I always find the high percentages gained at American universities quite a contrast to ours (the UK).
When marking undergrad work, I mostly award in the 50%-65% range. A 65 is a good piece of work, answering the question well with evidence of individual research. For the really good ones (maybe 5% of the papers max) I go up to 75%.
I once tried to award an 85% but the moderators decreased it.
Taking the average of all your marks in your degree, 70% is sufficient for First Class Honours.
Statically linking libraries means I know that the vast majority of Mac apps will work without me needing to install anything else. (If an app needs support files, it is official best practice to bundle the files inside the app and have it install them on first run.)
Eye tracking's pretty cheap these days. We let undergraduates play with it in my department. All you need is an infared light source (LEDs), an infared camera, and some clever software.
I maintain that the thinking in terms of application is not a bad thing. In the Linux community, it often seems to be really hard to justify not using on particular program in a category... "but they do the same thing and your favourite isn't in our repository, so use this instead". Woe betide you if you prefer an app on another platform. Taking the obvious Photoshop/GIMP example, and many (although not all) Linux advocates can't see that GIMP is not an acceptable substitute.
It's a symptom of a bigger issue, where the feature list of an app is valued above how those features are implemented (i.e. the usability). Whatever you think about the Delicious Generation trend on the Mac, the developer community here spends enough time thinking of usability. But getting usability right often means removing options and configurability, and limiting the feature set. This all goes against a lot of the Linux philosophy.
Essentially, if you discourage people thinking of a particular program, and suggest they specify desired functionality instead, it removes the ability for one program to be better than another. Since usability is not quantifiable like feature set is, it means that the user experience tends towards zero, as app developers move towards the only metric left for their app to be judged on: "Does it do feature X?".
It might have originally had some cryptic maths there, which was later split out into a (sensibly named) function, and they forgot to remove the comment...
Ideas aren't worth very much.
You get loads of postings on programmer's forums saying "I have this great idea, and if someone codes it for me we can share the revenue 50/50". They miss the point that having an idea is the easy part, and the design, implementation and coding of it is worth much much more.
I can't remember who said it, but I read a quote once about an idea being worth a couple of pints down the pub. That sounds about right. If Google wanted to reimburse these ideas generously, they could give out a cheque for $100. I don't think any more can be expected.
Not that I'm defending iTunes overall (I think it's bloated and they should separate things like video and phone syncing into separate apps), but you can add lyrics.
Fewer options are usually better than more options. Compare:
http://amorya.uwcs.co.uk/prefs.png
In NeoOffice, there are so many preferences that the dialog box is daunting. It's hard to wade through because they made everything an option. Why should the user be allowed to choose whether to have icons in the menus? Do a bit of usability testing and find which one makes users more productive on average, and stick to that. The window from Pages is much more approachable.
For something to make it into the preferences, a key criterion is "Does this feature make some users much more productive and others much less productive?". If it makes some users more productive but others stay the same, just turn it on permanently. Users don't know what is best for them, so such a decision should be made through UI testing.
The feature mentioned somewhere above, allow manual resize and auto-resize when there is more text than the manually specified size, is much better than adding an option. There's no "options hell" in the preferences window, yet the interface can still be manipulated to suit a user's taste.
Amorya
Well, it may be a troll, but there's always the anecdote about the Apple logo... it was a rainbow striped apple with a bite out of it, in homage to Turing, who killed himself with a poisoned apple because people did not accept his homosexuality. So there may indeed be a link:)
In the UK, debit cards (aka ATM cards) have chip and pin too. I have a VISA card which is not a credit card - I can only spend money that is in my account. I use it in shops all the time, and only have to enter a PIN.
So, unless they start putting DRM implants into our heads (which would access the "encoded" signal from the optical nerve, decode it, and feed it to the brain), we're safe.
The 350's built in decoder is bloody brilliant. The quality of that is much better than the tuner of my regular TV - so much so that I always watch through the mythbox now unless it's recording something else. Seriously - when watching TV directly, there is some interference and grain - always has been. First time we booted the mythbox it was like a miracle - this is how TV is meant to look!
The 350 is easy enough to get working if you're just using the TV input - it's no harder than the 250 for that. It's the TV output that's harder. However, with knoppmyth and this script it's now pretty much automatic. I've done both ways - the manual setup was a pain in the ass but with the script I installed a box within an hour.
In the UK, if a product in store is labelled as costing a certain price, then they must accept that price for the product - even if it was a typo. It can get you some quite good bargains at times. I don't know if it counts in things like magazine ads... however, I do know that a friend once got hold of an ad offering 50% off a USB flash drive, and took it into the store... the ad was for a January sale which wasn't due to start until the next day; the advert was just out a few days early. She got the drive for free because that was false advertising... and that was just a communication error between the magazine and the sho!
It wasn't a brand name thing - the beeb commissioned the computer to go with their computer literacy project. They wanted one brand so that they could teach people stuff without having to say "On platform X, change the CLS command to PRINT CHR$(147)" etc.
Having per-site javascript controls would be a good idea, but advertisers would probably find a way of randomising the IP addresses/domain names.
OmniWeb has that. It's really useful. Per-site prefs on everything too. I set the popup blocker to block all on sitepoint.com, 'cos they manage to sneak one in, but only on unrequested windows for the web at large.
The low tech problems have made migrating to a moving block system like used in TGV networks in France impossible.
France have had it right for a long time, if only we British could swallow our pride and use their system.
Believe me, they tried. They just botched it horribly.
The problem was, Railtrack took a gamble and put millions of pounds on a promised moving block system that had never before been implemented. They were a newly privatised company and under pressure to make money, so they looked to moving block to save costs, instead of to increase facilities. As problems arose and the costs skyrocketed, they hid crucial details from the government.
Wrong. It may well be a trojan, but if something steals bank passwords it is spyware. Spyware by definition is programs, whether they also have a legit function or not, that spy on you in some way. In this case, that way is by stealing passwords.
When I reached college things were drastically different although attendance was even more of an issue than it was previously. I absolutely HAD to provide a valid reason for missing a class. I would say I had even less freedom compared to high school with the exception that it would have been harder to locate me on campus. What? You mean I can only miss 3 college classes even with a valid excuse from a doctor? I had a far longer leash in K-12 in that regard.
What?
No penalties for missing lectures/seminars here (Warwick University) - all the assessment your degree is based on still has to be handed in, so if you don't go to lectures (and therefore miss the crucial topics) it's your own stupid fault and you won't get a first class degree. None of this keeping attendance crap:)
College (like highschool to you Americans) did track attendance, but manually (the teachers all had these little boxes that ran on a wireless network and had buttons for Present and Absent - they checked off each student). If you attended less than 85% of courses then your personal tutor was allowed to get shirty with you - but they only did if they needed an excuse to get on the case of someone who wasn't going to do well. Anyone who was expected to get high grades got a fair bit of slack there.
That's how it should be really. It's the exams at the end that matter - turning up every day is just a means to an end.
Slashdot Mirror
I always find the high percentages gained at American universities quite a contrast to ours (the UK).
When marking undergrad work, I mostly award in the 50%-65% range. A 65 is a good piece of work, answering the question well with evidence of individual research. For the really good ones (maybe 5% of the papers max) I go up to 75%.
I once tried to award an 85% but the moderators decreased it.
Taking the average of all your marks in your degree, 70% is sufficient for First Class Honours.
Wow! Someone gets it!
Statically linking libraries means I know that the vast majority of Mac apps will work without me needing to install anything else. (If an app needs support files, it is official best practice to bundle the files inside the app and have it install them on first run.)
I have no such guarantee on Linux.
Mod parent up. An excellent idea!
You can't waive rights guaranteed by law. If the law states that consumers have these rights, then no amount of disclaimers can change that.
I mean where do you put someone's Xena/Sailor Moon homepage anyway?
TelevisionCity?
Eye tracking's pretty cheap these days. We let undergraduates play with it in my department. All you need is an infared light source (LEDs), an infared camera, and some clever software.
I maintain that the thinking in terms of application is not a bad thing. In the Linux community, it often seems to be really hard to justify not using on particular program in a category... "but they do the same thing and your favourite isn't in our repository, so use this instead". Woe betide you if you prefer an app on another platform. Taking the obvious Photoshop/GIMP example, and many (although not all) Linux advocates can't see that GIMP is not an acceptable substitute.
It's a symptom of a bigger issue, where the feature list of an app is valued above how those features are implemented (i.e. the usability). Whatever you think about the Delicious Generation trend on the Mac, the developer community here spends enough time thinking of usability. But getting usability right often means removing options and configurability, and limiting the feature set. This all goes against a lot of the Linux philosophy.
Essentially, if you discourage people thinking of a particular program, and suggest they specify desired functionality instead, it removes the ability for one program to be better than another. Since usability is not quantifiable like feature set is, it means that the user experience tends towards zero, as app developers move towards the only metric left for their app to be judged on: "Does it do feature X?".
It might have originally had some cryptic maths there, which was later split out into a (sensibly named) function, and they forgot to remove the comment...
Ideas aren't worth very much. You get loads of postings on programmer's forums saying "I have this great idea, and if someone codes it for me we can share the revenue 50/50". They miss the point that having an idea is the easy part, and the design, implementation and coding of it is worth much much more. I can't remember who said it, but I read a quote once about an idea being worth a couple of pints down the pub. That sounds about right. If Google wanted to reimburse these ideas generously, they could give out a cheque for $100. I don't think any more can be expected.
Not that I'm defending iTunes overall (I think it's bloated and they should separate things like video and phone syncing into separate apps), but you can add lyrics.
Fewer options are usually better than more options. Compare: http://amorya.uwcs.co.uk/prefs.png In NeoOffice, there are so many preferences that the dialog box is daunting. It's hard to wade through because they made everything an option. Why should the user be allowed to choose whether to have icons in the menus? Do a bit of usability testing and find which one makes users more productive on average, and stick to that. The window from Pages is much more approachable. For something to make it into the preferences, a key criterion is "Does this feature make some users much more productive and others much less productive?". If it makes some users more productive but others stay the same, just turn it on permanently. Users don't know what is best for them, so such a decision should be made through UI testing. The feature mentioned somewhere above, allow manual resize and auto-resize when there is more text than the manually specified size, is much better than adding an option. There's no "options hell" in the preferences window, yet the interface can still be manipulated to suit a user's taste. Amorya
Use the forks...
Well, it may be a troll, but there's always the anecdote about the Apple logo... it was a rainbow striped apple with a bite out of it, in homage to Turing, who killed himself with a poisoned apple because people did not accept his homosexuality. So there may indeed be a link :)
In the UK, debit cards (aka ATM cards) have chip and pin too. I have a VISA card which is not a credit card - I can only spend money that is in my account. I use it in shops all the time, and only have to enter a PIN.
Amorya
So, unless they start putting DRM implants into our heads (which would access the "encoded" signal from the optical nerve, decode it, and feed it to the brain), we're safe.
Shhhhhhh! You'll give them ideas!
Any web browser can place the selection menu in their prefs. OmniWeb does.
Re Quicktime, you can delete the player app just fine. You can't delete the underlying technology, because so much of the OS depends on it.
The 350's built in decoder is bloody brilliant. The quality of that is much better than the tuner of my regular TV - so much so that I always watch through the mythbox now unless it's recording something else. Seriously - when watching TV directly, there is some interference and grain - always has been. First time we booted the mythbox it was like a miracle - this is how TV is meant to look!
The 350 is easy enough to get working if you're just using the TV input - it's no harder than the 250 for that. It's the TV output that's harder. However, with knoppmyth and this script it's now pretty much automatic. I've done both ways - the manual setup was a pain in the ass but with the script I installed a box within an hour.
In the UK, if a product in store is labelled as costing a certain price, then they must accept that price for the product - even if it was a typo. It can get you some quite good bargains at times. I don't know if it counts in things like magazine ads... however, I do know that a friend once got hold of an ad offering 50% off a USB flash drive, and took it into the store... the ad was for a January sale which wasn't due to start until the next day; the advert was just out a few days early. She got the drive for free because that was false advertising... and that was just a communication error between the magazine and the sho!
It wasn't a brand name thing - the beeb commissioned the computer to go with their computer literacy project. They wanted one brand so that they could teach people stuff without having to say "On platform X, change the CLS command to PRINT CHR$(147)" etc.
Having per-site javascript controls would be a good idea, but advertisers would probably find a way of randomising the IP addresses/domain names.
OmniWeb has that. It's really useful. Per-site prefs on everything too. I set the popup blocker to block all on sitepoint.com, 'cos they manage to sneak one in, but only on unrequested windows for the web at large.
The low tech problems have made migrating to a moving block system like used in TGV networks in France impossible.
France have had it right for a long time, if only we British could swallow our pride and use their system.
Believe me, they tried. They just botched it horribly.
The problem was, Railtrack took a gamble and put millions of pounds on a promised moving block system that had never before been implemented. They were a newly privatised company and under pressure to make money, so they looked to moving block to save costs, instead of to increase facilities. As problems arose and the costs skyrocketed, they hid crucial details from the government.
Wrong. It may well be a trojan, but if something steals bank passwords it is spyware. Spyware by definition is programs, whether they also have a legit function or not, that spy on you in some way. In this case, that way is by stealing passwords.
When I reached college things were drastically different although attendance was even more of an issue than it was previously. I absolutely HAD to provide a valid reason for missing a class. I would say I had even less freedom compared to high school with the exception that it would have been harder to locate me on campus. What? You mean I can only miss 3 college classes even with a valid excuse from a doctor? I had a far longer leash in K-12 in that regard.
:)
What?
No penalties for missing lectures/seminars here (Warwick University) - all the assessment your degree is based on still has to be handed in, so if you don't go to lectures (and therefore miss the crucial topics) it's your own stupid fault and you won't get a first class degree. None of this keeping attendance crap
College (like highschool to you Americans) did track attendance, but manually (the teachers all had these little boxes that ran on a wireless network and had buttons for Present and Absent - they checked off each student). If you attended less than 85% of courses then your personal tutor was allowed to get shirty with you - but they only did if they needed an excuse to get on the case of someone who wasn't going to do well. Anyone who was expected to get high grades got a fair bit of slack there.
That's how it should be really. It's the exams at the end that matter - turning up every day is just a means to an end.
Terragen is free...