A deep analysis of most of these types of donations typically reveals a more selfish motive on the part of the supposedly generous benefactor. The Gates donation is "easy pickings" regarding this subject. The PCs they provide to schools and libraries come with Microsoft software only. This maximizes exposure to Microsoft products for those users. This results in a possibly higher demand for those products regardless as to whether or not there are better ones available. Would it really be any less generous of the Gates foundation to donate PCs with Windows OS, but instead provide OpenOffice.org as an alternative offering since the people using the systems may not be able to afford MS Office should they get an interest? But you won't see them doing that because it's bad for their business. Factor in their FUD campaign about how schools and libraries shouldn't accept PCs that are donated without Windows. They wouldn't be able to utilize that FUD if they weren't making donations of PCs with Windows to those same schools. Those warnings essentially lock out other foundations who might want to donate older, used hardware running a free OS like Linux or one of the BSDs.
There have been some wealthy folks who have made donations to society but nearly all of them have either done so under duress, because of court orders/settlements, for tax purposes or some other self-serving reason. I challenge anyone to show me someone who has donated money and time freely to the cause of the underpriveleged with no strings attached (including religious strings) outside of the person called Jesus Christ. I think you will not find one.
t's hard even to make the argument that a life lived in pursuit of money is an inherently selfish and unproductive life-- if you have way too much money, you're likely to use it to help people (the hell else are you going to do with it?)
Easy... What most people with "too much" money do: buy boats they rarely use, multiple houses on different continents "just in case" they might want to stay there for a week or two, a garage full of more automibles than most people own in a lifetime, mansions that cost several million dollars with multiple kitchens, home theaters that rival real cinemas, a couple Land Rovers thrown in there somewhere, don't forget the swimming pool to host parties where scantily clad women pour expensive champagne all over their bodies to symbolize how much of a success the rich person is, several walk-in closets full of the latest hip clothes, a Hummer or two "just in case the worst happens", lots of very expensive jewelry for self, spouse or both, can't forget the expensive designer drug habit that usually accompanies fast wealth typical of America, maybe a seat on the next space shuttle to show how "interested" the excessively rich person is in science (and their own public image), we also need to account for the lavish furnishings of the multiple domeciles, what's the going rate on an entourage these days(?), PR folks probably aren't cheap either, as well as legal folks just in case there's some kind of lawsuit related to anything the rich person might do... Man I didn't think I could list all of that in one sentence! And that barely scratches the surface as to what sucks away money from the rich over any kind of supposed altruism that might come from them. Where I live (Cleveland Ohio: not a metropolis by any means) the local Fox affiliate did a story about a year or two ago called "Livin' Large" that focussed on local celebrities (no one you've ever heard of) who have things like a "$4,000,000 pinkie ring" or an "olympic sized swimming pool for one". If low-rate local celebs are spending their cash on this kind of stuff, you KNOW that the higher end wealthy are going to be even more egregious in what they put their money towards. Donations are NOT forthcoming. Any comments?
Sure they may upset any real fans, but there could be a large money-making opportunity here.
Don't you think it's a sad commentary on society when "large money-making opportunities" far outweigh traditional expansions of culture? I certainly do. Life isn't about making money. Anyone who thinks it is has missed the point og life completely. (Note, I'm not attacking you, I'm just making a point about what life is really about.)
Wormy pork! It's not just for infection anymore!! Or... Um... It does a body good? Or... "Shhh!! Don't move! You'll scare em"! Or... It's a honey of an O (geddit? ringworm)? Or... "Got Ringworm"? How many 70s, 80s and 90s "healthy breafast" jingles can YOU think of?;P
Seriously, I spent some time last night reading through a Microsoft employee's blog discussing this very issue. While it might sound like big trouble in little China, it's likely to be well glossed over by their PR campaigns. Heads will roll at MS, but not the right ones. The big guys there will say that this was the work of either an "astroturfer" who doesn't even work for MS, or a disgruntled employee who really didn't have a grasp on the business end of things. In other words Ballme and company will be saying, "nothing to see here, move along".
As a side note, I found one of the comments on that blog particularly insulting. Someone had the audacity to say that Microsoft is becoming more and more like DEC. This couldn't be furthest from the truth. DEC was run by the engineers, meaning that the entire company was nothing but engineers. No suits. No business men. Just pure brain. That's why DEC's systems pretty much defined the phrase "just works". MS isn't even close. They tried and they got Cutler to design NT. But then they threw out everything that he had laid out in NT when they hit 2k for business reasons. If you want a great OS, you forget about business reasons. If you want to run a great business, then you need to accept that there will always be compromises and you'll always have a subpar product when compared to the output of pure engineering. Them's the breaks folks. That's why the FOSS world outshines Microsoft at every turn in terms of design and doesn't really make much of a dent business-wise. And it's why MS is so successful as a business but can't create an OS that you'd trust your life with.
I find it highly suspicious that someone who seems to know a lot about these types of meetings (I wonder why that is) is posting on Slashdot. Especially with a favorable view. Regardless of whether or not you are right in what you say, it seems to me that you have more of a political motivation for posting here. The kind of mind that takes a keen interest in government and politics and the kind of mind that has a strong interest in computers and technology typically do not mix. This is one of THE biggest problems with the net. We have people who are either "wannabe" career politicians or are virtual lobbyists astroturfing the view of their employers. You are one part of the formula that is trying to subvert people to the cause of the current criminal in charge of the Whitehouse. Unless you have some other defense for yourself (I'm not even touching why you might be posting AC) I recommend that people read what you wrote with a large degree of suspicion.
Re:Did it do it to itself?
on
Sun Grid DOS'd
·
· Score: 0
They don't call it DOS for nothin'. Hehehe...;P (As a sidenote imagine a distributed cluster of MS-DOS machines and how they would perform. DDOS. Hehehehe... Too funny.)
Screw the advertisers. I really dislike this whole advertising based culture we are evolving into. In the 70s it wasn't that bad. Shows would run ads which EVERYONE would just avoid watching by going out to the kitchen to get a snack or something. But now, these monsters want to force you to see their useless ads. Fortunately there are some of us that advertising doesn't work on at all. I think it might be due to my high score on the autism scale, but I can easily ignore ads and only purchase what I want, when I want it. There is no one who can convince me to buy something that I don't need. If only the rest of the population were like this. This sort of criminality would disappear overnight. Sadly the rest of the population is easily lead.
This is the beginning of the HUGE attack on average people using the internet to get unpopular messages out to the rest of the internet in America. Since the internet allows anyone with the itch to "publish" their views freely, the larger corporations have been trying to find a way to shut that down. Can you imagine what the world would be like if everyone had access to radio and television stations to program their own stuff unfettered (putting aside the technical issues of interference since they don't apply to the internet)? The only way that people will be able to pass any really important infomation that the media giants don't want you to here eventually will be e-mail. And e-mail is about as threatening to them as phones were. Expect to see a lot of the ISPs that provide web hosting and the free web hosting services and blog services more heavily restricting content if it doesn't serve their corporate masters well. Expect to see more and more TCP and UDP ports being closed off so you CAN'T run your own darknet to provide services of your own to your friends and family (something I do right now). Big media is NOT interested in someone having a large enough stage to broadcast a message that big media doesn't want people to hear. In the future, we will all be criminals even if all we want to do is tell the truth. We're halfway there now.
...that all depends on how we define science in the next few decades. Currently science is under attack for political reasons and will likely experience some level of change if something isn't done to curb the diretion things are going. The political motivation behind the current debasement of science is money. There are some very wealthy people who stand to make, keep or lose a lot of money depending on how much science the average person is made aware of. Those people are trying to muddy the waters and bring pseudoscience and fantasy (Intelligent Design, UFOs, Angels, and the like) to the same level of respect that science once held. Sadly, it appears to be working since there are many average people out there who would rather believe in old myths reframed in today's culture than actually dig into real scientific explanations for certain things.
Another part of the problem is that many of the "scientists" themselves are the people with the money and political motivation to keep science from the masses. (I put scientists in quotes since they tend to be more businessmen than scientists which is usually a horrible combination when it comes to society at large) A perfect example is Donald Rumsfeld and his connection to the Searle corporation. Searle developed Nutrasweet by way of serendipity while researching some medicines. The administrations before Reagan would not OK Nutrasweet for mass consumption. This was obviously detrimental to Searle's, and Rumsfeld's cash flow. So during the Reagan administration, a former employee of Searle was appointed to the FDA by Ronald Reagan. This appointee only did one thing and then resigned. He approved Nutrasweet for mass consumption. (Look it up if you don't believe me) The reason that Nutrasweet was not approved before this time was that too many animal tests indicated that Nutrasweet could cause tumors and a wide variety of illness. Many of these illnesses are not life threatening, but are discomforting enough to cause the sufferer to seek out medical attention. Usually on inspection, the doctor will prescribe medication from a large pharmaceutical company (in some cases Searle) which will take care of the symptoms but will be required for the patient as long as they suffer those symptoms. Nice perpetual motion money making system there...
So some scientists are crooked and simply work to further the interests of their employers rather than improving the human condition. Other scientists who work to improve our understanding of the universe, our planet and ourselves are rarely rewarded for their work and these days are being attacked as "heretics" in our newly "christian nation". So I would say that if things continue as they are going now, we'll have science churches that preach Intelligent Design and prisons to put the heretical non-christian scientists in. The computers of the day will be nothing more than glorified televisions that pass along the "wisdom" of the christian sanctioned "scientists". And the corporations and governmental bodies who live off of these systems will employ the wealthiest people in the world. Assuming that the rest of the world doesn't wise up and bomb us into oblivion...
Well I agree with that sentiment. That's why I don't really consider myself much of anything since NO party represents me well. It's also why I don't call myself a liberal even though others do. Personally I hate politics because they get in the way of actually getting work done. But I do believe that government is necessary since people are typically not the best judge of what they are capable of doing and need strong controls to prevent them from doing stupid things.
Some material will NEVER be interesting no matter who presents it. I don't care if Jenna Jameson herself were presenting a class on Business Law in the nude, the subject matter is boring as hell. Like you said, you can't blame just one party in most cases. I would say it breaks down like this:
1. A lot of required subject matter in college is boring as hell and can't be livened up in any useful way. Any attempts to do so will either hamper the student's true understanding of the subject matter or just look so stupid that you will completely lose the student's attention.
2. If a student is even slightly uninterested in the subject matter, they are going to take advantage of whatever distractions exist in their vicinity. It could be IMing on the latptop, it could be staring at the hottest male or female student in the class and fantasizing abouthaving wild sex with them (whatever the student's preference is). You can't change that. It's a people problem and NO technical solutions can adequately fix people problems.
3. In some cases the profs are terrible at communicating their enthusiasm for the subject matter to the students. Maybe it's burnout. Maybe it's because they only went into it for the money and didn't have a passion to begin with. Who knows? But in those cases, using a laptop is only going to make things worse.
When I was a student, I always asked questions to try and get the prof to cooperate with my learning experience. If they refused to heed my threats, then I typically dropped the class and found a better prof. But, I only had to do that a handful of times because in all honesty most of my profs were adequate and I had some damn good ones too. Sadly, my favorite prof didn't actually teach me much at all. He was really good about cussing out the non-liberal idiots in the class. He was awesome.;P But I only learned a little bit about history...
I will say that I've never been a huge champion of college myself. It doesn't teach you anything abot real life at all and is largely a waste of time. But where it does benefit you is that it gives you a piece of paper that has dubious value as a "foot in the door" for employment. This only changed in the 90s when IT started actually letting more people in with just certs and no college degrees. At the same time, I will say that the internet, while being a pretty good place to learn some things, is largely filled with half-truths and erroneous information. When it comes to learning anything (IT excepted) the internet is not the best place to start. Books are. And books live mostly in libraries, colleges and for those who can afford them, bookstores.
The thing is... technology as a solution is overrated. I've seen too many people automatically assume that just because something is "digital", it's somehow better than an older way of doing things. That's simply not true. I'm a pretty hardcore technology fan. But I'm willing to recognize that it is not a panacea, especially when the users are immature and unable to control their own impulse to be counterproductive. College students with fully loaded laptops and WiFi are a disaster in the classroom. They need to be strictly controlled so that they don't waste their time doing stupid things with the technology.
Some people DO know better than others. In many cases the teachers know much better than the students. Not to mention, there is the lesson learned that you can't always have your way in the real world of work. Personally I think my job would be much easier if my desktop monitor were a 45 inch LCD display running at 4096x2304, but that ain't gonna happen. Is it because my employers are a bunch of luddite bastards, or is it because they know what's better for me? I would argue the latter.
The only way a laptop is of any use in the classroom is if it has no ability to connect to anything but researh materials that relate to the curriculum in all the classes the students attend. Kill off IM. Kill off e-mail. Kill off anything that might be entertaining or some form of communication with the outside world and then maybe a laptop might be a useful tool. But far too many idiots just use their laptops to avoid actually working in class.
...but a "livable" salary is just a ticket to being one accident away from homelessness.
That is only true in a society that is selfish and short-sighted enough to avoid implementing social safety nets for preventing that from happening to ANYONE.
Depends on how you measure accomplishment. In my worldview, having money is next to worthless. Leaving behind some kind of useful contribution to the world is true wealth. People who don't understand that have failed at life.
Trust me. I was FORCED to look at one point and saw that I had to essentially be rich to be able to afford any of the investment advice from these sorts of companies. So I just went with what I could afford in mutual funds and just hope that my money isn't going to fund things I don't support or believe in. But I know I'm decieving myself. As far as caring for my family, I don't equate that to investing. I equate that to working as hard as I can to make a livable salary. The money you make from your job should be enough to support your family comfortably. As soon as you start getting into investment, there's obviously a problem.
Garbage? You mean to tell me that there are inexpensive investment firms that will make sure I'm investing in companies that are green/eco-friendly and politically left? Really? Care to point me to some? I didn't think so... For one thing, I am not afflicted with the mental disorder that makes me want to track my own investments and research them on my own since I find that to be unbelievably tedious. I'd rather remove my leg hair using paint stripper as a hobby since it would be less painfully boring. Assuming that I did put the time into this, then how am I supposed to have time to enjoy the things that I REALLY like in my life when 18 hours a day are spent tracking investments and researching companies that I care nothing about?
I have a bad feeling we'll be seeing a lot more "Wickets" and "JarJars". The only thing "darker" about this series will be that it will follow the method that all other science fiction TV shows have followed since the X Files and shoot in low light conditions so you can barely see what's happening most of the time.
Slashdot Mirror
A deep analysis of most of these types of donations typically reveals a more selfish motive on the part of the supposedly generous benefactor. The Gates donation is "easy pickings" regarding this subject. The PCs they provide to schools and libraries come with Microsoft software only. This maximizes exposure to Microsoft products for those users. This results in a possibly higher demand for those products regardless as to whether or not there are better ones available. Would it really be any less generous of the Gates foundation to donate PCs with Windows OS, but instead provide OpenOffice.org as an alternative offering since the people using the systems may not be able to afford MS Office should they get an interest? But you won't see them doing that because it's bad for their business. Factor in their FUD campaign about how schools and libraries shouldn't accept PCs that are donated without Windows. They wouldn't be able to utilize that FUD if they weren't making donations of PCs with Windows to those same schools. Those warnings essentially lock out other foundations who might want to donate older, used hardware running a free OS like Linux or one of the BSDs.
There have been some wealthy folks who have made donations to society but nearly all of them have either done so under duress, because of court orders/settlements, for tax purposes or some other self-serving reason. I challenge anyone to show me someone who has donated money and time freely to the cause of the underpriveleged with no strings attached (including religious strings) outside of the person called Jesus Christ. I think you will not find one.
...Microsoft is tough on security like the Bush administration is tough on "terra". ;P
Hmmm. I know! I know! A singularity occurs and Windows experiences a blue screen on a universal plane. ;P
Easy... What most people with "too much" money do: buy boats they rarely use, multiple houses on different continents "just in case" they might want to stay there for a week or two, a garage full of more automibles than most people own in a lifetime, mansions that cost several million dollars with multiple kitchens, home theaters that rival real cinemas, a couple Land Rovers thrown in there somewhere, don't forget the swimming pool to host parties where scantily clad women pour expensive champagne all over their bodies to symbolize how much of a success the rich person is, several walk-in closets full of the latest hip clothes, a Hummer or two "just in case the worst happens", lots of very expensive jewelry for self, spouse or both, can't forget the expensive designer drug habit that usually accompanies fast wealth typical of America, maybe a seat on the next space shuttle to show how "interested" the excessively rich person is in science (and their own public image), we also need to account for the lavish furnishings of the multiple domeciles, what's the going rate on an entourage these days(?), PR folks probably aren't cheap either, as well as legal folks just in case there's some kind of lawsuit related to anything the rich person might do... Man I didn't think I could list all of that in one sentence! And that barely scratches the surface as to what sucks away money from the rich over any kind of supposed altruism that might come from them. Where I live (Cleveland Ohio: not a metropolis by any means) the local Fox affiliate did a story about a year or two ago called "Livin' Large" that focussed on local celebrities (no one you've ever heard of) who have things like a "$4,000,000 pinkie ring" or an "olympic sized swimming pool for one". If low-rate local celebs are spending their cash on this kind of stuff, you KNOW that the higher end wealthy are going to be even more egregious in what they put their money towards. Donations are NOT forthcoming. Any comments?
Don't you think it's a sad commentary on society when "large money-making opportunities" far outweigh traditional expansions of culture? I certainly do. Life isn't about making money. Anyone who thinks it is has missed the point og life completely. (Note, I'm not attacking you, I'm just making a point about what life is really about.)
Wormy pork! It's not just for infection anymore!! Or... Um... It does a body good? Or... "Shhh!! Don't move! You'll scare em"! Or... It's a honey of an O (geddit? ringworm)? Or... "Got Ringworm"? How many 70s, 80s and 90s "healthy breafast" jingles can YOU think of? ;P
Netcraft confirms it! Windows OS is dying! ;P
Seriously, I spent some time last night reading through a Microsoft employee's blog discussing this very issue. While it might sound like big trouble in little China, it's likely to be well glossed over by their PR campaigns. Heads will roll at MS, but not the right ones. The big guys there will say that this was the work of either an "astroturfer" who doesn't even work for MS, or a disgruntled employee who really didn't have a grasp on the business end of things. In other words Ballme and company will be saying, "nothing to see here, move along".
As a side note, I found one of the comments on that blog particularly insulting. Someone had the audacity to say that Microsoft is becoming more and more like DEC. This couldn't be furthest from the truth. DEC was run by the engineers, meaning that the entire company was nothing but engineers. No suits. No business men. Just pure brain. That's why DEC's systems pretty much defined the phrase "just works". MS isn't even close. They tried and they got Cutler to design NT. But then they threw out everything that he had laid out in NT when they hit 2k for business reasons. If you want a great OS, you forget about business reasons. If you want to run a great business, then you need to accept that there will always be compromises and you'll always have a subpar product when compared to the output of pure engineering. Them's the breaks folks. That's why the FOSS world outshines Microsoft at every turn in terms of design and doesn't really make much of a dent business-wise. And it's why MS is so successful as a business but can't create an OS that you'd trust your life with.
I find it highly suspicious that someone who seems to know a lot about these types of meetings (I wonder why that is) is posting on Slashdot. Especially with a favorable view. Regardless of whether or not you are right in what you say, it seems to me that you have more of a political motivation for posting here. The kind of mind that takes a keen interest in government and politics and the kind of mind that has a strong interest in computers and technology typically do not mix. This is one of THE biggest problems with the net. We have people who are either "wannabe" career politicians or are virtual lobbyists astroturfing the view of their employers. You are one part of the formula that is trying to subvert people to the cause of the current criminal in charge of the Whitehouse. Unless you have some other defense for yourself (I'm not even touching why you might be posting AC) I recommend that people read what you wrote with a large degree of suspicion.
They don't call it DOS for nothin'. Hehehe... ;P (As a sidenote imagine a distributed cluster of MS-DOS machines and how they would perform. DDOS. Hehehehe... Too funny.)
Screw the advertisers. I really dislike this whole advertising based culture we are evolving into. In the 70s it wasn't that bad. Shows would run ads which EVERYONE would just avoid watching by going out to the kitchen to get a snack or something. But now, these monsters want to force you to see their useless ads. Fortunately there are some of us that advertising doesn't work on at all. I think it might be due to my high score on the autism scale, but I can easily ignore ads and only purchase what I want, when I want it. There is no one who can convince me to buy something that I don't need. If only the rest of the population were like this. This sort of criminality would disappear overnight. Sadly the rest of the population is easily lead.
This is the beginning of the HUGE attack on average people using the internet to get unpopular messages out to the rest of the internet in America. Since the internet allows anyone with the itch to "publish" their views freely, the larger corporations have been trying to find a way to shut that down. Can you imagine what the world would be like if everyone had access to radio and television stations to program their own stuff unfettered (putting aside the technical issues of interference since they don't apply to the internet)? The only way that people will be able to pass any really important infomation that the media giants don't want you to here eventually will be e-mail. And e-mail is about as threatening to them as phones were. Expect to see a lot of the ISPs that provide web hosting and the free web hosting services and blog services more heavily restricting content if it doesn't serve their corporate masters well. Expect to see more and more TCP and UDP ports being closed off so you CAN'T run your own darknet to provide services of your own to your friends and family (something I do right now). Big media is NOT interested in someone having a large enough stage to broadcast a message that big media doesn't want people to hear. In the future, we will all be criminals even if all we want to do is tell the truth. We're halfway there now.
...that all depends on how we define science in the next few decades. Currently science is under attack for political reasons and will likely experience some level of change if something isn't done to curb the diretion things are going. The political motivation behind the current debasement of science is money. There are some very wealthy people who stand to make, keep or lose a lot of money depending on how much science the average person is made aware of. Those people are trying to muddy the waters and bring pseudoscience and fantasy (Intelligent Design, UFOs, Angels, and the like) to the same level of respect that science once held. Sadly, it appears to be working since there are many average people out there who would rather believe in old myths reframed in today's culture than actually dig into real scientific explanations for certain things.
Another part of the problem is that many of the "scientists" themselves are the people with the money and political motivation to keep science from the masses. (I put scientists in quotes since they tend to be more businessmen than scientists which is usually a horrible combination when it comes to society at large) A perfect example is Donald Rumsfeld and his connection to the Searle corporation. Searle developed Nutrasweet by way of serendipity while researching some medicines. The administrations before Reagan would not OK Nutrasweet for mass consumption. This was obviously detrimental to Searle's, and Rumsfeld's cash flow. So during the Reagan administration, a former employee of Searle was appointed to the FDA by Ronald Reagan. This appointee only did one thing and then resigned. He approved Nutrasweet for mass consumption. (Look it up if you don't believe me) The reason that Nutrasweet was not approved before this time was that too many animal tests indicated that Nutrasweet could cause tumors and a wide variety of illness. Many of these illnesses are not life threatening, but are discomforting enough to cause the sufferer to seek out medical attention. Usually on inspection, the doctor will prescribe medication from a large pharmaceutical company (in some cases Searle) which will take care of the symptoms but will be required for the patient as long as they suffer those symptoms. Nice perpetual motion money making system there...
So some scientists are crooked and simply work to further the interests of their employers rather than improving the human condition. Other scientists who work to improve our understanding of the universe, our planet and ourselves are rarely rewarded for their work and these days are being attacked as "heretics" in our newly "christian nation". So I would say that if things continue as they are going now, we'll have science churches that preach Intelligent Design and prisons to put the heretical non-christian scientists in. The computers of the day will be nothing more than glorified televisions that pass along the "wisdom" of the christian sanctioned "scientists". And the corporations and governmental bodies who live off of these systems will employ the wealthiest people in the world. Assuming that the rest of the world doesn't wise up and bomb us into oblivion...
Well I agree with that sentiment. That's why I don't really consider myself much of anything since NO party represents me well. It's also why I don't call myself a liberal even though others do. Personally I hate politics because they get in the way of actually getting work done. But I do believe that government is necessary since people are typically not the best judge of what they are capable of doing and need strong controls to prevent them from doing stupid things.
Oh... Mr. "Free Thinker"... why don't you follow the link in my SIG and we'll see who "thinks outside the box".
Some material will NEVER be interesting no matter who presents it. I don't care if Jenna Jameson herself were presenting a class on Business Law in the nude, the subject matter is boring as hell. Like you said, you can't blame just one party in most cases. I would say it breaks down like this:
;P But I only learned a little bit about history...
1. A lot of required subject matter in college is boring as hell and can't be livened up in any useful way. Any attempts to do so will either hamper the student's true understanding of the subject matter or just look so stupid that you will completely lose the student's attention.
2. If a student is even slightly uninterested in the subject matter, they are going to take advantage of whatever distractions exist in their vicinity. It could be IMing on the latptop, it could be staring at the hottest male or female student in the class and fantasizing abouthaving wild sex with them (whatever the student's preference is). You can't change that. It's a people problem and NO technical solutions can adequately fix people problems.
3. In some cases the profs are terrible at communicating their enthusiasm for the subject matter to the students. Maybe it's burnout. Maybe it's because they only went into it for the money and didn't have a passion to begin with. Who knows? But in those cases, using a laptop is only going to make things worse.
When I was a student, I always asked questions to try and get the prof to cooperate with my learning experience. If they refused to heed my threats, then I typically dropped the class and found a better prof. But, I only had to do that a handful of times because in all honesty most of my profs were adequate and I had some damn good ones too. Sadly, my favorite prof didn't actually teach me much at all. He was really good about cussing out the non-liberal idiots in the class. He was awesome.
I will say that I've never been a huge champion of college myself. It doesn't teach you anything abot real life at all and is largely a waste of time. But where it does benefit you is that it gives you a piece of paper that has dubious value as a "foot in the door" for employment. This only changed in the 90s when IT started actually letting more people in with just certs and no college degrees. At the same time, I will say that the internet, while being a pretty good place to learn some things, is largely filled with half-truths and erroneous information. When it comes to learning anything (IT excepted) the internet is not the best place to start. Books are. And books live mostly in libraries, colleges and for those who can afford them, bookstores.
The thing is... technology as a solution is overrated. I've seen too many people automatically assume that just because something is "digital", it's somehow better than an older way of doing things. That's simply not true. I'm a pretty hardcore technology fan. But I'm willing to recognize that it is not a panacea, especially when the users are immature and unable to control their own impulse to be counterproductive. College students with fully loaded laptops and WiFi are a disaster in the classroom. They need to be strictly controlled so that they don't waste their time doing stupid things with the technology.
Some people DO know better than others. In many cases the teachers know much better than the students. Not to mention, there is the lesson learned that you can't always have your way in the real world of work. Personally I think my job would be much easier if my desktop monitor were a 45 inch LCD display running at 4096x2304, but that ain't gonna happen. Is it because my employers are a bunch of luddite bastards, or is it because they know what's better for me? I would argue the latter.
The only way a laptop is of any use in the classroom is if it has no ability to connect to anything but researh materials that relate to the curriculum in all the classes the students attend. Kill off IM. Kill off e-mail. Kill off anything that might be entertaining or some form of communication with the outside world and then maybe a laptop might be a useful tool. But far too many idiots just use their laptops to avoid actually working in class.
I'd call her a free thinker. We need more of them in the world.
That is only true in a society that is selfish and short-sighted enough to avoid implementing social safety nets for preventing that from happening to ANYONE.
Depends on how you measure accomplishment. In my worldview, having money is next to worthless. Leaving behind some kind of useful contribution to the world is true wealth. People who don't understand that have failed at life.
Trust me. I was FORCED to look at one point and saw that I had to essentially be rich to be able to afford any of the investment advice from these sorts of companies. So I just went with what I could afford in mutual funds and just hope that my money isn't going to fund things I don't support or believe in. But I know I'm decieving myself. As far as caring for my family, I don't equate that to investing. I equate that to working as hard as I can to make a livable salary. The money you make from your job should be enough to support your family comfortably. As soon as you start getting into investment, there's obviously a problem.
Garbage? You mean to tell me that there are inexpensive investment firms that will make sure I'm investing in companies that are green/eco-friendly and politically left? Really? Care to point me to some? I didn't think so... For one thing, I am not afflicted with the mental disorder that makes me want to track my own investments and research them on my own since I find that to be unbelievably tedious. I'd rather remove my leg hair using paint stripper as a hobby since it would be less painfully boring. Assuming that I did put the time into this, then how am I supposed to have time to enjoy the things that I REALLY like in my life when 18 hours a day are spent tracking investments and researching companies that I care nothing about?
I have a bad feeling we'll be seeing a lot more "Wickets" and "JarJars". The only thing "darker" about this series will be that it will follow the method that all other science fiction TV shows have followed since the X Files and shoot in low light conditions so you can barely see what's happening most of the time.