Claiming that Facebook users are not customers obfuscates the report's intent. It distort's the site's business model. It is the kind of cheap rhetorical trick often used by the far right, people like Rush Limbaugh, in a desperate attempt to discredit someone.
I have seen and use far worse sites. MapMyRide for example, although they are about to roll out a new site design. One of my favorite sites is Flickr, but even they have problems. Creating a new set feels like a mystery adventure game.
Users are customers. Facebook cannot afford the staff to provide much hand-holding, just like PayPal in its first few years. That does not mean they are unaware or uncaring. Their revenue stream depends on ad income, and that depends on users.
There used to be (still is?) a camera store in Chicago that had rock bottom prices. Their sales staff would not take the time to explain anything. They were enormously successful. Across the street was another camera store. Their prices were higher. They did very well, because their customers were the ones who could not get the time of day from the other store. Perhaps some of you who frown at Facebook would be better served at anther site, such as http://www.linkedin.com/
In this case the Slashdot conventional wisdom appears to be "Nobody needs Facebook." But, as is so often pointed out here, Slashdotters are not a representative cross-section of personallity types. Reference the frequent comments about women/dating/sex. Facebook addresses social interaction that is mostly incomprehensible to this group. On the other hand, if it weren't for the kinds of people who hang out here there would be no Facebook. Let's not fall into the "what is right for us is right for everyone" hole.
People are unaware of the money collected for ASCAP because it is done "behind the vinyl curtain." Radio stations, college campuses, and other large institutions who play recorded music or put on live performances pay an annual fee to ASCAP. It is ASCAP's position that they represent all song writers and composers, therefore all music performed and recordings played are subject to their fees. Radio station owners feel it, university chancellors feel it, but consumers do not.
Consider gasoline taxes. What consumers see is $3.29/gal. Things would be different if the posted price was $2.17/gal and the bill for ten gallons was $32.90.
Nowhere have I encountered more resistence to computers in education than from educators. Treat this study as you would a report that proves that the TCO for Windows is lower than Linux.I wonder how the folks at Open Cobalt (Duke, same as study) feel about it. I see Cobalt as the foundation for future educational software.
It seems to me that in this case the "problem" with the home computer was that is was a distraction. That is exactly the point. We need to change how we teach, to use the allure of the computer to hold the student's attention. Was chat software to blame? Interesting. Ten years ago I made the point that what students crave is social interaction, so the educator's challenge is to make use of that. Even us nerds like to have an IRC channel or two open while we work.
We do not teach our kids type setting and book binding. What we need is better educational software, and teaching methods that build upon that software foundation.
All the scientists need to do is get a big old white herse, add flashing lights and a hee-haw siren, and everyone will give way. According to reputable sources this works great in New York city.
First of all, I don't like to use my finger; I prefer a stylus, on a passive digitizer. I may change my tune after using multi-touch, but I have not had the pleasure as yet.
The Apple Newton deals with the scroll bar issue by limiting the UI to vertical only, and supplying a set of scroll arrows in the toolbar at the bottom of the screen. Tapping an arrow scrolls one page. The important thing is that the location never changes. Some apps add a second set of scroll arrows. In Dates (the calendar), tapping the standard scroll arrows moves forward and back a day, and tapping the special arrows scrolls the current day forward or back about an hour.
I want a tablet to have all of the power of a current notebook, to include vertical and horizontal scrolling. I like the idea of some key pads located close to the edges of the screen, with four button clusters like a typical game controller. Don't waste valuable screen area on buttons that do not need to be dynamic. I also like scrollbars, but not the Windows/Mac style. I prefer the old Unix (or was it Smalltalk?) style where the size of the scroll depended on how far from the center you clicked.
Where Windows and Gnome fail is in the implementation of mouse buttons 2 and 3. On my Fujitsu T-1010, Win7 sort of emulates button-2 by a long tap-and-hold, but this does not work well in all applications, most notably Squeak Smalltalk. And, there is no button-3 support at all, which Squeak expects. I have a simple tablet input working in Ubuntu, but it only does button-1, so it is mostly worthless.
Next up is text entry, but this post is long enough. All I will say is that even in Win7 text entry is too great a compromise. Nothing comes close to a Newton in this regard.
When I got started I used an Ohio Scientific with a 6502 CPU. It ran basic, but PEEK and POKE were by far the most frequent statements used. A lot sexier than a dirty PRINT statement.
In response to the original question, I recommend writing games with Flash. (Pay no attention to the anti-Flash flack sure to follow.) Tons of help availabile on-line and from the book store. If that holds his (or her) attention, install Squeak and learn how to use the active morphs, such as a Storyboard or Playfield. Fiddling with morph properties is a lot more interactive than editing ActionScript.
I would prefer that universities make research results free, but the treand has been going in the opposit direction. Universities patent whatever they can in hopes of making some money off it.
Claim to Fame: Not much Name: Gary Dunn Age in 1973: 23 Doing: Graduate school, University of Illinois, Master of Music in Composition
I would walk past this big building every day and see kids working at computer terminals. They seemed strangely engaged, as if in a trance. At the same time my friend John Van der Slice was learning FORTRAN in order to use a music composition program. He used to carry around long boxes of punch cards. I thought computer programming was the nerdiest thing possible, as lame as playing the accordian. In 1984 I was working at the University of Hawaii, writing some audio analysis stuff in Basic on a Harris. In the same terminal room were some PLATO terminals, with erie orange screens. I recall watching someone play hangman against an opponent somewhere on the mainland. I was impressed.
In 2000 I wrote to David R. Woolley in regards to my newly formed Open Slate Project. Here is his reply, being sent from one of my mail account to another:
At 11:04 AM 9/19/00 -1000, you wrote:
> I am designing an educational system to be propogated in the spirit of
> the
> open-source software community and would like to draw upon the lessons
> learned
> at Plato. I found a web page ( [dead link] h t t p://www.cbi.umn.edu/inv/cerlplat.htm
> ) listing
> articles related to Plato, but without pointers to the text of the
> articles.
> It's a start.
Yes... I expect that little, if any, of that material is online. To
read it you'd probably have to travel to where the stuff is physically
archived (apparently both at the U of Minnesota and the U of Illinois).
> I would like to ask more questions about Plato, if you are interested.
Sure, I'd be glad to tell you what I can. If you just have a few
questions, and they're fairly simple, I can answer by email. If there
are a lot, I'd prefer to do it by phone. You can reach me at
[he gave me his phone number but I regret I never called].
Free speech does not require a judge's determination. The right to free speech trumps an investigation into leakage. The investigators will just have to find another way. This always pisses off the cops on Law and Order, but it is one of the safeguards built into the American Constitution intended to limit government power.
I thought being arrested got you finger printed and photographed, and that data is retained forever. How is gathering and storing DNA different? Now if every woman who has sex can sell a sample of collected fluids to a communicable disease database I think some married jocks would worry about leaks. Nobody on Slashdot, of course. And if you want to out a Republican Congressman just extend the offer to underage boys.
So are we against retaining finger prints and mug shots? Or only DNA?
Canonical is not made up of GPL purists, nor are they made up of OSS purists. They've never, ever claimed to be, and I don't think they should be. They are made up of a group that is trying to make Linux a viable, useful alternative...
And they accomplish this by starting with one of the purest open-source distros around -- Debian -- and then pissing all over it.
True, but in practice many FOSS folk use "open source" to include "patent and royalty free." And, just to be clear, an open source program can, according to a few well placed people, infringe upon patents.
You want mass market? You have to include the things that people want, and with more video going to H.264 online, what are you supposed to tell the consumers? "Sorry, this doesn't jibe with the worldview that we hold and you don't understand or care about...."
This is not born out in the real world. Apple still refuses to put Flash on the iPhone / iPad. Microsoft has made switching browsers as hard as possible, and it took a federal lawsuit to force AT&T to allow customers to use their modems on the Bell phone system. The mp3.com web site was a popular and valuable promotional tool for indi artists (that is where I first heard Skylab 2000 and other European techno groups) until the US entertainment industry sued them into oblivion. No, big corporations do not give their mass market customers what they want. They really do say "I peece on you."
I am not a hard core FOSS guy, but I do agree with Stallman's reasons why software should be free. I was there when AT&T tried to kill BSD and claim all the Unix code as their own. More recently we saw something similar from SCO. We must not forget those lessons. If we allow all video to go closed source we will be pwned.
Slashdot Mirror
Claiming that Facebook users are not customers obfuscates the report's intent. It distort's the site's business model. It is the kind of cheap rhetorical trick often used by the far right, people like Rush Limbaugh, in a desperate attempt to discredit someone.
I have seen and use far worse sites. MapMyRide for example, although they are about to roll out a new site design. One of my favorite sites is Flickr, but even they have problems. Creating a new set feels like a mystery adventure game.
Users are customers. Facebook cannot afford the staff to provide much hand-holding, just like PayPal in its first few years. That does not mean they are unaware or uncaring. Their revenue stream depends on ad income, and that depends on users.
There used to be (still is?) a camera store in Chicago that had rock bottom prices. Their sales staff would not take the time to explain anything. They were enormously successful. Across the street was another camera store. Their prices were higher. They did very well, because their customers were the ones who could not get the time of day from the other store. Perhaps some of you who frown at Facebook would be better served at anther site, such as http://www.linkedin.com/
In this case the Slashdot conventional wisdom appears to be "Nobody needs Facebook." But, as is so often pointed out here, Slashdotters are not a representative cross-section of personallity types. Reference the frequent comments about women/dating/sex. Facebook addresses social interaction that is mostly incomprehensible to this group. On the other hand, if it weren't for the kinds of people who hang out here there would be no Facebook. Let's not fall into the "what is right for us is right for everyone" hole.
"sed" is a noun, and in this case it is the direct object.
And sed is not the only place were REs are used.
I (@garydunn808) use TweetCaster on my Android phone with refresh interval at 30 min. Two interuptions per hour is all my right brain can handle.
Fair enough. How about this:
Bank robbers usually duck when police shoot at them, so we should kill all ducks and serve Canard a l'Orange in prison.
Does this explain why the article was tagged with a crock hunter hat and not Einstein's head?
People are unaware of the money collected for ASCAP because it is done "behind the vinyl curtain." Radio stations, college campuses, and other large institutions who play recorded music or put on live performances pay an annual fee to ASCAP. It is ASCAP's position that they represent all song writers and composers, therefore all music performed and recordings played are subject to their fees. Radio station owners feel it, university chancellors feel it, but consumers do not.
Consider gasoline taxes. What consumers see is $3.29/gal. Things would be different if the posted price was $2.17/gal and the bill for ten gallons was $32.90.
Ignorance is bliss.
Nowhere have I encountered more resistence to computers in education than from educators. Treat this study as you would a report that proves that the TCO for Windows is lower than Linux.I wonder how the folks at Open Cobalt (Duke, same as study) feel about it. I see Cobalt as the foundation for future educational software.
It seems to me that in this case the "problem" with the home computer was that is was a distraction. That is exactly the point. We need to change how we teach, to use the allure of the computer to hold the student's attention. Was chat software to blame? Interesting. Ten years ago I made the point that what students crave is social interaction, so the educator's challenge is to make use of that. Even us nerds like to have an IRC channel or two open while we work.
We do not teach our kids type setting and book binding. What we need is better educational software, and teaching methods that build upon that software foundation.
All the scientists need to do is get a big old white herse, add flashing lights and a hee-haw siren, and everyone will give way. According to reputable sources this works great in New York city.
"Factory reset." You keep using that phrase. I do not think it means what you think it means.
First of all, I don't like to use my finger; I prefer a stylus, on a passive digitizer. I may change my tune after using multi-touch, but I have not had the pleasure as yet.
The Apple Newton deals with the scroll bar issue by limiting the UI to vertical only, and supplying a set of scroll arrows in the toolbar at the bottom of the screen. Tapping an arrow scrolls one page. The important thing is that the location never changes. Some apps add a second set of scroll arrows. In Dates (the calendar), tapping the standard scroll arrows moves forward and back a day, and tapping the special arrows scrolls the current day forward or back about an hour.
I want a tablet to have all of the power of a current notebook, to include vertical and horizontal scrolling. I like the idea of some key pads located close to the edges of the screen, with four button clusters like a typical game controller. Don't waste valuable screen area on buttons that do not need to be dynamic. I also like scrollbars, but not the Windows/Mac style. I prefer the old Unix (or was it Smalltalk?) style where the size of the scroll depended on how far from the center you clicked.
Where Windows and Gnome fail is in the implementation of mouse buttons 2 and 3. On my Fujitsu T-1010, Win7 sort of emulates button-2 by a long tap-and-hold, but this does not work well in all applications, most notably Squeak Smalltalk. And, there is no button-3 support at all, which Squeak expects. I have a simple tablet input working in Ubuntu, but it only does button-1, so it is mostly worthless.
Next up is text entry, but this post is long enough. All I will say is that even in Win7 text entry is too great a compromise. Nothing comes close to a Newton in this regard.
When I got started I used an Ohio Scientific with a 6502 CPU. It ran basic, but PEEK and POKE were by far the most frequent statements used. A lot sexier than a dirty PRINT statement.
In response to the original question, I recommend writing games with Flash. (Pay no attention to the anti-Flash flack sure to follow.) Tons of help availabile on-line and from the book store. If that holds his (or her) attention, install Squeak and learn how to use the active morphs, such as a Storyboard or Playfield. Fiddling with morph properties is a lot more interactive than editing ActionScript.
http://www.squeak.org/
I would prefer that universities make research results free, but the treand has been going in the opposit direction. Universities patent whatever they can in hopes of making some money off it.
Claim to Fame: Not much
Name: Gary Dunn
Age in 1973: 23
Doing: Graduate school, University of Illinois, Master of Music in Composition
I would walk past this big building every day and see kids working at computer terminals. They seemed strangely engaged, as if in a trance. At the same time my friend John Van der Slice was learning FORTRAN in order to use a music composition program. He used to carry around long boxes of punch cards. I thought computer programming was the nerdiest thing possible, as lame as playing the accordian. In 1984 I was working at the University of Hawaii, writing some audio analysis stuff in Basic on a Harris. In the same terminal room were some PLATO terminals, with erie orange screens. I recall watching someone play hangman against an opponent somewhere on the mainland. I was impressed.
In 2000 I wrote to David R. Woolley in regards to my newly formed Open Slate Project. Here is his reply, being sent from one of my mail account to another:
At 11:04 AM 9/19/00 -1000, you wrote:
> I am designing an educational system to be propogated in the spirit of
> the
> open-source software community and would like to draw upon the lessons
> learned
> at Plato. I found a web page ( [dead link] h t t p://www.cbi.umn.edu/inv/cerlplat.htm
> ) listing
> articles related to Plato, but without pointers to the text of the
> articles.
> It's a start.
Yes... I expect that little, if any, of that material is online. To
read it you'd probably have to travel to where the stuff is physically
archived (apparently both at the U of Minnesota and the U of Illinois).
> I would like to ask more questions about Plato, if you are interested.
Sure, I'd be glad to tell you what I can. If you just have a few
questions, and they're fairly simple, I can answer by email. If there
are a lot, I'd prefer to do it by phone. You can reach me at
[he gave me his phone number but I regret I never called].
David R. Woolley
http://thinkofit.com/drwool/
I find it incomprehensible that PLATO and everything like it has been so successfully kept out of schools.
Free speech does not require a judge's determination. The right to free speech trumps an investigation into leakage. The investigators will just have to find another way. This always pisses off the cops on Law and Order, but it is one of the safeguards built into the American Constitution intended to limit government power.
I thought being arrested got you finger printed and photographed, and that data is retained forever. How is gathering and storing DNA different? Now if every woman who has sex can sell a sample of collected fluids to a communicable disease database I think some married jocks would worry about leaks. Nobody on Slashdot, of course. And if you want to out a Republican Congressman just extend the offer to underage boys.
So are we against retaining finger prints and mug shots? Or only DNA?
NASA could save a lot of money by studying Kristy Alley.
I for one throw my support behind "no software patents." To support this plan would be hypocritical.
And they accomplish this by starting with one of the purest open-source distros around -- Debian -- and then pissing all over it.
True, but in practice many FOSS folk use "open source" to include "patent and royalty free." And, just to be clear, an open source program can, according to a few well placed people, infringe upon patents.
This is not born out in the real world. Apple still refuses to put Flash on the iPhone / iPad. Microsoft has made switching browsers as hard as possible, and it took a federal lawsuit to force AT&T to allow customers to use their modems on the Bell phone system. The mp3.com web site was a popular and valuable promotional tool for indi artists (that is where I first heard Skylab 2000 and other European techno groups) until the US entertainment industry sued them into oblivion. No, big corporations do not give their mass market customers what they want. They really do say "I peece on you."
I am not a hard core FOSS guy, but I do agree with Stallman's reasons why software should be free. I was there when AT&T tried to kill BSD and claim all the Unix code as their own. More recently we saw something similar from SCO. We must not forget those lessons. If we allow all video to go closed source we will be pwned.
what's-kanji-for-boffin -- interi?
I know Japan is a day ahead, but April Fools Day was last month.
Let's hope the meta-mods straighten this out. Watching this unfold is as creepy as thinking about the original GSM issue.
I have nothing against the iPhone ... I still use my Newton Message Pad 2100, so my 3G phone is an Android. Sort of spreading the goodness around.
(Silently invoking an ancient oriental troll repellent spell.)
Like the warnings about erections lasting longer than four hours. That must have shaken loose a bunch of fence sitters.