensions which modify the OS. I have seen many cases where these extensions cause the OS to become unstable in circumstances where it would not without those extensions.
While memory protection is a weakness on the Mac, it is still the poorly written application that was the cause of the crash. The memory API for the Mac is very easy to use and I haven't seen any code which uses it properly to have any memory-related crashes. It's nice to have an OS that protects you from poorly written code, but it does not mean that the OS that lacks memory protection is unstable.
Secondly, it's Mac (short for Macintosh), not MAC (not short for Machine from Apple Computer). I know it's stupid to complain about, but it's a bit of a pet peeve for me.
As for Win9x, I often need to reboot it. In my experience, it's virtually a guarenteed necessity when an app crashes. NT is better, especially in regard to the handling of a crashed app. My problem with NT is that you have to play with it alot to get it to work on a given configuration. Even then, sometimes it forgets and you have to start over. It is also _very_ processor and memory hungry.
-Jennifer
This reminds me of some things that I used to witness in school. At the time, I didn't understand why they happened. I remember incidents like peers getting better report card grades than me (they tended to advertise their grades), even though they had worse test and assignment scores. I also didn't understand the point of education because the overwhelming majority of it for me consisted of lectures and repeating it verbatim on tests and assignments. I know now that this not educating; it's operant conditioning.
I can identify some of the things wrong with the US educational system. I guess one of the biggies is that education is not something that can be quantified, but our system is set up based on the assumption that it is (test scores mean everything). Mix in the politics and an anemic budget and it's easy to see where teachers could become discouraged to the point of making a career change or just not caring anymore.
I've seen several people here assert that the education systems in some other countries are better than in the US. I don't doubt it, but I wonder where the differences are. Are we trying to spred ourselves too thin, where another country only concentrates on the brightest 10%? Or perhaps American culture gets in the way.
And even after enumerating what's wrong, it's even harder to figure out what to do about it.
-Jennifer
You said:
> Good Educational software should teach something
> (not just provide a better chalk board), never
> crash, have as few modes as possible ("I hit a
> button and it put me here where am I?"), be
> exciting, and be very secure...
This is a lovely vision, but virtually impossible to create. There are too many components in a computer's system that rely on the work of other people. The quality of the software in terms of speed, stability, and security is only as good as the weakest link. You can get pretty close with the right choice of tools, though.
As for "teach[ing] something", this is a very, very vague thing to say. What is the difference between teaching and the chalkboard example that you give? Computers were designed to be tools. They store and process information. They do not think (except perhaps in some abstract experiements in AI, but even that's debatable).
The key to understanding today's educational software is to realize that it was conceived as a teacher's aid (like manipulatives), not a teacher's replacement.
Another potentially contributing factor is state adoption committees. They review the educational products that come out and approve, recommend, or mandate certain products (depending on the state and the product). Naturally, the company who wants to make money tries to impress committees that mandate. State editions are not uncommon for this reason. Sometimes I wonder if this interferes with what the teacher has to work with. I guess it depends on the committee.
-Jennifer
Money alone won't cut it, but I agree, the US educational system is often underfunded, especially when it comes to paying teachers. There's another problem, though. The screening process for teachers seems to be suboptimal. I am amazed at what it takes to become a teacher (at least in the Northeast US, especially CT). There's all of this certification and degrees and student teaching, etc. And with all of that training, there's way too many teachers who don't seem to be able to teach well. Thank goodness most who make it through the process can teach. Some of them are even exceptional.
In the meantime, there are people who don't have an degree in education, certification, etc. that may be better qualified to teach their area of expertise, but aren't allowed. I wonder how many truly qualified people who have considered teaching don't get involved because it's so costly in money and time.
I also wonder why it isn't mandatory for teachers to take updater courses on educating. I'm thinking a semester-long night course every few years. This is also something that should be paid by the school. Any supplemental training that the teacher might want should be on the teacher.
It's no wonder that there are so many teachers in this country that don't know what to do with a computer in their classroom.
-Jennifer
> I don't think he was arguing against an "hour" or
> whatever, I think he was more afraid of education
> moving toward replacement of books with computers
> with interactive lessons (i.e., a lot more than
> an hour). On the face of it, that doesn't sound
> all that bad (wouldn't interative be better than
> just reading?
As I remember it, adults thought very highly of you if you spent much of your free time reading, but were very suspicious of you if you spent it in front of a computer (at least back in the '80s). I find this so ironic now because lately we've been talking about how in the future, it may be possible to have a device that basically looks and feels like a book, but is actually a computer with electronic paper. You would just download the contents of this books and, viola, you have this year's textbook.
Personally, I think too much of anything is bad (including reading). It usually means that you're deficient elsewhere.
-Jennifer
I work in the educational multimedia division of a very large textbook publisher. In particular, I work on their web content, but my company also makes CDs to go with the books. AFAIK, the work that we do is sold for at most "at cost" as an incentive for using the textbooks.
I've definitely observed a large range in computer literacy among teachers. Most tend toward the very basic user end, if they've had the chance to use a computer. I wonder if they ever updated the college curriculum for teachers to include using the computer in education. Or any other technology that went mainstream in the last few decades.
My take on it is that the computer is sort of like an interactive television. You can find some great material out there, but there should always be some discussion about what you saw. A computer certainly not a replacement for a teacher. The teacher should act as guide for finding information and activities (on and off the computer), leading discussion, and trying to providing additional material where necessary.
Unfortunately, this doesn't happen alot of classrooms. Sometimes it's because the teacher only lectures about the required elements and assigns work. Sometimes it's because the school isn't providing adequate support for the teacher.
Anyway, I am very interested in any suggestions for making computers more palletable to teachers. This need not be limited to the web, since I also enjoy working on pet projects.
-Jennifer
Why qualify that as pre-college? My experience in a state university was that the percentage of quality educators was not much different than in the public school. The relationship is definitely different (they regard you as an adult). But most university professors (if they bothered not to stick us with a TA for the whole semester) tended to lack passion or communication skills or both.
-Jennifer
I've been using the Mac since it first came out. It is relatively stable as compared to Windows (i.e. the OS iteself very rarely crashes). It seems like the larger the marketshare of a platform, the more unstable the user experience is. Sometimes it's due to corporate arrogance (like at Microsoft), but more often it's due to a larger number of low quality developers attracted to the platform for all of the wrong reasons.
The Mac was never intended for the hobbist. It was intended to be used by a someone who is relatively computer illiterate. Even still, I enjoy programming it and find that it's the best choice for me for other productivity.
Linux is a very inviting system for the hobbist, so I think that the Mac's popularity would not have had too much of an impact on Linux, except perhaps on hardware. Windows, however, probably never would have existed if the Mac had dominated the PC. OS/2 also probably would have had a better shot of living. (Hard to picture MS and IBM developing OS/2 as their last, best hope.)
-Jennifer
I went back and reread Katz's article. While I did not see any outright condemnation of the violence, I also didn't see any advocacy of it. Instead, Katz seems to be saying something like: The media has totally missed the boat on why the protestors were there. Isn't that the real story? Let's take a look at what they're saying.
Regardless whether you agree with Katz's analysis, he's right to focus on what the protestors are saying. I find the context of violence underscores the gravity of these issues.
In the meantime, the mainstream media has found a sideshow in the rioting and Seattle's reaction. I'm not sure what the bigger criminal aspect to the rioting was: the property destruction or the distraction that it caused.
-Jennifer
Trade for trade's sake does not make sense for society. It may satisfy an individual's desire for power, but humans have other needs such as physical and mental health. The one with power may be able to use his/her/its power to escape the negative consequences. But society as a whole ends up on the losing end when its needs are disregarded by the powerful in favor of making the power play.
-Jennifer
No, you're not an oddity. It can be frustrating to be seen as something other than "just one of the guys" when you really want a romantanic relationship. Especially when the guys that you're hanging with (or at least a subset of them) are the ones you consider datable. The good news is that a romantic relationship is possible. The bad news is that you have to overcome the introvertedness and let them know in no uncertain terms that you're interested. You might risk losing that person as a friend, but nothing ventured, nothing gained.
I ended up marrying my best friend, but I had to kiss him one night, just out of the blue. We had a very close, platonic relationship at the time, so I'm not recommending this for everyone, but it felt right at the time.
-Jennifer
It makes no sense to approach this from the perspective of what kind of worker is better: contractor or employee? I've met some contractors who turn in a terrible performance (especially if management is easily snowed), and I've met some employees who do the absolute minimum or less. Likewise, I've met some contractors who will do whatever they can to get the job right and I've met some salaried employees who will put in the extra hours to finish the project on time and in style.
It makes more sense to me to approach this from the standpoint of what are the pros and cons of each for my situation.
Employee Pros:
1. Employees will gain institutional knowledge (i.e. they know the way the company works and the projects that they have worked on).
2. Managment can more accurately assess what sort of performance they can expect as well.
3. If you salary the employee and give benefits, it will usually be more cost effective.
Employee Cons:
1. There may not be enough work to justify a full-time employee or work may be very sporatic.
2. The employee can stagnate if left to do the same work year after year.
Contractor Pros:
1. You can get a specialist for the job that you need (although it's very rare to find the _exact_ skill set that you're looking for).
2. Contactors often have a broad range of experience which can give them special insight into a job (seeing the machine instead of the cogs).
Contractor Cons:
1. It can be very expensive. It's not unusual for contractors to charge twice what an employee would be paid for the same job.
2. There are no guarentees that the contractor is going to be a skilled and diligent worker. If you're short on time, this can be especially dangerous.
I have one caveat about contractors: you need to be able to verify that you are getting what you asked for, even if you're going through an agency. Most companies I've contracted with just assume that they are getting someone qualified. If you need a DEC C programmer familiar with DECForms on a VAX, then you need be able to find this out at the interview that you're getting someone who can do this. I've worked through several agencies who never verified that I had the skill set that I claimed to have. I know that they have sent unqualified people to interviews (I've interviewed some of these contractors myself on behalf of the contractee).
-Jennifer
I don't think that was it. AntiOnline seems to be back (for the moment). There's an editorial at http://antionline.com/archives/editorials/packetst orm.html that includes a copy of the letter JP sent to Harvard. There's some explicit descriptions of the alledged sexual and libelous content. -Jennifer
The thing that makes me wonder is why any company will still deal with MS. I know that MS is powerful and if you can get in with them, you'll have an advantage. I can certainly see where ActiveState would be in the driver's seat if they were the sole source of the "MS Approved" Perl distribution. But I can't think of a single deal that MS has made where the other party didn't get screwed. I guess Barnum was right.
I know it's premature to judge MS on their Perl efforts, but their history makes this smell bad (and a bit like Java). As for me, I need to run my scripts on three different platforms (one of them Win32). I hope they don't decide to redefine the behavior of existing functionality to be more Win32 dependent, ahem, I mean savvy.
Can't wait to see "MS's" latest innovation heralded in the press.
-Jennifer
This article is an example of something that's been bothering me for a long time. I'm tired of hearing about how perfect life is if you're white, how horrible it is if you aren't, and that everything that happens in the world is based on the color of your skin.
I grew up in a family of various skin colors and social backgrounds. As a result, I had the pleasure to meet an even more diverse group of people (friends and colleages of my mom and stepfather). I also had the unfortunate (but valuable) experience of meeting racial intolerance. And I am/was a geek.
My experience has led me to this conclusion. Intolerance and oppression is wrong. It doesn't matter if it's because you're shy or black. It just plain wrong. As a society, we seem to have convinced ourselves that it's OK under certain circumstances ("It's natural for boy's to be aggressive", "She's antisocial; she should learn to fit in"). The exeception is when the child acts because the victim has a certain skin color or religion. This is because we're sensitive to these issues. And even then, in certain households or communities, it goes uncorrected.
As for the article, I find it annoying. How dare you tell me that my pain is more trivial than yours! You know nothing of my life. I know nothing of yours, and so I won't judge how much pain you've been through. Yes, life sucks. But there are problems here that we're all a part of. Instead of a big pitty party and playing "My Problems Are Bigger Than Yours", it would be refreshing to hear some ideas about what to do about it.
-Jennifer
You're an adult now. It's very likely that you either have your own children or influence others' children. Now that you're aware that what you did was wrong, maybe you will be able to explain why it's wrong to today's children, so that they won't going around in ten years thinking about their "Tanya".
BTW, I was a "Tanya". If you do see her at a reunion, in a mall, etc., think carefully about what you say to her. The last thing you want to do is sound patronizing. It's one of my sore spots and I wouldn't be surprised if it is for her.
On a separate note:
This whole geek discussion has made me think about how these attitudes affect us as people in the computer science field. The teasing that is described here reminds me of the name-calling that I get when I say I use non-Windows platforms (BeOS, Linux, MacOS, Solaris), although the present name-calling is a little less childish (usually).
I'm starting to think that just because we mature, this sort of persecution doesn't go away. It just gets redirected and if that's true, I think it's holding us all back.
-Jennifer
It was diverse in major but was it diverse in culture. Actually, when it comes to major, we were all techies, just different disciplines in technology. The engineering school was a bit stuffier than the rest, but we're still all techies at heart. It also helped that NJIT has an honors college with an private lounge and computer lab. The geeks end up congregating there and it's like an in-person /. group. You find out that you're not alone.
-Jennifer
What I was talking about was a complete and voluntary segregation, but as I think about it, perhaps it's not such a good idea. Once these kids are out in the "real world" (whatever that is), they still have to interact with the same people, only now as adults. It would probably just deepen the divide.
Another problem with this idea is that I've seen kids who have been victims become the tormentor when put into a group of victims. It seems to be a power thing. Maybe we should be trying to segregate the bullies.
On the upside, if we put a concerted and consistant effort into a special institution, we, as a society, may end up with more adults reaching a greater potential.
I'm still worried about the standards used to qualify a kid as "gifted", even in the current programs (for those schools that have them). I'm even more concerned about the people who are administering these programs.
-Jennifer
I went to Engineering school as well (NJIT), but in the US (I'm from NJ). I'm told from some of the profs and alumni that it used to be socially different when it was just an engineering college (Newark College of Engineering). Everyone was male and wore suits. Now it's a technological university with many technology-based majors and a very diverse place. Still largely male (when I went, it was 6:1 male:female), but about half the students were from out of the country and from many parts of the world. In an environment like that, intolerance for geeks doesn't make sense when there are so many others who are even more different. Not that I think that intolerance is OK, regardless of who is being subjected to it.
The campus is located in the middle of Newark which is definitely inner city urban. NJIT campus backs up to Central High, which has a large student body. There was a great culture clash between the students attending the university (especially the students from the suburbs) and the high school kids. Again, who cares about geeks when there are even more different (and dangerous, in the minds of the ignorant) people to worry about?
-Jennifer
I think you need to go further with that idea. I came from a school system where you basically had three choices for high school. There was the "regular" high school, vocational high school (your trade-school), and Catholic high school. There was precious little difference (although, fewer shop kids, but these weren't the people causing me problems in the first place!).
How about if we had public schools for the gifted? It's not cost effective to set one up for each community. If they had a few broadly regional schools throughout the country, it might be worth it. Of course, it would require dorms and maybe other extra costs (better teachers, security), so there would be extra cost, but the payoff might be worth it, as far as society goes.
I'm a bit concerned about what would qualify a student for getting in, though. I was definitely an outsider and I test pretty high, depending on what day of the week you catch me, but I was not grouped with the "gifted and talented" throughout public school. Only when I got to college was I put into the honors program. I think it had something to do with the fact that I had a higher GPA than many honors students in high school and they get a point added to their GPA for each honors class they take (that last bit's there just to justify my opinion that my school had misgrouped me, not because I wanted to toot my horn). So, my question is, who do we put in charge of deciding who's eligble for this hypothical special school when so many normals are out there running the show?
-Jennifer
I think you're on the right track. It's much bigger than that though. The majority are sheep as far as I can tell and it seems to be a self-feeding cycle. The sheep are uncomfortable with the non-sheep, so the ones that are afraid enough will try to make you conform. Students will provoke and adults, who are supposed to be above doing that, will look the other way. It actually explains Windows quite well.
Some of the unpleasantness of high school is common to all kids. It really is just part of life. Sometimes it sucks. But the more severe problems of physical abuse really should be dealt with. I wonder what would happen if you took them to the police. I know it sounds a bit severe but getting beat up in the locker room or thrown through a window is _assult_ and illegal. If the teachers and parents aren't doing anything about it, I believe the law is supposed to cover this.
-Jennifer
Not that their credibility is looking all that good as it is, but this can only hurt them in the anti-trust trial. Mindcraft was an "independent" lab that contradicted what Apple was saying about Microsoft trying to undermine Quicktime for Windows. Mindcraft released a fix that would make most of the problems go away, but I wonder if that fix wasn't given to them by Microsoft to patch Microsoft's code instead of Quicktime.
I agree that there is nothing that could be done to completely eliminate the possibility of this happening. However, I also believe in moderation. I don't believe in a gun ban, but I also believe in a little more accountablility and preparation than we take right now. It seems to to me that it's odd that we require people to pass a drivers examine (written and behind the wheel) to get a license to operate a vehicle, but there is no requirement, other than age and being a non-felon, to use a gun.
Of course, there's also the issue of bombs, which as far as I know, are just illegal. So it's not just a gun issue.
I believe that this incident is a result of some things that are really wrong in our society. You can't blame it solely on the media or the internet. They just provide information. How we use and let that information effect us was formed before we got the information. This sort of thing starts at home and in the community.
The one thing that everyone keeps saying is that they learned that it _can_ happen here, but I don't think they really believe it. But the truth is, it really can happen here, not because Littleton, CO is a Brady Bunch community, but because the problems that I perceive that precipitated this are so typical of American culture. Those problems are that we live in diverse communities, but we still only get to know those that we would categorize as "one of us". We ignore, sometimes with effort, the warnings, to make ourselves feel a little safer (for a while). It's become a way of life for many parents to not hold their kids responsible for their actions.
I've personally observed that last one for the last 15-20 years, and then watched those parents wonder why when their kid does something like this.
So, in response to the question, if we were to institute a gun control policy tommorow, it would not have made much difference. Too much of our society is screwed up to be cured by some overnight policy fix. If we put into practice, not just something that holds gun owners accountible for the use of their weapons (by them and others), _and_ make other changes to our society in terms of being a little more aware that we live among human beings, which are dangerous animals, and giving kids a sense of responsiblity, maybe then we will be less likely to see this sort of problem.