Then I'm lucky I'm studying in Europe. They have an obsession with theory and don't make an as great distinction between an engineer and a scientist as US colleges do. I'm pretty much receiving an 'engineering rennaissance man' education, as I like to call it.
Of course I have no basis for comparison (tried to transfer to a US college, didn't get in) so it could be just as bad here. As much as I dislike theory, I'm hoping it isn't...
And to look at the opposing point of view - a person with no practical experience isn't much use either. Yes they've got a basis, but they also need extensive training in the practical aspects. Practical exercise also gives you a feeling and intuition for what you're studying, which in turn helps your theory.
In my opinion you need both - you can't understand the idea behind spectrum without having used it once, but you can't use the formulas effectively without knowing what the results mean.
However, you never let it have anything to do with your grade.
The question then is, what's the motivation to do it? In theory I could do homework here - plenty of problems in the text book or from outside sources. The problem is that I simply have no motivation to do so, especially not after a long day of classes.
I believe now that grades should form a limited part of your grade. You should be able to pass without it, but you need to learn to be able to do repetitive and boring work just as much as skilled.
Besides, I doubt you can get good grades on tests without either studying or doing homework, at least not for practical math and sciences - you simply don't get enough practice in solving problems. Sure you might understand what an intergral is after seeing it in class, but are you gonna be able to actually work them out with decent accuracy and speed without having done it at least a few dozen times?
Personally, I never studied for a test or exam but always did my homework.
I sincerely doubt I won't be using calculus, to use it as an example. It's also not only the knowledge but the techniques - are you able to look at a general circuit and at least get an idea of what it does? Hell, take amplifiers - the designs haven't changed in the last 60 years. I'm learning now a number of MOSFET circuits that I spotted in a WW2-era book on vacuum tubes. Improved, but the same idea nontheless...
Yes I know I will need to learn quite a bit to do any kind of significant work. The thing is, if your college curriculum is at all good, they'll teach you the theory that your later training will be based on (that's the idea here anyway).
I honestly hope you never get your wish of removing homework from the curriculum.
I went through high school in the US, hating homework like everyone else. Then I moved to Europe for college and discovered what a blessing homework really is. Thing is, my university here has no homework, no papers, and maybe one or two projects in the semester (total, not per class), so your ENTIRE grade is based on a 4-hour usually-verbal exam. I get 10 weeks of classes and recitations, during which I do jack sh*t in my free time. I then get 3 weeks off to study, which I desperately need, and then 3 weeks to take 6 exams. Let me tell you, those 6 weeks are the most stressful I've ever experienced - by the 4th week I'm usually mildly depressed due to stress.
That's the blessing of homework - it spreads the work out over the year. I'm not sure how you'd feel about this system, but I'd kill for some homework right about now... (I'm in the 3rd week - serious crunch time)
I agree with what you said, but I also believe that there's more to it. I'm an EE major, I knew I was gonna be an EE major ten years ago, and I've been studying EE in my free time. However, there is no way I would be any good at it without being forced to learn some of the less interesting aspects (at least for me). I tend to love practical circuits and such, but without the mathematics theory used to analyse and design them I'm dead in the water.
Yes, you have to be interested and motivated to truly learn. However, someone with interest but no guidance will learn a lot slower, as they'll study only what they 'like'.
That's why I'm slugging away at this communications text book right now, hoping that I pass the exam so they'll let me study more circuits next semester.
My mistake - checked the dictionary, and apparently a reference surface can also be called a valid datum. Just seems strange, as doesn't look like a unit of information at first glance.
I don't neccessarily equate common usage with correct, but I do believe that people should have the freedom to play with the language freely in casual communication and that people who try to hold everyone to the strict rules are holding back the evolution of the language. On the other hand, formal writing per definition must stick to the formalized and codified set of rules that make up the language. I have the same discussions with my mother about Dutch and its dialects, as I enjoy playing with the sound of the language whereas her mother was a Dutch language teacher. I consider myself able to see both sides, but am of the common usage camp myself.
The impression I get from a quick google search is that a geodetic datum is a particular model of the shape of the Earth - please correct me if I'm wrong. If this is the case, they are not using datum's original meaning - a single unit of information - but have redefined it to mean model for their own use, just like the rest of the world redefined 'data' as a synonym for dataset.
And by the way, I was referring to common use. Say 'data' to someone on the street, they'll know what you mean. Say 'datum' and you'll probably get funny looks.
but basic social skills require that you make that clear in advance.
Where's the fun in that?;)
Reminds me of the Dilbert cartoon where they have the photos of goggle-eyed marketing reps (they were exposed to complex technical specs). Reactions can be quite amusing to observe...
A good point - I suppose we'd descend into the linguistic equivalent of anarchy if everybody spoke slang.
I think the healthiest would be a bit of both. Keep the evolving language for speech and use the more formalized structure for the written word and more official situations. It's like a dress code - you wear a suit to work and jeans to a party, and occasionally there's a casual friday situation.
You could also say that you need exposure to the formal language and it's history before you can begin to improvise on it. Even the greatest jazz improv artist probably started with sheet music or the like.
Thanks for clearing that up - it makes me wonder what I've missed by choosing to stay strictly in engineering.
In any case, I must say I'm a zealous descriptive in my speech (formal writing is something else alltogether) and enjoy being able to tinker and play with a language. It's truly beautiful in how many ways the human mind can express an idea.
Of course, I understand the need for prescriptives as a balanceing force. I enjoy twisting the language, but I do realize that if that was the norm we'd lose the ability to understand each other. Slang is fun and entertaining, but an elegant, finely crafted sentence can be stunning in its layers of meaning and subtext.
Well, you have more experience in it than me - as an engineering major I can only rely on my intution.
My feeling is that there's no such thing as an "invalid" evolution of language
I'm completely in agreement with you here, and it's something I've discussed with many people over the years. For me it's particularly relevant, as I am Belgian and we have at least a good dozen dialects which, if I'm not mistaken, were mutually unintelligible until modern times. You still see some elderly on TV talking in dialects that are supposedly dutch, but have to be subtitled to be understandable.
The point that I'm often confronted with is that there IS an official language and that's the right one, common usage and mannerisms be damned. It's a valid point of view and was definitely necessary to create a unified language here, but that mentality also holds the evolution of the language back. Personally I enjoy playing with language and am of the opinion that the communication of meaning is more important than the form, but...
It's the idea that "there's correct way to speak a language, and that's that!" that I've always disliked. A correct way to write I can see (and even then only for non-fiction), but speech should be causual and can definitely be entertaining.
It's not so much that I see it as being both singular and plural (although that is what I said *sheepish*) but that I believe that 'data' has taken on a new meaning, specifically as a synonym for 'dataset' and other similar terms.
What's your opinion on this? Would this be a valid evolution of a language? If there was an English council, would they allow this evolution or would they stick to datum, the technically correct and historically accurate term?
I can definitely see the point in keeping the word datum and using dataset instead of data, but is it wrong to define (redefine) a word for the convenience of the langauge's users (assuming it doesn't lead to exception rules)?
Quite possibly, but that is not the meaning that is in use today. I can clearly see where it's coming from, but as far as I know datum is no longer used seeing as data is usually not considered divisible. A single data point is rarely useful, and thus the word data seems to have evolved to represent a block of datums instead of being the plural of datum.
Of course I'm no english language professor, but isn't it common use that defines a language?
Not in the common usage of the word. 'Data' as I understand it has come to represent a collection of information, the collection being a thing itself. In this sense, 'data' is singular. Datums is no longer in common use, as far as I know.
Of course, common usage isn't everything, but it is what eventually defines a language.
Good point about the original poster, and you're correct about the accepted usage, but for me anything that is supposedly correct but just sounds wrong sets off alarm bells.
I just posted another comment to this thread about how I believe that 'none' cannot be used in a singular manner and thus the was usage is an irregularity in the language left over from 'not one'. http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=151031&cid=126 69287
As for 'data are', isn't that a special case where the singular and plural are the same? "The data is" is correct when referring to a single data set, "The data are" correct when referring to multiple datas. I'd also note that "The data are" is rarely used, mostly replace by "The datasets are" or some similar word to indicate multiple blocks or sources.
Aah, the irregularities of the English language... Makes life interesting
I'd tend to disagree that the 'was' usage is correct.
If you look at the links provided by other posters, it's claimed that 'none' is an indefinite pronoun, both singular and plural. The exact number therefore relies on with which word it is used. Now, look at the complete subject of the sentence you gave - "none of the applicants". None is used to define a subset of applicants (an empty set, but a set nontheless) and is therefore clearly plural in this case. This is a side effect of the construction "___ of the ___", which will always produce a plural subject.
As for other constructions; I'm no english teacher, but I cannot for the life of me remember another way to use none in the subject, excluding by itself where the "of the" is implied. If you look at the parent phrase "not one", it can be used in a singular subject of the form "Not one [singular noun]", but 'none' cannot be used in this way.
If the 'was' usage is acceptable, it is clearly only due to past usage and is an exception in the english language.
Of course, if you can find a usage of none as part of a singular subject (as indefinite pronoun, not as proper noun naming the word itself), I'll admit that this is all a load of hogwash.
Are you sure? "Not one was accepted" I can see, but "None was accepted" just doesn't sound right.
None may very well be singular (and even that is disputed - see your own link), but it refers to a group - can you therefore not use it in conjunction with a plural verb? I'd put it in the class of words like 'they', which aren't singular or plural themselves but get their number from the concept they embody. It may be the contraction of 'not one', where singular is definitely used, but none is a fully independent word nowadays and, in my opinion, should be viewed separately from its origins.
On the other hand, the 'was' is part of a quote, a situation where normal grammar rules can become warped.
I hope you were aiming for funny, not the insightful moderation you got...
For those who modded it insightful, have you ever heard of playing Devil's Advocate and simply debating for the sake of debate? It's an excellent way to learn the tactics and refine your own ideas, whether you're arguing for or against them.
I recently argued about the Israel-Palestine issue with two different people - thing is, I took the oppsite side in both. It really makes you think about the situation, and about what you really think the answer is.
Are these supposed to be positive points? Because it kind of flies in the face of coding best practices...
I take it you've never heard of LISP? It's a dynamically typed language that, despite being a few decades old (4 or 5 I think) is still seeing some decent usage. I believe the backend of Yahoo Stores is written in LISP, for example.
Defining your vars beforehand is good practice for strict, structural coding projects and languages. If you're working in a flexible language and you know what you're doing, it's rather unnecessary (not that I can claim to, but I'm learnin').
It's psychological - people (including me) like having a movement in the real world correspond exactly to what happens on screen. When I move the mouse to the left side of the desk, I know the pointer will be on the left side of the screen.
I don't use a trackball for the same reason I don't use a joystick - I need an absolute correspondence between movement in the real and virtual world.
I also believe that a trackball requires more dextrous hands. Dragging with a trackball, for instance, requires you to hold the button with one finger while tracking with others, whereas with a mouse you hold with the fingers and track with the arm.
How does this affect government observation programs (you know, carnivore et al...)? Does this force them to get a warrant in all cases to certify that they really are 'authorized users'?
You may have been moderated funny but this very thing was proposed on Kuro5hin a few weeks ago.
Namely, place a 1000km Fresnel lens at the Lagrange point between the Earth and Sun to slightly diverge the light and thus reducing the ammount of energy hitting the planet. Not a bad idea, if a bit unfeasable right now:)
Slashdot Mirror
Then I'm lucky I'm studying in Europe. They have an obsession with theory and don't make an as great distinction between an engineer and a scientist as US colleges do. I'm pretty much receiving an 'engineering rennaissance man' education, as I like to call it.
Of course I have no basis for comparison (tried to transfer to a US college, didn't get in) so it could be just as bad here. As much as I dislike theory, I'm hoping it isn't...
And to look at the opposing point of view - a person with no practical experience isn't much use either. Yes they've got a basis, but they also need extensive training in the practical aspects. Practical exercise also gives you a feeling and intuition for what you're studying, which in turn helps your theory.
In my opinion you need both - you can't understand the idea behind spectrum without having used it once, but you can't use the formulas effectively without knowing what the results mean.
Jw
However, you never let it have anything to do with your grade.
The question then is, what's the motivation to do it? In theory I could do homework here - plenty of problems in the text book or from outside sources. The problem is that I simply have no motivation to do so, especially not after a long day of classes.
I believe now that grades should form a limited part of your grade. You should be able to pass without it, but you need to learn to be able to do repetitive and boring work just as much as skilled.
Besides, I doubt you can get good grades on tests without either studying or doing homework, at least not for practical math and sciences - you simply don't get enough practice in solving problems. Sure you might understand what an intergral is after seeing it in class, but are you gonna be able to actually work them out with decent accuracy and speed without having done it at least a few dozen times?
Personally, I never studied for a test or exam but always did my homework.
Jw
I sincerely doubt I won't be using calculus, to use it as an example. It's also not only the knowledge but the techniques - are you able to look at a general circuit and at least get an idea of what it does?
Hell, take amplifiers - the designs haven't changed in the last 60 years. I'm learning now a number of MOSFET circuits that I spotted in a WW2-era book on vacuum tubes. Improved, but the same idea nontheless...
Yes I know I will need to learn quite a bit to do any kind of significant work. The thing is, if your college curriculum is at all good, they'll teach you the theory that your later training will be based on (that's the idea here anyway).
Jw
I honestly hope you never get your wish of removing homework from the curriculum.
I went through high school in the US, hating homework like everyone else. Then I moved to Europe for college and discovered what a blessing homework really is. Thing is, my university here has no homework, no papers, and maybe one or two projects in the semester (total, not per class), so your ENTIRE grade is based on a 4-hour usually-verbal exam.
I get 10 weeks of classes and recitations, during which I do jack sh*t in my free time. I then get 3 weeks off to study, which I desperately need, and then 3 weeks to take 6 exams. Let me tell you, those 6 weeks are the most stressful I've ever experienced - by the 4th week I'm usually mildly depressed due to stress.
That's the blessing of homework - it spreads the work out over the year. I'm not sure how you'd feel about this system, but I'd kill for some homework right about now... (I'm in the 3rd week - serious crunch time)
Jw
I agree with what you said, but I also believe that there's more to it. I'm an EE major, I knew I was gonna be an EE major ten years ago, and I've been studying EE in my free time. However, there is no way I would be any good at it without being forced to learn some of the less interesting aspects (at least for me). I tend to love practical circuits and such, but without the mathematics theory used to analyse and design them I'm dead in the water.
Yes, you have to be interested and motivated to truly learn. However, someone with interest but no guidance will learn a lot slower, as they'll study only what they 'like'.
That's why I'm slugging away at this communications text book right now, hoping that I pass the exam so they'll let me study more circuits next semester.
Jw
My mistake - checked the dictionary, and apparently a reference surface can also be called a valid datum. Just seems strange, as doesn't look like a unit of information at first glance.
I don't neccessarily equate common usage with correct, but I do believe that people should have the freedom to play with the language freely in casual communication and that people who try to hold everyone to the strict rules are holding back the evolution of the language. On the other hand, formal writing per definition must stick to the formalized and codified set of rules that make up the language.
I have the same discussions with my mother about Dutch and its dialects, as I enjoy playing with the sound of the language whereas her mother was a Dutch language teacher. I consider myself able to see both sides, but am of the common usage camp myself.
Jw
The impression I get from a quick google search is that a geodetic datum is a particular model of the shape of the Earth - please correct me if I'm wrong. If this is the case, they are not using datum's original meaning - a single unit of information - but have redefined it to mean model for their own use, just like the rest of the world redefined 'data' as a synonym for dataset.
And by the way, I was referring to common use. Say 'data' to someone on the street, they'll know what you mean. Say 'datum' and you'll probably get funny looks.
Jw
My bad. I should have said that "None of the ___" always produces plural. You cannot say "none of the newspaper"...
Jw
but basic social skills require that you make that clear in advance.
;)
Where's the fun in that?
Reminds me of the Dilbert cartoon where they have the photos of goggle-eyed marketing reps (they were exposed to complex technical specs). Reactions can be quite amusing to observe...
Jw
A good point - I suppose we'd descend into the linguistic equivalent of anarchy if everybody spoke slang.
I think the healthiest would be a bit of both. Keep the evolving language for speech and use the more formalized structure for the written word and more official situations. It's like a dress code - you wear a suit to work and jeans to a party, and occasionally there's a casual friday situation.
You could also say that you need exposure to the formal language and it's history before you can begin to improvise on it. Even the greatest jazz improv artist probably started with sheet music or the like.
Jw
Thanks for clearing that up - it makes me wonder what I've missed by choosing to stay strictly in engineering.
In any case, I must say I'm a zealous descriptive in my speech (formal writing is something else alltogether) and enjoy being able to tinker and play with a language. It's truly beautiful in how many ways the human mind can express an idea.
Of course, I understand the need for prescriptives as a balanceing force. I enjoy twisting the language, but I do realize that if that was the norm we'd lose the ability to understand each other. Slang is fun and entertaining, but an elegant, finely crafted sentence can be stunning in its layers of meaning and subtext.
Jw
Well, you have more experience in it than me - as an engineering major I can only rely on my intution.
My feeling is that there's no such thing as an "invalid" evolution of language
I'm completely in agreement with you here, and it's something I've discussed with many people over the years. For me it's particularly relevant, as I am Belgian and we have at least a good dozen dialects which, if I'm not mistaken, were mutually unintelligible until modern times. You still see some elderly on TV talking in dialects that are supposedly dutch, but have to be subtitled to be understandable.
The point that I'm often confronted with is that there IS an official language and that's the right one, common usage and mannerisms be damned. It's a valid point of view and was definitely necessary to create a unified language here, but that mentality also holds the evolution of the language back. Personally I enjoy playing with language and am of the opinion that the communication of meaning is more important than the form, but...
It's the idea that "there's correct way to speak a language, and that's that!" that I've always disliked. A correct way to write I can see (and even then only for non-fiction), but speech should be causual and can definitely be entertaining.
Jw
It's not so much that I see it as being both singular and plural (although that is what I said *sheepish*) but that I believe that 'data' has taken on a new meaning, specifically as a synonym for 'dataset' and other similar terms.
What's your opinion on this? Would this be a valid evolution of a language? If there was an English council, would they allow this evolution or would they stick to datum, the technically correct and historically accurate term?
I can definitely see the point in keeping the word datum and using dataset instead of data, but is it wrong to define (redefine) a word for the convenience of the langauge's users (assuming it doesn't lead to exception rules)?
Jw
Quite possibly, but that is not the meaning that is in use today. I can clearly see where it's coming from, but as far as I know datum is no longer used seeing as data is usually not considered divisible. A single data point is rarely useful, and thus the word data seems to have evolved to represent a block of datums instead of being the plural of datum.
Of course I'm no english language professor, but isn't it common use that defines a language?
Jw
Not in the common usage of the word. 'Data' as I understand it has come to represent a collection of information, the collection being a thing itself. In this sense, 'data' is singular. Datums is no longer in common use, as far as I know.
Of course, common usage isn't everything, but it is what eventually defines a language.
Jw
Good point about the original poster, and you're correct about the accepted usage, but for me anything that is supposedly correct but just sounds wrong sets off alarm bells.
6 69287
I just posted another comment to this thread about how I believe that 'none' cannot be used in a singular manner and thus the was usage is an irregularity in the language left over from 'not one'.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=151031&cid=12
As for 'data are', isn't that a special case where the singular and plural are the same? "The data is" is correct when referring to a single data set, "The data are" correct when referring to multiple datas. I'd also note that "The data are" is rarely used, mostly replace by "The datasets are" or some similar word to indicate multiple blocks or sources.
Aah, the irregularities of the English language... Makes life interesting
Jw
I'd tend to disagree that the 'was' usage is correct.
If you look at the links provided by other posters, it's claimed that 'none' is an indefinite pronoun, both singular and plural. The exact number therefore relies on with which word it is used.
Now, look at the complete subject of the sentence you gave - "none of the applicants". None is used to define a subset of applicants (an empty set, but a set nontheless) and is therefore clearly plural in this case. This is a side effect of the construction "___ of the ___", which will always produce a plural subject.
As for other constructions; I'm no english teacher, but I cannot for the life of me remember another way to use none in the subject, excluding by itself where the "of the" is implied. If you look at the parent phrase "not one", it can be used in a singular subject of the form "Not one [singular noun]", but 'none' cannot be used in this way.
If the 'was' usage is acceptable, it is clearly only due to past usage and is an exception in the english language.
Of course, if you can find a usage of none as part of a singular subject (as indefinite pronoun, not as proper noun naming the word itself), I'll admit that this is all a load of hogwash.
Jw
Are you sure? "Not one was accepted" I can see, but "None was accepted" just doesn't sound right.
None may very well be singular (and even that is disputed - see your own link), but it refers to a group - can you therefore not use it in conjunction with a plural verb? I'd put it in the class of words like 'they', which aren't singular or plural themselves but get their number from the concept they embody.
It may be the contraction of 'not one', where singular is definitely used, but none is a fully independent word nowadays and, in my opinion, should be viewed separately from its origins.
On the other hand, the 'was' is part of a quote, a situation where normal grammar rules can become warped.
Jw
I hope you were aiming for funny, not the insightful moderation you got...
For those who modded it insightful, have you ever heard of playing Devil's Advocate and simply debating for the sake of debate? It's an excellent way to learn the tactics and refine your own ideas, whether you're arguing for or against them.
I recently argued about the Israel-Palestine issue with two different people - thing is, I took the oppsite side in both. It really makes you think about the situation, and about what you really think the answer is.
Jw
Are these supposed to be positive points? Because it kind of flies in the face of coding best practices...
I take it you've never heard of LISP? It's a dynamically typed language that, despite being a few decades old (4 or 5 I think) is still seeing some decent usage. I believe the backend of Yahoo Stores is written in LISP, for example.
Defining your vars beforehand is good practice for strict, structural coding projects and languages. If you're working in a flexible language and you know what you're doing, it's rather unnecessary (not that I can claim to, but I'm learnin').
Jw
vi knights? VI KNIGHTS?
Do you honestly believe Stallman would have ANYTHING to do with a group by the name of VI Knights?
;)
Jw
It's psychological - people (including me) like having a movement in the real world correspond exactly to what happens on screen. When I move the mouse to the left side of the desk, I know the pointer will be on the left side of the screen.
I don't use a trackball for the same reason I don't use a joystick - I need an absolute correspondence between movement in the real and virtual world.
I also believe that a trackball requires more dextrous hands. Dragging with a trackball, for instance, requires you to hold the button with one finger while tracking with others, whereas with a mouse you hold with the fingers and track with the arm.
Jw
How does this affect government observation programs (you know, carnivore et al...)? Does this force them to get a warrant in all cases to certify that they really are 'authorized users'?
Jw
Does that mean we can't return him for a refund?
Jw
You may have been moderated funny but this very thing was proposed on Kuro5hin a few weeks ago.
:)
3
Namely, place a 1000km Fresnel lens at the Lagrange point between the Earth and Sun to slightly diverge the light and thus reducing the ammount of energy hitting the planet. Not a bad idea, if a bit unfeasable right now
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2005/4/7/41932/1936
Jw