This reminds me of the project a few years back where they funded research to figure out how to leave an interpretable message on top of toxic waste so hypothetical future civilizations would know to leave it alone. The issue there was a) permanance and b) clarity across cultual lines (the idea of a post-holocaust scenereo was there as a subtext).
Imagine hundreds of years from now when future archaeologists dig up old video collections (now blank from degredation)... "I wonder what these little black talismans were for..."
Of course, I'm a cynic to start. I won't say its unworkable, certainly, but I still see this sort of thing more as a supplement to education than a self-contained university experience.
Reading the article helped allay one of my concerns - the lack of people on the other end. According to the article, he wants to hire lecturers and guest lecturers to be videotaped and then offer the video online. Of course, that's still no better than watching a lecture on TV, because there's no Q&A session.
An online university would be great for the kinds of subjects that are taught via lecture and reading. I think it would start to fall apart in the discussion and tutoring areas. For something like this, I would want to see moderated chatroom "sections" for each lecture at the very least. It costs in terms of teacher-hours (or more likely TA-hours) and loses some of the flexibility of unscheduled learning, but most people learn better by interaction.
I don't see the big expense for an online university being the web pages, the online books, the quizzes, or even the lecturers. To work - there need to people there. A live, thinking person has to answer questions, correct exams (multiple blind-stab-in-the-dark tests have only limited educational use, and correcting anything more sophisticated requires an actual brain), lead discussions, and so on.
I did take part in some experiements with online learning back in the mid 80's (yes, that long ago). In the course I took (a soft science no less - it was Intro to Sociology) I was physically present three times - for orientation, the midterm, and the final. Interim quizzes were done by timed email. As far as it went, it was a good experience for me. One of the big problems was that I see continuing with the free online unversity is that people tended to blow off homework and deadlines because the class didn't feel "real". There was no peer pressure to perform. I would guess that the "free" aspect would aggravate that problem. The second most reported problem was that a lot of the other students in the experiment felt isolated by the remote learning. The second time they ran the experiement, they added a TA who was available for face-to-face at certain hours and that did seem to help.
Books can provide static information, and TV can provide taped lectures -- the thing this university can provide that would be really new is remote interaction with actual people.
All of the pieces were beautiful, and I did enjoy the film.
Beware of Spoilers . . . .
But why, oh why, did they have to mangle Hand Christian Anderson yet again. I understand why they had to tag a happy ending onto The Little Mermaid, and that worked with the story. But they played so close to the Steadfast Tin Soldier in such close detail and then they wimped out on the ending. Fantasia is aimed for a more adult audience and I wish they could have left the story alone.
For those of you who don't know, in the Stadfast Tin soldier, the jack in the box is able to drag the soldier into the stove and the ballerina jumps in after him. The cook opens the oven later to find only his melted heart and the paper flower, now a cinder.
I've certainly played male characters. Sometimes I don't even do it on purpose. "Default" gender in our society is male. I have an identifiably female name here, but a lot of my psuedonyms are less obvious. Unless you identify yourself some way, you're just assumed to be male. It's amazing the stir you can cause by waiting a while and "coming out" as female.
The atmosphere has become a little less testosterone laden, but it used to be "inconceivable" that a female would be online unless it had something to do with her boyfriend. I had at least one online friend who wouldn't believe I was female until he met me.
I work (counted as time spent at work) exactly forty hours every week, almost to the minute. Why? Because as a contractor, I am forbidden by management to work overtime. If there's more work than I can go in forty hours, as far as I'm concerned, boo hoo for them. For what I make, I don't play the unpaid overtime game. I got to explain this to a manager once.
I didn't used to be this way until I realized something. I used to come into jobs that, realistically, didn't take up all my time, but had been one person's full time job. So when I was asked to take on extra responsibility, it was no problem. Then it was more. Then they eliminated a job in the department and split the work between those remaining. Now I was using all my time, but when they asked me to take on a little more work, I said yes because I didn't want to make trouble, and each duty was such a small thing. This kept up until I was doing what had before been a job for two and a half people, and they'd eliminated another position. My response time slipped -- there wasn't enough time in the day. And I was being yelled at for my "drop" in productivity. It got to the point where the prospect of going in to work was making me physically ill.
I'm not at that job anymore, but I see them (different mamagers, same BS) trying to pull the same thing. For every person they can get to do the work of two or three people, that's a person they can let go and not have to pay. Me? I'm willing to do the work of two - I know a lot of shortcuts. But I draw the line at doing to the work of three. These days I explain that if they want every job done right away, they need to fill that headcount they've left "temporarily" empty for months on end (hoping to prove the position isn't needed). They can't fire me, because they know they can't replace me with one person - my replacement would quit in a minute.
The only way not to be exploited is to refuse to be.
Don't get me wrong. I love the Tick. I loved the original comic books ("You mean it wasn't just an animated series?") and I loved the cartoon.
The thing is:
a) regular super-hero stuff doesn't tend to translate all that well into live action. Even blockbusters like the Batman series really weren't very good.
b) A lot of the Tick's humor is based on viewer knowledge of the cliches it busts on. So, anybody who ran across the comic book was already part of the audience that would get it. And even though the animated series was a little mismatached for saturday morning kiddies, it did still self select for those adults willing to watch cartoons in the first place -- so again, the people watching it were going to get it. Now, live action shows, on the other hand, target at the general public, and I don't think Joe Public is going to get it. Joe Public doesn't like to think to get jokes, and he's going to take his Neilsen numbers to someplace where he won't have to.
Sure, the computer tracking makes it easier, but police and security already track people for "supicious" behavior. If you come into this country on an international flight, airport security has the right to pick people out and search them if they "look suspicious". According to the law, suspicious behavior includes things such as "travelling alone", "travelling in a group", "having only one piece of carry-on luggage", etc.
Where I would expect a system like this to be used is for "probable cause" to justify search and seizure.
As far as simple secutiry goes, human security already responds to people who behave in an unusual manner. Who among us has not been followed around a department store by the store security. (Oh, just me? Nevermind.)
It would give a whole new meaning to "paper trail"
on
IDs in Color Copies
·
· Score: 1
What if every color photocopy you made included a unique serial number to trace the page back to the copy machine? What if every color printer, down to the lowliest inkjet, printed an invisible watermark on every page it printed? What if every scanner included a watermark in every scan that was traceable back to the scanner?
Then it'd be a lot easier to catch me at making personal copies at work. Have we no freedoms left?
Of course, it would also be easier to catch those people from other cost units who keep using our color printer. That would show them. Curse those thieves.
Wow. Did you get the impression that Jon Katz didn't like "End of Days" much? I suppose this validates my decision not to see it.
Toy Story 2, on the other hand, was a blast. In true Disney fashion, there were a lot of jokes thrown in for the adults in the crowd.
[semi-spolier] I was a bit surprised to find out how old Woody is, although the fact that he's made of cloth and stitching should have clued me in. I do find it interesting that both this movie and this year's Iron Giant fell back on a lot of 50s nostalgia. Unless the writers are expecting grandparents rather than parents to be escorting the kids, I wonder why the 50s are still looming so large so close to the turn of the century. [close semi-spoiler]
Of course, I had my own moment of nostalgia when Pixar chose to replay their first computer animated film from way back in (gasp) 1986. I felt suddently ancient as I sat in a room filled with people who hadn't even been born then.
I can't say Toy Story 2 was better written or conceived than the original, but they were sure both fun.
>But I guess that's how people felt when they >heard there would be a sequel to Star Wars.
Actually there's a huge difference here. The Star Wars trilogy was actually *conceived* as a trilogy. It was designed to have sequels.
The Matrix was designed as a stand-alone.
The big problem I have for a sequel is that they either have to redefine their virtual world or go "outside", and virtual world seems to be what eve
Well, I'll admit to being surprised
on
Managing Geeks
·
· Score: 2
(Some old readers report seeing this article remarked on/. before. I didn't, so I'm going to pretend it's fresh news anyway.)
I was pleasantly surprised. I got through the first few paragraphs and felt that old sinking feeling whenever a social group gets pidgeonholed. Gross generalizations break down so easily, they're rarely useful outside of humor.
On the other hand, when I got to the actual advice, I was pleasantly surprised. Most of the advice given described the way I generally prefer to be treated. I've complained many times before, "Tell me where we need to go, not how I should get there." (FYI - I'm not a techie, I'm a secretary. Even if I am a geek.)
It's good advice, and like all good advice, isn't going to change the people who really need it anyway.
Like it was the mechanics anybody liked anyway.
on
D&D Movie on The Way
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· Score: 2
I'm not sure how happy I am on the repeated emphasis on how much the movie will be based out of the rulebooks.
Some of the worst fantasy novels out there are the ones transparently drawn from someone's camapign. I'm not saying that there aren't good novels set in the (A)D&D universe or that some of them didn't grow out of the writer's own campaigns (the Dragonlance books fit both those criteria), but that being aware of the mechanics distracts from the story. Good writing can overcome this, but they're not saying what a great story they have to tell - they're saying how much the viewer will recognize from the sourcebooks.
Most of the best role-playing campaigns I've been in (D&D or otherwise) have deviated from the printed material one way or another. A book of rules alone does not make a good game.
Frankly, most RPGs are more fun to play than to watch. The part that needs to translate to the big screen is the story and world, not the stats and die rolls.
On the other hand, I took part in an online course way back in 1987. It was hosted by NJITs EIES system (half mainframe, half BBS) and offered for credit by Upsala College (which sadly, is no more). (I wish I knew where the study docs for this was - it was part of a three course experiment and I know research was done).
It was Introduction to Sociology and lasted the full semester. We met in person exactly three times - for orientation (and to buy the book), for the mid-term exam, and for the final exam. The class had about 16 students, IIRC.
It wasn't done with a mailing list, but with a sort of threaded discussion group (not unlike a usenet newsgroup). The professor would post reading assignments or "lectures" and participants were expected to reply. Quizzes were done by timed email (reciept was timestamped and then you had X minuites to send the completed reply).
I had a good experience with it. I learned a lot, and if I'd had to commute to campus, I'd never have been able to take the course.
If 1987 technology could be made to work, I have to think that today's tech should be able to handle it even better.
Slashdot Mirror
This reminds me of the project a few years back where they funded research to figure out how to leave an interpretable message on top of toxic waste so hypothetical future civilizations would know to leave it alone. The issue there was a) permanance and b) clarity across cultual lines (the idea of a post-holocaust scenereo was there as a subtext).
Imagine hundreds of years from now when future archaeologists dig up old video collections (now blank from degredation)... "I wonder what these little black talismans were for..."
Of course, I'm a cynic to start. I won't say its unworkable, certainly, but I still see this sort of thing more as a supplement to education than a self-contained university experience.
Reading the article helped allay one of my concerns - the lack of people on the other end. According to the article, he wants to hire lecturers and guest lecturers to be videotaped and then offer the video online. Of course, that's still no better than watching a lecture on TV, because there's no Q&A session.
An online university would be great for the kinds of subjects that are taught via lecture and reading. I think it would start to fall apart in the discussion and tutoring areas. For something like this, I would want to see moderated chatroom "sections" for each lecture at the very least. It costs in terms of teacher-hours (or more likely TA-hours) and loses some of the flexibility of unscheduled learning, but most people learn better by interaction.
I don't see the big expense for an online university being the web pages, the online books, the quizzes, or even the lecturers. To work - there need to people there. A live, thinking person has to answer questions, correct exams (multiple blind-stab-in-the-dark tests have only limited educational use, and correcting anything more sophisticated requires an actual brain), lead discussions, and so on.
I did take part in some experiements with online learning back in the mid 80's (yes, that long ago). In the course I took (a soft science no less - it was Intro to Sociology) I was physically present three times - for orientation, the midterm, and the final. Interim quizzes were done by timed email. As far as it went, it was a good experience for me. One of the big problems was that I see continuing with the free online unversity is that people tended to blow off homework and deadlines because the class didn't feel "real". There was no peer pressure to perform. I would guess that the "free" aspect would aggravate that problem. The second most reported problem was that a lot of the other students in the experiment felt isolated by the remote learning. The second time they ran the experiement, they added a TA who was available for face-to-face at certain hours and that did seem to help.
Books can provide static information, and TV can provide taped lectures -- the thing this university can provide that would be really new is remote interaction with actual people.
All of the pieces were beautiful, and I did enjoy the film.
Beware of Spoilers
.
.
.
.
But why, oh why, did they have to mangle Hand Christian Anderson yet again. I understand why they had to tag a happy ending onto The Little Mermaid, and that worked with the story. But they played so close to the Steadfast Tin Soldier in such close detail and then they wimped out on the ending. Fantasia is aimed for a more adult audience and I wish they could have left the story alone.
For those of you who don't know, in the Stadfast Tin soldier, the jack in the box is able to drag the soldier into the stove and the ballerina jumps in after him. The cook opens the oven later to find only his melted heart and the paper flower, now a cinder.
I've certainly played male characters. Sometimes I don't even do it on purpose. "Default" gender in our society is male. I have an identifiably female name here, but a lot of my psuedonyms are less obvious. Unless you identify yourself some way, you're just assumed to be male. It's amazing the stir you can cause by waiting a while and "coming out" as female.
The atmosphere has become a little less testosterone laden, but it used to be "inconceivable" that a female would be online unless it had something to do with her boyfriend. I had at least one online friend who wouldn't believe I was female until he met me.
Are you sure you didn't mean to write "In light of the ..."? C'mon guys, a spellchecker doesn't replace actual proofreading.
I work (counted as time spent at work) exactly forty hours every week, almost to the minute. Why? Because as a contractor, I am forbidden by management to work overtime. If there's more work than I can go in forty hours, as far as I'm concerned, boo hoo for them. For what I make, I don't play the unpaid overtime game. I got to explain this to a manager once.
I didn't used to be this way until I realized something. I used to come into jobs that, realistically, didn't take up all my time, but had been one person's full time job. So when I was asked to take on extra responsibility, it was no problem. Then it was more. Then they eliminated a job in the department and split the work between those remaining. Now I was using all my time, but when they asked me to take on a little more work, I said yes because I didn't want to make trouble, and each duty was such a small thing. This kept up until I was doing what had before been a job for two and a half people, and they'd eliminated another position. My response time slipped -- there wasn't enough time in the day. And I was being yelled at for my "drop" in productivity. It got to the point where the prospect of going in to work was making me physically ill.
I'm not at that job anymore, but I see them (different mamagers, same BS) trying to pull the same thing. For every person they can get to do the work of two or three people, that's a person they can let go and not have to pay. Me? I'm willing to do the work of two - I know a lot of shortcuts. But I draw the line at doing to the work of three. These days I explain that if they want every job done right away, they need to fill that headcount they've left "temporarily" empty for months on end (hoping to prove the position isn't needed). They can't fire me, because they know they can't replace me with one person - my replacement would quit in a minute.
The only way not to be exploited is to refuse to be.
...I don't see this lasting past one season.
Don't get me wrong. I love the Tick. I loved the original comic books ("You mean it wasn't just an animated series?") and I loved the cartoon.
The thing is:
a) regular super-hero stuff doesn't tend to translate all that well into live action. Even blockbusters like the Batman series really weren't very good.
b) A lot of the Tick's humor is based on viewer knowledge of the cliches it busts on. So, anybody who ran across the comic book was already part of the audience that would get it. And even though the animated series was a little mismatached for saturday morning kiddies, it did still self select for those adults willing to watch cartoons in the first place -- so again, the people watching it were going to get it. Now, live action shows, on the other hand, target at the general public, and I don't think Joe Public is going to get it. Joe Public doesn't like to think to get jokes, and he's going to take his Neilsen numbers to someplace where he won't have to.
Sure, the computer tracking makes it easier, but police and security already track people for "supicious" behavior. If you come into this country on an international flight, airport security has the right to pick people out and search them if they "look suspicious". According to the law, suspicious behavior includes things such as "travelling alone", "travelling in a group", "having only one piece of carry-on luggage", etc.
Where I would expect a system like this to be used is for "probable cause" to justify search and seizure.
As far as simple secutiry goes, human security already responds to people who behave in an unusual manner. Who among us has not been followed around a department store by the store security. (Oh, just me? Nevermind.)
Then it'd be a lot easier to catch me at making personal copies at work. Have we no freedoms left?
Of course, it would also be easier to catch those people from other cost units who keep using our color printer. That would show them. Curse those thieves.
>>I could parse most of the silly words, but 1337 got past me. (My fault for being over 30, I guess.) What is it?
Don't worry. I'm under 30, and I had to think it through.
Near as I can tell 1-L, 3=E, 4=A, 5=S, 7=T, 8="ate", 0=O, and $=S. No doubt there are others.
So 1337 is LEET, which is short for "elite", you know?
*sigh* I remember when all the silly typists were still looking for \-Rad warz, d00d. All these young hipsters are just making me feel so old!
Wow. Did you get the impression that Jon Katz didn't like "End of Days" much? I suppose this validates my decision not to see it.
Toy Story 2, on the other hand, was a blast. In true Disney fashion, there were a lot of jokes thrown in for the adults in the crowd.
[semi-spolier] I was a bit surprised to find out how old Woody is, although the fact that he's made of cloth and stitching should have clued me in. I do find it interesting that both this movie and this year's Iron Giant fell back on a lot of 50s nostalgia. Unless the writers are expecting grandparents rather than parents to be escorting the kids, I wonder why the 50s are still looming so large so close to the turn of the century. [close semi-spoiler]
Of course, I had my own moment of nostalgia when Pixar chose to replay their first computer animated film from way back in (gasp) 1986. I felt suddently ancient as I sat in a room filled with people who hadn't even been born then.
I can't say Toy Story 2 was better written or conceived than the original, but they were sure both fun.
>But I guess that's how people felt when they
>heard there would be a sequel to Star Wars.
Actually there's a huge difference here. The Star Wars trilogy was actually *conceived* as a trilogy. It was designed to have sequels.
The Matrix was designed as a stand-alone.
The big problem I have for a sequel is that they either have to redefine their virtual world or go "outside", and virtual world seems to be what eve
(Some old readers report seeing this article remarked on /. before. I didn't, so I'm going to pretend it's fresh news anyway.)
I was pleasantly surprised. I got through the first few paragraphs and felt that old sinking feeling whenever a social group gets pidgeonholed. Gross generalizations break down so easily, they're rarely useful outside of humor.
On the other hand, when I got to the actual advice, I was pleasantly surprised. Most of the advice given described the way I generally prefer to be treated. I've complained many times before, "Tell me where we need to go, not how I should get there." (FYI - I'm not a techie, I'm a secretary. Even if I am a geek.)
It's good advice, and like all good advice, isn't going to change the people who really need it anyway.
I'm not sure how happy I am on the repeated emphasis on how much the movie will be based out of the rulebooks.
Some of the worst fantasy novels out there are the ones transparently drawn from someone's camapign. I'm not saying that there aren't good novels set in the (A)D&D universe or that some of them didn't grow out of the writer's own campaigns (the Dragonlance books fit both those criteria), but that being aware of the mechanics distracts from the story. Good writing can overcome this, but they're not saying what a great story they have to tell - they're saying how much the viewer will recognize from the sourcebooks.
Most of the best role-playing campaigns I've been in (D&D or otherwise) have deviated from the printed material one way or another. A book of rules alone does not make a good game.
Frankly, most RPGs are more fun to play than to watch. The part that needs to translate to the big screen is the story and world, not the stats and die rolls.
On the other hand, I took part in an online course way back in 1987. It was hosted by NJITs EIES system (half mainframe, half BBS) and offered for credit by Upsala College (which sadly, is no more). (I wish I knew where the study docs for this was - it was part of a three course experiment and I know research was done).
It was Introduction to Sociology and lasted the full semester. We met in person exactly three times - for orientation (and to buy the book), for the mid-term exam, and for the final exam. The class had about 16 students, IIRC.
It wasn't done with a mailing list, but with a sort of threaded discussion group (not unlike a usenet newsgroup). The professor would post reading assignments or "lectures" and participants were expected to reply. Quizzes were done by timed email (reciept was timestamped and then you had X minuites to send the completed reply).
I had a good experience with it. I learned a lot, and if I'd had to commute to campus, I'd never have been able to take the course.
If 1987 technology could be made to work, I have to think that today's tech should be able to handle it even better.