If he could find them, he could probably get used typewriters free.
Yes, because in poor countries without computers or even regular electricity, where people have nothing to learn typing on, obviously a used typewriter is going to be completely valueless.
Try thinking outside your own little world, it can be an interesting exercise..
I learned typing with a mechanical typewriter. You have to have a physical feedback from the type writer to develop the necessary muscle memory.
No, I learned from the picture of a keyboard method. When I was young, typewriters were relatively expensive, and most people didn't have them. I am not trying to do a Four Yorkshiremen [*] on you, this was in the UK in the 1970s, my parents did eventually get me a typewriter but all through school all our work was handwritten, so it was something of a luxury unless you had pretensions to see your work in print. Ahem.
{*] A picture of a typewriter keyboard? Luxury. We had to imagine the picture in our heads while we were blindfolded, and if we made a single imaginary mistake, our father would thrash us to death with his belt. Etc.
Why paper? Why not just use disconnected keyboards? They're dirt cheap new, and practically free used
We're talking about teaching in a poor country, where it is unlikely people chuck out things like keyboards until they physically disintegrate, and your idea of "dirt cheap" might be a month's worth of food to them.
You are not using your imagination. Not everyone lives in (relatively) prosperous cities, where people can afford to throw away things like last year's clothes, slightly tatty bicycles or three year old computers that won't run the latest games.
Funny story. Worked with a brilliant engineer years ago. He was born a decade and a day after I was. I had to use pencil and paper for the SAT - you learned to do simple math very accurately and very quickly "In your head". He was of the age that you got to take in an approved calculator into the SAT test. They no longer required to do Math "In your head". When we played darts - he couldn't add up the scores because he never had to.
Considering that thousands of drunk, barely numerate people of all ages in Britain do this every night, I have to say he couldn't have been that brilliant an engineer.
My mother, now aged 85, learned to type using a printed picture of a keyboard, and exercises very similar to "Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing". Its true there is no record of what keys you actually press, etc, but she could type a lot faster than I ever could, and is using an IPad as I type this.
My point is: stop being obsessed with technology: anyone in the third world can have a photocopy of a picture of a keyboad, and probably has the motivation to try and learn with it. Once a week, use a real machine to test their progress if you have to. (Yes I have visited third world countries).
You'd be better off taking a tip from Steve Jobs - don't support any of them!
Why not just donate to an action group of libertarian billionaires calling for a ban on evil government interference in the free parking market, i.e. disabled parking spaces.
If you are going to defend copyright infringement/piracy, it is much more convincing if you don't then say "but as soon as I have a nice cosy subscription model to use, I will start to pay it and condemn copyright infringement/piracy".
People who have a philosophical objection to the whole idea of copyright have a tenable position: those who merely find it easier not to pay, not really.
I personally don't believe that, living in a capitalist society as we do, you should expect all musicians, artists, film-makers or whoever to work as amateurs and give their work away for free with occasional extra income from selling merchandise (or whatever). And I think that most people who don't pay for their entertainment would be puzzled if they were asked to do their work job for nothing. But that is all an argument for some form of anarcho-communism which is irrelevant to what is actually happening now.
I would also assume some of the public torrent traffic would be from legal torrents like Linux distribution downloads
I know it's probably impossible, but it would be nice to see at least an attempt at quantifying statements like this. I mean, is "some" 10% or 0.0065%?
But even those of us who have had problems with Irish terrorism are able to separate the terrorists (and their supporters) with the rest of the population.
That won't get much recognition here on slashdot, where the "most terrorists are Muslims, therefore most Muslims are terrorists" argument seems fairly well entrenched.
Not to mention, when those theories have significant political consequences. The "out of Africa" theory was very convenient for people who deny racial differences.
The reason that people deny racial differences is that they are overwhelmingly trivial, if not non-existent, and add nothing to human understanding. Stereotyping people because of their skin colour or cultural/religious background only appeals to people who want to be able to shit on those people in some way.
This has nothing to do with "creationists", and the story isn't for them. You just took the opportunity to bash a bunch of people who did nothing to you because that's what you guys do whenever you get the chance.
People who have absurd and dangerous ideas should be called out on them as frequently and loudly as possible.
If you let terrorists, racists, fascists, fundamentalists and so on go on believing in their bollocks without being questioned, you are failing in your duty as a civlised human being.
The main people who object to the out of Africa idea are (1) blatant racists and (2) Biblical or other religious literalists. For everyone else, it's just another scientific theory that appears to be broadly correct, and if not would be amenable to being disproved by scientific tests.
Look, if the vast majority of scientists believe that a particular theory is the best explanation of something, and it has been tested and not found wanting, then if you want to present an alternative it doesn't mean that you are banned from doing so, it just means you had better have some pretty good evidence.
Also, the people who want to prove that there are different species of human being generally do so on the basis that (a) their species is the best one and (b) all other species are morally, intellectually or in some other way fundamentally inferior.
Slashdot Mirror
I still have the crappy old Royal manual I learned typing on stashed away in storage somewhere...
Yes, but I'd say it's approximately 99.99% certain that you don't live in a fucking village in Bangladesh with no regular electricity supply either.
There are an awful lot of "let them eat cake" type answers in this thread.
Mechanical typewriters. Paper. I bet there's a bunch of them already in India. You'll just have to look around.
1. It's in Bangladesh
2. The FQ stated that manual typewriters were very difficult to get hold of.
3. You fail.
If he could find them, he could probably get used typewriters free.
Yes, because in poor countries without computers or even regular electricity, where people have nothing to learn typing on, obviously a used typewriter is going to be completely valueless.
Try thinking outside your own little world, it can be an interesting exercise..
I learned typing with a mechanical typewriter. You have to have a physical feedback from the type writer to develop the necessary muscle memory.
No, I learned from the picture of a keyboard method. When I was young, typewriters were relatively expensive, and most people didn't have them. I am not trying to do a Four Yorkshiremen [*] on you, this was in the UK in the 1970s, my parents did eventually get me a typewriter but all through school all our work was handwritten, so it was something of a luxury unless you had pretensions to see your work in print. Ahem.
{*] A picture of a typewriter keyboard? Luxury. We had to imagine the picture in our heads while we were blindfolded, and if we made a single imaginary mistake, our father would thrash us to death with his belt. Etc.
Why paper? Why not just use disconnected keyboards? They're dirt cheap new, and practically free used
We're talking about teaching in a poor country, where it is unlikely people chuck out things like keyboards until they physically disintegrate, and your idea of "dirt cheap" might be a month's worth of food to them.
You are not using your imagination. Not everyone lives in (relatively) prosperous cities, where people can afford to throw away things like last year's clothes, slightly tatty bicycles or three year old computers that won't run the latest games.
Funny story. Worked with a brilliant engineer years ago. He was born a decade and a day after I was. I had to use pencil and paper for the SAT - you learned to do simple math very accurately and very quickly "In your head". He was of the age that you got to take in an approved calculator into the SAT test. They no longer required to do Math "In your head". When we played darts - he couldn't add up the scores because he never had to.
Considering that thousands of drunk, barely numerate people of all ages in Britain do this every night, I have to say he couldn't have been that brilliant an engineer.
My mother, now aged 85, learned to type using a printed picture of a keyboard, and exercises very similar to "Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing". Its true there is no record of what keys you actually press, etc, but she could type a lot faster than I ever could, and is using an IPad as I type this.
My point is: stop being obsessed with technology: anyone in the third world can have a photocopy of a picture of a keyboad, and probably has the motivation to try and learn with it. Once a week, use a real machine to test their progress if you have to. (Yes I have visited third world countries).
End of thread, I'd have thought.
Don't MIT have enough money already?
I thought US colleges did pretty well out of alumni?
You walk away with some good games to boot.
Hey what do you know? A new one just started!
Yes, what the world needs more than anything is for people to finance computer hobbyists making games that wouldn't sell otherwise.
It's lucky we've found a cure for cancer, solved world poverty and disease so on.
You'd be better off taking a tip from Steve Jobs - don't support any of them!
Why not just donate to an action group of libertarian billionaires calling for a ban on evil government interference in the free parking market, i.e. disabled parking spaces.
If you are going to defend copyright infringement/piracy, it is much more convincing if you don't then say "but as soon as I have a nice cosy subscription model to use, I will start to pay it and condemn copyright infringement/piracy".
People who have a philosophical objection to the whole idea of copyright have a tenable position: those who merely find it easier not to pay, not really.
I personally don't believe that, living in a capitalist society as we do, you should expect all musicians, artists, film-makers or whoever to work as amateurs and give their work away for free with occasional extra income from selling merchandise (or whatever). And I think that most people who don't pay for their entertainment would be puzzled if they were asked to do their work job for nothing. But that is all an argument for some form of anarcho-communism which is irrelevant to what is actually happening now.
I would also assume some of the public torrent traffic would be from legal torrents like Linux distribution downloads
I know it's probably impossible, but it would be nice to see at least an attempt at quantifying statements like this. I mean, is "some" 10% or 0.0065%?
But even those of us who have had problems with Irish terrorism are able to separate the terrorists (and their supporters) with the rest of the population.
That won't get much recognition here on slashdot, where the "most terrorists are Muslims, therefore most Muslims are terrorists" argument seems fairly well entrenched.
There used to be intelligent life in Britain, but I moved to Australia 25 years ago. ;-)
Mate, I thought they stopped transportation longer ago than that. Tough on you.
Rubbish. Have you ever spoken to any Irish girls ? They're absolutely lovely. And the fellas make great drinking companions too :)
Irish girls are the filthiest in the world, and I don't mean they dislike taking a shower. If you know what I mean.
Shock horror, the real world is messy and hard to define in black and white terms.
Not everything can be expressed as 1 or 0.
Not to mention, when those theories have significant political consequences. The "out of Africa" theory was very convenient for people who deny racial differences.
The reason that people deny racial differences is that they are overwhelmingly trivial, if not non-existent, and add nothing to human understanding. Stereotyping people because of their skin colour or cultural/religious background only appeals to people who want to be able to shit on those people in some way.
Sure, all humans are the same species. That doesn't mean we're all the same race.
Well the dickhead GP shouldn't have used the word "species" then should he?
I bash the flat-earthers when I get half a chance, too. Some people deserve a little healthy ridicule.
The difference is that flat-earthers are just wrong. They are not dangerous.
This has nothing to do with "creationists", and the story isn't for them. You just took the opportunity to bash a bunch of people who did nothing to you because that's what you guys do whenever you get the chance.
People who have absurd and dangerous ideas should be called out on them as frequently and loudly as possible.
If you let terrorists, racists, fascists, fundamentalists and so on go on believing in their bollocks without being questioned, you are failing in your duty as a civlised human being.
The main people who object to the out of Africa idea are (1) blatant racists and (2) Biblical or other religious literalists. For everyone else, it's just another scientific theory that appears to be broadly correct, and if not would be amenable to being disproved by scientific tests.
Yeah, because Heaven's Gate generally gets numbered amonst the top two or three religions in the world.
Are you deliberately trying to wind everyone up?
Look, if the vast majority of scientists believe that a particular theory is the best explanation of something, and it has been tested and not found wanting, then if you want to present an alternative it doesn't mean that you are banned from doing so, it just means you had better have some pretty good evidence.
Also, the people who want to prove that there are different species of human being generally do so on the basis that (a) their species is the best one and (b) all other species are morally, intellectually or in some other way fundamentally inferior.
And as every reader of this thread now knows, just being a suspected racist is a capital crime.
Why so touchy?
The fact that you can communicate in whole sentences with other people means you're probably not a racist, as they are all extremely stupid people.
However, it is always wise to remember that if you ask the sort of questions that genuine racists ask, you are in danger of confusing people.
Don't fucking encourage the idiot.