I agree, the OS is going to take more of a back seat, as there are more kinds of devices out there that require a specialized OS. In that context, a good OS should strive to be transparent, not feature-rich and apparent. It should be designed and optimized to interpret cross-platform standards, like *ML and Java, and the higher-level features should be done in those languages, rather than bloating the OS.
That's becasue learning MS is a TRADE SKILL. It's learning operations, not design. The depth of the learning is only surface-level, meant to be used immediately, because the lifespan of that knowledge is so ephemeral that you better go out and use it now before the vendor changes the GUI on you. Can't wait four+ years for that!
Using any OS that doesn't let you look under the hood is inappropriate for a university setting, where you are supposed to learn deeper concepts that will endure. University students should be expanding on the most fundamental learning, and should take nothing for granted. They certainly should not be learning trade skills like MCSE in a university setting. That is the lowest.
I can't believe that a university would sully it's reputation (and the reputation of institutions of higher learning in general) by reducing the depth of it's computing students' real-world experience to what surface-scratching you get from MS software. I mean, what kind of admins are you going to produce? The kind that know how to work a GUI and have the MS tech support number memorized? Those people are a dime a dozen. They get cranked out of trade schools, and half of their knowledge is tied to the latest version of their GUI. If you can't differentiate your CS majors from your MCSE's then how can you call your school an institution of higher learning? It's more like higher-level learning.
The computing staff said that this was because the majority of people coming into the uni only really needed to browse the web, send email and write essays, therefore Windows was best because EVERYBODY knows how to use windows....
What kind of logic is that? If you know how to browse the web, then you know how to use a WEB BROWSER, not windows. What does knowing how to use windows have to do with browsing the web? All you need is a browsing device.
Come on, if all your students do is browse the web then you should be less dependent on windows, or more accurately, you should be more independent of any OS.
If you're a university and you want to save money, get some thin clients for web browsing, where hardware upgrades are less expensive, and software upgrades are instant and hassle-free, and then you can spend more quality attention on your servers. And you want to be considered an academic institution that fosters inquisitivenes and open learning, rather than a business trade school, get a server OS where you can look under the hood!
One of the great things about electronic communication is that it gives the common man instant lobbying power.
One of the greatest things Slashdot:YRO could do is to post a tool, or a permanent link to a tool, that lets you quickly and easily determine who represents you. I have occasionally seen posts with links to sites like Project Vote Smart that provide this ability. More frequently I have seen posts where people have formatted excellent letters to send to your congressional representatives that address various issues (UCITA, Microsoft trial, etc.), but I still have to do a lot of rooting around to find out who my current representatives are.
This process could all be streamlined right here on YRO, if there was some kind of simple tool (enter your ZIP, up pop the email addresses of everyone who represents you).
There are a lot of intelligent opinions on Slashdot. We need to make them visible in the political arena.
I think the format of this questions speaks more about the structure of the human brain than the question itself. It is the product of a binary mind.
It seems to me that the brain has an easier time classifying data when it can contrast a concept with its opposite. Makes since biologically, if you think about how neurons use electrochemical gradients to define specific open/closed (on/off, true/false, 0/1) states. Sure, we are capable of more complex analysis, but I think that is the result of weighted aggregates of tiny decisions made on a cellular level and that these fundamental decisions are boolean in nature. This is why you find it so much easier to classify an idea by separating it from what it is not, and why you may feel compelled to do so.
Think about how you learn to use a boolean value in a database. When I first had to visualize true/false, I saw them on opposite sides of a divider. Now when I had to incorporate NULL values into the picture, I did not visualize the three states as equal. True and false were still on opposite sides of a divider, but then I created a larger divider and positioned the true/false aggregate on the opposite of the divider from the NULL concept.
I'm largely talking out of my ass while reflecting on my neuroscience education as an undergrad, but it is interesting, isn't it? It could just be the result of a Western upbringing, what with all the heaven/hell, creation/evolution, nature/nurture, oppositional kind of philosophy. Taoism seems to allow for more variability.
Tying back into the topic, does this mean the autistic have deeper, more streamlined boolean thought patterns and the less autistic have more breadth of though but less depth (not that these concepts are neccessarily opposites)? It would mean that the former could store deeper links but would take longer traversing the tree to get there.
OK, that's it for me.
--darkness is not the opposite of light, but the abscence of it.
I didn't realize until now that my workplace has fostered an environment in which I could develop such a terrible disease as internet addiction. I dare say that my employers may have even unconciously encouraged me down this perilous route. Implied in my technical position is the mandate that I keep up with the latest technology, or perish. The only way to keep up is to get on the stuff (the net). I need the stuff to get the insights that I use to maintain my position in this ultrasupermegapsychoaccerlerated cybersociety.
I wonder if my affliction means that I'm eligible for workman's compensation. I wonder if they should pay for my home internet service, since this problem has obviously spilled over into my personal life (I do it at home all the time, usually by myself). Maybe they are responsible for my problem and should be responsible for weening me off the junk! Let them buy my methadone (e.g. cable TV)!
According to AltaVista (searching for web pages only)the internet is quite a source of positivity: It seems that the internet has more ups than downs, up 65,879,209 down 12,842,185 more goodies than baddies, goody 38980 baddy 1123 more yeas than nays, yea 146360 nay 97250 more positives than negatives, positive 1,890,840 negative 903400 and it actually has less windows than doors! window 4,485,050 door 5,747,800
Re:How can this hold up in court?
on
UCITA is passed
·
· Score: 1
IMO, if it has to be shot down in court piece by piece, how good of a legislature could it be in the first place? Each time it goes to court it will waste resources in the form of time in court and money paid to lawyers. And who can afford to hire a lawyer to fight every unconstitutional clause in UCITA? It seems to me that the amount of money lawyers get these days is indicative of the poor design of the laws we've been passing. Maybe software designers should be working alongside politicians to steamline these things ; )
It is true that public posting of unreviewed medical research is asking for lawsuits, which would be a real tragedy. No one wants to see research grant money being thrown away to the lawyers, and no one should be afraid to post the results of their research. A legal disclaimer on the website might prevent this.
I think it is awesome to have research so openly available to the public. In effect, it's open-sourcing, and the benefits to society will parallel that thought. Instantly your community of reviewers is dramatically increased, and who knows what avenues of exploration that may have been ignored by the smaller community will be exposed by the opinions of millions. No doubt there will be public forums devoted to discussion of the latest research, and the more minds involved the better! Granted there will be plenty of erroneous ideas thrown around, and the benefit is like the open source response to bug announcements, that these misconceptions will be able to be patched more quickly. And thus the more questions asked the better in order to depose myths and promote common sense.
Slashdot Mirror
That's an elegant solution! Nice!
I agree, the OS is going to take more of a back seat, as there are more kinds of devices out there that require a specialized OS. In that context, a good OS should strive to be transparent, not feature-rich and apparent. It should be designed and optimized to interpret cross-platform standards, like *ML and Java, and the higher-level features should be done in those languages, rather than bloating the OS.
Using any OS that doesn't let you look under the hood is inappropriate for a university setting, where you are supposed to learn deeper concepts that will endure. University students should be expanding on the most fundamental learning, and should take nothing for granted. They certainly should not be learning trade skills like MCSE in a university setting. That is the lowest.
I can't believe that a university would sully it's reputation (and the reputation of institutions of higher learning in general) by reducing the depth of it's computing students' real-world experience to what surface-scratching you get from MS software. I mean, what kind of admins are you going to produce? The kind that know how to work a GUI and have the MS tech support number memorized? Those people are a dime a dozen. They get cranked out of trade schools, and half of their knowledge is tied to the latest version of their GUI. If you can't differentiate your CS majors from your MCSE's then how can you call your school an institution of higher learning? It's more like higher-level learning.
What kind of logic is that? If you know how to browse the web, then you know how to use a WEB BROWSER, not windows. What does knowing how to use windows have to do with browsing the web? All you need is a browsing device.
Come on, if all your students do is browse the web then you should be less dependent on windows, or more accurately, you should be more independent of any OS.
If you're a university and you want to save money, get some thin clients for web browsing, where hardware upgrades are less expensive, and software upgrades are instant and hassle-free, and then you can spend more quality attention on your servers. And you want to be considered an academic institution that fosters inquisitivenes and open learning, rather than a business trade school, get a server OS where you can look under the hood!
Slightly offtopic to the article, but relevant:
One of the great things about electronic communication is that it gives the common man instant lobbying power.
One of the greatest things Slashdot:YRO could do is to post a tool, or a permanent link to a tool, that lets you quickly and easily determine who represents you. I have occasionally seen posts with links to sites like Project Vote Smart that provide this ability. More frequently I have seen posts where people have formatted excellent letters to send to your congressional representatives that address various issues (UCITA, Microsoft trial, etc.), but I still have to do a lot of rooting around to find out who my current representatives are.
This process could all be streamlined right here on YRO, if there was some kind of simple tool (enter your ZIP, up pop the email addresses of everyone who represents you).
There are a lot of intelligent opinions on Slashdot. We need to make them visible in the political arena.
I think the format of this questions speaks more about the structure of the human brain than the question itself. It is the product of a binary mind.
It seems to me that the brain has an easier time classifying data when it can contrast a concept with its opposite. Makes since biologically, if you think about how neurons use electrochemical gradients to define specific open/closed (on/off, true/false, 0/1) states. Sure, we are capable of more complex analysis, but I think that is the result of weighted aggregates of tiny decisions made on a cellular level and that these fundamental decisions are boolean in nature. This is why you find it so much easier to classify an idea by separating it from what it is not, and why you may feel compelled to do so.
Think about how you learn to use a boolean value in a database. When I first had to visualize true/false, I saw them on opposite sides of a divider. Now when I had to incorporate NULL values into the picture, I did not visualize the three states as equal. True and false were still on opposite sides of a divider, but then I created a larger divider and positioned the true/false aggregate on the opposite of the divider from the NULL concept.
I'm largely talking out of my ass while reflecting on my neuroscience education as an undergrad, but it is interesting, isn't it? It could just be the result of a Western upbringing, what with all the heaven/hell, creation/evolution, nature/nurture, oppositional kind of philosophy. Taoism seems to allow for more variability.
Tying back into the topic, does this mean the autistic have deeper, more streamlined boolean thought patterns and the less autistic have more breadth of though but less depth (not that these concepts are neccessarily opposites)? It would mean that the former could store deeper links but would take longer traversing the tree to get there.
OK, that's it for me.
--darkness is not the opposite of light, but the abscence of it.
I wonder if my affliction means that I'm eligible for workman's compensation. I wonder if they should pay for my home internet service, since this problem has obviously spilled over into my personal life (I do it at home all the time, usually by myself). Maybe they are responsible for my problem and should be responsible for weening me off the junk! Let them buy my methadone (e.g. cable TV)!
According to AltaVista (searching for web pages only)the internet is quite a source of positivity:
It seems that the internet has more ups than downs,
up 65,879,209
down 12,842,185
more goodies than baddies,
goody 38980
baddy 1123
more yeas than nays,
yea 146360
nay 97250
more positives than negatives,
positive 1,890,840
negative 903400
and it actually has less windows than doors!
window 4,485,050
door 5,747,800
According to AltaVista (searching for web pages only)the internet is quite a source of positivity: It seems that the internet has more ups than downs, up 65,879,209 down 12,842,185 more goodies than baddies, goody 38980 baddy 1123 more yeas than nays, yea 146360 nay 97250 more positives than negatives, positive 1,890,840 negative 903400 and it actually has less windows than doors! window 4,485,050 door 5,747,800
IMO, if it has to be shot down in court piece by piece, how good of a legislature could it be in the first place? Each time it goes to court it will waste resources in the form of time in court and money paid to lawyers. And who can afford to hire a lawyer to fight every unconstitutional clause in UCITA? It seems to me that the amount of money lawyers get these days is indicative of the poor design of the laws we've been passing. Maybe software designers should be working alongside politicians to steamline these things ; )
It is true that public posting of unreviewed medical research is asking for lawsuits, which would be a real tragedy. No one wants to see research grant money being thrown away to the lawyers, and no one should be afraid to post the results of their research. A legal disclaimer on the website might prevent this.
I think it is awesome to have research so openly available to the public. In effect, it's open-sourcing, and the benefits to society will parallel that thought. Instantly your community of reviewers is dramatically increased, and who knows what avenues of exploration that may have been ignored by the smaller community will be exposed by the opinions of millions. No doubt there will be public forums devoted to discussion of the latest research, and the more minds involved the better! Granted there will be plenty of erroneous ideas thrown around, and the benefit is like the open source response to bug announcements, that these misconceptions will be able to be patched more quickly. And thus the more questions asked the better in order to depose myths and promote common sense.