Finally, the professors quoted in the article are from U. of Tennessee and SMU, which are like 4th-tier universities. So don't take their word too seriously.
I should mention that I am a graduate of the University of Tennessee MS in CS program. The CS program at UT is actually *very* math heavy. Many of the older faculty have PhDs in math rather than CS. The department (now Electrical Engineering and Computer Science) grew out of the math department. I think Dr. Vander Zanden is reacting to his own university being very math oriented when it comes to teaching CS.
I shouldn't comment on the arrogant, misinformed, and irrelevant statement about "4th-tier universities", but let me mention that in HPC, for example, few universities have the cred that UT has, thanks largely to Jack Dongarra, of course. Ever heard of LAPACK or the Top500? Let's argue about the merits of these arguments, not the ad-hominem attack of "well, you don't know anything, you are teaching at a 4th-tier school". BTW, Dr. Vander Zanden got his PhD from Cornell, I guess that's a 4th tier school as well.
Ok, I just had to mention that I was one of the people who taught Randy to play MTG shortly after it came out - and now he's a Veep at WOTC. I haven't even owned a magic card in years. I think I missed the boat somewhere:(...
Apple certainly isn't the only manufacturer that has had these problems. We have a user here who went through several pre-Lenovo IBM Thinkpads with a similar problem. His, what I can only assume was, extrodinarily corrosive hand-sweat would eventually wear through the rubberized coating on the Thinkpad. In the spots where the balls of his hands rested while he typed, the bare metal would eventually be exposed. I'm guessing it's a combination of salty sweat and heat. We actally didn't solve this problem until he switched to a Powerbook G4. So far it has stood up well to his, what Gizmodo called 'Nerdsweatulene"...
...of the time when I was working on my undergraduate senior project and went to the local Kinko's to make a bunch of copies. This was at about 2:00AM. The "clerk" looked at the title of my paper which involved the word "Internet". He then proceeded to tell me that he had once met the owner of the Internet at a party. This intrigued me, since I had ben under the apparently mistaken impression that nobody "owned" the internet per se. Anyway, he went on to talk about a trip to Africa where he had seen people that had hinges in their skulls so they could flip them open and touch their brains. Drugs do wonderful things sometimes - especially since he decided not to charge me for my $30 copying and binding job.
So, I guess the US Government 'owns' (pwns?) the internet? I wonder if it is good at parties...
Yes, sadly here in the "Deep South" of the United States, a number of people write "could of" when they mean "could have" (i.e. "could've). I suppose the fact that when I went to high school here many teachers didn't speak proper English either doesn't help.
Also, apparently past participles of such verbs as "to run" and "to go" are pretty unknown when even people with MS degrees in Computer Science say things like: "That process should've ran at least since then." or "I had went to the store earlier that day". Sigh.
>So thanks again for the export of freedom (and patronising self-righteousness) to the world.
From your post it sure seems that America doesn't have a monopoly on "patronising self-righteousness". I'm not a US citizen (in fact I have dual citizenship in two European countries) but I'm getting a little tired of the holier-than-thou attitude of many Europeans.
I noticed you mentioned Canada, Australia and New Zealand. You neglected to mention such bulwarks of freedom as Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania (all part of British East Africa), Nigeria, etc. I don't think Britains can afford to be on a high horse about spreading democracy around the world.
Human nature doesn't respect many national and even cultural boundaries. Even "democracies" (which I'll define here as nation-states with relatively free and meaningful elections) can do and have done evil things. No nationality is without sin and I don't think self-righteously casting stones is the answer.
I don't mean to say that we shouldn't point out, protest, fight against the injustices, infringements upon human rights, etc. What I am saying is that it seems pointless to make "us good - you bad" statements. They're not likely to get through to anyone...
Millard
P.S.: I include the "the US is the beacon bringing enlightenment to a dark world" sort of attitude in the above...
Most of the time I have spent playing computer games has been on such photo-realistic platforms as the Atari 2600 and the Commodore 64. I remember that when those platforms were state of the art people were complaining that games were too violent. I used to heartily disagree. I have changed my point of view somewhat in the last 15 years or so. I think there is a big difference between blowing up a few pixels in Defender to dismembering fairly realistic human (and non-human) opponents in Quake III etc. If I compare the way I played video games to some of the kids I know today I see quite a difference. There is no doubt in my mind (and I know this is anecdotal rather than empirical) that for some at least the realistic violence in computer games puts them in a more violent frame of mind.
Unfortunately it's become more or less futile to ask parents to "police" their children's consuption of violence. My mom could not have typed LOAD "$",8 on my C64 and most parents today can't check to see what software is installed on their PC at home. Maybe when my generation is the one doing most of the parenting out there we'll be able to moderate and exert some sort of control on our children's use of the then ever so popular full-emersion killing spree games, but I rather doubt it.
Well, the 5 1/4 floppy dive on the Commodore 64 could shure do it. I have a program somewhere theat will make it screech 'El Condor Pasa'... Doesn't seem to harm the drive either.
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Finally, the professors quoted in the article are from U. of Tennessee and SMU, which are like 4th-tier universities. So don't take their word too seriously.
I should mention that I am a graduate of the University of Tennessee MS in CS program. The CS program at UT is actually *very* math heavy. Many of the older faculty have PhDs in math rather than CS. The department (now Electrical Engineering and Computer Science) grew out of the math department. I think Dr. Vander Zanden is reacting to his own university being very math oriented when it comes to teaching CS.
I shouldn't comment on the arrogant, misinformed, and irrelevant statement about "4th-tier universities", but let me mention that in HPC, for example, few universities have the cred that UT has, thanks largely to Jack Dongarra, of course. Ever heard of LAPACK or the Top500? Let's argue about the merits of these arguments, not the ad-hominem attack of "well, you don't know anything, you are teaching at a 4th-tier school". BTW, Dr. Vander Zanden got his PhD from Cornell, I guess that's a 4th tier school as well.
Ok, I just had to mention that I was one of the people who taught Randy to play MTG shortly after it came out - and now he's a Veep at WOTC. I haven't even owned a magic card in years. I think I missed the boat somewhere :( ...
Apple certainly isn't the only manufacturer that has had these problems. We have a user here who went through several pre-Lenovo IBM Thinkpads with a similar problem. His, what I can only assume was, extrodinarily corrosive hand-sweat would eventually wear through the rubberized coating on the Thinkpad. In the spots where the balls of his hands rested while he typed, the bare metal would eventually be exposed. I'm guessing it's a combination of salty sweat and heat. We actally didn't solve this problem until he switched to a Powerbook G4. So far it has stood up well to his, what Gizmodo called 'Nerdsweatulene"...
...of the time when I was working on my undergraduate senior project and went to the local Kinko's to make a bunch of copies. This was at about 2:00AM. The "clerk" looked at the title of my paper which involved the word "Internet". He then proceeded to tell me that he had once met the owner of the Internet at a party. This intrigued me, since I had ben under the apparently mistaken impression that nobody "owned" the internet per se. Anyway, he went on to talk about a trip to Africa where he had seen people that had hinges in their skulls so they could flip them open and touch their brains. Drugs do wonderful things sometimes - especially since he decided not to charge me for my $30 copying and binding job.
So, I guess the US Government 'owns' (pwns?) the internet? I wonder if it is good at parties...
Yes, sadly here in the "Deep South" of the United States, a number of people write "could of" when they mean "could have" (i.e. "could've). I suppose the fact that when I went to high school here many teachers didn't speak proper English either doesn't help.
Also, apparently past participles of such verbs as "to run" and "to go" are pretty unknown when even people with MS degrees in Computer Science say things like: "That process should've ran at least since then." or "I had went to the store earlier that day". Sigh.
>So thanks again for the export of freedom (and patronising self-righteousness) to the world.
From your post it sure seems that America doesn't have a monopoly on "patronising self-righteousness". I'm not a US citizen (in fact I have dual citizenship in two European countries) but I'm getting a little tired of the holier-than-thou attitude of many Europeans.
I noticed you mentioned Canada, Australia and New Zealand. You neglected to mention such bulwarks of freedom as Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania (all part of British East Africa), Nigeria, etc. I don't think Britains can afford to be on a high horse about spreading democracy around the world.
Human nature doesn't respect many national and even cultural boundaries. Even "democracies" (which I'll define here as nation-states with relatively free and meaningful elections) can do and have done evil things. No nationality is without sin and I don't think self-righteously casting stones is the answer.
I don't mean to say that we shouldn't point out, protest, fight against the injustices, infringements upon human rights, etc. What I am saying is that it seems pointless to make "us good - you bad" statements. They're not likely to get through to anyone...
Millard
P.S.: I include the "the US is the beacon bringing enlightenment to a dark world" sort of attitude in the above...
Most of the time I have spent playing computer games has been on such photo-realistic platforms as the Atari 2600 and the Commodore 64. I remember that when those platforms were state of the art people were complaining that games were too violent. I used to heartily disagree. I have changed my point of view somewhat in the last 15 years or so. I think there is a big difference between blowing up a few pixels in Defender to dismembering fairly realistic human (and non-human) opponents in Quake III etc. If I compare the way I played video games to some of the kids I know today I see quite a difference. There is no doubt in my mind (and I know this is anecdotal rather than empirical) that for some at least the realistic violence in computer games puts them in a more violent frame of mind.
Unfortunately it's become more or less futile to ask parents to "police" their children's consuption of violence. My mom could not have typed LOAD "$",8 on my C64 and most parents today can't check to see what software is installed on their PC at home. Maybe when my generation is the one doing most of the parenting out there we'll be able to moderate and exert some sort of control on our children's use of the then ever so popular full-emersion killing spree games, but I rather
doubt it.
Sorry for the rant.
Well, the 5 1/4 floppy dive on the Commodore 64 could shure do it. I have a program somewhere theat will make it screech 'El Condor Pasa'... Doesn't seem to harm the drive either.