Yeah, stick it to those sheeple! They're just like your parents and that bitch in your Intro to Sociology class who wouldn't go on a date with you. She just couldn't handle someone as edgy as you, who thinks for himself and doesn't buy into mainstream conceptions of masculine appearance.
Besides, just because it's an engineering/science camp doesn't mean you can't make new friends there. Even girlfriends.
In my experience, these types of camps are a high school nerd's (of either gender) best chance for some action. It's amazing how many people are paired off within the first week.
I did this the summer after my junior year (over a decade ago), I definitely recommend it. It was a great experience - even though the prof I worked with was in Chemistry I was doing programming. And you're basically free in Boston (with a curfew), which is awesome for a 16-year-old. Glad to see it still exists.
(I also proceeded to get into MIT after that, as did at least two of the other participants, but YMMV, obviously.)
My thoughts exactly. This story should be titled "Classical Conditioning Works!" This is just one more example of how people completely lose their heads when video games are involved. Next thing they'll be telling us that our visual cortex responds as though it were seeing colors when presented with a color video game.
Oh! I didn't realize that you've taken this class and could comment on its quality.
Or are you saying that just because you're not interested in analyzing a particular genre, no one should be? Or perhaps that "mass-market" or "pop" genres aren't worth analyzing? Personally, I think that the more people there are consuming a given genre, the more worthy of analysis that makes it, because even if it's complete shit we should try especially hard to understand what kind of shit is going into people's heads.
You clearly either did not read or have forgotten my original suggestion. There's a huge, huge difference between being able to watch your shows and ignore the commercials (which most people do anyhow) and being completely unable to watch anything but a message. Also, the point of my suggestion was not to help the consumer, it was to help the innocent people who will get angry phone calls when people's TVs stop working. Ranting about how stupid the viewers are won't keep them from continuing to be stupid and blaming the electric company, the store the sold them the remote, the company that made the DVD player they bought last week, etc etc etc.
Sooooo... What would be so hard about waiting an extra week to move those channels into the analog spaces, if they're capable of broadcasting simultaneously right now? That doesn't seem like a very difficult engineering problem to me.
I pointed it out specifically because it was ironic. Good catch.
That's what I wind up doing half the time anyhow, but I'm also impatient and dislike waiting a day to find my shows if I don't have to. Cable and satellite cost absurd amounts of money for something I really wouldn't use that much.
Good thing I'm not an engineer then, and that that's not a requirement for posting on slashdot.
Though if that's true (which... other comments are saying it's not?), then it sounds like piss-poor planning on the part of whoever told the engineers what problem it was they needed to solve.
When they finally do it, instead of shutting off all analog signal they need to make every station in the country broadcast a repeating message for a week explaining what happened and giving instructions plus a phone # to call for more details. That's about the only way to limit the number of angry phone calls that everyone from the electric companies to the stores that sold the remote controls will get.
Amazingly, my technologically-handicapped grandmother actually noticed the commercials and listened to my dad when he told her about this, so she's fine - I, on the other hand, waited too long and am now on the dtv waiting list. (Though I also might use it as an excuse to upgrade to hd.)
Read a little more of the website, and you'll discover that MIT students are required to take 8 humanities classes while they're there, and that the humanities faculty includes Pulitzer Prize-winners and other notables. Strangely, even MIT doesn't think that giving someone only science or engineering classes will serve them well in the long run.
Pretty much every film and literature department in the country has rotating classes about different genres. Why is this significant?
Oh! Sorry! I forgot, MIT isn't allowed to do anything but build robots and win Nobel prizes. If anyone at MIT attempts to do something humanities-related, it's hilarious.
Meet the average American, for whom a $350 device on which to read his $20/year magazine subscription (minus the color photos that are half the point of a magazine) is not a budget priority.
They may not be necessary, but that doesn't mean they can't be an improvement. Do you want your kids to get a "good enough" education or a great one?
I'm not saying that they're a godsend that revolutionizes every aspect of every subject taught. But they can make a lot of things more concrete that are difficult for students to learn in the abstract - and studies show that starting out in the concrete, with many different concrete examples, then moving to abstractions, makes it easier for people to apply the knowledge elsewhere.
And I do not agree that "much of science is math," at least not at the elementary/middle school level. At that level, right now in most classrooms, science is memorization of facts. IMO, what it needs to be is less memorization and more learning to "think like a scientist" and make use of the processes that scientists use to explore the world. Which does involve some math, but it's much more important that students learn to look at the world in a systematic way than that they understand exactly how to fill in a particular style of data chart. But now I'm straying from the topic of computers. Computers *can* help with this by helping to give students a view of things that real scientists do - whether by remotely communicating with the scientists, or simulations that allow students to do studies that wouldn't be possible otherwise, or by using the actual tools that scientists might use to analyze their data.
Basically, I think that if you really think the only thing a computer can add to a classroom is typing papers and using it as a calculator, you are not being very creative. Nor do you have much awareness of what is out there already.
Can you put a high-enough-powered microscope in every classroom so that they can see what's going on at a molecular level, rather than just having it explained in the abstract that more energy makes molecules move faster? If not, a computer simulation might add something to their experience. Are there labs in your town where the students can help scientists collect and analyze real data? If not, an online collaboration with such scientists might make the pursuit of science a little more real to them.
Sure, computers are not the answer to every educational problem. Traditional methods that work should not be thrown away. But to ignore all of the possible lessons that would not be possible without computers is very short-sighted, and unfairly limits the experiences the students might be able to have.
No matter what setup you choose, don't forget the most important ingredient: Training. Lots of it. Ongoing. Study after study has shown that technology only gets truly integrated into the classroom if both teachers and administrators get ongoing, regular professional development around both using it and working it into the curriculum. Not just one session before the start of the school year - at least a couple of years' worth of regular sessions to help them figure out how to use it in the lessons they're teaching. Without that, whatever you get will just go to waste.
God damn I miss the Superbar. Every once in a while my husband and I will bring it up. "Man, remember the Superbar at Wendy's? Nachos and pizza and salad all together." "Yeah, whatever happened to that? And the nice Tiffanyesque lamps they had hanging above the tables? *sigh*"
Don't forget the 7-9" iPod Touch/Tablet! Though most of us who actually want such a thing have been around long enough to ignore the rumors and believe it when we see it...
His ideas on education made me laugh, honestly. In the U.S., at least, the educational system is a monolithic behemoth so entrenched in tradition and "I learned it this way, so my kids should, too" that any change happens in only the very smallest of increments. Especially when it comes to the basic school/classroom structure, which basically didn't change at all during the entire 20th century. I mean, he predicted that the job of a teacher would fundamentally change over the course of a decade - how on earth are you going to completely retrain the entire teaching force in that space of time?
Yes, computers are becoming more and more prevalent in classrooms, but they're nowhere near "ubiquitous" and without solid, long-term training for both teachers and administrators, the computers that are there get completely underutilized. It's like Kurzweil talked to some guys in 1980 who predicted that simply placing computers in a classroom would create magical, paradigm-shifting changes... and then decided that despite 20 years of being proved wrong, they must still be right.
(Apple's has mics and cameras installed in every Mac laptop for a few years now and....still I don't know any one who uses it.)
I know plenty of people who use these - mostly via Skype. It's my main form of communication with my husband now that he lives in another country, and I know several people with babies who use it to keep the grandparents in the loop. But yeah, for people who don't have loved ones far away, I'm not sure why you'd have any desire to look at the random people you know online.
Mine are in perfectly normally (no impaction, nothing), and I've had exactly one dentist suggest getting them removed. And two others tell me to ignore any dentist who tells me that. Although they *do* say that if I ever get a cavity in one, it'd be best to get them all removed - good thing I floss! (Though I use those flosser things b/c I can't get my fingers in far enough to wrap floss around the extra set of teeth...)
The idea that five years means cancer is "cured" is ridiculous. Yes, that's when you actually get to use the word, but it's completely meaningless. The relapse rate for some cancers dwindles to near zero after just two years (maybe less, I don't know about that many cancers) - some, there's a significant risk of recurrence for a long time. The five-year mark is just something they came up with long ago to make people feel better. So he's been cancer-free for 4.5 years - I'll have my next CT scan about 4.5 years after being declared in complete remission, and that is scheduled to be my last scan. My oncologist clearly isn't too worried about those last six months.
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Yeah, stick it to those sheeple! They're just like your parents and that bitch in your Intro to Sociology class who wouldn't go on a date with you. She just couldn't handle someone as edgy as you, who thinks for himself and doesn't buy into mainstream conceptions of masculine appearance.
Besides, just because it's an engineering/science camp doesn't mean you can't make new friends there. Even girlfriends.
In my experience, these types of camps are a high school nerd's (of either gender) best chance for some action. It's amazing how many people are paired off within the first week.
I did this the summer after my junior year (over a decade ago), I definitely recommend it. It was a great experience - even though the prof I worked with was in Chemistry I was doing programming. And you're basically free in Boston (with a curfew), which is awesome for a 16-year-old. Glad to see it still exists.
(I also proceeded to get into MIT after that, as did at least two of the other participants, but YMMV, obviously.)
My thoughts exactly. This story should be titled "Classical Conditioning Works!" This is just one more example of how people completely lose their heads when video games are involved. Next thing they'll be telling us that our visual cortex responds as though it were seeing colors when presented with a color video game.
Wow, you didn't understand a word of my comment, did you? Good job.
Oh! I didn't realize that you've taken this class and could comment on its quality.
Or are you saying that just because you're not interested in analyzing a particular genre, no one should be? Or perhaps that "mass-market" or "pop" genres aren't worth analyzing? Personally, I think that the more people there are consuming a given genre, the more worthy of analysis that makes it, because even if it's complete shit we should try especially hard to understand what kind of shit is going into people's heads.
You clearly either did not read or have forgotten my original suggestion. There's a huge, huge difference between being able to watch your shows and ignore the commercials (which most people do anyhow) and being completely unable to watch anything but a message. Also, the point of my suggestion was not to help the consumer, it was to help the innocent people who will get angry phone calls when people's TVs stop working. Ranting about how stupid the viewers are won't keep them from continuing to be stupid and blaming the electric company, the store the sold them the remote, the company that made the DVD player they bought last week, etc etc etc.
Sooooo... What would be so hard about waiting an extra week to move those channels into the analog spaces, if they're capable of broadcasting simultaneously right now? That doesn't seem like a very difficult engineering problem to me.
I pointed it out specifically because it was ironic. Good catch.
That's what I wind up doing half the time anyhow, but I'm also impatient and dislike waiting a day to find my shows if I don't have to. Cable and satellite cost absurd amounts of money for something I really wouldn't use that much.
Good thing I'm not an engineer then, and that that's not a requirement for posting on slashdot.
Though if that's true (which... other comments are saying it's not?), then it sounds like piss-poor planning on the part of whoever told the engineers what problem it was they needed to solve.
When they finally do it, instead of shutting off all analog signal they need to make every station in the country broadcast a repeating message for a week explaining what happened and giving instructions plus a phone # to call for more details. That's about the only way to limit the number of angry phone calls that everyone from the electric companies to the stores that sold the remote controls will get.
Amazingly, my technologically-handicapped grandmother actually noticed the commercials and listened to my dad when he told her about this, so she's fine - I, on the other hand, waited too long and am now on the dtv waiting list. (Though I also might use it as an excuse to upgrade to hd.)
Read a little more of the website, and you'll discover that MIT students are required to take 8 humanities classes while they're there, and that the humanities faculty includes Pulitzer Prize-winners and other notables. Strangely, even MIT doesn't think that giving someone only science or engineering classes will serve them well in the long run.
Pretty much every film and literature department in the country has rotating classes about different genres. Why is this significant?
Oh! Sorry! I forgot, MIT isn't allowed to do anything but build robots and win Nobel prizes. If anyone at MIT attempts to do something humanities-related, it's hilarious.
Meet the average American, for whom a $350 device on which to read his $20/year magazine subscription (minus the color photos that are half the point of a magazine) is not a budget priority.
They may not be necessary, but that doesn't mean they can't be an improvement. Do you want your kids to get a "good enough" education or a great one?
I'm not saying that they're a godsend that revolutionizes every aspect of every subject taught. But they can make a lot of things more concrete that are difficult for students to learn in the abstract - and studies show that starting out in the concrete, with many different concrete examples, then moving to abstractions, makes it easier for people to apply the knowledge elsewhere.
And I do not agree that "much of science is math," at least not at the elementary/middle school level. At that level, right now in most classrooms, science is memorization of facts. IMO, what it needs to be is less memorization and more learning to "think like a scientist" and make use of the processes that scientists use to explore the world. Which does involve some math, but it's much more important that students learn to look at the world in a systematic way than that they understand exactly how to fill in a particular style of data chart. But now I'm straying from the topic of computers. Computers *can* help with this by helping to give students a view of things that real scientists do - whether by remotely communicating with the scientists, or simulations that allow students to do studies that wouldn't be possible otherwise, or by using the actual tools that scientists might use to analyze their data.
Basically, I think that if you really think the only thing a computer can add to a classroom is typing papers and using it as a calculator, you are not being very creative. Nor do you have much awareness of what is out there already.
Can you put a high-enough-powered microscope in every classroom so that they can see what's going on at a molecular level, rather than just having it explained in the abstract that more energy makes molecules move faster? If not, a computer simulation might add something to their experience. Are there labs in your town where the students can help scientists collect and analyze real data? If not, an online collaboration with such scientists might make the pursuit of science a little more real to them.
Sure, computers are not the answer to every educational problem. Traditional methods that work should not be thrown away. But to ignore all of the possible lessons that would not be possible without computers is very short-sighted, and unfairly limits the experiences the students might be able to have.
No matter what setup you choose, don't forget the most important ingredient: Training. Lots of it. Ongoing. Study after study has shown that technology only gets truly integrated into the classroom if both teachers and administrators get ongoing, regular professional development around both using it and working it into the curriculum. Not just one session before the start of the school year - at least a couple of years' worth of regular sessions to help them figure out how to use it in the lessons they're teaching. Without that, whatever you get will just go to waste.
God damn I miss the Superbar. Every once in a while my husband and I will bring it up. "Man, remember the Superbar at Wendy's? Nachos and pizza and salad all together." "Yeah, whatever happened to that? And the nice Tiffanyesque lamps they had hanging above the tables? *sigh*"
did I miss anything?
Don't forget the 7-9" iPod Touch/Tablet! Though most of us who actually want such a thing have been around long enough to ignore the rumors and believe it when we see it...
His ideas on education made me laugh, honestly. In the U.S., at least, the educational system is a monolithic behemoth so entrenched in tradition and "I learned it this way, so my kids should, too" that any change happens in only the very smallest of increments. Especially when it comes to the basic school/classroom structure, which basically didn't change at all during the entire 20th century. I mean, he predicted that the job of a teacher would fundamentally change over the course of a decade - how on earth are you going to completely retrain the entire teaching force in that space of time?
Yes, computers are becoming more and more prevalent in classrooms, but they're nowhere near "ubiquitous" and without solid, long-term training for both teachers and administrators, the computers that are there get completely underutilized. It's like Kurzweil talked to some guys in 1980 who predicted that simply placing computers in a classroom would create magical, paradigm-shifting changes... and then decided that despite 20 years of being proved wrong, they must still be right.
I know plenty of people who use these - mostly via Skype. It's my main form of communication with my husband now that he lives in another country, and I know several people with babies who use it to keep the grandparents in the loop. But yeah, for people who don't have loved ones far away, I'm not sure why you'd have any desire to look at the random people you know online.
Mine are in perfectly normally (no impaction, nothing), and I've had exactly one dentist suggest getting them removed. And two others tell me to ignore any dentist who tells me that. Although they *do* say that if I ever get a cavity in one, it'd be best to get them all removed - good thing I floss! (Though I use those flosser things b/c I can't get my fingers in far enough to wrap floss around the extra set of teeth...)
Calm down, dude. Honestly, you're making yourself even less clear here.
Trust me, once you've heard the words "It's cancer," suddenly the words "it's a type with a very high survival rate" make you feel incredibly lucky.
The idea that five years means cancer is "cured" is ridiculous. Yes, that's when you actually get to use the word, but it's completely meaningless. The relapse rate for some cancers dwindles to near zero after just two years (maybe less, I don't know about that many cancers) - some, there's a significant risk of recurrence for a long time. The five-year mark is just something they came up with long ago to make people feel better. So he's been cancer-free for 4.5 years - I'll have my next CT scan about 4.5 years after being declared in complete remission, and that is scheduled to be my last scan. My oncologist clearly isn't too worried about those last six months.