Since the earliest universities in America were created to train preachers, these schools have always been the intellectual captives of their sponsors.
When I was in school in the sixties, it was the Defense Department. (Remember Darpanet? Remember the Vietnam war?) Frankly, I prefer the corporations.
I would say the corporate influence has two purposes. One is to fill the void left by the withdrawal of governmment. The other is to inject some value into the outdated curriculla.
These days a corporate certification is of much more value than a university degree. I would argue this is not the result of a corporate plot, but of the failure of the universities.
There's an excellent windows version of Python. I also recommend Neal Stephenson's 'In the Beginning Was the Command Line' for the kids. It puts across some important ideas in a fun, readable form. My fourteen-year-old nephew loved it.
I was inspired by Bill Joy's talk on JINI at SD99. I think he is one of the most important thinkers currently active. Remember the May '99 issue of Wired, with the all-black cover, titled 'Cold, Dark and Dead'? This was Wired's calm, measured approach to the Y2K issue. Joy's rant was more Wired sensationalism. I loved the picture of the kid swimming in the polluted lake.
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Since the earliest universities in America were created to train preachers, these schools have always been the intellectual captives of their sponsors.
When I was in school in the sixties, it was the Defense Department. (Remember Darpanet? Remember the Vietnam war?) Frankly, I prefer the corporations.
I would say the corporate influence has two purposes. One is to fill the void left by the withdrawal of governmment. The other is to inject some value into the outdated curriculla.
These days a corporate certification is of much more value than a university degree. I would argue this is not the result of a corporate plot, but of the failure of the universities.
There's an excellent windows version of Python. I also recommend Neal Stephenson's 'In the Beginning Was the Command Line' for the kids. It puts across some important ideas in a fun, readable form. My fourteen-year-old nephew loved it.
I was inspired by Bill Joy's talk on JINI at SD99. I think he is one of the most important thinkers currently active. Remember the May '99 issue of Wired, with the all-black cover, titled 'Cold, Dark and Dead'? This was Wired's calm, measured approach to the Y2K issue. Joy's rant was more Wired sensationalism. I loved the picture of the kid swimming in the polluted lake.