I would think that the success of Dell, Gateway and the like prove that a large number of people are that stupid.
A small-time shop, or independant builder, can pay retail and warehouse parts on components (read: NewEgg, GameVE, etc.) build the same PC that one of the major OEMs are selling for $2000 for about $800, add WinXP Home ($70, OEM) and Works Suite 2003 ($50), throw a 50% markup on top of that, and make a very nice profit for myself, as well as make the buyer quite happy with the $500+ savings.
I can only imagine how cheaply I could do this if I had Dell's volume discounts on parts, I'd be making a killing.
The sad thing is that all they're known for these days is putting some really nasty copy protection on their games.
I can't think of a single Atari release since Neverwinter Nights that hasn't had some significant problems, like just refusing to play on peoples' machines.
But it seems to me that piracy is so rampant not because of hardware costs, but because software costs will nickel and dime you to death (obviously, this doesn't apply to OSS, so spare me the "OMG use Lunix!!11" responses).
So, first I start off with the $300 OS.
Then, take a look at the other day-to-day software a typical user will (probably) need / want:
-Anti-Virus......$50 / year -Compression.....$25 -Anti-Spyware....$25 -Firewall........$50 -Image Editing...$200+ -Decent IMing....$20 -Office..........$150+ -Popup Blocker...$25...and that's just to start; basic sorts of things that a typical home user would have. Suddenly that $500 PC isn't such a good deal.
Of course, they'll reduce the camera to 2.0 megpixels, cripple the OS, and in addition to the half dozen Verizon logos on emblazoned on the phone, they'll make sure there's at least another half dozen built in to the phone, usually doing something incredibly obnoxious, like alternating displays with the clock...
Yes, but in the movies, it ads something of value. No one wants to see a 'real' cracker; some pasty, fat nerd with Cheetohs dust all over his hands, frantically mashing keys to send arcane commands into a CLI.
In games, I don't see that happening. Sure, having soda cans with Pepsi or Coke logos is fine. If you've got a fast food restaurant in your cityscape, and it happens to be a Burger King, fine. But if I ever have to sit through a Survivor ad in a game I already payed for, that's it, I'm done, and I won't be buying from that company in the future.
The truth of the matter is that subtlety's going to be (hell, has been) well-received by gamers. Stick a Pizza Hut logo on the pizza box on the floor in the junked-up apartment. Ad a Budweiser logo to the refridgerated semi that just drove by. Fine. But I don't think adds for Gillette's new razor or some cell phone service popping up in the middle of EQ2 like some damned intersitial is going to go over well with anyone.
The CSHD is still a bastard to deal with, especially considering that the game's got the shoddiest netcode I've seen since I tried to play Heavy Gear on Mplayer like 6 years ago.
Weapons are still terribly unbalanced, vehicles aren't even arguably balanced with each other, and the proliferation of CR5s has lead to a game of constant orbital strikes and bickering, incompetant CR5s that like to berate the entire faction for their own dumb decisions.
Really, the game's awful; it's nothing but a big frag fest these days with no semblance of tactics or even coherent gameplay. It may as well be a public, 200-player BF1942 server.
Planetside: Aftershock isn't an expansion, it's just a bundle of Planetside with the (rightfully) maligned Core Combat expansion. They mechs they're advertising (BFRs) on the box are free to any subscriber that has Core Combat.
You may want to look into Miranda. It's a GPLed, light-weight, multi-network IM client that's much less of an eyesore than GAIM, and with the rather large number of plugins, is as flexible as you want it to be.
Think of it like Trillian's smaller, sleeker cousin.
IIRC, Ultima Online allowed players to build houses more or less anywhere they wanted. Needless to say, it was an eyesore. Houses would just be piled on top of each other, with no semblance or organization, many in various states of decay because the owner had left the game or some such.
For player-built cities to work, the devs would need to create some sort of prefab city, with pre-defined districts and lots for players to purchase.
I mean, sure, in a more mature or roleplaying environment, like Jumpgate, there weren't many restrictions that needed to be made - the players were good on their own. But in a more mainstream MMO with a large population of griefers, d00dz, and younger kids, there's no way it could be handled well without some pretty strict rules in place.
Trusted chips can be used to lock down software stop users, not will.
While that may be true in a literal sense, giving the likes of Microsoft and the RIAA a widely installed base of these 'trusted' machines is and expecting them not to abuse the power is like giving a junkie a hypodermic needle and expecting him to use it for something other than shooting up.
I think the key here, though, despite all the DS and PSP features, will ultimately be games.
Even if they're mostly ports, the PSP will more than likely have a solid library.
Will the DS fare better than the GBA? I've got my fingers crossed that it does, but the GBA's absolutely awful game lineup left a bad taste in my mouth.
I've got my fingers crossed that Square comes to their senses and does some sort of old-school Final Fantasy compilation for the DS. I'd love to see an update on FF1-6...
Check out HowardForums - many, many people have used BitPim on the CDM-8900 with no problems. I've yet to hear of anyone with an issue as was mentioned on the forums....I do seem to recall someone mentioning that the CDM 8900 uses almost identical software to the LG VX4400 (which is supported)...
Have you checked to see if your phone's compatible with BitPim?
I'm using an Audiovox CDM 8900 (another awesome phone that was crippled by Verizon), and it works great. Not only for uploading wallpapers and ringtones, but you can do a fair bit of hacking; getting rid of those obnoxious Verizon software banners and the like.
The best stuff on Adult Swim, though, isn't anime (with the exception of Cowboy Bebop) - Spaceghost, Family Guy, Sealab 2021, Harvey Birdman, the Brak Show...
The only anime they show (once again, exclusing Cowboy Bebop) is senseless crap like Inuyasha in its cut-down, edited-for-TV format, and Trigun, which, well, let's face it - TriGun is just Dragon Ball Z +1. The animation sucks, the story sucks, the wriring sucks, the voice acting sucks... it's just there to serve as an idol for socially akward 14 year-old boys.
I don't know exactly how this one will go; maybe they've upgraded their hardware since I last played in beta, but even the stress tests with the standard beta crowd made the game utterly unplayable. The server would die every few minutes. You'd get 5 minutes of play for every 10-15 minutes of downtime. Often times, you'd get disconencted in the middle of a fight, and log back in as a ghost, then spend the up-time trying to get your body back, jsut to die again.
I think a lot of people are just getting their hopes up over what's essentially going to be one, bug, on-going crash.
And in case anyone's interested, here's my 2-sentence review:
World of Warcraft absolutely perfects the EverQuest-styled game, and pulls it off with a lot of flair and refreshingly understandable design decisions. Unfortunately, I've come to expect more from a game than EverQuest-styled monotony in a no-skill-required environment, and WoW, for all its polish, comes away feeling like half the game it should be.
The only point I think you've made is that you can't pick out the good games amongst the bad.
And what gave you that impression? All I was doing was a bit of a parody of the GBA's most popular games (and got modded troll for poking fun at Nintendo... on Slashdot... imagine that).
There's no real reason the GBA has to be the 'last bastion' of 2D games. They'll still be around on the DS, and there's still a massive back-catalogue of them to play. And there aren't even that many of them, anyways. Phantasy Star collection's just a re-release. Golden Sun's not bad, provided you don't mind that the main character's like 11 years old or something lame like that. Then there's Sword of Mana, which was just a weak, wholly impotent remake of the never-released-in-the-US precursor to the SNES' wonderful Secret of Mana.
The theme I was going for with my comment is just that the GBA is derrivative and very kid-friendly, to the point of being almost exclusive to people who want more adult or intelligent titles.
Case in point: Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. There was nothing "advanced" about it. It was just a much dumbed-down version of the original, with a weak story line written for the 10 year-old crowd (much unlike FFT, which had a phenomenal storyline, sort of mangled by a really bad translation), and a younger main character.
I mean, really, if they're going to release derrivative games, why not repackage old SNES Squaresoft games (although, given that Square and Nintendo took the pure potential that was Crystal Chonicles and just shit all over it, I don't think Square would go near Nintendo again)? The system's more powerful than the SNES - so why are so many of the game's so dumbed-down and simple, comparitively?
So, in short, hope ya end up happy. Just be careful about getting sucked into Sony's (or Nintendo's) hype. Go by the games, not by their silly claims about what their hardware can do.
That's exactly where Nintendo will falter. The DS lineup will look like this:
Mario: We Repackaged Your Childhood Pokemon Gold-Enlaid Silver-Trimmed Edition Pokemon Ruby-Encrusted Platnium Hyper X Edition Pokemon: Again Pokemon:...and again Pokemon:...yet again Pokemon: Seriously, You Guys Still Like This Shit? *generic 3rd-rate Mario spin-off with useless gimmic* Metroid: The Only Decent Game on the DS Mary Kate and Ashley's Eating Disorder Barbie's Mall Adventure *umpteen dozen instances of Disney pimping their characters like a $5 vegas hooker* Megaman Battle Network 62: Remember When Megaman Didn't Suck? Megaman Battle Network 63: Megaman Buys a Barn Megaman Battle Network 64: Hey, Didn't This Used to be an Action Game?
...and then, let's not forget the hundreds of poorly-done ports that plague every console.
Okay, so it's a bit facetious. I think my point's made, though: the game lineup on the GBA was the worst thing about it. Same deal with the Gamecube. So Nintendo occaisionally makes a good title amidst a see of derrivative and self-congradulatory crap - their library is still the worst around.
I wish Nintendo would spin off their successful development studios, and just stick to making hardware, 'cause they do a damned fine job of that.
As I already pointed out in another response to this thread, that was the whole point.
The current system's a failure. It stresses rote memorization, yet virtually no one memorizes anything longer than is absolutely necessary (read: until the next test). Never mind the fact that those factoids, on their own, are entirely useless unless you're on a damned gameshow.
I think you're getting the notion that I'd like to abolish all math and science, and that's simply not the case. I'd simply like to see math taught in an abbreviated form (say, basics of algebra, geometry, trig and stats condensed into a couple classes for liberal arts students, and more specialized and in-depth classes like we currently have taught in their place for engineers and the like), and in the space saved, see logic, literacy, and philosophy (either intro or ethics) mandated.
As for math and philosophy both teaching problem solving, I agree, but only to a point. Math is applied logic, but it can be taught in a way that's too formulaic and detached to matter to most people. A math problem can be solved by plugging variables into an equation - no real thought required. A verbal logic problem, while there are rules and diagrams you can use, is far too nuanced to be formulaic, and has a more direct relation to the problems people will encounter in their lives. There's simply no way to handle a verbal logic question without stopping and actually thinking about it. You can't memorize the theorum. You can't just plug in numbers.
Here's where my real problem with your argument lies. Sure, lots of humanities types have no interest in math or science, and have to suffer through their courses in those ares; similarly, lots of math and science types have no interest in the humanities, and have to suffer through their courses in those areas. You know what? Tough shit.
The difference I think you're missing is that in a normal person's life, their knowledge of calc or trig means absolutely nothing. Yes, math and science still matter in a form of education in some abstract or idealistic sense, but when it comes down to their basic functioning in their real lives, logic and literary skills (and historical knowledge, to a lesser extent) mean everything, while knowing how to integrate a function and how to properly use sin, cosin, and tangent mean dick-all.
I think we're arguing from difference standpoints. You seem to want an idealistic education where everyone knows something about everything. I just want people to be competant to handle the issues they face every day in their lives - people that can actually look at something like our current political campaign and spot the bullshit, not be suckered in by it.
Yep, we sure are lucky we had all those logicians, philosophers, and grammarians around to invent this magic Interweb thingy so you could make that post!
You're reading into my comment and coming away with a point I didn't make. I feel that math, science, and engineering courses are very important - for mathmeticians, scientists, and engineers (and others who have an interest in said subjects). But most Americans are lacking in basic literacy, and believe a credible argument follows the form: "it is because it is" or "because I said so."
Really, which is more important: taking a trig class you'll soon forget, or knowing how to read at a passable level? It's not a difficult call.
Even more pathetic than a typical American's literacy level is his utter lack of an ability to form or identify a cogent argument (or more importantly, an unsound argument). Yet when's the last time your saw logic or philosophy (which is just applied logic) mandated?
What puzzles me about your post is the internal contradiction. I agree that the "MRP" approach is pretty much useless, but your assumption that only humanities subjects produce real, lasting, worthwhile knowledge is repellent.
I don't believe only humanities classes produce worthwhile results, but I do believe they're precursors to math and science.
As for the contradiction, I don't see what you're getting at. My initial point was to illustrate how MRP-styled courses are ineffective.
Re:That's what you get...
on
Cheating Made Easy
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· Score: 1, Interesting
Unfortunately, it's symptomatic of education in our country.
How many 30 year-olds could look at a differential equation and tell you what it is? How many people remember creators of specific schools of psychology from psych 101? On what date did the Civil War end?
What passes for 'education' in the US is gameshow knowledge; memorizing a nearly endless stream of disjointed factoids just long enough to repeat it on a test. At that point, you never need to know it again, unless you're taking another related class. My old philosophy professor used to call those MRP classes - Memorize. Regurgitate. Purge. Most of my high school classes were of that variety, and I'm sad to say, having attended Western Michigan University, Oakland University, and the University of Michigan, I've found most of my courses in college to be the same.
We need to stop kidding ourselves - education in the US isn't worth a damn. How anyone can claim it is when we place such heavy emphasis on largely unnecessary, irrelevant and highly specialized classes (like calculus) when a typical citizen couldn't spot a cogent argument if it kicked him in the face, and your typical teenager has a lower literacy level than he should've had back in 5th grade. That's what happens when compulsory classes are science and math-related, as opposed to logic, philosophy and English. Not that there's anything wrong with math and science, but they're far less relevant to a typical person's life than the aforementioned subjects.
The only difference between your average high school graduate and your average guy with a bachelor's in Business or Communications or Psychology (or pretty much any non-technical degree) is that the college grad's $30,000 in debt. He's not smarter, he's not more educated, and he's not any more capable in the 'real world.' He may be more mature, but that's a product of age, not college.
Grades in the context of our current college-level educational system are just some masurbatory vestige from an age when a college degree meant more than just going through the motions.
I played CS back from beta 2 to beta 5, with beta 4 being my favorite phase by far and away. I watched the community you spoke of start to develop, and ultimately, it's what pushed me away from Counter-Strike (and most FPS games in general).
In early beta, people picked up CS because it was different than the same Quake/Unreal deathmatch format we'd all been playing for so long. CS really did have an element of team play and strategy that wasn't present in other FPS games.
Then, and I don't know what triggered it - the game must've been reviwed on Gamespy or something - beta 5 rolled around the the community almost immediately collapsed. The number of servers skyrocketed, and they were all populated by the same illiterate, spastic, hostile d00dz that were previously exclusive to Quake 2/3 and Unreal Tournament. No one wanted to cooperate, no one wanted to save hostages. They were more concerned with head-shotting you with an AWP and calling you a n00b than actually trying to complete any objectives. And god forbid you killed anyone with the Steyr Scout, because you'd be accused of cheating.
These days, the CS 'community' is nothing but a cesspool of illiterate assholes, cheaters, griefers and d00dz, so bad they make the guys playing BF1942 and America's Army look mature by comparison. How anyone can stomach that game is beyond me.
Sadly, that same mentality that's so pervasive in Counterstrike is creeping into Planetside, too. Back in PS beta, even if assaults weren't particularly organized, people always worked together. Now, stupidity and selfishness are the rules of the day, and it seems that most people would rather pad their kill count than work with their empire to capture objectives. And, sadly, the developers are content to placate them by giving them weapons designed to do just that and not much else....I think it's something about the genre. Not that EverQuest and the rest of the MMORPGs are bastions of intelligence and maturity, but I'll be damned if the average FPS player could pass himself off for being older than 12.
Slashdot Mirror
I would think that the success of Dell, Gateway and the like prove that a large number of people are that stupid.
A small-time shop, or independant builder, can pay retail and warehouse parts on components (read: NewEgg, GameVE, etc.) build the same PC that one of the major OEMs are selling for $2000 for about $800, add WinXP Home ($70, OEM) and Works Suite 2003 ($50), throw a 50% markup on top of that, and make a very nice profit for myself, as well as make the buyer quite happy with the $500+ savings.
I can only imagine how cheaply I could do this if I had Dell's volume discounts on parts, I'd be making a killing.
...is that the plot is about running backwards through dark hallways shooting zombies, right?
The sad thing is that all they're known for these days is putting some really nasty copy protection on their games.
I can't think of a single Atari release since Neverwinter Nights that hasn't had some significant problems, like just refusing to play on peoples' machines.
But it seems to me that piracy is so rampant not because of hardware costs, but because software costs will nickel and dime you to death (obviously, this doesn't apply to OSS, so spare me the "OMG use Lunix!!11" responses).
-Firewall........$50 ...and that's just to start; basic sorts of things that a typical home user would have. Suddenly that $500 PC isn't such a good deal.
So, first I start off with the $300 OS.
Then, take a look at the other day-to-day software a typical user will (probably) need / want:
-Anti-Virus......$50 / year
-Compression.....$25
-Anti-Spyware....$25
-Image Editing...$200+
-Decent IMing....$20
-Office..........$150+
-Popup Blocker...$25
I bet Verizon picks this up.
Of course, they'll reduce the camera to 2.0 megpixels, cripple the OS, and in addition to the half dozen Verizon logos on emblazoned on the phone, they'll make sure there's at least another half dozen built in to the phone, usually doing something incredibly obnoxious, like alternating displays with the clock...
Yes, but in the movies, it ads something of value. No one wants to see a 'real' cracker; some pasty, fat nerd with Cheetohs dust all over his hands, frantically mashing keys to send arcane commands into a CLI.
In games, I don't see that happening. Sure, having soda cans with Pepsi or Coke logos is fine. If you've got a fast food restaurant in your cityscape, and it happens to be a Burger King, fine. But if I ever have to sit through a Survivor ad in a game I already payed for, that's it, I'm done, and I won't be buying from that company in the future.
The truth of the matter is that subtlety's going to be (hell, has been) well-received by gamers. Stick a Pizza Hut logo on the pizza box on the floor in the junked-up apartment. Ad a Budweiser logo to the refridgerated semi that just drove by. Fine. But I don't think adds for Gillette's new razor or some cell phone service popping up in the middle of EQ2 like some damned intersitial is going to go over well with anyone.
I recently canceled...
The CSHD is still a bastard to deal with, especially considering that the game's got the shoddiest netcode I've seen since I tried to play Heavy Gear on Mplayer like 6 years ago.
Weapons are still terribly unbalanced, vehicles aren't even arguably balanced with each other, and the proliferation of CR5s has lead to a game of constant orbital strikes and bickering, incompetant CR5s that like to berate the entire faction for their own dumb decisions.
Really, the game's awful; it's nothing but a big frag fest these days with no semblance of tactics or even coherent gameplay. It may as well be a public, 200-player BF1942 server.
Planetside: Aftershock isn't an expansion, it's just a bundle of Planetside with the (rightfully) maligned Core Combat expansion. They mechs they're advertising (BFRs) on the box are free to any subscriber that has Core Combat.
You may want to look into Miranda. It's a GPLed, light-weight, multi-network IM client that's much less of an eyesore than GAIM, and with the rather large number of plugins, is as flexible as you want it to be.
Think of it like Trillian's smaller, sleeker cousin.
IIRC, Ultima Online allowed players to build houses more or less anywhere they wanted. Needless to say, it was an eyesore. Houses would just be piled on top of each other, with no semblance or organization, many in various states of decay because the owner had left the game or some such.
For player-built cities to work, the devs would need to create some sort of prefab city, with pre-defined districts and lots for players to purchase.
I mean, sure, in a more mature or roleplaying environment, like Jumpgate, there weren't many restrictions that needed to be made - the players were good on their own. But in a more mainstream MMO with a large population of griefers, d00dz, and younger kids, there's no way it could be handled well without some pretty strict rules in place.
While that may be true in a literal sense, giving the likes of Microsoft and the RIAA a widely installed base of these 'trusted' machines is and expecting them not to abuse the power is like giving a junkie a hypodermic needle and expecting him to use it for something other than shooting up.
I think the key here, though, despite all the DS and PSP features, will ultimately be games.
Even if they're mostly ports, the PSP will more than likely have a solid library.
Will the DS fare better than the GBA? I've got my fingers crossed that it does, but the GBA's absolutely awful game lineup left a bad taste in my mouth.
I've got my fingers crossed that Square comes to their senses and does some sort of old-school Final Fantasy compilation for the DS. I'd love to see an update on FF1-6...
These may be a bit more pricey than you're looking for, but they're not too expensive, and are certainly small:
Cappuccino PC
Check out HowardForums - many, many people have used BitPim on the CDM-8900 with no problems. I've yet to hear of anyone with an issue as was mentioned on the forums. ...I do seem to recall someone mentioning that the CDM 8900 uses almost identical software to the LG VX4400 (which is supported)...
Have you checked to see if your phone's compatible with BitPim?
I'm using an Audiovox CDM 8900 (another awesome phone that was crippled by Verizon), and it works great. Not only for uploading wallpapers and ringtones, but you can do a fair bit of hacking; getting rid of those obnoxious Verizon software banners and the like.
The best stuff on Adult Swim, though, isn't anime (with the exception of Cowboy Bebop) - Spaceghost, Family Guy, Sealab 2021, Harvey Birdman, the Brak Show...
The only anime they show (once again, exclusing Cowboy Bebop) is senseless crap like Inuyasha in its cut-down, edited-for-TV format, and Trigun, which, well, let's face it - TriGun is just Dragon Ball Z +1. The animation sucks, the story sucks, the wriring sucks, the voice acting sucks... it's just there to serve as an idol for socially akward 14 year-old boys.
I don't know exactly how this one will go; maybe they've upgraded their hardware since I last played in beta, but even the stress tests with the standard beta crowd made the game utterly unplayable. The server would die every few minutes. You'd get 5 minutes of play for every 10-15 minutes of downtime. Often times, you'd get disconencted in the middle of a fight, and log back in as a ghost, then spend the up-time trying to get your body back, jsut to die again.
I think a lot of people are just getting their hopes up over what's essentially going to be one, bug, on-going crash.
And in case anyone's interested, here's my 2-sentence review:
World of Warcraft absolutely perfects the EverQuest-styled game, and pulls it off with a lot of flair and refreshingly understandable design decisions. Unfortunately, I've come to expect more from a game than EverQuest-styled monotony in a no-skill-required environment, and WoW, for all its polish, comes away feeling like half the game it should be.
And what gave you that impression? All I was doing was a bit of a parody of the GBA's most popular games (and got modded troll for poking fun at Nintendo... on Slashdot... imagine that).
There's no real reason the GBA has to be the 'last bastion' of 2D games. They'll still be around on the DS, and there's still a massive back-catalogue of them to play. And there aren't even that many of them, anyways. Phantasy Star collection's just a re-release. Golden Sun's not bad, provided you don't mind that the main character's like 11 years old or something lame like that. Then there's Sword of Mana, which was just a weak, wholly impotent remake of the never-released-in-the-US precursor to the SNES' wonderful Secret of Mana.
The theme I was going for with my comment is just that the GBA is derrivative and very kid-friendly, to the point of being almost exclusive to people who want more adult or intelligent titles.
Case in point: Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. There was nothing "advanced" about it. It was just a much dumbed-down version of the original, with a weak story line written for the 10 year-old crowd (much unlike FFT, which had a phenomenal storyline, sort of mangled by a really bad translation), and a younger main character.
I mean, really, if they're going to release derrivative games, why not repackage old SNES Squaresoft games (although, given that Square and Nintendo took the pure potential that was Crystal Chonicles and just shit all over it, I don't think Square would go near Nintendo again)? The system's more powerful than the SNES - so why are so many of the game's so dumbed-down and simple, comparitively?
That's exactly where Nintendo will falter. The DS lineup will look like this:
Mario: We Repackaged Your Childhood
Pokemon Gold-Enlaid Silver-Trimmed Edition
Pokemon Ruby-Encrusted Platnium Hyper X Edition
Pokemon: Again
Pokemon:
Pokemon:
Pokemon: Seriously, You Guys Still Like This Shit?
*generic 3rd-rate Mario spin-off with useless gimmic*
Metroid: The Only Decent Game on the DS
Mary Kate and Ashley's Eating Disorder
Barbie's Mall Adventure
*umpteen dozen instances of Disney pimping their characters like a $5 vegas hooker*
Megaman Battle Network 62: Remember When Megaman Didn't Suck?
Megaman Battle Network 63: Megaman Buys a Barn
Megaman Battle Network 64: Hey, Didn't This Used to be an Action Game?
Okay, so it's a bit facetious. I think my point's made, though: the game lineup on the GBA was the worst thing about it. Same deal with the Gamecube. So Nintendo occaisionally makes a good title amidst a see of derrivative and self-congradulatory crap - their library is still the worst around.
I wish Nintendo would spin off their successful development studios, and just stick to making hardware, 'cause they do a damned fine job of that.
As I already pointed out in another response to this thread, that was the whole point.
The current system's a failure. It stresses rote memorization, yet virtually no one memorizes anything longer than is absolutely necessary (read: until the next test). Never mind the fact that those factoids, on their own, are entirely useless unless you're on a damned gameshow.
As for math and philosophy both teaching problem solving, I agree, but only to a point. Math is applied logic, but it can be taught in a way that's too formulaic and detached to matter to most people. A math problem can be solved by plugging variables into an equation - no real thought required. A verbal logic problem, while there are rules and diagrams you can use, is far too nuanced to be formulaic, and has a more direct relation to the problems people will encounter in their lives. There's simply no way to handle a verbal logic question without stopping and actually thinking about it. You can't memorize the theorum. You can't just plug in numbers.
The difference I think you're missing is that in a normal person's life, their knowledge of calc or trig means absolutely nothing. Yes, math and science still matter in a form of education in some abstract or idealistic sense, but when it comes down to their basic functioning in their real lives, logic and literary skills (and historical knowledge, to a lesser extent) mean everything, while knowing how to integrate a function and how to properly use sin, cosin, and tangent mean dick-all.
I think we're arguing from difference standpoints. You seem to want an idealistic education where everyone knows something about everything. I just want people to be competant to handle the issues they face every day in their lives - people that can actually look at something like our current political campaign and spot the bullshit, not be suckered in by it.
You're reading into my comment and coming away with a point I didn't make. I feel that math, science, and engineering courses are very important - for mathmeticians, scientists, and engineers (and others who have an interest in said subjects). But most Americans are lacking in basic literacy, and believe a credible argument follows the form: "it is because it is" or "because I said so."
Really, which is more important: taking a trig class you'll soon forget, or knowing how to read at a passable level? It's not a difficult call.
Even more pathetic than a typical American's literacy level is his utter lack of an ability to form or identify a cogent argument (or more importantly, an unsound argument). Yet when's the last time your saw logic or philosophy (which is just applied logic) mandated?
I don't believe only humanities classes produce worthwhile results, but I do believe they're precursors to math and science.
As for the contradiction, I don't see what you're getting at. My initial point was to illustrate how MRP-styled courses are ineffective.
Unfortunately, it's symptomatic of education in our country.
How many 30 year-olds could look at a differential equation and tell you what it is? How many people remember creators of specific schools of psychology from psych 101? On what date did the Civil War end?
What passes for 'education' in the US is gameshow knowledge; memorizing a nearly endless stream of disjointed factoids just long enough to repeat it on a test. At that point, you never need to know it again, unless you're taking another related class. My old philosophy professor used to call those MRP classes - Memorize. Regurgitate. Purge. Most of my high school classes were of that variety, and I'm sad to say, having attended Western Michigan University, Oakland University, and the University of Michigan, I've found most of my courses in college to be the same.
We need to stop kidding ourselves - education in the US isn't worth a damn. How anyone can claim it is when we place such heavy emphasis on largely unnecessary, irrelevant and highly specialized classes (like calculus) when a typical citizen couldn't spot a cogent argument if it kicked him in the face, and your typical teenager has a lower literacy level than he should've had back in 5th grade. That's what happens when compulsory classes are science and math-related, as opposed to logic, philosophy and English. Not that there's anything wrong with math and science, but they're far less relevant to a typical person's life than the aforementioned subjects.
The only difference between your average high school graduate and your average guy with a bachelor's in Business or Communications or Psychology (or pretty much any non-technical degree) is that the college grad's $30,000 in debt. He's not smarter, he's not more educated, and he's not any more capable in the 'real world.' He may be more mature, but that's a product of age, not college.
Grades in the context of our current college-level educational system are just some masurbatory vestige from an age when a college degree meant more than just going through the motions.
If you weren't already at 5, I'd mod you up.
...I think it's something about the genre. Not that EverQuest and the rest of the MMORPGs are bastions of intelligence and maturity, but I'll be damned if the average FPS player could pass himself off for being older than 12.
I played CS back from beta 2 to beta 5, with beta 4 being my favorite phase by far and away. I watched the community you spoke of start to develop, and ultimately, it's what pushed me away from Counter-Strike (and most FPS games in general).
In early beta, people picked up CS because it was different than the same Quake/Unreal deathmatch format we'd all been playing for so long. CS really did have an element of team play and strategy that wasn't present in other FPS games.
Then, and I don't know what triggered it - the game must've been reviwed on Gamespy or something - beta 5 rolled around the the community almost immediately collapsed. The number of servers skyrocketed, and they were all populated by the same illiterate, spastic, hostile d00dz that were previously exclusive to Quake 2/3 and Unreal Tournament. No one wanted to cooperate, no one wanted to save hostages. They were more concerned with head-shotting you with an AWP and calling you a n00b than actually trying to complete any objectives. And god forbid you killed anyone with the Steyr Scout, because you'd be accused of cheating.
These days, the CS 'community' is nothing but a cesspool of illiterate assholes, cheaters, griefers and d00dz, so bad they make the guys playing BF1942 and America's Army look mature by comparison. How anyone can stomach that game is beyond me.
Sadly, that same mentality that's so pervasive in Counterstrike is creeping into Planetside, too. Back in PS beta, even if assaults weren't particularly organized, people always worked together. Now, stupidity and selfishness are the rules of the day, and it seems that most people would rather pad their kill count than work with their empire to capture objectives. And, sadly, the developers are content to placate them by giving them weapons designed to do just that and not much else.
They have? How so? I don't recall any online capabilities for the NES, SNES, or N64...