The reviewer is missing the point of the book
on
Anathem
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
I am not going to defend the novel as a whole. While I found it a compelling introduction to a number of philosophical and scientific beliefs, it is clearly a book that will appeal to some and turn off others. That said, I find it hard to believe that he didn't find enough intellectual stimulation. Setting aside the vocabulary, I found the breadth and depth of content in this book very personally satisfying.
The biggest issue, though, is this complaint that is levied about the language and the made-up words. If you have completed the book, please finish it before slamming the words themselves. You cannot understand the reason that he uses these words until you understand the larger message of the book. I felt for a long time that it added little, and while I got used to the words I wished that they weren't there. Then I read the last 20% of the book, and I got it. It made sense. You could still disagree with the approach, but at least you would be able to do so intelligently. The previous poster who wrote that he was halfway through the book and annoyed at the made-up words should finish the book first. If he is still annoyed, then fine. I wasn't at that point.
It isn't a perfect book. Many people will find many faults. Personally, I felt that the last hundred pages felt rushed. I wanted more out of them. And I felt that the book changed from an intellectual discourse into a plot-driven made-for-the-big-screen story. But I still enjoyed it.
And for the award for biggest geek family move of the year, I actually read the entire book out loud to my wife. She wanted to share the book with me, and she loved it more than I did. Go figure.
More because of family constraints than work constraints, I spent an "extended weekend" in Ecuador about a month ago. It was important to me that I disconnect as completely as possible, so I left the laptop, the cell phone, and almost all other electronics at home. I ended up at a reserve up on the western slopes of the Andes, and spent most of my time hiking, writing and reading. Like many people around here, I work in technology, so pursuing social disabsorption (is that a word?) was both refreshing and necessary.
I think that short trips can be useful, given the expectation of them. For me, it wasn't good enough to travel around Northern California. I would have felt that this trip was too limiting. Although some people thought that the trip to Ecuador might prove to be more traveling than was worth it for such a short period of time (2 days flying, 3 days in the country), my expectation that the trip would only be that long helped me to moderate my needs. I didn't care that when I got back I had hundreds (or was it thousands? I don't remember) of email messages. I just cared that the world around me was devoid of communication, just for a little bit.
You don't indicate here where you go to school, but if you are in high school you might consider approaching the IT Manager there about an internship. Most school districts that I know of are in need of extra help, primarily in system support. It isn't quite the same as interning at Google or IBM, but it is a way to get some formal experience and have something to put on your resume.
As the IT Director in a high school district, I am always happy to hear about students who want to help keep systems up and running. Often there are union issues to work around (not always as excited about internships as you'd like to think), but there are creative solutions to this that can have you doing anything from PC repair to teacher application support to (probably limited) network support. It's a great way to do something meaningful for your school and to get some experience in a location that probably really needs your help.
Both the article and the summary seem to imply that she came up with the "digital immigrant" and "digital native" labels. While others may have posited the idea prior, it seems that Marc Prensky has been discussing this (warning - PDF) since at least 2001. It is within the larger issue of how we reach these natives to educate them. It is a concept easily used elsewhere because the relevancy and the approach it suggests are easily seen. I find it somewhat amusing, however, when others simply use it as an observational tool, using it more as a justification for their approach than a truly meaningful response to a larger issue. I wasn't there for the keynote address, so I can't accuse Anne of this, specifically. But it does seem like a psuedo-intellectual argument designed to impress the crowd while giving only surface-level answers to the issue.
I work as a Director of Technology and I find it interesting that my Apple reps have been courting me so much these last few months. So much that they have not only given me a free pass to WWDC, but have invited me to sit in the VIP section at Jobs' keynote and to attend a special reception for IT professionals Monday evening.
Now, it may be that Apple always does this sort of thing to convince people like me to buy Macs. And we surely know that the Mac Pro will debut (as well as 10.5). But the full court press that I am getting suggests that this year's WWDC is as much about people like me as it is developers. Does this indicate anything about the content of Jobs' keynote? Probably not. But the treatment that I am receiving when I have almost nothing to do with development suggests that they are trying to garner as much interest as possible, and as much buy-in as possible.
Good for Circuit City for taking this route. It may be driven by the need to compete with bigger competitors (aka Best Buy), but it is exactly this kind of thing that is needed to bring attention to the larger issues. Now when Circuit City is sued, it will be national news, and the discussion regarding fair use will be held at a much more visible level. It may take years, but I'm optimistic that something like this is needed to get Joe Average interested.
I have to agree with you here. My original plan was to purchase the 360 and a PS3. I had some sense that I would eventually own all three, as I do with the current generation consoles, but I wasn't ready to make that committment. Now, however, I will be one of the first in line for the Wii, and will wait quite a while before making the plunge into the PS3.
It will be interesting to see how this shakes out. I have enough disposable income to purchase all of these, but have been so turned off by Sony's approach that I am going to delay on the purchase. After the initial rush, will this be the norm? How will this vary by country?
Since this migration probably happened hundreds of thousands of years ago (or, perhaps, millions), it's highly unlikely that life is imitating art here. Unless, of course, Aesop wrote his Fables long before written language was formed.
Spielberg collaborated with LucasArts on "The Dig", back 10 years ago. It is interesting that with LucasArts still a meaningful player in the videogame space, Spielberg decided to partner with EA (aren't they working together on Indy 4?)
I really read that as "PSP Users More Likely to cheat, shoplift..." and I was sure that this was either another skewed MS study in preparation for their move into handheld gaming, or a bold move by Ninetendo to court parents.
In specific response to these types of issues, the Secret Service established the Electronic Crimes Task Force. I had the opportunity to tour their Los Angeles operations center and was impressed by their technical resources and capability.
They described how they act as an intermediate body for all law enforcement agencies involved in computer crime. From forensic analysis to crime-scene procedure, they were designed to both advise and participate. I can't speak to any specific crimes that they had been involved in, but it seemed like the idea, if handled properly, was a good one.
When I visited in 2003, they were just ramping up. They had already been assisting local law enforcement, but seemed to still be moving in. Most of the "tech" was in place, including massive file servers and clean rooms, but the individual offices looked sparse, with boxes still unpacked. I was half expecting it to look like something out of the movies - darkened, secretive, maybe in a cave somewhere - but it was just on the 13th floor of a standard downtown office building with all the harsh amenities of a 30-year old downtown high rise.
I would certainly hope that what they spared in decoration was made up by the effectiveness at solving these crimes.
...and I think that pursuing felony charges is going too far. It shouldn't be too difficult to figure out how the password was leaked, and the person that leaked it should be punished harshly. I don't have a whole lot of sympathy for student crackers. That said, I imagine that the letter is designed to scare the crap out of the students, more than it is designed to suggest an actual imminent arrest.
I just dealt with some students who abused positions of trust (as tech aides) to install keylogging software on multiple computers. We came down hard on the student who initiated this because he used the information he gathered to access email and grades of the teachers whose passwords he caught. I never considered recommending this to the police, though, because I knew that we could suggest expulsion (which we ended up on a compromise with the student and his parents on) and scare the student into not doing this again. Or, at least, we now know who he is and we can ensure that he won't do the same thing.
The primary downside is that high school computer experiences shouldn't have to be as controlled and locked down as they are in most places. While we absolutely need security surrounding our student information system, grades, attendance and teacher files, I don't like locking down computers and trying to force certain behaviors. Let these kids work normally on the computers and be clear about what is appropriate. Locking them up will only, in the end, produce exactly what these district's saw -- students who do everything possible to break the security.
Oh, and the parent who said, "and I don't know that it has cost the taxpayers any money" is delusional. Everything I do in my job costs the taxpayers money, so if I have to spent dozens or hundreds of hours tracking down the source of a security breach instead of working with students on a multimedia project or with teachers on instructional applications, then it costs money.
I'm sure that many people will have great ideas for how the money should be used. The problem that I see is in sustainability. We can easily dole out the $126,000, but what happens when that money is gone? A solution has to be presented that is essentially an expenditure of one-time funds. Without knowing the rate that money is coming into the fund, there is no way to predict future fund availability.
I see this all the time in my industry -- people want to spend one-time funds on ongoing projects. As soon as that money is spent, people start scrambling for sustainability and complain about inept business practices. If the $126K is spent with this in mind, I am sure it can do wonderful things. If it is spent on a plan that requires future funding, we could have some problems.
I'm all for catching these guys, but I wonder about publicizing the details at this time. Is this supposed to make us feel better about the Patriot Act -- "look here! See how we can bust the bad guys with the 'right' tools!" -- or are we just supposed to be happy that something was done about this gang of thieves?
I don't expect everything to be about freedom and democracy, but it is too easy anymore to question why authorities give us this information, rather than look at the information for information sake...if that makes any sense.
Not to rain on anyone's parade, but this isn't actually a "Teen Beat" photo: http://www.snopes.com/photos/people/gates.asp. Not that it matters, it actually seems worse knowing that this was a publicity shot.
At a hotel that charged for Internet access, someone had an access point with the SSID, "LeaveBeeror5dollarsatRoom505". Nice, cheap, easy Internet access without the $15 charge the hotel wanted.
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The biggest issue, though, is this complaint that is levied about the language and the made-up words. If you have completed the book, please finish it before slamming the words themselves. You cannot understand the reason that he uses these words until you understand the larger message of the book. I felt for a long time that it added little, and while I got used to the words I wished that they weren't there. Then I read the last 20% of the book, and I got it. It made sense. You could still disagree with the approach, but at least you would be able to do so intelligently. The previous poster who wrote that he was halfway through the book and annoyed at the made-up words should finish the book first. If he is still annoyed, then fine. I wasn't at that point.
It isn't a perfect book. Many people will find many faults. Personally, I felt that the last hundred pages felt rushed. I wanted more out of them. And I felt that the book changed from an intellectual discourse into a plot-driven made-for-the-big-screen story. But I still enjoyed it.
And for the award for biggest geek family move of the year, I actually read the entire book out loud to my wife. She wanted to share the book with me, and she loved it more than I did. Go figure.
I think that short trips can be useful, given the expectation of them. For me, it wasn't good enough to travel around Northern California. I would have felt that this trip was too limiting. Although some people thought that the trip to Ecuador might prove to be more traveling than was worth it for such a short period of time (2 days flying, 3 days in the country), my expectation that the trip would only be that long helped me to moderate my needs. I didn't care that when I got back I had hundreds (or was it thousands? I don't remember) of email messages. I just cared that the world around me was devoid of communication, just for a little bit.
As the IT Director in a high school district, I am always happy to hear about students who want to help keep systems up and running. Often there are union issues to work around (not always as excited about internships as you'd like to think), but there are creative solutions to this that can have you doing anything from PC repair to teacher application support to (probably limited) network support. It's a great way to do something meaningful for your school and to get some experience in a location that probably really needs your help.
For those of you that want to test this out without installing it, consider a portable version of Firefox 2 Beta 2.
Both the article and the summary seem to imply that she came up with the "digital immigrant" and "digital native" labels. While others may have posited the idea prior, it seems that Marc Prensky has been discussing this (warning - PDF) since at least 2001. It is within the larger issue of how we reach these natives to educate them. It is a concept easily used elsewhere because the relevancy and the approach it suggests are easily seen. I find it somewhat amusing, however, when others simply use it as an observational tool, using it more as a justification for their approach than a truly meaningful response to a larger issue. I wasn't there for the keynote address, so I can't accuse Anne of this, specifically. But it does seem like a psuedo-intellectual argument designed to impress the crowd while giving only surface-level answers to the issue.
I work as a Director of Technology and I find it interesting that my Apple reps have been courting me so much these last few months. So much that they have not only given me a free pass to WWDC, but have invited me to sit in the VIP section at Jobs' keynote and to attend a special reception for IT professionals Monday evening.
Now, it may be that Apple always does this sort of thing to convince people like me to buy Macs. And we surely know that the Mac Pro will debut (as well as 10.5). But the full court press that I am getting suggests that this year's WWDC is as much about people like me as it is developers. Does this indicate anything about the content of Jobs' keynote? Probably not. But the treatment that I am receiving when I have almost nothing to do with development suggests that they are trying to garner as much interest as possible, and as much buy-in as possible.
Good for Circuit City for taking this route. It may be driven by the need to compete with bigger competitors (aka Best Buy), but it is exactly this kind of thing that is needed to bring attention to the larger issues. Now when Circuit City is sued, it will be national news, and the discussion regarding fair use will be held at a much more visible level. It may take years, but I'm optimistic that something like this is needed to get Joe Average interested.
I have to agree with you here. My original plan was to purchase the 360 and a PS3. I had some sense that I would eventually own all three, as I do with the current generation consoles, but I wasn't ready to make that committment. Now, however, I will be one of the first in line for the Wii, and will wait quite a while before making the plunge into the PS3. It will be interesting to see how this shakes out. I have enough disposable income to purchase all of these, but have been so turned off by Sony's approach that I am going to delay on the purchase. After the initial rush, will this be the norm? How will this vary by country?
Since this migration probably happened hundreds of thousands of years ago (or, perhaps, millions), it's highly unlikely that life is imitating art here. Unless, of course, Aesop wrote his Fables long before written language was formed.
Spielberg collaborated with LucasArts on "The Dig", back 10 years ago. It is interesting that with LucasArts still a meaningful player in the videogame space, Spielberg decided to partner with EA (aren't they working together on Indy 4?)
I really need to get new glasses.
They described how they act as an intermediate body for all law enforcement agencies involved in computer crime. From forensic analysis to crime-scene procedure, they were designed to both advise and participate. I can't speak to any specific crimes that they had been involved in, but it seemed like the idea, if handled properly, was a good one.
When I visited in 2003, they were just ramping up. They had already been assisting local law enforcement, but seemed to still be moving in. Most of the "tech" was in place, including massive file servers and clean rooms, but the individual offices looked sparse, with boxes still unpacked. I was half expecting it to look like something out of the movies - darkened, secretive, maybe in a cave somewhere - but it was just on the 13th floor of a standard downtown office building with all the harsh amenities of a 30-year old downtown high rise.
I would certainly hope that what they spared in decoration was made up by the effectiveness at solving these crimes.
I just dealt with some students who abused positions of trust (as tech aides) to install keylogging software on multiple computers. We came down hard on the student who initiated this because he used the information he gathered to access email and grades of the teachers whose passwords he caught. I never considered recommending this to the police, though, because I knew that we could suggest expulsion (which we ended up on a compromise with the student and his parents on) and scare the student into not doing this again. Or, at least, we now know who he is and we can ensure that he won't do the same thing.
The primary downside is that high school computer experiences shouldn't have to be as controlled and locked down as they are in most places. While we absolutely need security surrounding our student information system, grades, attendance and teacher files, I don't like locking down computers and trying to force certain behaviors. Let these kids work normally on the computers and be clear about what is appropriate. Locking them up will only, in the end, produce exactly what these district's saw -- students who do everything possible to break the security.
Oh, and the parent who said, "and I don't know that it has cost the taxpayers any money" is delusional. Everything I do in my job costs the taxpayers money, so if I have to spent dozens or hundreds of hours tracking down the source of a security breach instead of working with students on a multimedia project or with teachers on instructional applications, then it costs money.
I see this all the time in my industry -- people want to spend one-time funds on ongoing projects. As soon as that money is spent, people start scrambling for sustainability and complain about inept business practices. If the $126K is spent with this in mind, I am sure it can do wonderful things. If it is spent on a plan that requires future funding, we could have some problems.
Clearly I was wrong when I reckoned that the word "reckon" was most popularly used in the South.
I'm all for catching these guys, but I wonder about publicizing the details at this time. Is this supposed to make us feel better about the Patriot Act -- "look here! See how we can bust the bad guys with the 'right' tools!" -- or are we just supposed to be happy that something was done about this gang of thieves? I don't expect everything to be about freedom and democracy, but it is too easy anymore to question why authorities give us this information, rather than look at the information for information sake...if that makes any sense.
Not to rain on anyone's parade, but this isn't actually a "Teen Beat" photo: http://www.snopes.com/photos/people/gates.asp. Not that it matters, it actually seems worse knowing that this was a publicity shot.
At a hotel that charged for Internet access, someone had an access point with the SSID, "LeaveBeeror5dollarsatRoom505". Nice, cheap, easy Internet access without the $15 charge the hotel wanted.