If schools really cared about anything but profits, then we'd have a mandatory open-source textbook market where academia would be free to create and modify textbooks.
Schools don't write books. Authors write books, and writing a good textbook is hard work, and boring too, compared to other work available to somebody who is competent to write one. I have only written one so far, and would only do it again if paid handsomely. The same goes for revising my first book.
Who is going to write your open-source textbooks? And who is going to pay the authors?
Note: I'm not American, and I acknowledge that the US textbook market is a racket. It is faily obvious from how US publishers try to convince me to switch to their books.
Well, sometimes they just go crazy and make up things. Then, when they get found out, they write long defenses full of conspiracy theories. I have seen this at my university, and also the same behaviour when confronted with stealing research students' work: Just denials and long written defenses full of conspiracy theories when confronted with what they must have known would be found out. It's not common, but it's not unheard of.
Seems like an interesting moouse, but I'll wait for the bluetooth version. I'm suprised they didn't make one now that all Macs have bluetooth as standard.
1) It's simple.
No, command and control is still difficult, and planning is necessary, unless you want your actions to be completely random with unpredictable results. Tim McVeigh and John Nichols are an exception, because they were two guys, not an organization. A campaign of terror is not simple, and this is why the average terrorsit is well educated and has a good economic background.
2) It's flashy.
Nothing new here. It was flashy with the highjackings of airliners in the seventies, but died off again in the eighties when that became difficult. The smaller bombs and assasinations continued, but never got as much attention. Eventually people adjust and reach a level of toleration. This was the awoved aim of ETA and the IRA: To raise the violence to unacceptable levels. They failed.
5) It's cheap.
It's less expensive than conventional war, but it's not cheap. You still need weapons, training, communciations, identity papers, lodgings, etc. which are secure and difficult to trace after the fact. Terrorsits without papers or with poor training are a liability. They are nervous and get caught, or they blow themselves up making or transporting their bombs. Even with suicide bombers you need to cover who they were in touch with and where they got their weapons, and if your operatives are not killing themselves it becomes even more important. This is why most terrorism has been state sponsored, and why old terrorist organizations that lost their sponsors are now almost indistinguishable from organised crime: ETA, FARC, IRA, GRAPO, et al now finance their activities by robbery, drug dealing, extortion etc. Terrorism is expensive.
By adding a 3rd button, you only gain half-assed alternative click actions in maybe 2/3rds of the applications out there.
No, on the Mac you gain the very poweful alternative of using exposé without touching the keyboard. Remember, we aren't talking about a mouse for use with Windows or Linux.
Quite true, and the media doesn't help, often calling all forms of digital music on the internet MP3. A case in point is this article from a major Norwegian newspaper which offers links to WMAs as "MP3": http://www.dagbladet.no/kultur/2005/02/09/422926.h tml
Will the police arrest people with earphones and check if they have a MP3 player?
Well, the police have protested the proposed law, saying that it is unenforceable, that it will criminalize ordinary citizens, and that the policve have better things to do. So they will probably just ignore the new law, except when a prosecutor can use to rack up the punishment on somebody already accused of other crimes: "He had ties til Osama Bin Laden and listened to mp3s!"
Most societies arranged marriges for profit and convience.
No, most societies arranged upper class marriages for profit and convenience. The poor majority of the population is another story in most societies. What you write is a common misconception which I think it will take us historians a generation or two to correct.
And here in Oslo they are everywhere. I see them among students on campus, on pretty girls in the park, on shoppers in the supermarkets and commuters on the subway.
So using your single data point from Finland to say that iPods are not an "in" thing in Europe by any standards is a bit of an exaggeration at best.
And while it might or might not irritate you in a movie theater, think about a real theater, a classical concert or any other public performance where live artists are playing.
I can't even begin to tell you how frustrating it is to have my lectures interrupted by students' cell phones ringing. One student didn't even bother to turn off her cell phone during her oral exam, as we found out when it rang midway through the examination.
I would certainly welcome a cell phone blocker in my class rooms.
As a historian it has been interesting for me to see you tackle historical subjects (and from my period to boot). Something which often pops up when I debate with my colleagues is the constraints that our profession puts on how we portray history in writing. The demand for concrete sources for everything we write often leaves us unable to put into writing some of our understanding and conceptions of historical societies and events.
So I wonder, how do you see us? Having gone from science fiction to historical novels, how do you view historians and how we write history?
You know, one the most disturbing events in my life was to come to the US, turn on NBC News and see an "in depth" report which lasted 2 minutes. That was downright frightening.
Remember that your back is yours, and what works for you may be very different from what works for others. Try the chair for at least an hour before you buy: A chair that is comfortable for 10 minutes may be sheer hell for a day.
I also prefer a straight backed chair, however here in Norway I have a hard time finding a new office chair with a straight back. The chair I use at my office now is an old one that I found abandoned in the basement...
the point being that giving them ipods isn't exactly a 'must' thing to do if you wish to give them audio recordings for listening
Oh, I agree, but this somewhat different than your first claim that:
sadly this just boils down into a publicity event(for the said uni and apple) - nothing to do with the schooling itself.
I offered some practical examples of how this might be useful because I think this is an interesting attempt at doing something new in teaching. It deserves to be taken seriously and not just as a publicity stunt.
I remember there was a big stink about this at the University of Oslo about a decade ago. It was (surprise, suprise) the Faculty of law which prohibited their students from taping lectures.
I've been somewhat ambivalent about this myself, wether or not I wanted my students to record my lectures, but I don't really mind. Actually, the thing that I disliked most about the prospect was that I felt that my lectures weren't good enough to be distributed in that fashion. I'm more secure about that part of my work now. Don't underestimate the personal aspect to this kind of descision.
"Some of this is copyrighted material so you can't just put it up on the web." - but you can just copy them to students then? there's some huge difference here?
Actually, there is a difference in that an educational institution will be allowed to use some copyrighted material for free for educational purposes. In these cases you do need to ensure that you only distribute to students.
(especially when intranet would be the easiest way to distribute those mp3's to the students regardless of what the students will use to listen them)
Practicality is a big part in this. Most students will be able to use an iPod with the material already on it, but you cannot really assume that the majority of students in non-technical disciplines will be able to figure out to access this information on the intranet. They WILL ask, and complain and be confused. And supporting them costs money. Trust me, I do this for a living. Trying to get students to access information on the net is like herding cats.
And that is actualy a good idea. I would have liked to be able to give my history students some lectures as mp3s and know that they would be able to listen to them - no excuses.
As a historian I would love to put selected historical speeches and radio recordings there. I can imagine that it would be great way for folklorists to give their students access to recordings of folk music and folk tales. Some of this is copyrighted material so you can't just put it up on the web.
You could put a schedule of official events in the iPod calendar so that the students woulld have that easily accesible, and you could put all kinds of useful info an tips in the note section. Not to mention important contact information in the address book. And by putting it on something as hip as the iPod you increase the likelyhood that the students will actually bother to use it.
Slashdot Mirror
If schools really cared about anything but profits, then we'd have a mandatory open-source textbook market where academia would be free to create and modify textbooks.
Schools don't write books. Authors write books, and writing a good textbook is hard work, and boring too, compared to other work available to somebody who is competent to write one. I have only written one so far, and would only do it again if paid handsomely. The same goes for revising my first book.
Who is going to write your open-source textbooks? And who is going to pay the authors?
Note: I'm not American, and I acknowledge that the US textbook market is a racket. It is faily obvious from how US publishers try to convince me to switch to their books.
But you have to be in the USA, no international sales.
Well, sometimes they just go crazy and make up things. Then, when they get found out, they write long defenses full of conspiracy theories. I have seen this at my university, and also the same behaviour when confronted with stealing research students' work: Just denials and long written defenses full of conspiracy theories when confronted with what they must have known would be found out. It's not common, but it's not unheard of.
Seems like an interesting moouse, but I'll wait for the bluetooth version. I'm suprised they didn't make one now that all Macs have bluetooth as standard.
Some comments:
1) It's simple.
No, command and control is still difficult, and planning is necessary, unless you want your actions to be completely random with unpredictable results. Tim McVeigh and John Nichols are an exception, because they were two guys, not an organization. A campaign of terror is not simple, and this is why the average terrorsit is well educated and has a good economic background.
2) It's flashy.
Nothing new here. It was flashy with the highjackings of airliners in the seventies, but died off again in the eighties when that became difficult. The smaller bombs and assasinations continued, but never got as much attention. Eventually people adjust and reach a level of toleration. This was the awoved aim of ETA and the IRA: To raise the violence to unacceptable levels. They failed.
5) It's cheap.
It's less expensive than conventional war, but it's not cheap. You still need weapons, training, communciations, identity papers, lodgings, etc. which are secure and difficult to trace after the fact. Terrorsits without papers or with poor training are a liability. They are nervous and get caught, or they blow themselves up making or transporting their bombs. Even with suicide bombers you need to cover who they were in touch with and where they got their weapons, and if your operatives are not killing themselves it becomes even more important. This is why most terrorism has been state sponsored, and why old terrorist organizations that lost their sponsors are now almost indistinguishable from organised crime: ETA, FARC, IRA, GRAPO, et al now finance their activities by robbery, drug dealing, extortion etc. Terrorism is expensive.
This is the video, which has gone down rather badly with the Serbs:
By adding a 3rd button, you only gain half-assed alternative click actions in maybe 2/3rds of the applications out there.
No, on the Mac you gain the very poweful alternative of using exposé without touching the keyboard. Remember, we aren't talking about a mouse for use with Windows or Linux.
Since mr Bush said that "Africa is a big country", remember?
Quite true, and the media doesn't help, often calling all forms of digital music on the internet MP3. A case in point is this article from a major Norwegian newspaper which offers links to WMAs as "MP3": http://www.dagbladet.no/kultur/2005/02/09/422926.h tml
Will the police arrest people with earphones and check if they have a MP3 player?
Well, the police have protested the proposed law, saying that it is unenforceable, that it will criminalize ordinary citizens, and that the policve have better things to do. So they will probably just ignore the new law, except when a prosecutor can use to rack up the punishment on somebody already accused of other crimes: "He had ties til Osama Bin Laden and listened to mp3s!"
Most societies arranged marriges for profit and convience.
No, most societies arranged upper class marriages for profit and convenience. The poor majority of the population is another story in most societies. What you write is a common misconception which I think it will take us historians a generation or two to correct.
Actually, so far the debate centers on whether these are actually stone tools as claimed or just naturally chipped stones.
You misspelled "terrorists"
And here in Oslo they are everywhere. I see them among students on campus, on pretty girls in the park, on shoppers in the supermarkets and commuters on the subway.
So using your single data point from Finland to say that iPods are not an "in" thing in Europe by any standards is a bit of an exaggeration at best.
And while it might or might not irritate you in a movie theater, think about a real theater, a classical concert or any other public performance where live artists are playing.
I can't even begin to tell you how frustrating it is to have my lectures interrupted by students' cell phones ringing. One student didn't even bother to turn off her cell phone during her oral exam, as we found out when it rang midway through the examination.
I would certainly welcome a cell phone blocker in my class rooms.
As a historian it has been interesting for me to see you tackle historical subjects (and from my period to boot). Something which often pops up when I debate with my colleagues is the constraints that our profession puts on how we portray history in writing. The demand for concrete sources for everything we write often leaves us unable to put into writing some of our understanding and conceptions of historical societies and events.
So I wonder, how do you see us? Having gone from science fiction to historical novels, how do you view historians and how we write history?
Politics requires pragmatism. Principles kill.
Hey, thanks man! Now I know how to finance that house in Spain!
You know, one the most disturbing events in my life was to come to the US, turn on NBC News and see an "in depth" report which lasted 2 minutes. That was downright frightening.
Very good advice!
Remember that your back is yours, and what works for you may be very different from what works for others. Try the chair for at least an hour before you buy: A chair that is comfortable for 10 minutes may be sheer hell for a day.
I also prefer a straight backed chair, however here in Norway I have a hard time finding a new office chair with a straight back. The chair I use at my office now is an old one that I found abandoned in the basement...
the point being that giving them ipods isn't exactly a 'must' thing to do if you wish to give them audio recordings for listening
Oh, I agree, but this somewhat different than your first claim that: sadly this just boils down into a publicity event(for the said uni and apple) - nothing to do with the schooling itself.
I offered some practical examples of how this might be useful because I think this is an interesting attempt at doing something new in teaching. It deserves to be taken seriously and not just as a publicity stunt.
I remember there was a big stink about this at the University of Oslo about a decade ago. It was (surprise, suprise) the Faculty of law which prohibited their students from taping lectures.
I've been somewhat ambivalent about this myself, wether or not I wanted my students to record my lectures, but I don't really mind. Actually, the thing that I disliked most about the prospect was that I felt that my lectures weren't good enough to be distributed in that fashion. I'm more secure about that part of my work now. Don't underestimate the personal aspect to this kind of descision.
"Some of this is copyrighted material so you can't just put it up on the web." - but you can just copy them to students then? there's some huge difference here?
Actually, there is a difference in that an educational institution will be allowed to use some copyrighted material for free for educational purposes. In these cases you do need to ensure that you only distribute to students.
(especially when intranet would be the easiest way to distribute those mp3's to the students regardless of what the students will use to listen them)
Practicality is a big part in this. Most students will be able to use an iPod with the material already on it, but you cannot really assume that the majority of students in non-technical disciplines will be able to figure out to access this information on the intranet. They WILL ask, and complain and be confused. And supporting them costs money. Trust me, I do this for a living. Trying to get students to access information on the net is like herding cats.
And that is actualy a good idea. I would have liked to be able to give my history students some lectures as mp3s and know that they would be able to listen to them - no excuses.
As a historian I would love to put selected historical speeches and radio recordings there. I can imagine that it would be great way for folklorists to give their students access to recordings of folk music and folk tales. Some of this is copyrighted material so you can't just put it up on the web.
You could put a schedule of official events in the iPod calendar so that the students woulld have that easily accesible, and you could put all kinds of useful info an tips in the note section. Not to mention important contact information in the address book. And by putting it on something as hip as the iPod you increase the likelyhood that the students will actually bother to use it.
Oh, come on! I'm not the only historian here, and certainly not the only one without a techincal degree!