I agree with you 100%. I had a discussion on this very topic last week with some friends. One of them was concerned that Wikipedia will eventually cause Britannia (and the others) to be pushed out of business and when she does need more and better info than Wikipedia can provide there will be no other sources. An interesting thought.
What if research libraries no longer have for-profit encyclopedias?
After some though we realised that encyclopedias are not really primary references anyway. Wikipedia is good enough (even with jackasses vandalising pages) to get you to the proper primary references to continue research and as such serves its function weel. It is certainly good enough to settle day-to-day curioisity and is an excellen primer for more detailed research.
Send a donation to Wikipedia, they deserve a little love.
As a counter-point to your rant, I would like to state that my experience with Apple has been wonderful. The customer service is always top-notch. In fact the only complaint I could have had was the automated voice system that greets you when you first call. But those or universal nowadays.
As for shipping costs: Depending on where you live, there are retail outlets. If you happen to live outside of a major centre, that is your issue, not theirs.
I agree that more detail would have been preferable. However, I expect the producers have to contend with trying to make this show appeal to a broader viewership than the typical/. geeks like you or I.
Does anyone have any links that contain more gory details about the Stanford effort?
What struck me about that comment regarding Jessica Lynch is that she was resupplying the frontline. That means she was driving an armoured truck to where guys (and girls) are actively engaged in firefights but her exposure to danger was the concern. Of course, anyway that we can have fewer people in harm's way in a positive but I found it unsettling that the battle line soldiers were mentioned as a throw-away in order to frame their argument.
Sidenote: One hour of Nova or Frontline is like watching 5 days worth of "learning" and "discovery" shows elsewhere. It's amazing how good some of these shows are.
PBS broadcast that show last night. While I realise that is is a little 2001 to actually watch a program when it is braodcast, I did. And I really enjoyed it. I am hardly current on the status of autonomous robotics and I was pleasantly surprised by how far along the technology is. 130 miles through the dessert using only GPS and local sensors is a pretty amazing feat, and that course was tough. It features mountain switchbacks, tunnels and other hazards. If you even have a passing interest in robotics I recommend watching the show.
You are thinking home users, business users don't upgrade their whole infrastructure.
I quote myself: "This is only true in business settings. Old apps are debugged and training is complete so no new expense is incurred. The home version of Vista could very easily be sleek and trimmed down, but it won't be."
This absolute requirement for all legacy support is insane. The back to school and xmas seasons that are being missed are not corporate buying seasons. The Home version of Vista could have dropped a hell of a lot of the legacy requirements and shipped in time to catch these buying seasons. But MS has lost focus and as a result will make Vista Home able to run scanners from 1996 even though almost nobody will actually have a need for it to be able to do that.
I just did a quick puruse of my local newspaper and the adds for new computers (suitable for running Vista) all list new flat screen monitors and scanner/printers in the list price. Component by component upgrades are not commonplace (well, maybe by te readership of this site). Most Vista users are going to get a whole new system, not a small upgrade.
What is up with this notion of legacy support. Vista is so big and resource hungry that it requires a top of the line machine, so why is legacy hardware support such a discussion point?
The issue is legacy software support. Vista needs to be able to run old apps, not support old modems. This is only true in business settings. Old apps are debugged and training is complete so no new expense is incurred. The home version of Vista could very easily be sleek and trimmed down, but it won't be.
Why is this called Artificial Gravity? They seem to have found a way to stimulate the generation of a gravitational field. But its still gravity. A radio transmitter stimulates the creation of an electric field (and the associated magnetic field) but we don't call that artificial electricity.
Nevertheless, this is a very interesting discovery. Anyone have any other links?
I think articles like this one may also help. It is scathing. Seldom have I seen such a brutal assault on Microsoft in a mainstream publication. If a similar rebuke was aired on CNN or 60 minutes ran a piece that tore apart the hype for Vista I think there would be an effect.
I think you are right that most folks use Microsoft because they simply have no idea that it is bad software. To them its just the way things are and they get on with whatever they are doing. The Linux FUD is going to be around for a long time still and more articles like this one are needed.
I fear that IE6 will still be 'under-the-hood' and that IE7 will be unto itself on an XP box. As for a Vista box, perhaps they are banking on people developing new habits for a new platform (unless it does spawn a new browser, but that would confuse some people).
This is great news! However, will IE7 on a Win XP box simply be an add-on (a la Firefox) while maintaining the status quo for Windows Explorer and IE being linked?
Part of the job of a teacher is to teach how to learn.
No way. Not at the university level. It is up to the student to experiment and find out how they best learn. It is incumbent on the prof to support various learning styles.
But its a university, the students are expected to take the responsibility of ensuring their understanding. Banning laptops is simply patronizing. If somebody wants to focus on rote transcription, that's his perogative, and she should let him be.
She is probably right that laptops impede learning in a classroom. I'd like to see a study to prove this one way or the other, but anecdotally I expect she is right.
However, a ban on laptops is silly. If someone wants to stack the deck against themself, let them. Its not for her to regulate the way people learn. I really don't see why she cares so much. A better argument for a laptop ban would be cite the clicking keys as a distraction to the lecturer.
It is a university after all, the onus on learning is on the students, not the profs.
I live in Canada and I did my taxes on the web. No need to buy a CD at all. Just a browser. I used Firefox, not sure if Safari was supported though. I never thought to check since FF worked.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree with you 100%. I had a discussion on this very topic last week with some friends. One of them was concerned that Wikipedia will eventually cause Britannia (and the others) to be pushed out of business and when she does need more and better info than Wikipedia can provide there will be no other sources. An interesting thought.
What if research libraries no longer have for-profit encyclopedias?
After some though we realised that encyclopedias are not really primary references anyway. Wikipedia is good enough (even with jackasses vandalising pages) to get you to the proper primary references to continue research and as such serves its function weel. It is certainly good enough to settle day-to-day curioisity and is an excellen primer for more detailed research.
Send a donation to Wikipedia, they deserve a little love.
Interestingly enough, the next chapter in this story was published on Slashdot LAST NIGHT!
The US courts told MS to go pound sand.
As a counter-point to your rant, I would like to state that my experience with Apple has been wonderful. The customer service is always top-notch. In fact the only complaint I could have had was the automated voice system that greets you when you first call. But those or universal nowadays.
As for shipping costs: Depending on where you live, there are retail outlets. If you happen to live outside of a major centre, that is your issue, not theirs.
I agree that more detail would have been preferable. However, I expect the producers have to contend with trying to make this show appeal to a broader viewership than the typical /. geeks like you or I.
Does anyone have any links that contain more gory details about the Stanford effort?
What struck me about that comment regarding Jessica Lynch is that she was resupplying the frontline. That means she was driving an armoured truck to where guys (and girls) are actively engaged in firefights but her exposure to danger was the concern. Of course, anyway that we can have fewer people in harm's way in a positive but I found it unsettling that the battle line soldiers were mentioned as a throw-away in order to frame their argument.
Overall though, a good show. Go watch it.
Sidenote: One hour of Nova or Frontline is like watching 5 days worth of "learning" and "discovery" shows elsewhere. It's amazing how good some of these shows are.
Hear hear!
PBS broadcast that show last night. While I realise that is is a little 2001 to actually watch a program when it is braodcast, I did. And I really enjoyed it. I am hardly current on the status of autonomous robotics and I was pleasantly surprised by how far along the technology is. 130 miles through the dessert using only GPS and local sensors is a pretty amazing feat, and that course was tough. It features mountain switchbacks, tunnels and other hazards. If you even have a passing interest in robotics I recommend watching the show.
You are thinking home users, business users don't upgrade their whole infrastructure.
I quote myself: "This is only true in business settings. Old apps are debugged and training is complete so no new expense is incurred. The home version of Vista could very easily be sleek and trimmed down, but it won't be."
This absolute requirement for all legacy support is insane. The back to school and xmas seasons that are being missed are not corporate buying seasons. The Home version of Vista could have dropped a hell of a lot of the legacy requirements and shipped in time to catch these buying seasons. But MS has lost focus and as a result will make Vista Home able to run scanners from 1996 even though almost nobody will actually have a need for it to be able to do that.
I just did a quick puruse of my local newspaper and the adds for new computers (suitable for running Vista) all list new flat screen monitors and scanner/printers in the list price. Component by component upgrades are not commonplace (well, maybe by te readership of this site). Most Vista users are going to get a whole new system, not a small upgrade.
What is up with this notion of legacy support. Vista is so big and resource hungry that it requires a top of the line machine, so why is legacy hardware support such a discussion point?
The issue is legacy software support. Vista needs to be able to run old apps, not support old modems. This is only true in business settings. Old apps are debugged and training is complete so no new expense is incurred. The home version of Vista could very easily be sleek and trimmed down, but it won't be.
Why is this called Artificial Gravity? They seem to have found a way to stimulate the generation of a gravitational field. But its still gravity. A radio transmitter stimulates the creation of an electric field (and the associated magnetic field) but we don't call that artificial electricity.
Nevertheless, this is a very interesting discovery. Anyone have any other links?
On a related note, Steve Ballmer also announced the end of paid vacation for Microsoft employees through to Christmas 2007.
I think articles like this one may also help. It is scathing. Seldom have I seen such a brutal assault on Microsoft in a mainstream publication. If a similar rebuke was aired on CNN or 60 minutes ran a piece that tore apart the hype for Vista I think there would be an effect.
I think you are right that most folks use Microsoft because they simply have no idea that it is bad software. To them its just the way things are and they get on with whatever they are doing. The Linux FUD is going to be around for a long time still and more articles like this one are needed.
I fear that IE6 will still be 'under-the-hood' and that IE7 will be unto itself on an XP box. As for a Vista box, perhaps they are banking on people developing new habits for a new platform (unless it does spawn a new browser, but that would confuse some people).
This is great news! However, will IE7 on a Win XP box simply be an add-on (a la Firefox) while maintaining the status quo for Windows Explorer and IE being linked?
Quad Core Radical Edition
In 2010, will your razor have more blades than your CPU has cores, or the other way around? I wonder...
If something is interfering with her teaching, she has every right to remove it from her classroom
She gives the reason for the ban as that she feels it impairs learning, not that it distracts her from delivering the lecture.
Part of the job of a teacher is to teach how to learn.
No way. Not at the university level. It is up to the student to experiment and find out how they best learn. It is incumbent on the prof to support various learning styles.
Absolutly right.
But its a university, the students are expected to take the responsibility of ensuring their understanding. Banning laptops is simply patronizing. If somebody wants to focus on rote transcription, that's his perogative, and she should let him be.
She is probably right that laptops impede learning in a classroom. I'd like to see a study to prove this one way or the other, but anecdotally I expect she is right.
However, a ban on laptops is silly. If someone wants to stack the deck against themself, let them. Its not for her to regulate the way people learn. I really don't see why she cares so much. A better argument for a laptop ban would be cite the clicking keys as a distraction to the lecturer.
It is a university after all, the onus on learning is on the students, not the profs.
MAC is an acronym in computer parlance. But is sure as hell doesn't refer to an Apple computer
I live in Canada and I did my taxes on the web. No need to buy a CD at all. Just a browser. I used Firefox, not sure if Safari was supported though. I never thought to check since FF worked.
But we'll be able to watch Luke bulls-eye womprats in his T-16. Plus more epic and grand adventures!
Sadly, they'll contrive a way to bring Jedis out of hiding. Star Wars without Jedis would not sell.
I feel A New Pessimism about the story that leads to A New Hope.