Slow to accept theories? The USA has been one of the absolute leaders in scientific research, Actually, I think we probably are still one of the best in that regard.
The problem is that we have a very disjointed view of science in this country. We have some of the best universities, labs, and research centers in the world. These places are filled with brilliant people from the USA and around the world. People come from everywhere to get such a quality higher education.
Sounds good, but there is a huge percentage of the population that views science and education as being something to be afraid of. Why would want to listen to those liberal elitists working on their spooky experiments?
We have a big problem with the glorification of ignorance and simplemindedness. People want a president "they could have a beer with" instead of some "overe-ducated liberal elitist". The heros of children are rapper and athletes. Being a good student is punishable by your peers.
Some apps are just repackaging of websites (NY Times, Yelp, Google Maps, etc.), but that isn't all bad. They can take advantage of the GPS as an app, and the interface is tailored to the device. But I agree that a lot of apps are mostly gimmicks.
I doubt many people are listening through the iPhone speakers. Many stereos include line-in connections or cradles for iPods/iPhones. The music then plays through the car stereo.
NE recognition is a part of natural language processing and most NLP methods are now statistical. NLP as a field is still a hodgepodge of small solutions to small problems that most of the time. Anything bigger than a sentence and the "understanding" part falls apart rapidly.
It could also be that broadband is needed for online play and distributing new content. If you product relies on those ideas you need customers with broadband.
Instead of teaching math, should they just give out calculators and provide training for how to press the buttons on a McRegister?
No offense, but if you think that you can do Math on a calculator, your arguements for better education are kinda weakened. Calculators (yes even graphing ones) are a way to get around the tedium of simple arithmetic, a way to skip past the dark ages and get to the meat of critical, logical thinking.
I think that was his point. Teaching them to hit buttons on a calculator isn't math. Giving them a computer isn't learning.
Yes and no. It was a program called SciGen. The purpose was to weed out conferences that are crap. The ones that exist to take, and make money, rather than really promote scholarly work.
---
About:
SCIgen is a program that generates random Computer Science research papers, including graphs, figures, and citations. It uses a hand-written context-free grammar to form all elements of the papers. Our aim here is to maximize amusement, rather than coherence.
One useful purpose for such a program is to auto-generate submissions to conferences that you suspect might have very low submission standards. A prime example, which you may recognize from spam in your inbox, is SCI/IIIS and its dozens of co-located conferences (check out the very broad conference description on the WMSCI 2005 website). There's also a list of known bogus conferences. Using SCIgen to generate submissions for conferences like this gives us pleasure to no end. In fact, one of our papers was accepted to SCI 2005! See Examples for more details.
Some of the criticism is certainly valid and spot on, but this doesn't mean that it is necessarily a problem for Nintendo. Better is a very subjective term. To some it is the range of games, graphics, or innovation. To Nintendo, best is more likely tied to profits and market share.
It may be in Nintendo's best interest to abandon the traditional, smaller hardcore gamer demographic in favor of a much broader new demographic. You can't have the top of the line hardware and keep prices really low, at least not while making a profit. Honestly, it would really surprise me if we didn't see some shifts in the video game industry. Certain companies (or even the same one) targeting different groups. The more diverse the gaming population the more diverse the requirements and styles they will demand.
Just because Nintendo changes their focus doesn't mean there won't be other companies to fill the desires of hardcore gamers. Like you said, you could get a PS3 or XB360. Actually, I would like to see more diversity in systems. Give me another company that comes up with a new platform and controller paradigm. Develop a system for people with disabilities. What should happen is more competition and more innovation -- better for everyone in the long run.
Conclusion: Nintendo no longer catering to their traditional demographic may be sad, but it isn't bad -- someone else will pick up the slack if there is demand.
*I don't own any of the systems, but I have played them all. They are all fun and good in their own ways, but none is perfect for everything.
It turns out you don't need to play to the hardcore gamers. For every hardcore gamer there are a dozen who practically never play video games. My grandparents have a Wii (and use it). Some of their friends have Wiis. They've never shown interest in any other system.
It is worse, but at this point the people would know what they are getting into. We have a lot of data about the environment. The first explorers to the new world didn't even know where it was. A hospitable atmosphere obviously wasn't a concern, but the presence of easily accessible food certainly would have been.
I'm sure that the "free hit" is part of their plan. But, once you are working in a position that require Matlab it becomes a business expense. It is no different than the $2,000 workstation in that respect. Presumably your work with it will net you significant profits.
It is niche market software that costs a lot to develop. The people that need it will pay for it.
Just because someone is a dedicated mathematician or scientist doesn't mean they want to deal with a bad UI. It will take time to learn either system, but why would you want to put more effort into doing the same thing? You don't learn Mathematica for the sake of learning it. You learn it so you can work on something else. The more time you have to put into learning software the less you have left for your real interests.
The problem is "practically." I just had to use Matlab over Octave because Octave doesn't fully support the eigs() function. For many things Octave is fine, but it still lags behind Matlab in a lot of areas.
This is very important. I breezed right through math in high school. AP calc was easy. I got A's in linear algebra, advanced calc, discrete math, number theory, etc. in undergrad, but it was a lot more work.
Eventually the topics become sufficiently non-intuitive that it takes a lot of effort to understand them. I look at what some friends are studying in topology and such and it looks interesting, but it is just not my thing. Unless you are really interested in the topic no amount of natural talent will translate into success.
I lightweight laptop still doesn't fit in my pocket. If only there were an even smaller device that had similar functionality. Email, web access, custom apps... Oh yes, a PDA -- perhaps an iPhone/iPod like device.
Since when is this new?? Since when did we need a law on this?
The voted to do research in how to provide technical solutions to limit access to parent-designated content. As you said, the parents already have the right to say what can be watched.
Or they could work on policies that reward significant improvement throughout the year. A rough start can be just that. Mandating that everything is at least 50%, even when a student gets a 0%, is a terrible idea.
Slashdot Mirror
You realize these lawyers no longer support the RIAA, right? They have a new client.
Slow to accept theories? The USA has been one of the absolute leaders in scientific research, Actually, I think we probably are still one of the best in that regard.
The problem is that we have a very disjointed view of science in this country. We have some of the best universities, labs, and research centers in the world. These places are filled with brilliant people from the USA and around the world. People come from everywhere to get such a quality higher education.
Sounds good, but there is a huge percentage of the population that views science and education as being something to be afraid of. Why would want to listen to those liberal elitists working on their spooky experiments?
We have a big problem with the glorification of ignorance and simplemindedness. People want a president "they could have a beer with" instead of some "overe-ducated liberal elitist". The heros of children are rapper and athletes. Being a good student is punishable by your peers.
Some apps are just repackaging of websites (NY Times, Yelp, Google Maps, etc.), but that isn't all bad. They can take advantage of the GPS as an app, and the interface is tailored to the device. But I agree that a lot of apps are mostly gimmicks.
I doubt many people are listening through the iPhone speakers. Many stereos include line-in connections or cradles for iPods/iPhones. The music then plays through the car stereo.
NE recognition is a part of natural language processing and most NLP methods are now statistical. NLP as a field is still a hodgepodge of small solutions to small problems that most of the time. Anything bigger than a sentence and the "understanding" part falls apart rapidly.
Or it is redundancy. No wind and your sail dies. No gas and you motor dies. A small device that runs on a battery and solar panel might still work.
Come on, it isn't that hard to make a user removeable battery. Just do it -- people want it. It is a freaking laptop!
So they cancel their account, pay the termination fee, and keep the phone. At this point they can sell the phone for a profit if they want.
It is sad that it is insightful and not something everyone already knows.
It could also be that broadband is needed for online play and distributing new content. If you product relies on those ideas you need customers with broadband.
No offense, but if you think that you can do Math on a calculator, your arguements for better education are kinda weakened. Calculators (yes even graphing ones) are a way to get around the tedium of simple arithmetic, a way to skip past the dark ages and get to the meat of critical, logical thinking.
I think that was his point. Teaching them to hit buttons on a calculator isn't math. Giving them a computer isn't learning.
Yes and no. It was a program called SciGen. The purpose was to weed out conferences that are crap. The ones that exist to take, and make money, rather than really promote scholarly work.
---
About:
SCIgen is a program that generates random Computer Science research papers, including graphs, figures, and citations. It uses a hand-written context-free grammar to form all elements of the papers. Our aim here is to maximize amusement, rather than coherence.
One useful purpose for such a program is to auto-generate submissions to conferences that you suspect might have very low submission standards. A prime example, which you may recognize from spam in your inbox, is SCI/IIIS and its dozens of co-located conferences (check out the very broad conference description on the WMSCI 2005 website). There's also a list of known bogus conferences. Using SCIgen to generate submissions for conferences like this gives us pleasure to no end. In fact, one of our papers was accepted to SCI 2005! See Examples for more details.
http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/scigen/
Some of the criticism is certainly valid and spot on, but this doesn't mean that it is necessarily a problem for Nintendo. Better is a very subjective term. To some it is the range of games, graphics, or innovation. To Nintendo, best is more likely tied to profits and market share.
It may be in Nintendo's best interest to abandon the traditional, smaller hardcore gamer demographic in favor of a much broader new demographic. You can't have the top of the line hardware and keep prices really low, at least not while making a profit. Honestly, it would really surprise me if we didn't see some shifts in the video game industry. Certain companies (or even the same one) targeting different groups. The more diverse the gaming population the more diverse the requirements and styles they will demand.
Just because Nintendo changes their focus doesn't mean there won't be other companies to fill the desires of hardcore gamers. Like you said, you could get a PS3 or XB360. Actually, I would like to see more diversity in systems. Give me another company that comes up with a new platform and controller paradigm. Develop a system for people with disabilities. What should happen is more competition and more innovation -- better for everyone in the long run.
Conclusion: Nintendo no longer catering to their traditional demographic may be sad, but it isn't bad -- someone else will pick up the slack if there is demand.
*I don't own any of the systems, but I have played them all. They are all fun and good in their own ways, but none is perfect for everything.
It turns out you don't need to play to the hardcore gamers. For every hardcore gamer there are a dozen who practically never play video games. My grandparents have a Wii (and use it). Some of their friends have Wiis. They've never shown interest in any other system.
It is worse, but at this point the people would know what they are getting into. We have a lot of data about the environment. The first explorers to the new world didn't even know where it was. A hospitable atmosphere obviously wasn't a concern, but the presence of easily accessible food certainly would have been.
I'm sure that the "free hit" is part of their plan. But, once you are working in a position that require Matlab it becomes a business expense. It is no different than the $2,000 workstation in that respect. Presumably your work with it will net you significant profits.
It is niche market software that costs a lot to develop. The people that need it will pay for it.
Just because someone is a dedicated mathematician or scientist doesn't mean they want to deal with a bad UI. It will take time to learn either system, but why would you want to put more effort into doing the same thing? You don't learn Mathematica for the sake of learning it. You learn it so you can work on something else. The more time you have to put into learning software the less you have left for your real interests.
The problem is "practically." I just had to use Matlab over Octave because Octave doesn't fully support the eigs() function. For many things Octave is fine, but it still lags behind Matlab in a lot of areas.
This is very important. I breezed right through math in high school. AP calc was easy. I got A's in linear algebra, advanced calc, discrete math, number theory, etc. in undergrad, but it was a lot more work.
Eventually the topics become sufficiently non-intuitive that it takes a lot of effort to understand them. I look at what some friends are studying in topology and such and it looks interesting, but it is just not my thing. Unless you are really interested in the topic no amount of natural talent will translate into success.
I lightweight laptop still doesn't fit in my pocket. If only there were an even smaller device that had similar functionality. Email, web access, custom apps... Oh yes, a PDA -- perhaps an iPhone/iPod like device.
Since when is this new?? Since when did we need a law on this?
The voted to do research in how to provide technical solutions to limit access to parent-designated content. As you said, the parents already have the right to say what can be watched.
I would argue that gym is different than academic courses, and therefore should be graded differently.
Or they could work on policies that reward significant improvement throughout the year. A rough start can be just that. Mandating that everything is at least 50%, even when a student gets a 0%, is a terrible idea.
It is usually the easiest way for a lot of systems; that, or just ask the user and they will tell you.
On an Apple forum there was a guy who posted about how to best set up an iPhone for his blind wife.