The problem isn't the computers or other technologies which are invading our schools. It's the environment of Academia, where bad teachers can't be punished, good teachers can't be rewarded, and there's no incentive beyond getting their students to get at least 800 on their SATs. Don't even get started on school boards, PTAs, and other obsticles to education. The rot is in the roots, and there's no saving this tree except to cut them out and replant.
I read a theory once which I believe to be the best idea to ever fix this system. Don't give teachers raises. Instead, upon entry into the work force each of their students would be tithed 1%-2% of their pretax salary, pooled together to then be divided equally among their old teachers. Theoretically, the better the teacher's job is done, the better their students will be paid, and thus the better teachers will be rewarded appropriately.
Actually, my parents were quite neutral politically. My Grandfather, who was in the Navy, was very influential in getting me to think about our country and what it means to live here.
I consider myself to be quite liberal, in fact. Many of my political beliefs come from a strong individuality and a desire to be left alone to make my own decisions. My views on the defense of this country, though, are a direct reflection of his influence. I know that soldiers are not mindless robots at the command of baby-hating insane generals. I know that a lot of dumb mistakes were made due to poor communication, human error, and a few rare rotten apples, all of which have greatly colored our public's views of the military.
I also believe that without men like him, the fears that he grew up with as a child would be our reality today. We need to continue the defense of our way of life, if for no other reason then to show respect to those to did the same for us. And if our modern military is portrayed in a positive light by video games and shows that far from the "baby killer" image of the U.S. Soldier circa 1970 -- that they need to be efficient, accurate, and above all, Intelligent -- then I'm all for it.
I have absolutely no problem with these sorts of images used in commercials for two reasons.
1) My generation (the 30 and under crowd) has never, until very recently, had any concept of the notion of "Fighting for Liberty." We were all raised by the Children of the 60's dreams of Peace and Love, but never in 3000 years of human history has that *ever* been a successful method of international politics. Teaching our children that our freedoms are worth fighting for and dying for is an important lesson for our post-911 society. Teaching them that there are Heros that make the ultimate sacrifice so we can speak our minds and worship any way we choose is perhaps the most important thing video games may do. I'd rather they spoke with their elderly loved ones who have actually served our country, like my Grandfather, but many don't have that option.
2) As poorly as this commercial may advertise it, the fact is many pre-adults still have no direction or ambition for life past school. With the amount of popularity spec-ops types games have gotten, it might inspire more of them to become more diciplined and maybe even enlist to serve our country. While many people fear the military, the honest truth is that a strong shield is the only way to ensure our way of life continues past all threats, foreign or domestic. I'd trust an army of intelligent, inspired, and dedicated defenders over a group of disgrunted, uninspired draftees left holding the fort.
There have always been producers that have had biased viewpoints for their titles. For example, Square/Enix seems to love putting their the anti-industrial viewpoints into their Final Fantasy games. Going back even as early as U.S. FFIII (FFVI in the series) it was always the evil, greedy, corrupt, industrialized nations at war with the peaceful, kind, gentle, treehuging fairie creatures who lived in harmony with nature.
Even as far back as Frogger, we were witness to the environmental impacts that industrialization has on nature. The brave but fragile frog's futile attempts to cross a busy highway to get back home only show the producer's bias -- they never show the poor truck driver, driving for 20 hours straight just to earn a living, fighting exhaustion but alert enough to avoid swerving his big white truck into oncoming traffic, just to avoid a frog too stupid to stay off the road, as more of a hero.
In my opinion, it's unavoidable that for the most part, serious issues will always be portrayed in games with some bias. It's up to the player, then, to decide for themselves whether the game reflects a viewpoint that can be carried into the real world. Games such as Deus Ex explored a lot of the political ramifications of conspiracy theory, but let the player decide for themselves which was the best path.
2. The rapidly declining cost of technology, computers, storage, and bandwidth (Moore's Law),
From Wikipedia: Moore's law is an empirical observation stating in effect that at our rate of technological development and advances in the semiconductor industry the complexity of integrated circuits doubles every 18 months.
Where does that say anything about the cost of technology, storage, or bandwidth??
My only concern about this way of thinking is that it leads to lazy "Well that'll never happen!" attitudes that end up inviting trouble in the long run. If we have a firm defense and say "Look, we're ready for this and if you pull any funny stuff, we'll hit you back twice as hard!" then it puts doubt in any nation's mind that would attempt to strike while our guard's down.
I'd rather have a plan of action ready than trust that such an event won't happen. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy -- it won't happen, because we're ready for it.
Re:Microsoft needs exactly ONE new product
on
Microsoft Clips Longhorn
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Using ASFTools you can strip out these embedded documents from any ASF or WMV file -- under "Advanced Repair" there is an option to "Remove Extras". This effectively removes any piggybacking code from the video, and thus makes it safe.
Actually, this can make disasters like Invisible War more common -- one of the main complaints about the game was that the map size were "Simplified" (ie, stripped to the bare minimum) due to the X-Box Limitations. Do we want games that are restricted to a 64-MB Ram limit to become the norm in PC gaming?
Even worse was the control scheme -- it was left as-is by the X-Box designers, so that even a simple inventory interface was toggle-toggle-toggle instead of Click-Drag.
Whomever was responsible for that mess should be shot. In a back alley, where the body will never be found.
It's called taking advantage of Occam's Razor. Just because there's a simpler explanation, doesn't automatically make it true.
In fact, I'd like to make "Alzheimers' Corollary to Occam's Razor" : The wider the difference between the "Simplest" and "Most Convoluted" explanations, the greater the chance it's the latter.
My biggest problem with LYNX is how it formats headers and sidebars into long lists at the top of the pages. Almost every webpage these days has a list of links at the top of the screen and a newspaper column style sidebar. Both of which force a LYNX user to page down past all those links before getting to any useful content.
I haven't played with Links yet, but if it avoids this problem I'm all for it.
I think that evolution is showing us just exactly why Darwin was such a genius.
At this point in human evolution, we have two branches of society that compete for dominance. We have those with more developed mental abilities, and those with more developed physical abilities. Previously in our evolution, those with the better physical traits (survivability) were more likely to succed over smarter but less healthy individuals.
However, in today's world we find that exactly the opposite is starting to happen. Those with excellent physical ability but low mental capacity are being relegated to the bottom of the social foodchain while those with higher intellect are being raised to the top. The effect of this is that the more physically advanced need to be more proliferate to survive, while those who are in a position of power need less.
Which evolutionary pathway will succeed in becoming mankind's next step? Who knows? Darwin!
Unregulated Broadband will cause the Internet to finally be shoehorned into a Push-Only design. You can see it now already with many of the major "Service Providers" (AOL, Earthlink, Comcast). Allowing only basic interactive functionality (email, search engines) the rest of the net will narrow itself to a small number of content producers and a high number of content readers. Online gaming? Most will run fine at 5-10k/s, so a capped upstream will not hinder EQ or FFXI, as long as the service is regulated. Oh yeah--just to make sure that the content producers aren't clueless, businesses that want an internet presence will need a lot of up-front capital and will be regulated by the FCC and every other government agency that can attach a claim on your "content". P2P? Filesharing? Blogging? Every *IAA agency in the world's greatest dreams come true every time another virus propigates through the net, causing more ISP services to restrict access thanks to it's clueless users.
Not to mention "Journeyman" which does not mean someone who wanders but is actually the combination of the middle-english journey meaning "A Day's Labor" + Man.
Hense, a Journeyman is someone who does work on a per-day basis for someone else.
I think there actually was a short story about that...the character was killed by an earlier clone, but then is cloned again and his new clone hunts down the old clone. But then the new clone and the old clone (who has a sex change to hide his/her identity) become lovers and....well, John Varley certainly has a sick and twisted mind. Which is why we love him so much!
Another way to look at it is, SciFi allows us to take issues to the "Logical Extreme". It's not inconcievable that a decision that may appear unimportant or irrelevant now may (say, 20-30 years down the road) appear to be quite important and relevant.
It's very easy to say that telephones were a quaint amusement for rich people a hundred years ago. But today, with a good chunk of the population of the world available for contact anywhere, anytime, within a few seconds -- how amazing is that? How must our society appear to a spectator who just witnessed Bell's advention in action for the first time? What would they think of telemarketers, pollsters, pranksters or instant messaging? How might lawmakers perceive what rules should govern such a system, when their idea of "fast communication" required pen and paper, or access to a telegraph station?
As a professional, I can't imagine supporting anyone without a copy of SystemRescueCd on hand for just these kinds of problems. A single linux bootable CD image with GNU software such as GNUParted, QTParted, and Partimage, all of which are excellent and FREE replacements for PQMagic or Ghost.
Slashdot Mirror
The problem isn't the computers or other technologies which are invading our schools. It's the environment of Academia, where bad teachers can't be punished, good teachers can't be rewarded, and there's no incentive beyond getting their students to get at least 800 on their SATs. Don't even get started on school boards, PTAs, and other obsticles to education. The rot is in the roots, and there's no saving this tree except to cut them out and replant.
I read a theory once which I believe to be the best idea to ever fix this system. Don't give teachers raises. Instead, upon entry into the work force each of their students would be tithed 1%-2% of their pretax salary, pooled together to then be divided equally among their old teachers. Theoretically, the better the teacher's job is done, the better their students will be paid, and thus the better teachers will be rewarded appropriately.
Funny, I play for exactly the opposite reason. Being married, it's about the only time my wife lets me make a decision on my own.
=P
Please don't insult the Deus Ex franchise by calling that mailed-in effort a direct sequel. We prefer to just call it "Invisible Bore"
Actually, I used to call myself a Libertarian, till the term was stolen by the eccentric nutjobs.
Actually, my parents were quite neutral politically. My Grandfather, who was in the Navy, was very influential in getting me to think about our country and what it means to live here.
I consider myself to be quite liberal, in fact. Many of my political beliefs come from a strong individuality and a desire to be left alone to make my own decisions. My views on the defense of this country, though, are a direct reflection of his influence. I know that soldiers are not mindless robots at the command of baby-hating insane generals. I know that a lot of dumb mistakes were made due to poor communication, human error, and a few rare rotten apples, all of which have greatly colored our public's views of the military.
I also believe that without men like him, the fears that he grew up with as a child would be our reality today. We need to continue the defense of our way of life, if for no other reason then to show respect to those to did the same for us. And if our modern military is portrayed in a positive light by video games and shows that far from the "baby killer" image of the U.S. Soldier circa 1970 -- that they need to be efficient, accurate, and above all, Intelligent -- then I'm all for it.
I have absolutely no problem with these sorts of images used in commercials for two reasons.
1) My generation (the 30 and under crowd) has never, until very recently, had any concept of the notion of "Fighting for Liberty." We were all raised by the Children of the 60's dreams of Peace and Love, but never in 3000 years of human history has that *ever* been a successful method of international politics. Teaching our children that our freedoms are worth fighting for and dying for is an important lesson for our post-911 society. Teaching them that there are Heros that make the ultimate sacrifice so we can speak our minds and worship any way we choose is perhaps the most important thing video games may do. I'd rather they spoke with their elderly loved ones who have actually served our country, like my Grandfather, but many don't have that option.
2) As poorly as this commercial may advertise it, the fact is many pre-adults still have no direction or ambition for life past school. With the amount of popularity spec-ops types games have gotten, it might inspire more of them to become more diciplined and maybe even enlist to serve our country. While many people fear the military, the honest truth is that a strong shield is the only way to ensure our way of life continues past all threats, foreign or domestic. I'd trust an army of intelligent, inspired, and dedicated defenders over a group of disgrunted, uninspired draftees left holding the fort.
There have always been producers that have had biased viewpoints for their titles. For example, Square/Enix seems to love putting their the anti-industrial viewpoints into their Final Fantasy games. Going back even as early as U.S. FFIII (FFVI in the series) it was always the evil, greedy, corrupt, industrialized nations at war with the peaceful, kind, gentle, treehuging fairie creatures who lived in harmony with nature.
Even as far back as Frogger, we were witness to the environmental impacts that industrialization has on nature. The brave but fragile frog's futile attempts to cross a busy highway to get back home only show the producer's bias -- they never show the poor truck driver, driving for 20 hours straight just to earn a living, fighting exhaustion but alert enough to avoid swerving his big white truck into oncoming traffic, just to avoid a frog too stupid to stay off the road, as more of a hero.
In my opinion, it's unavoidable that for the most part, serious issues will always be portrayed in games with some bias. It's up to the player, then, to decide for themselves whether the game reflects a viewpoint that can be carried into the real world. Games such as Deus Ex explored a lot of the political ramifications of conspiracy theory, but let the player decide for themselves which was the best path.
I preferred this one:
2. The rapidly declining cost of technology, computers, storage, and bandwidth (Moore's Law),
From Wikipedia:
Moore's law is an empirical observation stating in effect that at our rate of technological development and advances in the semiconductor industry the complexity of integrated circuits doubles every 18 months.
Where does that say anything about the cost of technology, storage, or bandwidth??
My only concern about this way of thinking is that it leads to lazy "Well that'll never happen!" attitudes that end up inviting trouble in the long run. If we have a firm defense and say "Look, we're ready for this and if you pull any funny stuff, we'll hit you back twice as hard!" then it puts doubt in any nation's mind that would attempt to strike while our guard's down.
I'd rather have a plan of action ready than trust that such an event won't happen. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy -- it won't happen, because we're ready for it.
Using ASFTools you can strip out these embedded documents from any ASF or WMV file -- under "Advanced Repair" there is an option to "Remove Extras". This effectively removes any piggybacking code from the video, and thus makes it safe.
Tron - 1982
Wargames - 1983
The Last Starfighter - 1984
Cloak & Dagger - 1984
All great movies, but they all bow to Tron
Spock the Vulcan
or
Karl Marx
Me, 20 years ago:
"Shit, if this HD floppy can really put 1.44 MB of info on a single disk, storage space won't mean shit in 6-9 months."
Me, 10 years ago:
"Shit, if this Zip disk can really put 100MB of info on a single disk, storage space won't mean shit in 6-9 months."
Me, 5 years ago:
"Shit, if this CD-RW can really put 650MB of info on a single disk, storage space won't mean shit in 6-9 months."
Me, 1 year ago:
"Shit, if this DVD-RW can really put 4.9GB of info on a single disk, storage space won't mean shit in 6-9 months."
Actually, this can make disasters like Invisible War more common -- one of the main complaints about the game was that the map size were "Simplified" (ie, stripped to the bare minimum) due to the X-Box Limitations. Do we want games that are restricted to a 64-MB Ram limit to become the norm in PC gaming?
Even worse was the control scheme -- it was left as-is by the X-Box designers, so that even a simple inventory interface was toggle-toggle-toggle instead of Click-Drag.
Whomever was responsible for that mess should be shot. In a back alley, where the body will never be found.
But aren't Gears round? How is there a "Wrong Side"?
It's called taking advantage of Occam's Razor. Just because there's a simpler explanation, doesn't automatically make it true.
In fact, I'd like to make "Alzheimers' Corollary to Occam's Razor" : The wider the difference between the "Simplest" and "Most Convoluted" explanations, the greater the chance it's the latter.
My biggest problem with LYNX is how it formats headers and sidebars into long lists at the top of the pages. Almost every webpage these days has a list of links at the top of the screen and a newspaper column style sidebar. Both of which force a LYNX user to page down past all those links before getting to any useful content.
I haven't played with Links yet, but if it avoids this problem I'm all for it.
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." -- Thomas Jefferson
I think that evolution is showing us just exactly why Darwin was such a genius.
At this point in human evolution, we have two branches of society that compete for dominance. We have those with more developed mental abilities, and those with more developed physical abilities. Previously in our evolution, those with the better physical traits (survivability) were more likely to succed over smarter but less healthy individuals.
However, in today's world we find that exactly the opposite is starting to happen. Those with excellent physical ability but low mental capacity are being relegated to the bottom of the social foodchain while those with higher intellect are being raised to the top. The effect of this is that the more physically advanced need to be more proliferate to survive, while those who are in a position of power need less.
Which evolutionary pathway will succeed in becoming mankind's next step? Who knows? Darwin!
Unregulated Broadband will cause the Internet to finally be shoehorned into a Push-Only design. You can see it now already with many of the major "Service Providers" (AOL, Earthlink, Comcast). Allowing only basic interactive functionality (email, search engines) the rest of the net will narrow itself to a small number of content producers and a high number of content readers. Online gaming? Most will run fine at 5-10k/s, so a capped upstream will not hinder EQ or FFXI, as long as the service is regulated. Oh yeah--just to make sure that the content producers aren't clueless, businesses that want an internet presence will need a lot of up-front capital and will be regulated by the FCC and every other government agency that can attach a claim on your "content". P2P? Filesharing? Blogging? Every *IAA agency in the world's greatest dreams come true every time another virus propigates through the net, causing more ISP services to restrict access thanks to it's clueless users.
Not to mention "Journeyman" which does not mean someone who wanders but is actually the combination of the middle-english journey meaning "A Day's Labor" + Man.
Hense, a Journeyman is someone who does work on a per-day basis for someone else.
(thanks Webster!)
I think there actually was a short story about that...the character was killed by an earlier clone, but then is cloned again and his new clone hunts down the old clone. But then the new clone and the old clone (who has a sex change to hide his/her identity) become lovers and....well, John Varley certainly has a sick and twisted mind. Which is why we love him so much!
Another way to look at it is, SciFi allows us to take issues to the "Logical Extreme". It's not inconcievable that a decision that may appear unimportant or irrelevant now may (say, 20-30 years down the road) appear to be quite important and relevant.
It's very easy to say that telephones were a quaint amusement for rich people a hundred years ago. But today, with a good chunk of the population of the world available for contact anywhere, anytime, within a few seconds -- how amazing is that? How must our society appear to a spectator who just witnessed Bell's advention in action for the first time? What would they think of telemarketers, pollsters, pranksters or instant messaging? How might lawmakers perceive what rules should govern such a system, when their idea of "fast communication" required pen and paper, or access to a telegraph station?
But it provides me with energy, which in turn allows me to go to work and purchase the energy required to run it.
Perpetual motion, here we come!
As a professional, I can't imagine supporting anyone without a copy of SystemRescueCd on hand for just these kinds of problems. A single linux bootable CD image with GNU software such as GNUParted, QTParted, and Partimage, all of which are excellent and FREE replacements for PQMagic or Ghost.