It's worth noting that SNARF doesn't actually analyze the content of messages, AFAIK. Rather, its sorting is based on metrics such as who you reply to most often, who replies to you, whose messages you read, etc. Purely metadata-based, which is a lot easier for a computer to do. Whether or not this is the right approach is another question.
Nuts to employers. I'm currently doing my Master's in CS, and I'm getting paid a rather satisfactory lump of money to do so. That's right -- I'm making a comfortable living off learning, and engaging in entirely self-directed research. I plan to ride this gravy train right through my PhD and into professorship.
Seriously, I don't know why more people don't get in on this gig.
Amongst all the study-toting scienceniks here, I am amazed that no one has brought up the social construction of gender. Even if your studies show a difference between men and women, how can you prove that the difference is innate, and not a result of societal conditioning? Except for very rudimentary abilities (e.g. visual perception), you can't.
Social Constructionism The sociological method of social constructionism is to look at the ways social phenomena are created, institutionalized, and made into tradition by humans. Their focus is on the description of the institutions, the actions, and so on, not on analyzing causes and effects. Socially constructed reality is seen as an on-going dynamic process; reality is re-produced by people acting on their interpretation and their knowledge of it.
Will totally transform the way we use the Internet. Right now people's opinions are fragmented with regards to its import, but I believe that's because it's still a relatively esoteric medium. It's not hard to use, but it does demand a certain mindset, a "computer" mindset, in that you have to sit down at a flashing box with arcane input devices in order to access it -- this is something that intimidates a lot of people.
However, the way things are going, it's pretty clear that computers will eventually become a way of life rather than a part of it. Once IT successfully migrates into the background of our environment, and digital interactions are inherent in all interactions, the Internet will become an essential tool for the seamless and transparent communication and presentation of abitrary information.
When's the last time you played an indie console game?
Exactly.
For now they're still feasible to produce for "antiquated" platforms like the GBA (this being the only place I've seen them), but once even those catch up, the situation will be hopeless.
"But imagine keeping e-mail a bit more like a blog. Then suddenly, youâ(TM)ve got instant messaging qualities and e-mail qualities happening at the same time."
Er, what? Blogs are related to IM?
It's like this guy is just saying words without first discriminating for meaning.
Either that or I'm missing out on something really important here.
I think you're perceiving a dichotomy where there is none. There is no "fundamentally" wrong classroom anymore there is a fundamentally right one (which is to say, not at all.)
The matter of fact is, a computer attached to the internet is immensely alluring. I'm willing to bet that you're rather far away from your teen years, because if you were my age, then you'd know that computer and net addiction is a widely accepted phenomenon amongst us. Have you ever talked to a student about this sort of thing? We are obsessed with digital interaction.
I'm not saying that computers shouldn't be in the classroom, merely that they will cause a problem, because the distraction they offer goes beyond a mere opportunity or outlet -- it's an actual gravitational force.
How was this modded insightful? The "it's entertainment" argument, while arguably valid in most contexts, contributes nothing to the debate on how television affects society's Gestalt, Zeitgeist, or any other fancy German terms referring to sweeping changes in the whole.
The road to television in Western society was an evolutionary process, and people's mechanisms for dealing with the new media likewise had a chance to incrementally develop. Not only that, but here in the 21st century, we've been part of a television-saturated culture for our entire lives and have reasonably developed very personal, robust and informed means of coping (e.g. media cynicism). So our relationship with TV is quite exceptional and particular to ourselves, and is certainly not a good barometer of the medium's "innate" effect on an arbitrary civilization.
Given that, it very possible that TV's influence on the human psyche is an inherently destructive thing, and that we have simply developed defenses strong enough to glean the good from it.
There's a difference between cursive writing and general handwriting, e.g. printing. Cursive is supposed to be a shorthand, but in reality it's only used by people over the age of 30. Personally, I find that not having ever used cursive writing in my day-to-day activities, printing is actually much faster for me.
Slashdot Mirror
It's worth noting that SNARF doesn't actually analyze the content of messages, AFAIK. Rather, its sorting is based on metrics such as who you reply to most often, who replies to you, whose messages you read, etc. Purely metadata-based, which is a lot easier for a computer to do. Whether or not this is the right approach is another question.
Nuts to employers. I'm currently doing my Master's in CS, and I'm getting paid a rather satisfactory lump of money to do so. That's right -- I'm making a comfortable living off learning, and engaging in entirely self-directed research. I plan to ride this gravy train right through my PhD and into professorship.
Seriously, I don't know why more people don't get in on this gig.
Amongst all the study-toting scienceniks here, I am amazed that no one has brought up the social construction of gender. Even if your studies show a difference between men and women, how can you prove that the difference is innate, and not a result of societal conditioning? Except for very rudimentary abilities (e.g. visual perception), you can't.
Social Constructionism
The sociological method of social constructionism is to look at the ways social phenomena are created, institutionalized, and made into tradition by humans. Their focus is on the description of the institutions, the actions, and so on, not on analyzing causes and effects. Socially constructed reality is seen as an on-going dynamic process; reality is re-produced by people acting on their interpretation and their knowledge of it.
Will totally transform the way we use the Internet. Right now people's opinions are fragmented with regards to its import, but I believe that's because it's still a relatively esoteric medium. It's not hard to use, but it does demand a certain mindset, a "computer" mindset, in that you have to sit down at a flashing box with arcane input devices in order to access it -- this is something that intimidates a lot of people.
However, the way things are going, it's pretty clear that computers will eventually become a way of life rather than a part of it. Once IT successfully migrates into the background of our environment, and digital interactions are inherent in all interactions, the Internet will become an essential tool for the seamless and transparent communication and presentation of abitrary information.
When's the last time you played an indie console game?
Exactly.
For now they're still feasible to produce for "antiquated" platforms like the GBA (this being the only place I've seen them), but once even those catch up, the situation will be hopeless.
Er, what? Blogs are related to IM?
It's like this guy is just saying words without first discriminating for meaning.
Either that or I'm missing out on something really important here.
The matter of fact is, a computer attached to the internet is immensely alluring. I'm willing to bet that you're rather far away from your teen years, because if you were my age, then you'd know that computer and net addiction is a widely accepted phenomenon amongst us. Have you ever talked to a student about this sort of thing? We are obsessed with digital interaction.
I'm not saying that computers shouldn't be in the classroom, merely that they will cause a problem, because the distraction they offer goes beyond a mere opportunity or outlet -- it's an actual gravitational force.
The road to television in Western society was an evolutionary process, and people's mechanisms for dealing with the new media likewise had a chance to incrementally develop. Not only that, but here in the 21st century, we've been part of a television-saturated culture for our entire lives and have reasonably developed very personal, robust and informed means of coping (e.g. media cynicism). So our relationship with TV is quite exceptional and particular to ourselves, and is certainly not a good barometer of the medium's "innate" effect on an arbitrary civilization.
Given that, it very possible that TV's influence on the human psyche is an inherently destructive thing, and that we have simply developed defenses strong enough to glean the good from it.
There's a difference between cursive writing and general handwriting, e.g. printing. Cursive is supposed to be a shorthand, but in reality it's only used by people over the age of 30. Personally, I find that not having ever used cursive writing in my day-to-day activities, printing is actually much faster for me.
Presumably her father was directly involved. Creepy!