I think what we're seeing from this research is a slightly different take on the "Book Smarts" versus "Street Smarts" outlook.
In order be successful in the real world, you need to have both. However, schools are constantly criticized (myself included in this mix) for giving only textbook solutions to issues and never giving the student the opportunity to *apply* all the information they have supposedly gained in 16+ years of education in a problem solving arena. It's as if the school system says "Ok, you have all this knowledge, surely you can go and apply it yourself now! Have fun!" In many situations today, it just doesn't work.
While I certainly don't think games are the uber replacement for books, I would like to see a university take the approach of having 6 or 7 semesters of book work/study and allow the last year or so to be simulation of real world events with the knowledge they gained their first years of college.
Considering how most employers I have dealt with won't even give you a shot out of college without some form of real-life application under your belt, I don't see how the above scenario could hurt all that much. =]
You really should give Ubuntu a shot. Yes, it is based on Debian (which you already have) and yet it isn't 100% perfect, but it is a great Linux distro. =]
The way that Firefox and Thunderbird store files allows every user to see them and to probably catch the other user's surfing habits (Firefox and Thunderbird)
Can't the same be said of IE or any program that stores information in %SYSTEMROOM%\Documents and Settings\%USERNAME% ? I mean, it's possible for me to see anyone's "habits" that way, right?
Re:Its true.... I've experienced it.
on
Life Interrupted
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· Score: 1
Lately, I have experienced this effect myself as well.
During the day, I routinely become exhausted (at least mentally) around 3:00pm. Up until that point, I am constantly switching between tasks. Usually this involves fixing bugs. I am always switching back and forth between various modules, not completing one bugfix before starting another.
However, as soon as I get home, the field changes. I am almost always refreshed and typically rather energetic, even though I have just as much work (taking care of newborn twins, school work, general housework stuff). The difference being that at home, I'm almost always focused on one thing at a time. Even when taking care of the twins, my wife usually has one while I have the other.
Yeah, it isn't anything scientific, but it is interesting to see my real life parallel TFA. =]
The US federal government has proposed creating a national database to track people?? STOP THE PRESSES!!
I mean, really... do we NEED to track every little thing someone does? How about a national database for tracking when everyone uses the restroom. We could put little sensors on all toilets to track how often they're flushed!
Perhaps I'm just not seeing the logic... but how is adding a $1,000 per ounce tax to tobacco equivalent to cutting federal funding for stem cell research? We aren't taxing scientists for stem cell research...
I agree with the parent. He didn't outlaw it, practically or otherwise. There are many research opportunities not funded by the federal government that are successful. Cutting funding may slow down research, but it isn't outlawing it or killing it off.
either you're spending all of your time just looking online (which is doomed for failure)
Perhaps that's just your neck of the woods? I found a tech job using careerbuilder in about 7 weeks. The pay and benefits are great and so are the co-workers. =]
As much a I don't want to don the tinfoil hat, I have to agree with you on this one. Google is starting to get its fingers into so many things, not unlike MSFT. Your post seems to point out the one startling difference... geeks don't despise Google. At least... not to my knowledge.
Is it possible that Google is the "Good Guy" and trying to undermine all the "Bad Stuff" that MSFT does? Or is this just a clever ploy to get all the/.ers excited about Google only to find out they've been pulling the wool over our eyes the whole time?
I'm with you on this one. I haven't bought a new CD in probably 2-3 years. Now that I have broadband access, I would much rather listen to various radio stations and whotnot via the web (where I can cycle around to hear what I want to hear) than pay money for a CD where I *might* like 1/4 of the songs.
In the case of simplicity, Mono versus.Net isn't really the comparison point. The point of comparison is VS.Net versus MonoDevelop.
While MonoDevelop is definitely making good progress, there are multiple aspects of VS.Net (nice integrated designer, integrated debugging, etc.) that really enhance the development process. Until those are implemented in MonoDevelopment, MS.Net + VS.Net will be the simpler route.
On the one hand, it is obvious how much more efficient this would make our day-to-day tasks. Being able to "jot" notes with speech instead of writing, schedule tasks in seconds, the list goes on and on...
This is certainly beneficial... but think about the impact on the economy! Imagine all the "Administrative Professionals" who could, almost instantly, be out of work. I for one would rather pay even $5,000 for a good piece of software to take all my notes than pay a secretary $28,000/year or so.
Then again, when I posed this situation at my wife's office (she's a paralegal) one of the attorneys responded, "Until they come up with software that can find my lost keys and bring me coffee, the secretary's job is secure."
Sounds a LOT more stable than 9.0... to some people at least.
Errm.... I think you mean 0.9.:)
In all seriousness, though, I always have the same problem when trying to convince friends/co-workers to go open source. For example, most of my co-workers wouldn't get within 50 feet of the Mono project until it hit 1.0. Then, as if by magic, they all started picking up and using it. Don't know what's so magical about "1.0+" but it's certainly there.
However, the problem with your post is that it assumes there is a competitor (the slightly better ISP) that is available. Where I'm at, my one and only choice for broadband is SBC DSL. I'm not all that happy with the service only because the reliability is hit or miss. It may stay up for 10-12 days at a time and then suddenly fade in and out for the next week. The speed is great (average of about 4.5Mbps) but I can't host anything because I don't know if it will be up when I need it.
The bottom line is, I have to stick with it. I would love to go to a competitor and try to get SBC to make something happen to keep my business, but there are no competitors. Which I believe is where the article poster was going as well.
I have been to this site several times before. And while I certainly think it is great from the standpoint that the information presented is (as far as I can tell) totally void of bias, the source of the information isn't quite so grand.
While polls certainly give a reasonable idea of how votes would fall, it's well-known that poll numbers can be fairly easily slanted.
All things considered, I enjoy reading it every morning.
I would agree with you in that I avoid ActiveX.... when possible.
However, at work I am forced into using ActiveX because of our company software. I trust my own corporate software to not hack my computer and do other nasty things, so I have no problems using the ActiveX plugin on a limited basis here. Aside from that, I leave ActiveX alone.
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I think what we're seeing from this research is a slightly different take on the "Book Smarts" versus "Street Smarts" outlook.
In order be successful in the real world, you need to have both. However, schools are constantly criticized (myself included in this mix) for giving only textbook solutions to issues and never giving the student the opportunity to *apply* all the information they have supposedly gained in 16+ years of education in a problem solving arena. It's as if the school system says "Ok, you have all this knowledge, surely you can go and apply it yourself now! Have fun!" In many situations today, it just doesn't work.
While I certainly don't think games are the uber replacement for books, I would like to see a university take the approach of having 6 or 7 semesters of book work/study and allow the last year or so to be simulation of real world events with the knowledge they gained their first years of college.
Considering how most employers I have dealt with won't even give you a shot out of college without some form of real-life application under your belt, I don't see how the above scenario could hurt all that much. =]
You mean like this one? :)
You really should give Ubuntu a shot. Yes, it is based on Debian (which you already have) and yet it isn't 100% perfect, but it is a great Linux distro. =]
The way that Firefox and Thunderbird store files allows every user to see them and to probably catch the other user's surfing habits (Firefox and Thunderbird)
Can't the same be said of IE or any program that stores information in %SYSTEMROOM%\Documents and Settings\%USERNAME% ? I mean, it's possible for me to see anyone's "habits" that way, right?
Lately, I have experienced this effect myself as well.
During the day, I routinely become exhausted (at least mentally) around 3:00pm. Up until that point, I am constantly switching between tasks. Usually this involves fixing bugs. I am always switching back and forth between various modules, not completing one bugfix before starting another.
However, as soon as I get home, the field changes. I am almost always refreshed and typically rather energetic, even though I have just as much work (taking care of newborn twins, school work, general housework stuff). The difference being that at home, I'm almost always focused on one thing at a time. Even when taking care of the twins, my wife usually has one while I have the other.
Yeah, it isn't anything scientific, but it is interesting to see my real life parallel TFA. =]
The US federal government has proposed creating a national database to track people?? STOP THE PRESSES!!
I mean, really... do we NEED to track every little thing someone does? How about a national database for tracking when everyone uses the restroom. We could put little sensors on all toilets to track how often they're flushed!
No, but you can get OCaml in any color as long as it's black. =]
Perhaps I'm just not seeing the logic... but how is adding a $1,000 per ounce tax to tobacco equivalent to cutting federal funding for stem cell research? We aren't taxing scientists for stem cell research...
I agree with the parent. He didn't outlaw it, practically or otherwise. There are many research opportunities not funded by the federal government that are successful. Cutting funding may slow down research, but it isn't outlawing it or killing it off.
either you're spending all of your time just looking online (which is doomed for failure)
Perhaps that's just your neck of the woods? I found a tech job using careerbuilder in about 7 weeks. The pay and benefits are great and so are the co-workers. =]
As much a I don't want to don the tinfoil hat, I have to agree with you on this one. Google is starting to get its fingers into so many things, not unlike MSFT. Your post seems to point out the one startling difference... geeks don't despise Google. At least... not to my knowledge.
Is it possible that Google is the "Good Guy" and trying to undermine all the "Bad Stuff" that MSFT does? Or is this just a clever ploy to get all the /.ers excited about Google only to find out they've been pulling the wool over our eyes the whole time?
I CAN'T HANDLE THE DRAMA!!! :P~~~
At my university, it is either C++ or Java. :)
"...so while you are technically correct, in practice you are almost always wrong." ... in bed... =]
Ob. Office Space:
"If we get caught, we're not going to white-collar resort prison. No, no, no. We're going to federal POUND ME IN THE ASS prison."
I'm with you on this one. I haven't bought a new CD in probably 2-3 years. Now that I have broadband access, I would much rather listen to various radio stations and whotnot via the web (where I can cycle around to hear what I want to hear) than pay money for a CD where I *might* like 1/4 of the songs.
In the case of simplicity, Mono versus .Net isn't really the comparison point. The point of comparison is VS.Net versus MonoDevelop.
While MonoDevelop is definitely making good progress, there are multiple aspects of VS.Net (nice integrated designer, integrated debugging, etc.) that really enhance the development process. Until those are implemented in MonoDevelopment, MS.Net + VS.Net will be the simpler route.
Nah, this doesn't apply to me. The public school systems around here often have better hardware upgrade cycles than I do.
On the one hand, it is obvious how much more efficient this would make our day-to-day tasks. Being able to "jot" notes with speech instead of writing, schedule tasks in seconds, the list goes on and on...
This is certainly beneficial... but think about the impact on the economy! Imagine all the "Administrative Professionals" who could, almost instantly, be out of work. I for one would rather pay even $5,000 for a good piece of software to take all my notes than pay a secretary $28,000/year or so.
Then again, when I posed this situation at my wife's office (she's a paralegal) one of the attorneys responded, "Until they come up with software that can find my lost keys and bring me coffee, the secretary's job is secure."
Sounds a LOT more stable than 9.0 ... to some people at least.
Errm.... I think you mean 0.9. :)
In all seriousness, though, I always have the same problem when trying to convince friends/co-workers to go open source. For example, most of my co-workers wouldn't get within 50 feet of the Mono project until it hit 1.0. Then, as if by magic, they all started picking up and using it. Don't know what's so magical about "1.0+" but it's certainly there.
Congrats, Firefox team!
I believe that would be "package sniffer" if I'm not mistaken. ;)
... a Beowulf cluster (or two, or three, or forty) of posts that are all roughly the same...
I agree with this post 100%.
However, the problem with your post is that it assumes there is a competitor (the slightly better ISP) that is available. Where I'm at, my one and only choice for broadband is SBC DSL. I'm not all that happy with the service only because the reliability is hit or miss. It may stay up for 10-12 days at a time and then suddenly fade in and out for the next week. The speed is great (average of about 4.5Mbps) but I can't host anything because I don't know if it will be up when I need it.
The bottom line is, I have to stick with it. I would love to go to a competitor and try to get SBC to make something happen to keep my business, but there are no competitors. Which I believe is where the article poster was going as well.
Though I was thinking that the majority of /. sex lives could be contained on the now dead floppy disk. =]
I have been to this site several times before. And while I certainly think it is great from the standpoint that the information presented is (as far as I can tell) totally void of bias, the source of the information isn't quite so grand.
While polls certainly give a reasonable idea of how votes would fall, it's well-known that poll numbers can be fairly easily slanted.
All things considered, I enjoy reading it every morning.
... as long as I still have old 486's and Pentiums lying around for gateways and cheap storage, I will gladly use floppy disks as a boot medium. =]
I would agree with you in that I avoid ActiveX.... when possible.
However, at work I am forced into using ActiveX because of our company software. I trust my own corporate software to not hack my computer and do other nasty things, so I have no problems using the ActiveX plugin on a limited basis here. Aside from that, I leave ActiveX alone.