The problem with your argument is that CS2 is not a "high level" course. It's
supposed to be second semester stuff. (I'd also argue that calculus isn't high level math.)
High level classes are items like Software Validation and Testing, Software Engineering and Software Integration classes. These go way beyond coding and problem solving with data structures.
Students should NOT use an IDE in the classic CS1-3 courses, especially 1 and 2. I teach programming and I get these students who have been brought up in the visual studio IDE and they are incapable of switching to anything different even in their senior year(s). They also don't know a damn thing about how compiling or linking occurs or even why they're needed. They can't look at a simple compiler error such as "unresolved symbol" and even begin to tell you what that means.
I'm thoroughly against using an IDE in the classes that teach basic programming. When the students get to classes that require project management skills, team coordination and code organization to be able to generate 5000+ line programs THEN they're ready for an IDE to help them. (I'm also against using Windows machines for the same reason that it attempts to hide the internals from the students.)
Learn the basic underlying tools first. Then allow them to wrap them in fancy packages.
Good for us??? Please... do not try to speak for me...
I would GLADLY pay $1.00 for every first class letter I
had to send if the USPS would just stop delivering all that
bulk mail crap to me.
I never read it. The first thing I do is go through the mail
in one pass...
Junk mail? yep... goes directly to the trash, don't care what
it is, don't care who it's for.
Is it for my roommate? Yep, put it in his inbox.
Is it for me? Yep, process it
Notice that both my roommate and I have an equal agreement... If
it doesn't look like a bank statement or other official source that
we deal with regularly then it gets thrown away. Period.
It's just a total waste to send this crap to me and personally I
think it should be illegal. I think it destroys the environment.
I think it unnecessarily overburdens the USPS carriers. I know it
annoys it me. I believe it invades my privacy by harassing me directly. I think most of the crap is merely scams
that don't offer any decent value to the recipient and usually is
for products that are misrepresented. In short it's the worst kind
of advertising.
So back in 1998 I started work for a company that had an interest in
video streaming. There was some company that claimed to have a
system that could broadcast streaming video and audio in realtime
over a 28Kbps modem link with no visible degredation of quality and
no lag. All built around hype such as "we've acquired the brightest
signal processing engineer in the business who has made an
astounding break through."
So a colleague and I flew up to San Jose to research the product and
attend a by-invitation-only demonstration. There were two black box
endpoints set up across a serial modem. One end point was just an NTSC
stream digitized by their system and provided to the serial link. The
other end point supposedly uncompressed the stream and built an NTSC
stream.
To test lag I asked them to yank the video cable from the digitizer
and sure enough the receiving end instantly tracked the change.
Everybody at the demonstration was under full draconian non-disclosure
agreements. I asked for them to take the cover off the boxes so that
we could verify that there did indeed exist some sort of reasonable
computation processing going on and not some sort of standard RF video
transceiver link hidden in the boxes. They said absolutely not on the
basis of trade secrets.
Of course we went home and never thought about their company again.
Funny, I never saw any news about any adoption of their "fantastic,
revolutionary" product.
Another story from the "If it's too good to be true..." department.
I'm certainly not fond of that truth. I would rather never have to notice it. It's really hard as an instructor to be faced with it. When I was a student I wasn't much different. I hated having to make great effort to pass the hard classes or the subjects I wasn't good at. The diploma looked like the end of the tunnel. Now I know that my academic time was a great opportunity in a safe, nurturing environment to really come away with a lot more than I did.
Luckily, now that I'm a professor I'm back in that environment and I get to discover all the great stuff I neglected before and now I can appreciate it.
Today, I learned how to apply E=IR to convert the current flowing through a resistor into a voltage I could measure with an ADC. Yes, Yes, I know, for all you EE people out there this is like EE101 stuff and I was taught this in high school but I wasn't listening well at the time and for the past twenty years I could never figure it out on my own. But today I had a talk with a brilliant EE colleague and I've learned my something new for the day and I am a much better person for it. Being expected to continuously learn is a great part of this job. (By the way, for all the students I've been kind of bagging on you should know that you guys teach me stuff too. Thanks.)
Do you mean like my Unix class where I challenge them to solve real world scripting problems, manage large projects or prototype in Perl?
Or do you mean my Network class, where they run and implement their own e-commerce system and defend their sales from attacks? Including everything from DNS, router configuration, email, web, PHP, database and shopping carts?
In other words, yes. I agree whole heartedly. Lectures are only part of the teaching equation as well. You'll notice I already included such duties as advisement and evaluation. And yes, I was a professional network, systems and security administrator for six years before this job. It's why I am so disappointed to see students who want to take the easy path. I'm afraid they just aren't going to be competetive in the field they chose and I know about. But I can't correct their behavior if they aren't willing.
First off: I don't care about the presence of laptops, or paper and pencil... or even the student. They paid me to give a lecture, clarification of material through discussion, evaluation of work, project advisement and so on. If they choose to ignore any of this or
be absent then my evaluation of their performance will reflect it and they just have to live with their consequences.
That being said: "[her] main concern was they were focusing on trying to transcribe every word that was I saying, rather than thinking and analyzing." Is she kidding me? I can't see through my student's laptop covers but I highly doubt they are diligently transcribing my lecture. I would bet dollars to donuts that a whole lot of Internet surfing, mine sweeper and IM is taking place with almost no notes. I cannot possibly see how you can take notes on a keyboard for a subject such as advanced data structures where diagrams are key. She's living in a fantasy if she thinks student's are transcribing.
Now for the students: Most of them suck at this learning thing. I get asked questions like:
"Are you going to put these slides up?" [i.e. I don't want to be bothered to take notes, will you do it for me?] And the problem is my slides are for me, not them, they are there to remind me of what to lecture about and in what order to lecture.
"Is this going to be on the exam?" [I.e. exactly how little must I actually learn to get out of here?] The problem is: Yes, you do need to learn this, and more than I lecture or is in the text, if you are going to compete in the career market. In an interview it only takes about three to five questions in technical fields to gauge just how competent someone is. The rest of the job interview is typically do you fit in with our culture and do we like you as a person? "Getting out" is just the beginning.
"Is chapter, blah section froo going to be on the exam?" [I.e. what text?] Yes, when I say the exam covers chapters 1 through 8 then it covers chapter 1 through 8 inclusive... even if I didn't give a lecture on the statistical analysis presented in section 4.3. Look people, learning comes through a variety of sources, Lecture is just one of them. Reading is another, discussion is another, practice is another, memorization is one and research goes in as well.
"I have a job, can't you decrease the work load, move the exam, postpone the homework?" [i.e. I don't understand that school is a job] Look, as/. says, there are choices in life. It is called "full time" student because the instructors, the university and the accrediting bodies have analyzed the amount of material required to succeed and determined that it will take an average person 40 hours of work per week for 8 semesters to absorb, digest and become competent at it. And then you are faced with competeing in a market place against people who have 10+ years of experience on top of their education and are EXPERTS at it. You have a choice: Do the school work, continue your minimum wage job forever, or shut up and struggle through both temporarily. There are ways to get school paid for without having to work at a burger joint or Wal-Mart.
"Did you have to learn this crap in school?" [I.e. We think you are just being mean and making us learn this and you had it easy.] Gee, no... I didn't learn this. That's why I can lecture on it. Come on. I spent as much time in College as I did in K-12 (I'm lazy and screwed up a couple of times). I had to take a class from Prof. 'A' in RSA. Final exam... one question... "Prove Godel's incompleteness theorem." Talk about an effort in futility. In three hours you had to regurgitate every lemma, corollary and theorem that was presented throughout the entire semester. It wasn't easy for me, I know it won't be easy for you, I feel bad for you but... Yes, you need to learn this if your goal is to compete in my field of expertise and I will help you obtain that goal the best I can but the wor
First off, no, we all do not know about the link between cell phones and cancer. Because there is no such link at all, not because we're ignorant of it. This "link" is what this whole post is debating. Most people here actually believe the opposite of what you claim we all know. Many studies have been done, none provide decent proof of such a link. And although this does not constitute solid proof that such a link cannot exist there is a basis for at least trusting that such a link does not exist or that any ill effects resulting from such an effect are less relevant than other risks, such as getting run over by a bus, or are not outweighed by the benefits provided.
Second, Your point about electricity mains is also false. Studies also show that such environments are less asthetically pleasing and therefore more economically affordable. This results in such environments being populated by less affluent people. Less affluent people are more apt to eat less healthy, have less time for personal health routines and to work in more hazardous occupations. All of this results in a group of people that are more likely to have a spectrum of higher risk health problems, including cancer. The "causation" linked to electricity transmission is a mistake, or at the very least again unproven.
Third, positive ions make you feel tired, depressed, etc. Oh please! give me a break. No proof, no causation, no nothing to support this claim and quite frankly is sounds like crystal energy therapy crap to anybody with at least a shred of functioning brain. "Clearly"?? I think not. It does not follow that transmitting devices create ions. Ions are not the carrier of radio frequency transmissions. You need to take a remedial physics class before posting again. (Yes, ions can be formed by radio frequency radiation stripping the electrons from atoms, it's called "ionizing" radiation, but these frequencies are in the ultra-violet and above wavelengths, think Petahertz range, above visible light.)
I'll stick with the current majority of scientists in the physics, chemistry and biological fields who cannot even conceive of a pathology by which non-ionizing radiation can affect cellular tissue. I'll stick with buying and using these devices that improve my life and my world. You can stick with your ghosts and gremlins.
I beg to differ. Though pebble bed reactors are inherently safer, integral fast breeder reactors are cleaner. The amount of vitrified waste produced by a fast breeder/reprocessing system as a result of the energy production for a single human's lifetime consumption is about the same size as softball. Additionally since the longer half-life items are recycled and re-reacted the radiation of the final vitrified waste decays below background radiation in about 300 years. The last advantage to breeder reactors is the time to deletion of natural resources. other reactors require the rare U235 which would depleted in about 50 years of low-cost fuel at current levels. breeder reactors operate from U238 and produce their own fuel as a by-product extending fuel resource lifetimes into the tens of thousands of years.
Two items: First, "safer" isn't really safer if you are trading possibility of meltdown/catastrophe in exchange for larger amounts of high level waste that compromises the world's safety over the long term. Second, Through safety standards and engineering I believe that the fast breeder reactors can be designed to statistically be just as safe though the result may be more costly to build.
And quite frankly, the environmental extremists with their push for total abandonment and villification of nuclean systems has prevented most progress on useful fronts such as safety of fast breeder reactors and the development, adoptiong and deployment of fuel reprocessing technologies for the past twenty five years.
Though I will concede that it also might be possible to develop an adequate reprocessing procedure for the ceramic encased fuel of a pebble bed reactor and thereby acheive the desired reduction in final high level waste as well.
My overall point being that we should be doing something to adopt nuclear energy again and I think integral fast breeder reactors are the way to go.
Do they mean implications such as "everybody enjoys a greater amount of entertainment at a cheaper cost and publishers, made useless by modern advances in technology, no longer become billionaires on the backs of artists?"
Or did they just want the standard "corporate big-wigs getting rich should have their methods and profits guaranteed?"
I'm ashamed to be lumped in with people such as yourself that don't have even a single clue about current nuclear reactor facts and the environment.
For example: "virtually all long-lived heavy elements are eliminated during fast reactor operation, leaving a small amount of fission product waste which requires assured isolation from the environment for less than 500 years." [From: http://www.uic.com.au/nip72.htm>] So all the propoganda about permanent environmental damage, or damage lasting thounds, millions or billions of years is total bunk (Or can be with the proper reactor design).
Second item: "Whether reprocessed or not, the volume of high-level waste is modest, - about 3 cubic metres per year of vitrified waste [per plant]." [From http://www.uic.com.au/wast.htm>] If you don't reprocess and instead store the spent fuel it is 25-30 tons which I don't like. But the amount of vitrified waste that can be attributed to the energy used by a single person during their lifetime amounts to a sphere of borosilicate glass the size of a softball. I'll be more than happy if you bury my sphere with my corpse. Anyways: a better quantified quote from the article: "The vitrified waste from the operation of a 1000 MWe reactor for one year would fill about twelve canisters, each 1.3m high and 0.4m diameter and holding 400 kg of glass." That's a little less than 10 cubic meters per year. If the life span of the plant is 100 years (unlikely) then the plant over it's duration will produce 1000 cubic meters of waste that needs to be isolated for the environment for less than 500 years. That's a cubic block of borosilicate glass that is only 10 meters per side. Or the total volume of a large house.
That's an incredibly small amount of waste that is easily managed to supply one megawatt of power. That's half of what the Boulder (aka Hoover) dam can poduce in far, far less space and you don't have to flood and destroy an entire valley's ecosystem to do it.
Were there poblems with nuclear power plants in the past? Yes, of course. Their have also been inustrial disasters in other power industries as well. Do we have better, more efficient systems now? Yes. pebble reactors are safer and more efficient, fast reactors produce less waste and we know how to reprocess and contain that waste better now. It is time to strongly reconsider a nuclear future again. Especially in light of the growing fossil fuel shortages (of which I am also skeptical but have no facts to back it up; but I haven't seen any really convincing facts from their side either).
Look, all I'm really saying is that thoughtless, ignorant people have bought into Fear, uncertainty, doubt and propoganda (FUDP) concerning nuclear power plants. I would expect a better, more scientific, analysis of such choices from/. readers. Use your mind for a change because I'm tired of other people's thoughtless, knee jerk decisions retarding or ruining my future (Let's also talk about stem cell legislation sometime).
Ummm. How can the vatican state that it is "perfectly compatible" when many of the
scientists who put forth the theory of evolution did so as a mutually exclusive
alternative to the existence of gods?
Me? I don't think it's compatible at all. I'm a naturalist. There are no
"supernatural" forces. what you see is what you get. literally.
I'm not an idiot. Sure there are types of radiation such as microwave that are clearly harmful
to tissues. But not due to carcinogenic pathologies. Microwaves heat you up and cook you; they don't
cause tumors, they aren't ionizing. The original post was specifically in the context of currently used wireless
communications such as 802.11b and cell phones in which there is no proof (and isn't going to
be IMHO) that long termed exposure will present a health risk. My position, rather than yours,
is backed up by the studies.
The Damaging radio frequencies that you are talking about are light (UV and infrared)
in the 1Thz range and ionizing frequencies in the petahertz (PETA!!) range. Aside from radiation
from space and the occasional dental X-ray you aren't in any danger of exposure to this from
your cell phone or any other commercial wireless gadget.
Next, Just because a trasnmitter dish has a sticker slapped on it doesn't mean it produces the
effect you would like it to. First off a neighbor has a "beware of dogs" sign on his fence.
He doesn't own a dog, let alone plural. Second, the sticker could be there because of public
fear and stupidity, as promoted by your post, pressuring the manufacturer to slap a
disclaimer on his product that wasn't producing a risk in the first place but for liability
and insurance reasons makes sense to do so. Or because the manufacturer believes his
product does produce the harmful effect warned against even though it does not.
And Yes. We've had cell phones for over twenty years now which is much longer than is needed to
prove health hazards or effectiveness (which is usually determined with ten and
twenty year studies.) Other RF/cancer studies go back many more decades but are focused on
lower frequency emissions than I believe the context that you and I speaking in which is the
near gigahertz range. So sorry, you will not get that silver bullet of proof that you are
still hoping for to justify your fear once we "check back in 20 years."... already been there
done that.
I'm just disturbed by the fact that the carcinogenic comment in your original post, although
it did use the term "potential", was clearly mentioned to raise and promote a fear about
common wireless devices and electronic products.
But I didn't want to have to write a lengthy response that was the equivalent to a wikipedia
entry on radio spectrum radiation. I will apologize for the blanket statement that was
implied by continuing the inappropriate use of the term "RF". Can I have my 20 802.11x towers
and 10Mbit connection now?
Please don't promote stupidity. EMF is not carcinogenic. There have been plenty
of studies done over a significant period of time and not a single one has
provided conclusive evidence. (despite the studies being flawed in favor of such
an outcome).
Erect 20 802.11x towers next to my house so that I can get 10Mbit/s sync
broadband and I will gladly pay $50.00 per month for the privilege of having
my brain and testicles bathed in EMF radition.
(Everything else you said about satellites was spot on. I almost tried it once.
They were about to erect the dish and then I was told about requiring
Windows and that a static IP wasn't possible and that they blocked email
server access and and and) I told them to pack up the dish and go home, right
there on the spot.
Actually the infrastructure is specifically not public property in
anyway. (In fact sort of the opposite. The phone company's infrastructure
owns your private poperty a bit because they can trample all over your yard,
without your permission, for the right-of-way to their equipment.)
I'm not a historian but I think it went down like this: It was generally
known that in order to deploy ubiquitous phone service
that it would cost an extremely large investment. Nobody wanted the risk
of investing that much money without a guarantee that they would recover
their investment. So the United States government granted Bell telephone
a legal monopoly and private ownership of the infrastructure in return for
the cost of deploying the infrastructure.
So, no, they are not "in part, public property". And you are once
again paying forever for a mistake made by your politicians.
Although it appears you are very knowledgable about telecommunications
infrastructure I would still suggest: Get your head out of your ass.
I pay $45.00 per month for basic phone access and an hour of long
distance (something like a third of that is the results of various
taxes and fees. But I'd say over the past 20 years my bill averaged
more like $25.00 per month. Let's see... 45*12*20 = $10,800.00.
I'm positive it didn't cost $10,800.00 to run a pair of copper wire
from the central office to my house. Not when you take into account
economy of scale where they fitted out 10 blocks of my neighborhood
all at once when they were originally built. (And if I did pay that
much for my pair of copper it wouldn't suck to the point of not
being able to support DSL even though I'm well with the distance
limits!)
You are paying for the traffic. period. (And another argument to
support this is... I am paying for traffic and information. period
How the carrier provides it is their business. They can do it with
carrier pidgeons, smoke signals, copper or fiber; I don't care which
as long as I get my information. Now just because they choose to
consume the funds supporting an antiquated network that is expensive
to maintain does not somehow mean I chose to pay for that.
I can prove that I do not pay for the infrastructure by the simple
fact that with my payment I do not receive any ownership or interest
in that infrastructure.
Secondly, don't boo-hoo for the phone companies because they had to
invest all that money to build the infrastructure. The got all that
money back and and a lot more along time ago, including the power to
screw customers at will, when the government offered them all sorts
of shady deals that included sanctioned monopolies. (which, it
appears, we are back to.)
I suggest that you visit Japan. Where telephone and broadband that
is five times as fast costs half as much. (disclaimer: I don't
know whether or not, or to what extent, that cost is subsidized by
the japanese government.) But I do know it doesn't cost anywhere
near what the phone and cable companies over here are charging to
provide this service. (Even with their back-end costs figured in.)
You're arguments are a bit weak too. I live in one of the most densly
populated valleys in america. The phone company hasn't run fiber to
anyone's house that I know of. And all of the DSL switches that you
suggest they've invested in were more likely picked up at a firesale
when the phone companies drove all the DSL ISPs out of business
through exorbinant co-location rates and shitty service. "Oh, you're
filing bankrupcy? That's too bad. Um... about that equipment you
just happen to have already installed in our facilities..." So, no, I
don't think the phone company is "investing" anything in their
infrastructure. (Now investing into political power is probably
another story...)
The phone and cable companies are screwing you and making
sure that they will continue to be able to do so as long as possible.
"Oh you just don't know it yet but we're better than google at search technology. I mean how can we not? We're Microsoft! So just give it up already and join us cause we're already better. Even if nobody uses our seach stuff."
Come on! Nothing in Microsoft's history indicates that they are even competent at search and index technology let alone better than google. Look how good all of their troubleshooting "wizards" are at tracking down problems. Their on-line help page/search/indexing is also useless. What do you type first when you run into a windows problem... 'F1' or "www.google.com"?
Microsoft: Wise up. You do not even begin to compete with certain companies at certain technologies no matter how big you think you are. Your loses on Xbox should have taught you that it isn't wise to try to be good at everything.
Your comments are interesting but I'm not sure I follow you. I can't seem to
figure out whether you present a case for, or against, tenure.
In my post I generally presented a case for tenure. (at the university level;
since without it most professors wouldn't continue at the job.)
You build an abstract reality where tenure no longer exists (presumably as a
case supporting the abolition of tenure) and then illustrate that you would
not get a PhD nor take the job. Which seems to support my original case for
the presence of tenure.
Are we in agreement that tenure is a good thing at Universities? (Given present
economics. If the economics of universities offered salaries competitive with industry
then I would agree that, in the student's best interest, tenure should be
abolished and the system should move towards merit rather than seniority.)
You accurately paint certain aspects of university economics: 1) finite budget and
2) tend to give people raises over time. It will be difficult to address the first
but progress can be made on the second. First realize that tenure is not the same as
pay rate. Tenure is simply a mutual commitment to be employed together permanently
[and some would argue without regard to future performance]. Tenured people don't
have to be awarded more pay or benefits.
However, an economic problem exists that makes it nearly
impossible to deny pay raises to incompetent instructors and steer that finite resource to
better instructors and thereby encourage, attract and promote excellence in the
instructor. I generally call this economic condition by the proper noun "Union".
Teachers in K-12 and higher education have labor unions strong enough to rival the UAW
or teamsters. (I choose not to belong.)
The result is worse than you may realize. Unions are supported more by
non-tenure track people than by tenure track. the union primarily fights to reduce salary
"gaps" between employees and give equal benefits to all instructors; non-tenure as
well as tenure track. This means that I generally feel that unions do not serve
my best interests (because I am tenure track, have generally higher benefits and
responsibilities and have my security guaranteed through non-union measures such as
tenure [a benefit which have been started by unions, I don't know].
Anyhow, realize that non-tenure track individuals at my institution are appointed for
three year periods. If they are not re-appointed because of lack of positions then we
must re-appoint them when a position becomes available again; you cannot hire a different,
more competent replacement. It is nearly impossible to
terminate the employment of a non-tenure track instructor. To those that think tenure
is some holy grail keep this in mind... a tenure track person is appointed for only a
year and can be permanently released at any time prior to tenure for any reason. So
basically for a six year tenure-probational period the non-tenure track people have more
job security and the unions constantly fight for these people to make as much as the
tenured individuals. Tenured instructors can also be let go at any time due to lack
of positions (though you would have to release all the non-tenured people first)
Tenure is not always easy. At research level institutions tenure is a nightmare to
acheive and probably servers to maintain excellence. Far more people fail at it than succeed at places like UC berkeley or MIT. On the other hand/extreme we have the K-12
institutions where, as far as I know, tenure is a certainty based on length of service.
My institution is somewhere in between. It's not guaranteed, you have to show work
and progress, but the tenure rate is rather high.
Should you find an exceptional tenure track or non-tenure track person there is no
allowance for merit pay or additional benefits. I think this is the real injustice.
I think that benefits should be proportional to merit not "equality". I don't
believe people are all equal when placed in a specific environment. I could never
be a police sketch arti
Didn't say it was christians vs everybody. I merely pointed out that they [religions]
do have significant influence on politics, education and an amount
of responsibility for the deteriorated state of our country (and western
civilation in general.) I picked on christianity as a specific example to
justify my point because I know more about christianity than I do hinduism,
islam or any other religion. (And christianity is more germane to western
civilization.) But I'm sure we could research parallel arguments for any other
religion; at least for any deity based religion.
"Such as" Galen, Aristotle and hypatia does not indicate only those people
to the exclusion of Newton, Galileo or a host of other great minded (and sometimes
religious) people. Aristotle actually believed 'proportional to weight' not 'size'.
Though they are frequently wrong I'm greatful for stubborn scientists. Ask Galileo
and Bruno how they enjoyed the inquisition. Again, imagine what level of progress
such people could have made without the obstructions imposed by their religions.
(Though yes, that is purely hypothetical and without believing in their religions
they may have made less progress. But I highly doubt it.)
Nor did I hold either of them up as a perfect example. Galen also made many
mistakes that are just now being corrected. (humours and blood letting luckily
fell by the way side about a century ago.) There is comparatively little recorded history
about Hypatia beyond her gender, popularity and death. So no, they're not perfect. Aristotle
was a better example of scientific procedure to cite than Plato, for example, since
Aristotle belived more in empirical evidence and basing conclusions on data
received through experiementation whereas Plato believed the senses mislead
one from truth and truth could only be obtained through inner speculation. (Though,
even Plato's philosophy has merit; especially for promoting healthy skepticism.)
Experimentation without thought does not make for good science either. But I myself
believe more in Aristotle's method since I am kind of a materialistic/project
oriented person. My roommate might lean towards Plato since he enjoys purely
mathematical pursuits.
In any case, the previously mentioned historical figures tried to follow and justify scientific
procedure rather than succumb to stupid and ignorant dogma promoted by the
church such as "There is no truth other than God" or "It is useless to seek truth,
since truth can only be understood by God and the understanding of God is
beyond human comprehension." Maybe if the religious right hadn't promoted
such idiocy then the mistakes made by Galen, Aristotle and Newton would have
been able to be corrected far, far sooner. (By the way you and I seem to only
bring up scientific people prior to the dark age/reign of religion or near the
end of it (Newton/Galileo). Can somebody pay some respects to those in between
or did religion hold such a death grip on thought during that period? Personally,
I think it did and is a primary reason why the mistakes you pointed out lasted
1000 years.
All I'm pointing out is that the original response that "religion
has nothing to do with this" is incorrect. It certainly does play a part
in the problem and continues to. As does stupid politics. If I had to choose
which to place greater blame on then I would pick politics. But I would have
to then spend a lot of time trying to sort out how much of that bad politics
is based on flawed thinking that is the result of religious indoctrination.
In any event it is now a problem that needs to be addressed by attacking the
political aspects of it.
I find your phrase "history of scientific rationalism" highly amusing in
a reverse sort of non-sequitor way.:-)
#1 Tenure needs to be removed I disagree. Without tenure as a benefit you can't pay me
enough to continue as a teacher. I am peer reviewed. Both prior to tenure and after.
in fact five different sets of my peers at different levels review my performance
annually. I am also directly reviewed by my students and their review is taken into
account by my peers.
I think this is different at the k-12 level where I think 98% of the
educational failings are occuring either as part of politics, incompetence or your
point #3. For K-12, your point #1 seems valid to me. Some of my students can't
handle basic 9th grade algebra or point to Canada on a map. And unfortunately I am
not exagerating or joking about that.
But then again... Students on ratemyprofessor hate me and think I suck at my job.
So maybe I'm wrong and tenure should be abolished. Even if I do suck I'm afraid
to even contemplate about the level of incompetence that would be sucked in to fill the
vacuum of capable people exiting should tenure at the university level be abolished. Hmmm...
teach or make twice as much?
#2 [removed kids] I don't think removal is the best answer but automatic yearly
promotion to the next grade certainly needs to go. Promotion should not be based on a
fixed annual period of time but rather based on performance and mastery of subject
material. I agree that this automatic promotion and "no child left behind" crap only serves to crush the best and brightest. People are not equal. They may deserve equal compassion and
attention but everyone has different needs and if you try to serve everybody
identically you wind up helping no one.
#3 Parenting Spot on. The ultimate responsibilty for a child's development
rest with that child's parents. If the schools degenerate to a failed social
experiment (Which they have) then the burden still rests with the parents who committed
to serving the child'd best interests when they chose to conceive them.
Slashdot Mirror
Ah, screw it, this post is too long already.
The problem with your argument is that CS2 is not a "high level" course. It's supposed to be second semester stuff. (I'd also argue that calculus isn't high level math.)
High level classes are items like Software Validation and Testing, Software Engineering and Software Integration classes. These go way beyond coding and problem solving with data structures.
Students should NOT use an IDE in the classic CS1-3 courses, especially 1 and 2. I teach programming and I get these students who have been brought up in the visual studio IDE and they are incapable of switching to anything different even in their senior year(s). They also don't know a damn thing about how compiling or linking occurs or even why they're needed. They can't look at a simple compiler error such as "unresolved symbol" and even begin to tell you what that means.
I'm thoroughly against using an IDE in the classes that teach basic programming. When the students get to classes that require project management skills, team coordination and code organization to be able to generate 5000+ line programs THEN they're ready for an IDE to help them. (I'm also against using Windows machines for the same reason that it attempts to hide the internals from the students.)
Learn the basic underlying tools first. Then allow them to wrap them in fancy packages.
Good for us??? Please... do not try to speak for me...
I would GLADLY pay $1.00 for every first class letter I had to send if the USPS would just stop delivering all that bulk mail crap to me.
I never read it. The first thing I do is go through the mail in one pass...
Notice that both my roommate and I have an equal agreement... If it doesn't look like a bank statement or other official source that we deal with regularly then it gets thrown away. Period.
It's just a total waste to send this crap to me and personally I think it should be illegal. I think it destroys the environment. I think it unnecessarily overburdens the USPS carriers. I know it annoys it me. I believe it invades my privacy by harassing me directly. I think most of the crap is merely scams that don't offer any decent value to the recipient and usually is for products that are misrepresented. In short it's the worst kind of advertising.
It simply is NOT "good for us."
So back in 1998 I started work for a company that had an interest in video streaming. There was some company that claimed to have a system that could broadcast streaming video and audio in realtime over a 28Kbps modem link with no visible degredation of quality and no lag. All built around hype such as "we've acquired the brightest signal processing engineer in the business who has made an astounding break through."
So a colleague and I flew up to San Jose to research the product and attend a by-invitation-only demonstration. There were two black box endpoints set up across a serial modem. One end point was just an NTSC stream digitized by their system and provided to the serial link. The other end point supposedly uncompressed the stream and built an NTSC stream.
To test lag I asked them to yank the video cable from the digitizer and sure enough the receiving end instantly tracked the change.
Everybody at the demonstration was under full draconian non-disclosure agreements. I asked for them to take the cover off the boxes so that we could verify that there did indeed exist some sort of reasonable computation processing going on and not some sort of standard RF video transceiver link hidden in the boxes. They said absolutely not on the basis of trade secrets.
Of course we went home and never thought about their company again. Funny, I never saw any news about any adoption of their "fantastic, revolutionary" product.
Another story from the "If it's too good to be true..." department.
I'm certainly not fond of that truth. I would rather never have to notice it. It's really hard as an instructor to be faced with it. When I was a student I wasn't much different. I hated having to make great effort to pass the hard classes or the subjects I wasn't good at. The diploma looked like the end of the tunnel. Now I know that my academic time was a great opportunity in a safe, nurturing environment to really come away with a lot more than I did.
Luckily, now that I'm a professor I'm back in that environment and I get to discover all the great stuff I neglected before and now I can appreciate it.
Today, I learned how to apply E=IR to convert the current flowing through a resistor into a voltage I could measure with an ADC. Yes, Yes, I know, for all you EE people out there this is like EE101 stuff and I was taught this in high school but I wasn't listening well at the time and for the past twenty years I could never figure it out on my own. But today I had a talk with a brilliant EE colleague and I've learned my something new for the day and I am a much better person for it. Being expected to continuously learn is a great part of this job. (By the way, for all the students I've been kind of bagging on you should know that you guys teach me stuff too. Thanks.)
Do you mean like my Unix class where I challenge them to solve real world scripting problems,
manage large projects or prototype in Perl?
Or do you mean my Network class, where they run and implement their own e-commerce system and
defend their sales from attacks? Including everything from DNS, router configuration, email, web,
PHP, database and shopping carts?
In other words, yes. I agree whole heartedly. Lectures are only part of the teaching equation as
well. You'll notice I already included such duties as advisement and evaluation. And yes, I was
a professional network, systems and security administrator for six years before this job. It's why
I am so disappointed to see students who want to take the easy path. I'm afraid they just aren't
going to be competetive in the field they chose and I know about. But I can't correct their
behavior if they aren't willing.
First off: I don't care about the presence of laptops, or paper and pencil... or even the student. They paid me to give a lecture, clarification of material through discussion, evaluation of work, project advisement and so on. If they choose to ignore any of this or be absent then my evaluation of their performance will reflect it and they just have to live with their consequences.
That being said: "[her] main concern was they were focusing on trying to transcribe every word that was I saying, rather than thinking and analyzing." Is she kidding me? I can't see through my student's laptop covers but I highly doubt they are diligently transcribing my lecture. I would bet dollars to donuts that a whole lot of Internet surfing, mine sweeper and IM is taking place with almost no notes. I cannot possibly see how you can take notes on a keyboard for a subject such as advanced data structures where diagrams are key. She's living in a fantasy if she thinks student's are transcribing.
Now for the students: Most of them suck at this learning thing. I get asked questions like:
Democrats have been the party of fiscal responsibility and minimum regulation
What??? Are you kidding me? Both the republicans and the democrats are the parties of fiscal irresponsibility and maximum regulation.
Yes, I am a libertarian because of this.
I don't care about the story. I just thought the redundancy of the newspaper's translated name was rather humorous.
Second, Your point about electricity mains is also false. Studies also show that such environments are less asthetically pleasing and therefore more economically affordable. This results in such environments being populated by less affluent people. Less affluent people are more apt to eat less healthy, have less time for personal health routines and to work in more hazardous occupations. All of this results in a group of people that are more likely to have a spectrum of higher risk health problems, including cancer. The "causation" linked to electricity transmission is a mistake, or at the very least again unproven.
Third, positive ions make you feel tired, depressed, etc. Oh please! give me a break. No proof, no causation, no nothing to support this claim and quite frankly is sounds like crystal energy therapy crap to anybody with at least a shred of functioning brain. "Clearly"?? I think not. It does not follow that transmitting devices create ions. Ions are not the carrier of radio frequency transmissions. You need to take a remedial physics class before posting again. (Yes, ions can be formed by radio frequency radiation stripping the electrons from atoms, it's called "ionizing" radiation, but these frequencies are in the ultra-violet and above wavelengths, think Petahertz range, above visible light.)
I'll stick with the current majority of scientists in the physics, chemistry and biological fields who cannot even conceive of a pathology by which non-ionizing radiation can affect cellular tissue. I'll stick with buying and using these devices that improve my life and my world. You can stick with your ghosts and gremlins.
Two items: First, "safer" isn't really safer if you are trading possibility of meltdown/catastrophe in exchange for larger amounts of high level waste that compromises the world's safety over the long term. Second, Through safety standards and engineering I believe that the fast breeder reactors can be designed to statistically be just as safe though the result may be more costly to build.
And quite frankly, the environmental extremists with their push for total abandonment and villification of nuclean systems has prevented most progress on useful fronts such as safety of fast breeder reactors and the development, adoptiong and deployment of fuel reprocessing technologies for the past twenty five years.
Though I will concede that it also might be possible to develop an adequate reprocessing procedure for the ceramic encased fuel of a pebble bed reactor and thereby acheive the desired reduction in final high level waste as well.
My overall point being that we should be doing something to adopt nuclear energy again and I think integral fast breeder reactors are the way to go.
Or did they just want the standard "corporate big-wigs getting rich should have their methods and profits guaranteed?"
Just want to know which I should be teaching...
In order to oppose governments who repress their people, our government is going to repress its people [more].
It's not surprising; just wanted to make sure I got the gist of it.
For example: "virtually all long-lived heavy elements are eliminated during fast reactor operation, leaving a small amount of fission product waste which requires assured isolation from the environment for less than 500 years." [From: http://www.uic.com.au/nip72.htm>] So all the propoganda about permanent environmental damage, or damage lasting thounds, millions or billions of years is total bunk (Or can be with the proper reactor design).
Second item: "Whether reprocessed or not, the volume of high-level waste is modest, - about 3 cubic metres per year of vitrified waste [per plant]." [From http://www.uic.com.au/wast.htm>] If you don't reprocess and instead store the spent fuel it is 25-30 tons which I don't like. But the amount of vitrified waste that can be attributed to the energy used by a single person during their lifetime amounts to a sphere of borosilicate glass the size of a softball. I'll be more than happy if you bury my sphere with my corpse. Anyways: a better quantified quote from the article: "The vitrified waste from the operation of a 1000 MWe reactor for one year would fill about twelve canisters, each 1.3m high and 0.4m diameter and holding 400 kg of glass." That's a little less than 10 cubic meters per year. If the life span of the plant is 100 years (unlikely) then the plant over it's duration will produce 1000 cubic meters of waste that needs to be isolated for the environment for less than 500 years. That's a cubic block of borosilicate glass that is only 10 meters per side. Or the total volume of a large house.
That's an incredibly small amount of waste that is easily managed to supply one megawatt of power. That's half of what the Boulder (aka Hoover) dam can poduce in far, far less space and you don't have to flood and destroy an entire valley's ecosystem to do it.
Were there poblems with nuclear power plants in the past? Yes, of course. Their have also been inustrial disasters in other power industries as well. Do we have better, more efficient systems now? Yes. pebble reactors are safer and more efficient, fast reactors produce less waste and we know how to reprocess and contain that waste better now. It is time to strongly reconsider a nuclear future again. Especially in light of the growing fossil fuel shortages (of which I am also skeptical but have no facts to back it up; but I haven't seen any really convincing facts from their side either).
Look, all I'm really saying is that thoughtless, ignorant people have bought into Fear, uncertainty, doubt and propoganda (FUDP) concerning nuclear power plants. I would expect a better, more scientific, analysis of such choices from /. readers. Use your mind for a change because I'm tired of other people's thoughtless, knee jerk decisions retarding or ruining my future (Let's also talk about stem cell legislation sometime).
I think what you meant to say was "(My|Our) research money."
This subconcious, false belief that the government has some magic pool of money from which we all benefit is what is killing this world.
I changed careers because of exactly that kind of treatment that is afforded us.
Me? I don't think it's compatible at all. I'm a naturalist. There are no "supernatural" forces. what you see is what you get. literally.
The Damaging radio frequencies that you are talking about are light (UV and infrared) in the 1Thz range and ionizing frequencies in the petahertz (PETA!!) range. Aside from radiation from space and the occasional dental X-ray you aren't in any danger of exposure to this from your cell phone or any other commercial wireless gadget.
Next, Just because a trasnmitter dish has a sticker slapped on it doesn't mean it produces the effect you would like it to. First off a neighbor has a "beware of dogs" sign on his fence. He doesn't own a dog, let alone plural. Second, the sticker could be there because of public fear and stupidity, as promoted by your post, pressuring the manufacturer to slap a disclaimer on his product that wasn't producing a risk in the first place but for liability and insurance reasons makes sense to do so. Or because the manufacturer believes his product does produce the harmful effect warned against even though it does not.
And Yes. We've had cell phones for over twenty years now which is much longer than is needed to prove health hazards or effectiveness (which is usually determined with ten and twenty year studies.) Other RF/cancer studies go back many more decades but are focused on lower frequency emissions than I believe the context that you and I speaking in which is the near gigahertz range. So sorry, you will not get that silver bullet of proof that you are still hoping for to justify your fear once we "check back in 20 years."... already been there done that.
I'm just disturbed by the fact that the carcinogenic comment in your original post, although it did use the term "potential", was clearly mentioned to raise and promote a fear about common wireless devices and electronic products.
But I didn't want to have to write a lengthy response that was the equivalent to a wikipedia entry on radio spectrum radiation. I will apologize for the blanket statement that was implied by continuing the inappropriate use of the term "RF". Can I have my 20 802.11x towers and 10Mbit connection now?
Erect 20 802.11x towers next to my house so that I can get 10Mbit/s sync broadband and I will gladly pay $50.00 per month for the privilege of having my brain and testicles bathed in EMF radition.
(Everything else you said about satellites was spot on. I almost tried it once. They were about to erect the dish and then I was told about requiring Windows and that a static IP wasn't possible and that they blocked email server access and and and) I told them to pack up the dish and go home, right there on the spot.
I'm not a historian but I think it went down like this: It was generally known that in order to deploy ubiquitous phone service that it would cost an extremely large investment. Nobody wanted the risk of investing that much money without a guarantee that they would recover their investment. So the United States government granted Bell telephone a legal monopoly and private ownership of the infrastructure in return for the cost of deploying the infrastructure.
So, no, they are not "in part, public property". And you are once again paying forever for a mistake made by your politicians.
I pay $45.00 per month for basic phone access and an hour of long distance (something like a third of that is the results of various taxes and fees. But I'd say over the past 20 years my bill averaged more like $25.00 per month. Let's see... 45*12*20 = $10,800.00.
I'm positive it didn't cost $10,800.00 to run a pair of copper wire from the central office to my house. Not when you take into account economy of scale where they fitted out 10 blocks of my neighborhood all at once when they were originally built. (And if I did pay that much for my pair of copper it wouldn't suck to the point of not being able to support DSL even though I'm well with the distance limits!)
You are paying for the traffic. period. (And another argument to support this is... I am paying for traffic and information. period How the carrier provides it is their business. They can do it with carrier pidgeons, smoke signals, copper or fiber; I don't care which as long as I get my information. Now just because they choose to consume the funds supporting an antiquated network that is expensive to maintain does not somehow mean I chose to pay for that. I can prove that I do not pay for the infrastructure by the simple fact that with my payment I do not receive any ownership or interest in that infrastructure.
Secondly, don't boo-hoo for the phone companies because they had to invest all that money to build the infrastructure. The got all that money back and and a lot more along time ago, including the power to screw customers at will, when the government offered them all sorts of shady deals that included sanctioned monopolies. (which, it appears, we are back to.)
I suggest that you visit Japan. Where telephone and broadband that is five times as fast costs half as much. (disclaimer: I don't know whether or not, or to what extent, that cost is subsidized by the japanese government.) But I do know it doesn't cost anywhere near what the phone and cable companies over here are charging to provide this service. (Even with their back-end costs figured in.)
You're arguments are a bit weak too. I live in one of the most densly populated valleys in america. The phone company hasn't run fiber to anyone's house that I know of. And all of the DSL switches that you suggest they've invested in were more likely picked up at a firesale when the phone companies drove all the DSL ISPs out of business through exorbinant co-location rates and shitty service. "Oh, you're filing bankrupcy? That's too bad. Um... about that equipment you just happen to have already installed in our facilities..." So, no, I don't think the phone company is "investing" anything in their infrastructure. (Now investing into political power is probably another story...)
The phone and cable companies are screwing you and making sure that they will continue to be able to do so as long as possible.
Come on! Nothing in Microsoft's history indicates that they are even competent at search and index technology let alone better than google. Look how good all of their troubleshooting "wizards" are at tracking down problems. Their on-line help page/search/indexing is also useless. What do you type first when you run into a windows problem... 'F1' or "www.google.com"?
Microsoft: Wise up. You do not even begin to compete with certain companies at certain technologies no matter how big you think you are. Your loses on Xbox should have taught you that it isn't wise to try to be good at everything.
In my post I generally presented a case for tenure. (at the university level; since without it most professors wouldn't continue at the job.) You build an abstract reality where tenure no longer exists (presumably as a case supporting the abolition of tenure) and then illustrate that you would not get a PhD nor take the job. Which seems to support my original case for the presence of tenure.
Are we in agreement that tenure is a good thing at Universities? (Given present economics. If the economics of universities offered salaries competitive with industry then I would agree that, in the student's best interest, tenure should be abolished and the system should move towards merit rather than seniority.)
You accurately paint certain aspects of university economics: 1) finite budget and 2) tend to give people raises over time. It will be difficult to address the first but progress can be made on the second. First realize that tenure is not the same as pay rate. Tenure is simply a mutual commitment to be employed together permanently [and some would argue without regard to future performance]. Tenured people don't have to be awarded more pay or benefits.
However, an economic problem exists that makes it nearly impossible to deny pay raises to incompetent instructors and steer that finite resource to better instructors and thereby encourage, attract and promote excellence in the instructor. I generally call this economic condition by the proper noun "Union". Teachers in K-12 and higher education have labor unions strong enough to rival the UAW or teamsters. (I choose not to belong.)
The result is worse than you may realize. Unions are supported more by non-tenure track people than by tenure track. the union primarily fights to reduce salary "gaps" between employees and give equal benefits to all instructors; non-tenure as well as tenure track. This means that I generally feel that unions do not serve my best interests (because I am tenure track, have generally higher benefits and responsibilities and have my security guaranteed through non-union measures such as tenure [a benefit which have been started by unions, I don't know].
Anyhow, realize that non-tenure track individuals at my institution are appointed for three year periods. If they are not re-appointed because of lack of positions then we must re-appoint them when a position becomes available again; you cannot hire a different, more competent replacement. It is nearly impossible to terminate the employment of a non-tenure track instructor. To those that think tenure is some holy grail keep this in mind... a tenure track person is appointed for only a year and can be permanently released at any time prior to tenure for any reason. So basically for a six year tenure-probational period the non-tenure track people have more job security and the unions constantly fight for these people to make as much as the tenured individuals. Tenured instructors can also be let go at any time due to lack of positions (though you would have to release all the non-tenured people first) Tenure is not always easy. At research level institutions tenure is a nightmare to acheive and probably servers to maintain excellence. Far more people fail at it than succeed at places like UC berkeley or MIT. On the other hand/extreme we have the K-12 institutions where, as far as I know, tenure is a certainty based on length of service. My institution is somewhere in between. It's not guaranteed, you have to show work and progress, but the tenure rate is rather high.
Should you find an exceptional tenure track or non-tenure track person there is no allowance for merit pay or additional benefits. I think this is the real injustice. I think that benefits should be proportional to merit not "equality". I don't believe people are all equal when placed in a specific environment. I could never be a police sketch arti
"Such as" Galen, Aristotle and hypatia does not indicate only those people to the exclusion of Newton, Galileo or a host of other great minded (and sometimes religious) people. Aristotle actually believed 'proportional to weight' not 'size'. Though they are frequently wrong I'm greatful for stubborn scientists. Ask Galileo and Bruno how they enjoyed the inquisition. Again, imagine what level of progress such people could have made without the obstructions imposed by their religions. (Though yes, that is purely hypothetical and without believing in their religions they may have made less progress. But I highly doubt it.)
Nor did I hold either of them up as a perfect example. Galen also made many mistakes that are just now being corrected. (humours and blood letting luckily fell by the way side about a century ago.) There is comparatively little recorded history about Hypatia beyond her gender, popularity and death. So no, they're not perfect. Aristotle was a better example of scientific procedure to cite than Plato, for example, since Aristotle belived more in empirical evidence and basing conclusions on data received through experiementation whereas Plato believed the senses mislead one from truth and truth could only be obtained through inner speculation. (Though, even Plato's philosophy has merit; especially for promoting healthy skepticism.) Experimentation without thought does not make for good science either. But I myself believe more in Aristotle's method since I am kind of a materialistic/project oriented person. My roommate might lean towards Plato since he enjoys purely mathematical pursuits.
In any case, the previously mentioned historical figures tried to follow and justify scientific procedure rather than succumb to stupid and ignorant dogma promoted by the church such as "There is no truth other than God" or "It is useless to seek truth, since truth can only be understood by God and the understanding of God is beyond human comprehension." Maybe if the religious right hadn't promoted such idiocy then the mistakes made by Galen, Aristotle and Newton would have been able to be corrected far, far sooner. (By the way you and I seem to only bring up scientific people prior to the dark age/reign of religion or near the end of it (Newton/Galileo). Can somebody pay some respects to those in between or did religion hold such a death grip on thought during that period? Personally, I think it did and is a primary reason why the mistakes you pointed out lasted 1000 years.
All I'm pointing out is that the original response that "religion has nothing to do with this" is incorrect. It certainly does play a part in the problem and continues to. As does stupid politics. If I had to choose which to place greater blame on then I would pick politics. But I would have to then spend a lot of time trying to sort out how much of that bad politics is based on flawed thinking that is the result of religious indoctrination. In any event it is now a problem that needs to be addressed by attacking the political aspects of it.
I find your phrase "history of scientific rationalism" highly amusing in a reverse sort of non-sequitor way. :-)
#1 Tenure needs to be removed I disagree. Without tenure as a benefit you can't pay me enough to continue as a teacher. I am peer reviewed. Both prior to tenure and after. in fact five different sets of my peers at different levels review my performance annually. I am also directly reviewed by my students and their review is taken into account by my peers.
I think this is different at the k-12 level where I think 98% of the educational failings are occuring either as part of politics, incompetence or your point #3. For K-12, your point #1 seems valid to me. Some of my students can't handle basic 9th grade algebra or point to Canada on a map. And unfortunately I am not exagerating or joking about that.
But then again... Students on ratemyprofessor hate me and think I suck at my job. So maybe I'm wrong and tenure should be abolished. Even if I do suck I'm afraid to even contemplate about the level of incompetence that would be sucked in to fill the vacuum of capable people exiting should tenure at the university level be abolished. Hmmm... teach or make twice as much?
#2 [removed kids] I don't think removal is the best answer but automatic yearly promotion to the next grade certainly needs to go. Promotion should not be based on a fixed annual period of time but rather based on performance and mastery of subject material. I agree that this automatic promotion and "no child left behind" crap only serves to crush the best and brightest. People are not equal. They may deserve equal compassion and attention but everyone has different needs and if you try to serve everybody identically you wind up helping no one.
#3 Parenting Spot on. The ultimate responsibilty for a child's development rest with that child's parents. If the schools degenerate to a failed social experiment (Which they have) then the burden still rests with the parents who committed to serving the child'd best interests when they chose to conceive them.