An explanation the teachers suggested for the higher cursive average scores was that perhaps the cursive handwriting was less disruptive means to capture to a stream of thought.
I offer this as someone who's use of cursive is almost exclusively limited to my signature. Between my printing handwriting style and keyboard, I make no other use of cursive.
So when you get sued by the RIAA, your first course of action will be to bring forth the efforts of "a centralised, concerted think-tank... to provide alternative production, distribution, licensing etc. methods?"
I'd certainly be interested in hearing the response of the judge when he points out you've brought a knife to a gun fight.
The beginning part of the book had a "be careful about computer calculations" section for those not already familiar with the concept.
One of the samples showed a simple program (in BASIC, of course!) which determined the number of significant digits used on your particular environment.
I forget the exact procedure the book used, but it involved doubling a number within a loop and then terminating the loop when the expression "x == x + 1" was true. (i.e. when adding one to a number did not affect the significant digits.)
New to Lisp, I decided to produce a Lisp version.
... To my surprise, the program ran for several minutes on my sooper dooper pentium 4 machine without terminating.
It turns out that in my naive, straight forward implementation, I was implicitly using Lisps 'bignum' support. It seems that you "automatically" get "bignums" within Lisp unless you specifically ask for something else.
A second snippet of code within this section of the same book showed how repeated rounding errors can accumulate to throw off an answer. For this, they repeatedly summed the following calculation "x = x + (((x+1)/3)*3)-1" IIRC. (The answer should always be "x".)
They showed example results from various machines for several iterations. The results dramatically illustrated the accumulated error after even a few iterations.
... Except for my naive Lisp version. It also seems that Lisp gives you a fractional datatype by default! The default implementation produced the exact answer.
Minor things really, but this was my first experience with a computer language that fit what I had learned in math class and I found it some what refreshing.
Last night I installed some software onto my tablet PC (which runs Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005).
This is what the vendors site warned:
This software is for Windows XP (Home or Professional) and Windows 2000 only. If your PC is running a previous version of Windows, please install the software recommended on the version selection page. The following versions are not supported by {vendor}: Windows XP Media Center Edition, Windows XP Tablet PC Edition, and Windows XP Professional x64 Edition.
Incidently, Knoppix v4.02 was able to provide the desired functionality "out-of-the-box" on the same tablet PC.
<sarcasm>I'm sure, of course, that Vista will address all these "confusing" OS choices.</sarcasm>
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This was just discussed at my daughter's fifth grade back-to-school night.
The teachers stated the students will be required to do practically all graded work in cursive.
They quoted a study in which students who used cursive on the SAT, on average, received higher grades.
Googling for supporting details identified the follow:
"Essays written in cursive received a slightly higher score (7.2 for cursive, compared to 7.0 for those printed)."
source: http://www.collegeboard.com/press/releases/150054.html
An explanation the teachers suggested for the higher cursive average scores was that perhaps the cursive handwriting was less disruptive means to capture to a stream of thought.
I offer this as someone who's use of cursive is almost exclusively limited to my signature. Between my printing handwriting style and keyboard, I make no other use of cursive.
Jennifier? Is that you?
So when you get sued by the RIAA, your first course of action will be to bring forth the efforts of "a centralised, concerted think-tank ... to provide alternative production, distribution, licensing etc. methods?"
I'd certainly be interested in hearing the response of the judge when he points out you've brought a knife to a gun fight.
"... watching everyone so exasperated by an idea so ridiculous as changing clocks."
There, fixed free of charge.
Daylight savings time has no place in a modern world.
DST was of benefit prior to air conditioning and street lights. Not so much now that most work places and homes have A/C.
Why should I change my clocks twice a year just so that some politician can crow about "all the energy savings?".
And stay off my lawn!
MS would rather strengthen the Network Effects associated with the use of their software/file formats.
Being too effective at fighting piracy (especially in large, developing markets) runs the risk of weaking the Network Effect.
A while ago I was going through a text on Astronomical Algorithms.
The beginning part of the book had a "be careful about computer calculations" section for those not already familiar with the concept.
One of the samples showed a simple program (in BASIC, of course!) which determined the number of significant digits used on your particular environment.
I forget the exact procedure the book used, but it involved doubling a number within a loop and then terminating the loop when the expression "x == x + 1" was true. (i.e. when adding one to a number did not affect the significant digits.)
New to Lisp, I decided to produce a Lisp version.
... To my surprise, the program ran for several minutes on my sooper dooper pentium 4 machine without terminating.
It turns out that in my naive, straight forward implementation, I was implicitly using Lisps 'bignum' support. It seems that you "automatically" get "bignums" within Lisp unless you specifically ask for something else.
A second snippet of code within this section of the same book showed how repeated rounding errors can accumulate to throw off an answer. For this, they repeatedly summed the following calculation "x = x + (((x+1)/3)*3)-1" IIRC. (The answer should always be "x".)
They showed example results from various machines for several iterations. The results dramatically illustrated the accumulated error after even a few iterations.
... Except for my naive Lisp version. It also seems that Lisp gives you a fractional datatype by default! The default implementation produced the exact answer.
Minor things really, but this was my first experience with a computer language that fit what I had learned in math class and I found it some what refreshing.
Not necessarily...
Last night I installed some software onto my tablet PC (which runs Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005).
This is what the vendors site warned:
Incidently, Knoppix v4.02 was able to provide the desired functionality "out-of-the-box" on the same tablet PC.
<sarcasm>I'm sure, of course, that Vista will address all these "confusing" OS choices.</sarcasm>
Hey, I know a Joe from Indiana!
Small world.