SEC Rule 10b5-1, which has long been considered ripe for abuse. Now this abuse is publicly documented and will be hard to ignore^H^H^H^H^H^H^H understand.
If you were one of the best, then what worked for you as a student might well not work very well for other students.
Furthermore, the idea that copying down the answer to a problem helps you learn to solve that problem is idiotic. That is not mimicry of problem-solving, but of answer-writing.
As for my "unnatural policies," you haven't addressed any of the things I've said about how to avoid common pedagogical mistakes in assigning problems. Instead, you want to focus on the minor issue of whether answers are made available beforehand. My point is simple: at some point along the line, the training-wheels have to come off the bicycle; the learner must test whether they have learned by putting that knowledge to the test. Much better to do this in the relatively safe environment of homework problems (worth relatively little towards a grade) than under the pressure of exams.
Finally, you persist in behaving as though I (or others who oppose the practice of widespread, electronic, automated answer-mongering) have never considered the first thing about learning, which I damned well have. If you're trying to educate me, that's not a great rhetorical position from which to begin.
Some people might say it doesn't look a day over 6000 years. They're wrong.
That may be. Still, one might have some concerns about who this guy thinks is wrong. A few days ago he wrote, "If you think there is a better horror movie, ever, than The Thing, then you are wrong. It is that simple."
If anyone here is practicing fact-free discourse, my friend, it's you, since you know nothing about me or my teaching experience or practice. I'm always and first asking myself whether my students are learning. Also, if giving students work that will help them learn seems to you to be "making it hard on them," I don't know what it is you want me (or any other prof) to do. I've seen people who give too many problems. I've seen people who give stupid problems that are more like busy-work than like learning. I've seen problem sets that do a great job of preparing students for an exam, and prepare them for little else. I try not to be one of those people. I also try not to be naive about what "study aids" are available and likely to be used. I try to encourage people not to take shortcuts that get in the way of their learning. I also know I can't control everything (and have no right to, anyway).
Try to imagine what the actual situation here might be if we subtract the internet. (I say "might be" because the "study group" could be more or less like cheating depending on the kind of answers solicited and posted.) In the worst case ("give me answers and I will post them"), this would amount to a student putting up a bulletin board (you know, of wood and cork and such) and encouraging people to put up the answers to all the homework problems, when the very point of those problems is that students get a benefit out of working them themselves when they don't know the answer. You can be damned sure I'm going to want to put a stop to that. I'm also not going to be thrilled with the clever student who is helping get in the way of my students' learning. This is someone who should: a) be prevented from doing this kind of thing, b) face a disciplinary hearing. If I seem angry, it's on behalf of the other students who are being led astray by this clown.
With respect to a math and science class, homework isn't meant to be done in isolation, and it certainly isn't meant to be assigned the same ethically rigorous standards of conduct that tests demand.
If that's the policy you set for the class you teach, then so be it. Otherwise, you're telling someone else what the policy for their class is. If I assign problem sets as homework, I don't expect that people will copy the answers from somewhere else, or indeed, check them against some other source. In fact, I want the student to do the problems and figure out later whether they've understood how to do it. For some classes of problems, back-substitution can serve as a sanity check, but for others, it can't. For those, I can see the utility of having an online answer key. The problem arises when the answer key is posted in advance. Also, when the online "study group" posts only answers, without the work that shows how the answer was arrived at, it is worse than useless.
Actually, a fair part of the population on Slashdot these days live in stable relationships and have kids. Me, i've got 3, but I think that's somewhat over-average.
I think it's safe to say that three relationships is a bit above average.
OK, how do you solve a cubic? Or grind the lenses for a telescope? Or build a water pump? How do you dress a head wound? Or isolate pure gases? Or calibrate a thermometer?
If you know how to do all those things, good for you. My point is that a secondary school education in "science" does not by itself provide one with the same understanding as the great scientists who first among all others figured out how to do each of these things.
An equally plausible argument from similar premises proves that we are (or will be) the first (and, ipso facto, last) creatures to create grey-goo tech.
Maybe there's something wrong with those kinds of premises.
I'm getting into semantics? I'm not the one claiming to be able to "simulate a mammalian brain." Someone who knows how brains work (and how animals work) would not claim to do such a thing if he could not provide the proper input for this "device." The vastly complicated input necessary for real learning (i.e., sensori-motor feedback loops) simply will not work themselves out, no matter what level of abstraction we are working at. The failure to recognize this elementary shortcoming of the AI project as it continues to be popularized by persons like yourself is what leads scientific-minded persons who are not themselves actively engaged in the research to think its practitioners don't have a clue what they're up to. Instead of learning something about nature, they're jerking off with "simulations" that aren't even simulating anything natural. Analogies fail me here, but it's as though someone were to propose studying weather patterns by playing with toy models that abstract away heat and water vapor and focus only on winds and air pressure. I'm sure terribly complicated models could be produced by such means, but it also seems vanishingly unlikely that they will prove anything about the warm wet world, the world we actually live in.
If anyone is engaged in hand-waving here, it's those who ignore the hard distinction between "simulating a mammalian brain" and "simulating a lump of neurons connected to each other in the ways such neurons might initially be connected in brains." The former requires (at a minimum) the things I mention. The latter may be possible (and may even be useful), but it is by no means simulating a brain.
With more computational power to increase neuron count and better models they will be able to one day simulate an entire mammalian brain.
Great. How long will it take to produce good models of sensory input, feedback loops concerning regulation of autonomic systems, and all the rest? Or has no one even begun seriously to work on such things? In any case, add the years necessary to sort that out to your confident predictions.
The problem wasn't that it was an effort; it was that it was a stupid effort.
Re:He didn't quit! Can't you people read?
on
Has Ron Paul Quit?
·
· Score: 1
Can't I spend one day on this earth without that sinking feeling of being surrounded by idiots?
Only if you give up that floating feeling of superiority when people don't obey your arbitrarily chosen rules for what would count as consistent behavior.
Slashdot Mirror
"your country"
It is obvoius from your statement [...] you don't live here
Well spotted!
You say "no," but your router says "yes."
SEC Rule 10b5-1, which has long been considered ripe for abuse. Now this abuse is publicly documented and will be hard to ignore^H^H^H^H^H^H^H understand.
Fixed that for you.
Listen, about the astronauts,
if you're wondering how they eat and breathe,
And other science facts.
Then repeat to yourself, "It's just a shuttle,
I should really just relax."
Surely, it's because he read TFA that he said that, the key word being "decompile."
In this case, you can probably use "his." "Oiled his snake," no?
Paging Mr. Whipple.
This is getting ritardando.
If you were one of the best, then what worked for you as a student might well not work very well for other students.
Furthermore, the idea that copying down the answer to a problem helps you learn to solve that problem is idiotic. That is not mimicry of problem-solving, but of answer-writing.
As for my "unnatural policies," you haven't addressed any of the things I've said about how to avoid common pedagogical mistakes in assigning problems. Instead, you want to focus on the minor issue of whether answers are made available beforehand. My point is simple: at some point along the line, the training-wheels have to come off the bicycle; the learner must test whether they have learned by putting that knowledge to the test. Much better to do this in the relatively safe environment of homework problems (worth relatively little towards a grade) than under the pressure of exams.
Finally, you persist in behaving as though I (or others who oppose the practice of widespread, electronic, automated answer-mongering) have never considered the first thing about learning, which I damned well have. If you're trying to educate me, that's not a great rhetorical position from which to begin.
Some people might say it doesn't look a day over 6000 years. They're wrong.
That may be. Still, one might have some concerns about who this guy thinks is wrong. A few days ago he wrote, "If you think there is a better horror movie, ever, than The Thing, then you are wrong. It is that simple."
If anyone here is practicing fact-free discourse, my friend, it's you, since you know nothing about me or my teaching experience or practice. I'm always and first asking myself whether my students are learning. Also, if giving students work that will help them learn seems to you to be "making it hard on them," I don't know what it is you want me (or any other prof) to do. I've seen people who give too many problems. I've seen people who give stupid problems that are more like busy-work than like learning. I've seen problem sets that do a great job of preparing students for an exam, and prepare them for little else. I try not to be one of those people. I also try not to be naive about what "study aids" are available and likely to be used. I try to encourage people not to take shortcuts that get in the way of their learning. I also know I can't control everything (and have no right to, anyway). Try to imagine what the actual situation here might be if we subtract the internet. (I say "might be" because the "study group" could be more or less like cheating depending on the kind of answers solicited and posted.) In the worst case ("give me answers and I will post them"), this would amount to a student putting up a bulletin board (you know, of wood and cork and such) and encouraging people to put up the answers to all the homework problems, when the very point of those problems is that students get a benefit out of working them themselves when they don't know the answer. You can be damned sure I'm going to want to put a stop to that. I'm also not going to be thrilled with the clever student who is helping get in the way of my students' learning. This is someone who should: a) be prevented from doing this kind of thing, b) face a disciplinary hearing. If I seem angry, it's on behalf of the other students who are being led astray by this clown.
99% of the population ... many orders of magnitude more people
You might want to re-check your math.
If I couldn't solve a problem, it wasn't a huge deal because I could look at the solutions.
Tell it to the Challenger crew.
With respect to a math and science class, homework isn't meant to be done in isolation, and it certainly isn't meant to be assigned the same ethically rigorous standards of conduct that tests demand.
If that's the policy you set for the class you teach, then so be it. Otherwise, you're telling someone else what the policy for their class is. If I assign problem sets as homework, I don't expect that people will copy the answers from somewhere else, or indeed, check them against some other source. In fact, I want the student to do the problems and figure out later whether they've understood how to do it. For some classes of problems, back-substitution can serve as a sanity check, but for others, it can't. For those, I can see the utility of having an online answer key. The problem arises when the answer key is posted in advance. Also, when the online "study group" posts only answers, without the work that shows how the answer was arrived at, it is worse than useless.
What's the Excel formula for getting laid?
Gainful employment, a shower, a suit and a tie.
#REF!
Actually, a fair part of the population on Slashdot these days live in stable relationships and have kids. Me, i've got 3, but I think that's somewhat over-average.
I think it's safe to say that three relationships is a bit above average.
OK, how do you solve a cubic? Or grind the lenses for a telescope? Or build a water pump? How do you dress a head wound? Or isolate pure gases? Or calibrate a thermometer?
If you know how to do all those things, good for you. My point is that a secondary school education in "science" does not by itself provide one with the same understanding as the great scientists who first among all others figured out how to do each of these things.
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
An equally plausible argument from similar premises proves that we are (or will be) the first (and, ipso facto, last) creatures to create grey-goo tech.
Maybe there's something wrong with those kinds of premises.
Go Eulers!
I'm getting into semantics? I'm not the one claiming to be able to "simulate a mammalian brain." Someone who knows how brains work (and how animals work) would not claim to do such a thing if he could not provide the proper input for this "device." The vastly complicated input necessary for real learning (i.e., sensori-motor feedback loops) simply will not work themselves out, no matter what level of abstraction we are working at. The failure to recognize this elementary shortcoming of the AI project as it continues to be popularized by persons like yourself is what leads scientific-minded persons who are not themselves actively engaged in the research to think its practitioners don't have a clue what they're up to. Instead of learning something about nature, they're jerking off with "simulations" that aren't even simulating anything natural. Analogies fail me here, but it's as though someone were to propose studying weather patterns by playing with toy models that abstract away heat and water vapor and focus only on winds and air pressure. I'm sure terribly complicated models could be produced by such means, but it also seems vanishingly unlikely that they will prove anything about the warm wet world, the world we actually live in.
If anyone is engaged in hand-waving here, it's those who ignore the hard distinction between "simulating a mammalian brain" and "simulating a lump of neurons connected to each other in the ways such neurons might initially be connected in brains." The former requires (at a minimum) the things I mention. The latter may be possible (and may even be useful), but it is by no means simulating a brain.
With more computational power to increase neuron count and better models they will be able to one day simulate an entire mammalian brain.
Great. How long will it take to produce good models of sensory input, feedback loops concerning regulation of autonomic systems, and all the rest? Or has no one even begun seriously to work on such things? In any case, add the years necessary to sort that out to your confident predictions.
The problem wasn't that it was an effort; it was that it was a stupid effort.
Can't I spend one day on this earth without that sinking feeling of being surrounded by idiots?
Only if you give up that floating feeling of superiority when people don't obey your arbitrarily chosen rules for what would count as consistent behavior.