One of the biggest problems with school reading requirements is that they are weighted against a lot of valid genres, and thereby give students a false idea of what books can be like.
Where's the Sci-Fi? Where's the Fantasy? Where's the Mystery? Where's the adventure? Where's the comedy? These can all be just as thought-provoking genre's to read. Heck, some of the most insightful (and hillarious) things I've ever read were written Dave Barry.
Schools like to claim that they teach the "classics", but in reality they only teach classics that students wouldn't want to read anyways.
Where's Asimov? Where's 1984? Wheres LOTR? Where's Sherlock Holmes? Where's A Confederacy of Dunces? Where's The Third Man? Where's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle maintenance? These are all classics in their own right, and yet are not taught because they are not in the "approved" genres.
Why pound into youth's skulls that books are dull, and are associated with essays and tests? Fostering lifetime readers from a young age is more important than forcing kids to read "the classics".
I think the real assumption is that a geeky fan who pays for a ticket isn't any better than a geeky fan who pays for a ticket and gets pissed off about plot inconsistencies.
They already tested that theory with Voyager and Enterprise. Considering the waning support for new Star Trek I'd say the test failed.
The reason so many people keep playing CS is largely because... *gasp*... at its core its a really good game.
People at any skill level can have a good time, but it takes lots of gaming hours to become really good, and the game rewards you for this progress. It's like Chess (and dare I say Starcraft, another computer game with a lot of longevity) in that you can never really master it, just be better than the next guy.
On the surface most of the game seems very simple. See the enemy, shoot. At the bombsite, plant the bomb. Stick with your team.
However, one of the things that distinguishes Counter-Strike from mediocre games is the extent to which subtlties come into play.
Let's take for a case example the effect of recoil, a simple addition that opens whole new worlds to the gameplay. A mediocre player might see the enemy and open fire full auto, Quake style. However, a more experienced player judges the distance to be medium, takes into account their weapon, and makes a very calculated "duck, click chest, click chest, wait, click head". Or perhaps any number of different firing styles depending on the situation. The tactics of simply clicking the fire button becomes a game itself.
Then there's aim. Seems simple, but is much more important given the slow nature of the gameplay.
Then there's individual tactics. Do you rush in for speed? Do slowly walk in for better aim? Do you wait for the enemy to come out? Which side of the pillar do you pop out of during a firefight, and after what wait? Do you fire at a group of unsuspecting enemies or sneak away and radio in teammates? Where does the enemy expect you to be, and how can you use that to your advantage? How can you outflank them?
Then team tactics is a whole strategy itself. The best teams know what part of a room each person is going to cover (much like a SWAT team), and systematically clear areas, use decoys, provide covering fire, etc.
The great thing through all of this is that the game is designed in such a way to promote all of these different subtlties instead of allowing a single strategy or style dominate. Getting killed after only a couple hits, or having better aim when you are stopped isn't good because its more realistic - its good because it opens up a lot of strategy that becomes obsolete in ultra-fast ultra-powerful run-n-gun games.
A lot of people who only play Counter-Strike couple times and don't get into it never see this side of the game. They only see that the graphics are dated, that the gameplay is "slow", that the weapons all look the same, that you have to wait until the end of the round once you die, and that many people cheat. Those are all surface concerns which, although significant, do not detract from the excellent core of gameplay that so many people are addicted to.
Your post implies that there is some sort of universal set of ethics that everyone who is smart should see as "obvious".
That is false on so many levels. Who decides right and wrong? Whose code of ethics is the correct one? Yours? And of course no one can have an intellectual disagreement over it because then they would be labeled "immoral" or "evil".
You must remember that our coastlines and airspace have vast networks of sensors which would be immediately alerted if someone tried to sneak into, say, Oregon by boat or plane. At that point bigger guns such as the coast guard would be called in. One officer seems like a reasonable expenditure of money to me.
It seemed to me that while F911 had volumes of facts and evidence which is probably nearly all true, for the most part Moore didn't use them in structured arguments to actually prove his points. The film went sort of like this:
1. Facts 2. ??? 3. Conclusion!!!
That 2+2=4 does not prove Fermat's last theorem, and that Bush has a tendency to make a fool of himself on television does not prove that he is a bad president.
if you insist on classifying the entire world as left/right you miss a huge degree of differences.
I agree wholeheartedly.
Remember that scene in Donnie Darko where the class is asked to place all emotions on a line between love and hate, and Donnie refuses since emotions are more complicated than a single line? I always think of that scene when people try to represent a person's politics by a single position on a left/right line.
If he had such sensitive information that he expected the company to pay him off, then what's so foolish about giving away his name? If the information is valuable then he is protected - if he gets prosecuted, he leaks the information.
Keeping inneficient production models hurts the economy. It hurts the consumer who has to pay extra for the product. It keeps obsolete workers from moving on to other more productive jobs. It props up inneficient beureaucracies full of people who get paid to do pointless tasks.
Yes jobs will be lost, and yes it will be painful for those who lose their jobs, but its worth it overall.
Since internet use is a widespread form of communication that is hard to do without, and since the colleges have a built-in ISP monopoly, its my opinion that the "don't like it, don't use it" argument does not apply.
What if the terms of use for campus phone lines included that the college could wiretap as they pleased?
Slashdot Mirror
One of the biggest problems with school reading requirements is that they are weighted against a lot of valid genres, and thereby give students a false idea of what books can be like.
Where's the Sci-Fi? Where's the Fantasy? Where's the Mystery? Where's the adventure? Where's the comedy? These can all be just as thought-provoking genre's to read. Heck, some of the most insightful (and hillarious) things I've ever read were written Dave Barry.
Schools like to claim that they teach the "classics", but in reality they only teach classics that students wouldn't want to read anyways.
Where's Asimov? Where's 1984? Wheres LOTR? Where's Sherlock Holmes? Where's A Confederacy of Dunces? Where's The Third Man? Where's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle maintenance? These are all classics in their own right, and yet are not taught because they are not in the "approved" genres.
Why pound into youth's skulls that books are dull, and are associated with essays and tests? Fostering lifetime readers from a young age is more important than forcing kids to read "the classics".
Ahem, 2 of Star Trek's most popular movies.
That's especially true on college networks. Wide selection of good movies + ridiculously fast download speeds + no car = pirates.
The reason so many people keep playing CS is largely because... *gasp*... at its core its a really good game.
People at any skill level can have a good time, but it takes lots of gaming hours to become really good, and the game rewards you for this progress. It's like Chess (and dare I say Starcraft, another computer game with a lot of longevity) in that you can never really master it, just be better than the next guy.
On the surface most of the game seems very simple. See the enemy, shoot. At the bombsite, plant the bomb. Stick with your team.
However, one of the things that distinguishes Counter-Strike from mediocre games is the extent to which subtlties come into play.
Let's take for a case example the effect of recoil, a simple addition that opens whole new worlds to the gameplay. A mediocre player might see the enemy and open fire full auto, Quake style. However, a more experienced player judges the distance to be medium, takes into account their weapon, and makes a very calculated "duck, click chest, click chest, wait, click head". Or perhaps any number of different firing styles depending on the situation. The tactics of simply clicking the fire button becomes a game itself.
Then there's aim. Seems simple, but is much more important given the slow nature of the gameplay.
Then there's individual tactics. Do you rush in for speed? Do slowly walk in for better aim? Do you wait for the enemy to come out? Which side of the pillar do you pop out of during a firefight, and after what wait? Do you fire at a group of unsuspecting enemies or sneak away and radio in teammates? Where does the enemy expect you to be, and how can you use that to your advantage? How can you outflank them?
Then team tactics is a whole strategy itself. The best teams know what part of a room each person is going to cover (much like a SWAT team), and systematically clear areas, use decoys, provide covering fire, etc.
The great thing through all of this is that the game is designed in such a way to promote all of these different subtlties instead of allowing a single strategy or style dominate. Getting killed after only a couple hits, or having better aim when you are stopped isn't good because its more realistic - its good because it opens up a lot of strategy that becomes obsolete in ultra-fast ultra-powerful run-n-gun games.
A lot of people who only play Counter-Strike couple times and don't get into it never see this side of the game. They only see that the graphics are dated, that the gameplay is "slow", that the weapons all look the same, that you have to wait until the end of the round once you die, and that many people cheat. Those are all surface concerns which, although significant, do not detract from the excellent core of gameplay that so many people are addicted to.
Well then why are they fighting over it ;)
Can the keyboard be remapped to Dvorak in software?
I wonder if small opportunist creatures cleaned the T-Rex, like Egyptian Plovers clean crocodile teeth and various fish eat the parasites on sharks.
Your post implies that there is some sort of universal set of ethics that everyone who is smart should see as "obvious". That is false on so many levels. Who decides right and wrong? Whose code of ethics is the correct one? Yours? And of course no one can have an intellectual disagreement over it because then they would be labeled "immoral" or "evil".
You must remember that our coastlines and airspace have vast networks of sensors which would be immediately alerted if someone tried to sneak into, say, Oregon by boat or plane. At that point bigger guns such as the coast guard would be called in. One officer seems like a reasonable expenditure of money to me.
It seemed to me that while F911 had volumes of facts and evidence which is probably nearly all true, for the most part Moore didn't use them in structured arguments to actually prove his points. The film went sort of like this:
1. Facts
2. ???
3. Conclusion!!!
That 2+2=4 does not prove Fermat's last theorem, and that Bush has a tendency to make a fool of himself on television does not prove that he is a bad president.
I agree wholeheartedly.
Remember that scene in Donnie Darko where the class is asked to place all emotions on a line between love and hate, and Donnie refuses since emotions are more complicated than a single line? I always think of that scene when people try to represent a person's politics by a single position on a left/right line.
If he had such sensitive information that he expected the company to pay him off, then what's so foolish about giving away his name? If the information is valuable then he is protected - if he gets prosecuted, he leaks the information.
Keeping inneficient production models hurts the economy. It hurts the consumer who has to pay extra for the product. It keeps obsolete workers from moving on to other more productive jobs. It props up inneficient beureaucracies full of people who get paid to do pointless tasks. Yes jobs will be lost, and yes it will be painful for those who lose their jobs, but its worth it overall.
Who pays for the National Weather Service? If it is taxpayer money then setting up a pay-service on the internet seems counter-intuitive.
You might say that the phrase itself has undergone a "paradigm shift" since 1962.
Since internet use is a widespread form of communication that is hard to do without, and since the colleges have a built-in ISP monopoly, its my opinion that the "don't like it, don't use it" argument does not apply.
What if the terms of use for campus phone lines included that the college could wiretap as they pleased?
Here it is. Tricky little bugger, that anykey.