Ditto on Christopher Alexander -- I read him when I was around ten and just adored him. He writes well and his themes and ideas are thought-provoking. I still remember how blown away I was by the ending of the Burning Lands trilogy (I didn't know authors could do that to a reader!)
One fact that no liberal and no feminist seems to want to accept is that boys and girls are different
As a liberal (well actually NDP, but that's even further left) feminist I have to butt in.
I accept that men and women are different, not merely in their reproductive capabilities. Yes, males tend to dominate mathematical fields, Females language-based fields. I would argue that this is in part due to innate predispositions and in part due to societal reinforcement. Exactly how much of which is open for debate, but there do seem to be differences.
Yet even if we accept that men *tend* to be better at some skills and women at others it is pretty clear that individuals regularly rise above these tendancies. There are several very good male writers, although writing relies upon language skills, traditionally associated with women. (People always remark on the women who succeed in male-dominated fields, but what about the inverse? No one considers Tolstoy to have been overcoming the burden of his sex when he set pen to paper.)
Moreover, it is strange to assume that far more men are involved in open source developments because they are "better at math" given that the open source community is not just people sitting in cubicles doing math. It is, first, a *community* ergo a social network -- which is one of those things women are alleged to be so interested in. And does software not rely upon language? Should it not have a good user interface? If we accept that men and women tend to be interested in different intellectual challenges, why assume that there is only one kind of challenge in a given problem? Surely the strength open source is that different people are free to tackle the problems they see, the problems that interest them, and that by having a wide variety of people contributing the final product benefits from the variety of the people who worked on it. No?
Surely in open source development, variety and difference in the developers is a good thing, no? So it is worth asking why more women aren't involved, not because of a desire to be pc but because their involvement might produce a more robust product. And isn't that the whole point?
People get all tied up thinking that gender difference is oppressive and bad. I think gender difference is often exaggerated, but that any difference, gender or otherwise, is a survival trait for society. It's no good having everyone think the same way all the time. We need variety, in life as well as software development.
Gates didn't age well but he didn't start off all that good either... dang what freak...
Gosh that's harsh! I think those eyes are dreamy.
About the Mac, though -- doesn't it seem likely that the Teen Beat article was later than 1983? I would love to know what the text was... Presumably it was playing him up as a real dreamboat.
Correctly applied, computers can aid learning. I have absolutely no skill at all at operating a pen. It has the worst user interface ever designed. My grades in English were consistently Cs, with the occasional B. Once we were allowed to use computers to type essays, they shot to A or A* and stayed there (until I dropped English aged 16)
Ah... I had a similar experience but, given my age, the change came not from computers but typewriters. Typing let me write quickly enough to be coherent. Using a keyboard can be a real boon, and is increasingly understood to be necessary for some students. For example, I had no trouble convincing my department to allow me to type my doctoral comprehensive exams although it is not standard practice.
As for computers being bad for learning -- I would agree with many posters and argue that it is only bad if it distracts the student from reading (as in novels, not IM). Having taught university in the states the increasing illiteracy of students seems to be the number one problem I saw. They have trouble with reading. Books are "too long," or "too hard." Vocabularies are apalling. It's a sad state of affairs.
Hey, *I* have stickers on mine... (although I too keep it on my keychain, not my neck, ugh!). Stuck em there when I bought it to cover up the brand. I've got stickers on my antique palm pilot and on one of my old laptops.
Stickers are fun and cheap -- what's not to like about them? Why should my gear just have the stickers the factory put on them?
I guess you wouldn't like all the flowers I put on my bike either....
Somehow "hacking a yo-yo" seems much more in the spirit of what hacking (as opposed to cracking) is all about -- playfully seeking to improve the way things work.
But then I suppose that I'm just grasping after an earlier halcyon age, when everything was somehow better (including spelling);)
The idea that something is "art" is a pretty recent idea, in the big scheme of things. What distinguishes "art" from a well crafted thing is difficult to define.
Throughout most of history there were people who mastered crafts. They might be sculptors, painters, cabnetry-makers... And we might look at what they did and say "Hey, that's art! He's a real artist." But what does that mean?
The programmer who writes a workable kludge is a craftperson, and doesn't aspire to art. Yet if s/he is trying to do something more than simply get the damn program to work, the code might be art. It might be beautiful. It might be clever. Might even be a commentary on larger themes... rather like what I conceive of as art.
In my wholly subjective view, craft is craft, art is craft that aspires to do more. And if that is so then why couldn't a hacker produce art? But feel free to disagree!
Yet this discussion completely sidesteps one of the aspects of Napster (1) and the like -- that they were international. From almost anywhere in the world (assuming internet access) you could get music, that was itself from all over the world.
Re:The 52 most dangerous American officials
on
TIA Project to End
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
I am now looking to buy that french deck of cards
Why give the French all the credit? A US blogger came up with the same idea back in April
Indeed, as a Canadian, you might have heard the spot on CBC's "Here and Now" a few months ago where a maker of such a deck was banned from selling it on e-bay. According to The Agonist, "He owns the domain name, "thebushadministration.com" where he's posted the images for sale."
So you can spend locally and protest globally. Or something like that.
I think that we're torn between rooting for the little guy, daring to go against the giant of the RIAA, and bemoaning the incredible litigiousness of American society...
So which is it going to be? Is it a crank suit or not? Is the wording of the "amnesty" indeed a trick?
One could go on about life expectancy, infant mortality, and other such "quality of life" stats... But you've got the relevant link and can look up these topics to your heart's content.
There was a very similar situation back in the eighties (am I dating myself here?). A student, I believe at Columbia, built a nuclear bomb using publically available information. All that was missing was the nuclear material. The point was that anyone with the education, the drive (and access to uranium or whatever they used, I'm no expert) was perfectly capable of building nuclear explosives.
Information is dangerous. But so is restricting information...
Re:Orwell's vision was true!
on
Gates and Security
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Right now he's getting a great deal of play in the media for his prescience, not becuse 1984 came true, but because he helped create a vocabulary (thoughtcrime, Big Brother etc...) that can be used to view current events in a new (disturbing) way.
For example, check out Google News through truespeak filter at berkeley (or any news site, just replace the second http address).
His language casts a new light on what's going on, for issues of computer privacy to foreign and domestic policy...
What is upsetting is that there has already been serious opposition to this law from librarians themselves -- who have argued that the filters block too many useful sites (and I imagine that they have indeed produced lists in support of their claims).
It would be intersting to know who has been pushing for the ruling. Was it "concerned citizens" or companies that make filtering programmes?
AIM is destroying another MORE important part of writing. Grammar, sentence structure, and spelling.
I wholeheartedly agree. What am I saying? Ayone who has read freshmen papers lately can attest that it is already having an effect!
Moreover it might be a good thing for students to be allowed an alternative to cursive. I was forced to write exclusively in it from first grade on (I was at an experimental school), and hated it since it took me forever to form the letters, and demanded an inordinate amount of my attention. Moreover, it wasn't until I started typing papers (this was before affordable computers) that I was able to express myself quickly enought to produce intelligent essays. I was able to convince my department to allow me to type my PhD comprehensives since I warned them that anything I handwrote would be a feeble reflection of my abilities. And it was the truth.
And don't even get me started about the utility of spellcheckers. While they have their dangers, for slight dyslexics such as myself they have been a godsend!
One could bewail how no one can cut a nib on a quill anymore, or mix ink... but they're an obsolete skills for all but calligraphers. Methods of writing change over time.
I wonder, however, how proficient youngsters *really* are on the keyboard. Watching university students in the US hunt and peck to enter their library searches makes me seriously doubt it.
Nor have I been terribly impressed by their inability to "program" their word processors to do esoteric tasks such as numbering pages or (gasp!) inserting footnotes. As a technophilic society (at least here on/.) we love to herald in progress, but I am a skeptic. How technologically capable are most students anyway? And if they can't type, will they forget how to write?
Well isn't Apply trying to make the iPod into a watered down PDA, with its "More ways to have fun."
According to Apple: "The iPod now lets you do a whole lot more in addition to maintaining your contacts, calendar and to-do lists. iPod now includes Solitaire, Brick and Parachute... iPod also includes a notes reader that lets you download text-based information and read it on the screen... The iPod features a sleep timer, so you can fall asleep to your music."
And we all know that the iPod cn act as a portable hard drive, right?
and if not??? Seriously, should we assume that NASA is being honest about what exactly they are searching for? Without resorting to conspiracy theories, would it make sense for the agency to publicize the specific thing that is missing?
As soon as the shuttle went down and they started posting messages warning people not to even get near anything that might be from the shuttle, I wondered whether it was indeed due to toxins from the fuel system (which is, I believe what they claimed) or rather something else -- not necessarily anything very sinister, mind you, just run of the mill disinformation.
Of course, we'll never know. But it sure is fun to speculate!
New ad campaign
on
Baked Apple
·
· Score: 4, Funny
I'm more amazed that no one asked her why she did it
Clearly this is the start of a new Mac ad campaign. You remember "It takes a licking, and keeps on ticking!"
Soon we will be deluged with pictures of powerbooks that were dropped from great heights, run over by buses...
As an addict of SimCity I have to say, if I wanted to interact with other people I would hardly be sitting for days in a dark room in front of my computer now, would I?
I think part of the appeal of simulations is that they bestow the user with a -- what would you call it..?
I know! A *simulated* reality.
(It's not like those shoot-em up games, where some people like the idea that there really is another carbon-based life form at the other end of the gun...)
Good question. I have one, and love it, *but* it was a present. Would I shell out hundreds of bucks for it? Probably not.
But the iPod is a "must-have" object. You see it. You want it. It would appear that Mac is following this strategy in product placement, since their TiBooks have been marketed in the same sexy fashion.
And in a sick way, the high price tag only makes it that much more desirable, that much more lusted after.
Frustrated desire can be the greatest aphrodesiac, and that applies to much more than sex.
Slashdot Mirror
Ditto on Christopher Alexander -- I read him when I was around ten and just adored him. He writes well and his themes and ideas are thought-provoking. I still remember how blown away I was by the ending of the Burning Lands trilogy (I didn't know authors could do that to a reader!)
One fact that no liberal and no feminist seems to want to accept is that boys and girls are different
As a liberal (well actually NDP, but that's even further left) feminist I have to butt in.
I accept that men and women are different, not merely in their reproductive capabilities. Yes, males tend to dominate mathematical fields, Females language-based fields. I would argue that this is in part due to innate predispositions and in part due to societal reinforcement. Exactly how much of which is open for debate, but there do seem to be differences.
Yet even if we accept that men *tend* to be better at some skills and women at others it is pretty clear that individuals regularly rise above these tendancies. There are several very good male writers, although writing relies upon language skills, traditionally associated with women. (People always remark on the women who succeed in male-dominated fields, but what about the inverse? No one considers Tolstoy to have been overcoming the burden of his sex when he set pen to paper.)
Moreover, it is strange to assume that far more men are involved in open source developments because they are "better at math" given that the open source community is not just people sitting in cubicles doing math. It is, first, a *community* ergo a social network -- which is one of those things women are alleged to be so interested in. And does software not rely upon language? Should it not have a good user interface? If we accept that men and women tend to be interested in different intellectual challenges, why assume that there is only one kind of challenge in a given problem? Surely the strength open source is that different people are free to tackle the problems they see, the problems that interest them, and that by having a wide variety of people contributing the final product benefits from the variety of the people who worked on it. No?
Surely in open source development, variety and difference in the developers is a good thing, no? So it is worth asking why more women aren't involved, not because of a desire to be pc but because their involvement might produce a more robust product. And isn't that the whole point?
People get all tied up thinking that gender difference is oppressive and bad. I think gender difference is often exaggerated, but that any difference, gender or otherwise, is a survival trait for society. It's no good having everyone think the same way all the time. We need variety, in life as well as software development.
Just my 2 cents.
Gates didn't age well but he didn't start off all that good either... dang what freak...
Gosh that's harsh! I think those eyes are dreamy.
About the Mac, though -- doesn't it seem likely that the Teen Beat article was later than 1983? I would love to know what the text was... Presumably it was playing him up as a real dreamboat.
Correctly applied, computers can aid learning. I have absolutely no skill at all at operating a pen. It has the worst user interface ever designed. My grades in English were consistently Cs, with the occasional B. Once we were allowed to use computers to type essays, they shot to A or A* and stayed there (until I dropped English aged 16)
Ah... I had a similar experience but, given my age, the change came not from computers but typewriters. Typing let me write quickly enough to be coherent. Using a keyboard can be a real boon, and is increasingly understood to be necessary for some students. For example, I had no trouble convincing my department to allow me to type my doctoral comprehensive exams although it is not standard practice.
As for computers being bad for learning -- I would agree with many posters and argue that it is only bad if it distracts the student from reading (as in novels, not IM). Having taught university in the states the increasing illiteracy of students seems to be the number one problem I saw. They have trouble with reading. Books are "too long," or "too hard." Vocabularies are apalling. It's a sad state of affairs.
Hey, *I* have stickers on mine... (although I too keep it on my keychain, not my neck, ugh!). Stuck em there when I bought it to cover up the brand. I've got stickers on my antique palm pilot and on one of my old laptops.
Stickers are fun and cheap -- what's not to like about them? Why should my gear just have the stickers the factory put on them?
I guess you wouldn't like all the flowers I put on my bike either....
Somehow "hacking a yo-yo" seems much more in the spirit of what hacking (as opposed to cracking) is all about -- playfully seeking to improve the way things work.
;)
But then I suppose that I'm just grasping after an earlier halcyon age, when everything was somehow better (including spelling)
The idea that something is "art" is a pretty recent idea, in the big scheme of things. What distinguishes "art" from a well crafted thing is difficult to define.
Throughout most of history there were people who mastered crafts. They might be sculptors, painters, cabnetry-makers... And we might look at what they did and say "Hey, that's art! He's a real artist." But what does that mean?
The programmer who writes a workable kludge is a craftperson, and doesn't aspire to art. Yet if s/he is trying to do something more than simply get the damn program to work, the code might be art. It might be beautiful. It might be clever. Might even be a commentary on larger themes... rather like what I conceive of as art.
In my wholly subjective view, craft is craft, art is craft that aspires to do more. And if that is so then why couldn't a hacker produce art? But feel free to disagree!
Though I read that Apple is working on Canada.
But as of this post one still cannot buy itunes here....
Realistically, Canada will probably gain the service eventually since trade relations tend to be pretty close, but what about the rest of the planet?
Yet this discussion completely sidesteps one of the aspects of Napster (1) and the like -- that they were international. From almost anywhere in the world (assuming internet access) you could get music, that was itself from all over the world.
I am now looking to buy that french deck of cards
Why give the French all the credit? A US blogger came up with the same idea back in April
Indeed, as a Canadian, you might have heard the spot on CBC's "Here and Now" a few months ago where a maker of such a deck was banned from selling it on e-bay. According to The Agonist, "He owns the domain name, "thebushadministration.com" where he's posted the images for sale."
So you can spend locally and protest globally. Or something like that.
I think that we're torn between rooting for the little guy, daring to go against the giant of the RIAA, and bemoaning the incredible litigiousness of American society...
So which is it going to be? Is it a crank suit or not? Is the wording of the "amnesty" indeed a trick?
It's hard to measure Quality of Life, but before assuming that Americans are really well off consider the findings of the UN's Human Development Report. In particular look at how many Americans live below the median income (compared with other "developed" nations), or people living under (the equivalent of) $11US per day
One could go on about life expectancy, infant mortality, and other such "quality of life" stats... But you've got the relevant link and can look up these topics to your heart's content.
There was a very similar situation back in the eighties (am I dating myself here?). A student, I believe at Columbia, built a nuclear bomb using publically available information. All that was missing was the nuclear material. The point was that anyone with the education, the drive (and access to uranium or whatever they used, I'm no expert) was perfectly capable of building nuclear explosives.
Information is dangerous. But so is restricting information...
Right now he's getting a great deal of play in the media for his prescience, not becuse 1984 came true, but because he helped create a vocabulary (thoughtcrime, Big Brother etc...) that can be used to view current events in a new (disturbing) way.
For example, check out Google News through truespeak filter at berkeley (or any news site, just replace the second http address).
His language casts a new light on what's going on, for issues of computer privacy to foreign and domestic policy...
True fans can sheck out Students for an Orwellian Society which continues in the vein. (And, to be clear, it's satire guys, satire)
Yes, it was indeed librarians who opposed the law here's the link...
What is upsetting is that there has already been serious opposition to this law from librarians themselves -- who have argued that the filters block too many useful sites (and I imagine that they have indeed produced lists in support of their claims).
It would be intersting to know who has been pushing for the ruling. Was it "concerned citizens" or companies that make filtering programmes?
AIM is destroying another MORE important part of writing. Grammar, sentence structure, and spelling.
I wholeheartedly agree. What am I saying? Ayone who has read freshmen papers lately can attest that it is already having an effect!
Moreover it might be a good thing for students to be allowed an alternative to cursive. I was forced to write exclusively in it from first grade on (I was at an experimental school), and hated it since it took me forever to form the letters, and demanded an inordinate amount of my attention. Moreover, it wasn't until I started typing papers (this was before affordable computers) that I was able to express myself quickly enought to produce intelligent essays. I was able to convince my department to allow me to type my PhD comprehensives since I warned them that anything I handwrote would be a feeble reflection of my abilities. And it was the truth.
And don't even get me started about the utility of spellcheckers. While they have their dangers, for slight dyslexics such as myself they have been a godsend!
One could bewail how no one can cut a nib on a quill anymore, or mix ink... but they're an obsolete skills for all but calligraphers. Methods of writing change over time.
/.) we love to herald in progress, but I am a skeptic. How technologically capable are most students anyway? And if they can't type, will they forget how to write?
I wonder, however, how proficient youngsters *really* are on the keyboard. Watching university students in the US hunt and peck to enter their library searches makes me seriously doubt it.
Nor have I been terribly impressed by their inability to "program" their word processors to do esoteric tasks such as numbering pages or (gasp!) inserting footnotes. As a technophilic society (at least here on
I was being facetious. It just seems that there is a wave of similar design (bright colours, rounded corners, smooth surfaces) out there just now.
Well isn't Apply trying to make the iPod into a watered down PDA, with its "More ways to have fun."
According to Apple: "The iPod now lets you do a whole lot more in addition to maintaining your contacts, calendar and to-do lists. iPod now includes Solitaire, Brick and Parachute... iPod also includes a notes reader that lets you download text-based information and read it on the screen... The iPod features a sleep timer, so you can fall asleep to your music."
And we all know that the iPod cn act as a portable hard drive, right?
was responsible for the new bug? (No, I'm not blaming software glitches on him -- I mean the new beetle)
If its for encryption...
and if not??? Seriously, should we assume that NASA is being honest about what exactly they are searching for? Without resorting to conspiracy theories, would it make sense for the agency to publicize the specific thing that is missing?
As soon as the shuttle went down and they started posting messages warning people not to even get near anything that might be from the shuttle, I wondered whether it was indeed due to toxins from the fuel system (which is, I believe what they claimed) or rather something else -- not necessarily anything very sinister, mind you, just run of the mill disinformation.
Of course, we'll never know. But it sure is fun to speculate!
I'm more amazed that no one asked her why she did it
Clearly this is the start of a new Mac ad campaign. You remember "It takes a licking, and keeps on ticking!"
Soon we will be deluged with pictures of powerbooks that were dropped from great heights, run over by buses...
You get the drift.
As an addict of SimCity I have to say, if I wanted to interact with other people I would hardly be sitting for days in a dark room in front of my computer now, would I?
I think part of the appeal of simulations is that they bestow the user with a -- what would you call it..?
I know! A *simulated* reality.
(It's not like those shoot-em up games, where some people like the idea that there really is another carbon-based life form at the other end of the gun...)
Good question. I have one, and love it, *but* it was a present. Would I shell out hundreds of bucks for it? Probably not.
But the iPod is a "must-have" object. You see it. You want it. It would appear that Mac is following this strategy in product placement, since their TiBooks have been marketed in the same sexy fashion.
And in a sick way, the high price tag only makes it that much more desirable, that much more lusted after.
Frustrated desire can be the greatest aphrodesiac, and that applies to much more than sex.