Nihilists? Shit. Say what you will about the tenets of National Socialism, at least it's an ethos.
I did not watch my buddies die face down in the muck, in the meaningless theatre of war, to return to a world where rules are trampled on willy-nihily.
I don't know if you should take serious issue with such things, because then you'll overload your self-righteousness circuits. There are tons of services universities make students pay for regardless of whether the particular student uses them.
Hell, think of it like taxes. I'm guessing you don't agree with every use the government puts your tax money to...
Ok, the title is a flame, but I think there is something to be recognized here. Linux is, in some ways, a vulnerable OS. I have worked in a couple of difference environments where Linux was the norm. In different situations, the level of adminstration was of different quality. And it seemed to me that our systems were actually quite vulnerable when the administration was bad. (not to mention stability and ease-of-use)
So, I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Linux is horribly inconsistent, and can be much worse than Windows, at its worst.
Excellent point. As I was saying in another post, I have read my online reviews, and a lot of feedback is on the order of "guy too hard, don't take class". Maybe I am, but everyone who takes my class learns something (or so I like to think at least). I don't really care what the evaluations are, because at the end of the day, they don't really matter.
Let me say that I don't much care whether or not I am featured on such a site. But the reason is that I really know that these sites are complete wastes of time and energy.
For example, I have a profile on ratemyprofessor.com , which is something similar to this site. I was reading the comments, and they were somewhat amusing. For example, one of my reviews said that I spoke so well I should be elected the prime minister of the UK. (Keep in mind that I'm an American teaching at a US university, so this is clearly facetious.) There were a lot of more reviews which were clearly put there for the purposes of humor. Some were serious, but there's no way to know.
The real problem with these types of sites is that anyone on Earth can write a review. At least with the official evaluations at the end of the semester, you need to be in the class to give input. This can be written by any random crank. I cannot stress enough that any information you get on a site like this is useless, because it can be written by anyone.
Furthermore, a lot of students give really high marks to easy professors because it is easy to get an A. I know that I didn't, because I am a hard-ass. On the other hand, if you just want an easy A, I certainly don't want you in my class. So maybe this will select out some people I don't want. Again, though, if you want to learn something, you don't want the easy guy.
All in all, deciding which professor to take based on a site like this is like deciding whom to vote for based on a Slashdot poll. And for exactly the same reason. It's probably better than reading tea leaves, but not much.
Now, as far as this professor goes, I don't know why he would get bent out of shape. At the end of the day, very few professors care at all what the students think, and for those that care at all, don't care much. I don't know why he gives two fucks what is on some random site.
I can say for myself that I have gotten some good feedback from evaluations and I have tried to incorporate suggestions into my teaching style. But this is a rare event. More than 99% of student feedback I have received is completely useless and was a waste of time, most typically it's someone with an axe to grind.
And I think a lot of students fool themselves into thinking that this feedback will actually matter in the long run. Let me put it this way: it is almost inconceivable that student evaluations can affect a professor's life. If he is tenured, then the probability is exactly 0. If he is tenure-track, then only if his research is borderline will these kinds of evaluations come into play, but I would say that this plays a role in fewer than 1 out of 1000 cases. Again, like I said, if you want to give constructive critism to a professor that you think might take it to heart, give it a shot. But I have seen tons of "axe-grinding" evaluations, even of me, and I can state unequivocally that they are a waste of graphite.
And by the way, the reason for this is simple. If you're at a good school, the school isn't good because you, the undergrad, is there. You are there because the school is good, and the school is good because the international reputation of the research is strong. Research is what matters. End of story.
First of all, I don't think it's appropriate to compare the two sports. Soccer is infinitely less complicated than football. (I guess it's more appropriate to say football and american football, but whatever.) I played both through high school seriously, and I still play soccer a lot now, of course being too old to continue to play american football...:-)
Soccer is really a game of position and one-on-one matchups. It is very similar to basketball, and I guess ice hockey. Because of this, it's not so complex. All you do is try to get the ball to a guy in a good place to take a shot. And, yes, one can play soccer without knowing too much, just keep the ball in your possession and attack the goal. You don't have to keep a lot of stuff in your head when you play.
American football, on the other hand, is crazy complicated. Part of it is that the action comes in discrete plays, and the offense gets to plan an arbitrarily complicated attack. The defense has to read what is going to happen in a very short time, and of course this also gives a large psychological facet to the game.
Now, I'm not going to say that the level of intellectualism compares to that required of a philosopher, or even a chess player. But it's really complicated, and honestly if you had played it a lot I think you might appreciate that fact.
Second, I think your analogy fails, unless I am mistaken in my presumption and you are a professional soccer player. If you are, my argument is null, but otherwise the point is this: at a low level, the game is played with much less strategy. I'm sure you'll concede that although you don't have to think about your soccer game that much, people who make millions of dollars a year to play it put a lot more thought into it.
Re:No, you are "Wrong. Wrong wrong."
on
Superbowling
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· Score: 1
"It's not censorship except in the sense of fulfilling the definition of censorship?"
Yeah, I was always a big fan of this commercial. And, honestly, I think the Quizno's commercials all seem to have this edge to them. I remember the ones where they would trick people into eating the "untoasted sub" through various machinations. "Would you like the toasted sub, or the untoasted sub, with 'lots of lettuce'?"... the lettuce, of course, being a ton of cash.
Some people just don't have a sense of homour, I guess.
Actually, unanimous decisions are more common than you'd think. In fact, in the second Rhenquist Court, the most common ruling (nearly 60% of cases) was 9-0.
Not that this negates your argument, because of course it is true that on controversial issues(and you might reasonably define "big issue" as "controversial issue"), it's much more even.
Incidentally, whoever modded the original as flamebait is a complete idiot.
It is true that many Indians do eat onion and aloo, but, hey, it's also true that a lot of Indians eat meat of some form or another. There are many levels of dietary restriction in Hinduism, and different Hindus follow different levels. It's also complicated further by caste considerations, and no need to go into that now.
Also, in contast to what the original poster said, Hindus don't refrain from onions, garlic, etc. because it kills a plant, but because these are dirty or somehow "base" vegetables. I mean, you can't subsist on not killing a plant, can you? You have to eat some organic matter.
This makes the BBC seem like something written by Stephen Hawking.
I'm going to have to differ from you on this. I love the BBC, it is extremely tight especially on world politics, but the science articles are of the same quality.
I remember that funny thing with the sheep that was on fark, where the dude painted words on the sides of the sheep, and when they moved around, it was "random poetry". BBC called this an example of quantum mechanics. Woohoo.
Slashdot Mirror
Has the whole world gone CRAZY?!?!
Do you know what the word "theory" means? I ask because you're using it completely inappropriately.
I did not watch my buddies die face down in the muck, in the meaningless theatre of war, to return to a world where rules are trampled on willy-nihily.
Enough with the fucking Segway!
So why is Nader in it?
Insightful? Please.
>Was that comment really necessary?
After reading this thread, I have to say: Yes, yes it was.
Hell, think of it like taxes. I'm guessing you don't agree with every use the government puts your tax money to...
I got my PhD there, and not that long ago. Damn, I miss Boston...
Are you insane? You ever been to Rome?
What do you think the minimum possible train time is from NYC to LA?
So, I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Linux is horribly inconsistent, and can be much worse than Windows, at its worst.
Excellent point. As I was saying in another post, I have read my online reviews, and a lot of feedback is on the order of "guy too hard, don't take class". Maybe I am, but everyone who takes my class learns something (or so I like to think at least). I don't really care what the evaluations are, because at the end of the day, they don't really matter.
For example, I have a profile on ratemyprofessor.com , which is something similar to this site. I was reading the comments, and they were somewhat amusing. For example, one of my reviews said that I spoke so well I should be elected the prime minister of the UK. (Keep in mind that I'm an American teaching at a US university, so this is clearly facetious.) There were a lot of more reviews which were clearly put there for the purposes of humor. Some were serious, but there's no way to know.
The real problem with these types of sites is that anyone on Earth can write a review. At least with the official evaluations at the end of the semester, you need to be in the class to give input. This can be written by any random crank. I cannot stress enough that any information you get on a site like this is useless, because it can be written by anyone.
Furthermore, a lot of students give really high marks to easy professors because it is easy to get an A. I know that I didn't, because I am a hard-ass. On the other hand, if you just want an easy A, I certainly don't want you in my class. So maybe this will select out some people I don't want. Again, though, if you want to learn something, you don't want the easy guy.
All in all, deciding which professor to take based on a site like this is like deciding whom to vote for based on a Slashdot poll. And for exactly the same reason. It's probably better than reading tea leaves, but not much.
Now, as far as this professor goes, I don't know why he would get bent out of shape. At the end of the day, very few professors care at all what the students think, and for those that care at all, don't care much. I don't know why he gives two fucks what is on some random site.
I can say for myself that I have gotten some good feedback from evaluations and I have tried to incorporate suggestions into my teaching style. But this is a rare event. More than 99% of student feedback I have received is completely useless and was a waste of time, most typically it's someone with an axe to grind.
And I think a lot of students fool themselves into thinking that this feedback will actually matter in the long run. Let me put it this way: it is almost inconceivable that student evaluations can affect a professor's life. If he is tenured, then the probability is exactly 0. If he is tenure-track, then only if his research is borderline will these kinds of evaluations come into play, but I would say that this plays a role in fewer than 1 out of 1000 cases. Again, like I said, if you want to give constructive critism to a professor that you think might take it to heart, give it a shot. But I have seen tons of "axe-grinding" evaluations, even of me, and I can state unequivocally that they are a waste of graphite.
And by the way, the reason for this is simple. If you're at a good school, the school isn't good because you, the undergrad, is there. You are there because the school is good, and the school is good because the international reputation of the research is strong. Research is what matters. End of story.
They're not utter junk, they're just consumer-grade, is all...
Just out of curiosity... what of the things you do drink makes you such a gay-ass tard?
Of course not. You're reading slashdot. ;-)
Way to stay away from close-minded overgeneralizations. Good work.
First of all, I don't think it's appropriate to compare the two sports. Soccer is infinitely less complicated than football. (I guess it's more appropriate to say football and american football, but whatever.) I played both through high school seriously, and I still play soccer a lot now, of course being too old to continue to play american football...:-)
Soccer is really a game of position and one-on-one matchups. It is very similar to basketball, and I guess ice hockey. Because of this, it's not so complex. All you do is try to get the ball to a guy in a good place to take a shot. And, yes, one can play soccer without knowing too much, just keep the ball in your possession and attack the goal. You don't have to keep a lot of stuff in your head when you play.
American football, on the other hand, is crazy complicated. Part of it is that the action comes in discrete plays, and the offense gets to plan an arbitrarily complicated attack. The defense has to read what is going to happen in a very short time, and of course this also gives a large psychological facet to the game.
Now, I'm not going to say that the level of intellectualism compares to that required of a philosopher, or even a chess player. But it's really complicated, and honestly if you had played it a lot I think you might appreciate that fact.
Second, I think your analogy fails, unless I am mistaken in my presumption and you are a professional soccer player. If you are, my argument is null, but otherwise the point is this: at a low level, the game is played with much less strategy. I'm sure you'll concede that although you don't have to think about your soccer game that much, people who make millions of dollars a year to play it put a lot more thought into it.
Brilliant.
Some people just don't have a sense of homour, I guess.
Not that this negates your argument, because of course it is true that on controversial issues(and you might reasonably define "big issue" as "controversial issue"), it's much more even.
Incidentally, whoever modded the original as flamebait is a complete idiot.
Also, in contast to what the original poster said, Hindus don't refrain from onions, garlic, etc. because it kills a plant, but because these are dirty or somehow "base" vegetables. I mean, you can't subsist on not killing a plant, can you? You have to eat some organic matter.
Hey, I drive an Accord, but I try to be a "two-putting" meathead if I can help it. Where do you think I fit into this scheme?
I'm going to have to differ from you on this. I love the BBC, it is extremely tight especially on world politics, but the science articles are of the same quality.
I remember that funny thing with the sheep that was on fark, where the dude painted words on the sides of the sheep, and when they moved around, it was "random poetry". BBC called this an example of quantum mechanics. Woohoo.
I saw this on MacGyver like 15 years ago