In OS X, the first time you run any program it says "This is the first time you've run Program X. Do you want to continue?" Which means that, unless you are SO dense that you click yes when it asks if you want to run Program I Didn't Mean To Download, the spyware might be on your machine but will never get to run.
Maybe the OP isn't waiting to buy an Intel laptop, but waiting (like I am) to see if the prices of older laptops will take a dip when the new ones come out.
(Of course, all the rumors - not to mention common sense - are pointing towards an intel powerbook, and I'm looking at ibooks, so I'm starting to think it's not worth waiting.)
It takes any new entertainment form time - decades to centuries - to move from being seen as pop entertainment to accepted as an art form. Novels, film, television, they all went through a stage where they were seen largely as mass-market pablum (whether or not all of what was being produced really was that), with no other possibilities. Eventually, it was recognized that although not all (novels, films, TV shows) are great works of art, it is possible to create ones that are, and more and more were created that could be called art (while plenty of crap continues to be created in all these media).
I'm sure video games are going through the same process, and in another decade or two will be more recognized as possible works of art - especially when some other medium comes along that can't *possibly* be regarded as a mode artistic expression (yet).
Re:Have things changed since I was a child?
on
The ESRB Gets An 'F'
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· Score: 1
When my boyfriend and I tried to go to an R-rated movie on his 17th birthday, they wouldn't let him in b/c he had no ID. He even had a college ID, but nothing with his birthday on it. I've had to show IDs for movies a few other times.
I was also once not allowed into an 18+ club b/c I didn't have my license on me, despite having proof that I was a junior in college and having credit and debit cards that I couldn't have had before age 18. But I think the girl was just being a bitch that time.
And I was carded for alcohol just about every time I bought it in college.
I'm sure enforcement is much more lax in some areas than others - but in my experience enforcement of IDs for R-rated movies is higher than enforcement of IDs for M-rated video games.
Right. And my point is that they still DO, even though they don't HAVE to. And guess what? Nobody tries to make laws about it, becuase they just do it. That's how self-regulation of an industry works. When stores *don't* card for M-rated games? That's how self-regulation doesn't work, and that leads to people shouting for laws about it, which leads to whining about these laws.
And then everyone wonders why states are trying to pass laws to make that happen... If the stores would just DO IT ON THEIR OWN, no one would be trying to force it on them.
Movie theaters card kids for R-rated movies, why is this so hard?
I think that's more schools than offer my major (cognitive science), for undergrads, at least. When I was applying (8 years ago), I only found like 15-20, but I think there are more now. (Probably were more then, but not many.)
Makes me wonder what the least-offered majors are...
I doubt he had the cash on hand to hire a PhD (in a field with very few experts worldwide) before the venture capital came in. It says he was making like $30K a year to work on this PLUS a bunch of other toy ideas originally - I doubt the chemist was paid only $30K.
Little kids aren't exactly known for their ability to distinguish when something is "clean." For most of them, it doesn't register that mud streaks on your hands = don't pick up your food. They argue that since there's no visible dirt in their hair, they don't need to wash it.
Do you really think they're going to notice the subtle difference between a clean tooth and one covered in bacteria? I swiped the toothbrush over my teeth once, I taste minty, that's good enough, right? There are TONS of products out there to help kids learn to brush long enough.
This might be going on my Christmas list.
on
Barenaked USB Drive
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· Score: 1
I know people claim that MP3s sound worse than CDs, but unless it's a really low bitrate (like, under 100bps), I honestly can't tell at all.
Which means this is quite a good deal - a double album, a bunch of extras, and a USB memory stick (I've been meaning to pick one of those up), for only a bit more than what the music alone would cost on iTunes - and without the DRM, if you're worried about that.
Although, if you look at this photo, you can see the listing of live tracks in addition to Barenaked for the Holidays - there seem to be seven. Plus 20 on the holiday album... That's two songs short. Hm... (I can't seem to find an actual track listing anywhere, that photo's the best I could do.)
can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena.
In fact, Darwin himself made predictions based on his theories that were proven true. Here is a quick overview of one example - he saw a particular flower and predicted that a particular shape of insect must exist to pollinate it, even though he knew of no such insect at the time. Such an insect was found many years later.
Evolution is called a theory because it does meet the scientific criteria for a theory - it has been thoroughly tested (come on, it's been around for over a century, do you HONESTLY believe no one has thought to test it??) and, yes, mathematically modelled even. Many times.
The problem with Intelligent Design is that it does NOT meet the criteria (that you yourself give) for a theory, but its supporters try to present it as one on equal footing with evolution. ID is a hypothesis or a conjecture, evolution is a theory. You seem to understand the difference - most people's problem is that they don't, and they think that since evolution is a theory that means we have no clue if it's really right.
I've been trying to sign up on the Nielsen site for a while (to get points for another site... mmm, gift cards), but I can't because I'm not using Windows. They keep saying, of course, that they are "working on" something for other OSes.
So I have to wonder - was their sample all Windows-users? I didn't see anything about that in the article, unless I just missed it.
If Macs really have a 16% install base, plus say another 5% for *nix etc users, that's like a fifth of the population - the most geek-heavy fifth, I might add - out. Even if you don't buy the 16% number, they're still discounting the geekiest 10%. Do you think that would affect their results? I mean, a lot of the stuff probably wouldn't be changed much - but, for instance, the 18% of people who d/l games to cel phones... Is their sample possibly less gadget-philic than the total population?
I have friends who did some Discovery Channel special, and their "results" were way faked - but watching the special afterwards, you'd never know that. Have they (meaning, I guess, the Discovery Channel or producers or whoever) ever made you fudge some of your results to support or refute a myth they particularly liked/didn't like?
I've been a fan since her Azkaban M15M... I still manage to drop references to CRAAAZY GARY OLDMAN! into conversations with my husband or sister, with much handwaving. I actually read the M15M *before* I saw the movie, which resulted in much giggling at inappropriate times during the movie.
Read her LJ for a taste, or to hold you over til it comes out in the US. I'm considering ordering the book from amazon.co.uk to give my sis for Christmas, international shipping be damned.
The kids are never FORCED to teach the student that needs help. Anyone who doesn't want to can stay out of it.
Ah, see, here is the problem. In many cases (yes, this is when things are poorly implemented - but it's reality), the students are forced (through certain types of groupwork) to either teach the other students or just do the work for them - and many times, the brighter students just choose the latter and the slower students learn nothing in the process. I'm certainly not against allowing students to help others - but when it becomes expected of them, you're taking it too far.
Plus, who says that it has to be above-average kids teaching the lower kids? Often smart kids need help that they can only get from other smart kids, and the slower kids have a lot to teach each other. Oftentimes, someone who "got it" instantly won't be able to explain how they figured it out to someone who doesn't understand. However, someone else who had to struggle to understand knows what steps they took and can explain it to someone else who's having trouble understanding.
Check out "full inclusion," a concept growing in popularity and support, in which "special ed" people are included successfully in "normal" classrooms when a proper support structure is instituted.
Although the research is split on "full inclusion" for special ed kids (yes, some research shows it works - but some shows it doesn't), it's pretty well-established that it tends to have negative effects for gifted kids. Check out Kulik & Kulik's meta-analysis... 1992, I think?
And we adults don't have to beg mommy for an advance on our allowance to get a console any more.
Unfortunately, we now have rent/morgages and utilities to pay, food to buy, student loans to pay off, medical bills... I'm asking my mommy for a gamecube for Christmas.
No, actually, I'm not willing - or able, honestly - to pay $400 for a freaking game console, plus $50 per game. My SNES has served me well all these years, but I've just about played it out and it's time to upgrade. Even as a gift, though, I can't imagine asking for a console that costs over $100. And that way I can get more games with it.
Did you know that countries with flush toilets have higher rates of heart disease?
Obviously, flush toilets cause heart disease.
Re:"Genius" and high IQ are different animals
on
The Prodigy Puzzle
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· Score: 1
Out of curiosity, where are you getting your PhD?
(I have a bachelor's in cognitive science and a master's in gifted ed - applying for PhD programs. My top choice is currently Northwestern's Learning Sciences program, but if wherever you are is doing a lot of research specifically in intelligence I might take a look.)
Most world-changing is done by loud, charismatic jackasses of only average-plus intelligence.
Most politicians have an IQ only about 10 points or so above the average IQ of the people they are leading. People don't like to be led by anyone a whole lot smarter than them.
Those few world-changers who make great scientific discoveries aren't generally super-ultra genius material, but rather tend to be the hard-working, driven variety of the more common "lesser" genius.
Well, to be a successful scientist, there's generally a base "cutoff" IQ of about 140. Meaning, very few people with an IQ under about 140 manage to sustain a career as a scientist (as in, PI, not lab lackey). So you've already cut out most of the just plain "gifted" people and gone into the realm of "highly gifted." You're already into the top less than 1% of people, so "more common" is kind of a relative term.
Among these people, there is a correlation among higher IQ and unique contributions to their field, but yeah - motivation and creativity start to play a bigger role so it's not as strong a correlation as the 140 thing. There's definitely a correlation, though. But then, there are also some correlations between IQ and creativity, so it's hard to tease out all the causes.
I have to agree that too many gifted program are just "playtime" more than anything. You get pulled out for a couple hours a week to make dioramas of the middle ages or whatever. It's more fun than sitting in a class you could already ace the test for, but it's not particularly challenging.
However, that's not all gifted education can be. That's just, unfortunately, the most common way that it's implemented. If you actually give kids accelerated classes and opportunities to actually analyze things on a deeper level, they can be really great experiences.
Why does it seem like we hear about some sort of drive for the gifted every few years, but then it amounts to nothing?
Well, there are people who are working full time, every day to try and improve it - check out www.nagc.org.
but can you really blame school districts for not wanting to go out on a limb and classify students? How many lawsuits would that bring up?
Actually, depending on how the state's constitution is worded, some schools have gotten slapped with lawsuits for NOT providing gifted services. In some states gifted services are mandated, but even in others, if the state constitution calls for a "free and appropriate" education for every child (as opposed to simply "free" or "free basic education"), some parents have been successful in arguing that their child was not receiving an appropriate education without gifted education.
Re:Brilliant kids have different goals.
on
The Prodigy Puzzle
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· Score: 1
Out of curiosity, were the 165 and the 148 on the same test?
I was tested at 160+ in kindergarten. Then I moved in high school and had to be retested, and got 149. Still got into the gifted program, but I was left wondering where my IQ went.
Then a couple years ago I went to a session at the National Association for Gifted Children conference given by Linda Kreger Silverman. She runs a center for the gifted in Denver, and she's been doing research on 160+ kids for the past couple decades.
Turns out that the most recent IQ tests (Stanford-Binet IV, WISC-R, and WISC III) have lower ceilings than the old Stanford-Binet LM form, and so the extreme high end kids run up against the ceiling effect and you can't get an accurate read on their abilities. She says that any kid who scores over 140 on these tests should be retested with the LM because of its greater accuracy at this end, and many will have 20-point gains.
I checked, and sure enough I was tested on the S-B in kindergarten (at that time the LM was the only form of it available), and the WISC-R in high school.
Supposedly, the newest forms (S-B V and WISC IV), which had just come out at the time of her talk, have higher ceilings to account for this, but the research is still being done to see if there's really a change.
Fact is, smart kids will generally do quite well for themselves - that's the advantage of being smart.
Unfortunately, this just isn't true, and can be a dangerous assumption. I'm guessing you grew up in a middle class suburban home, and that's why you've been able to float along on laziness. However, what about the really smart kids growing up in the inner city? They're bored to death by school, where can they find a challenge? Climbing to the top ranks of your local gang and making some money dealing drugs probably poses a much more interesting challenge than coasting through high school, right?
Not to mention the kids growing up in extremely rural areas - these kids who may be full of ambition and ready to tackle whatever is thrown at them, but find themselves surrounded by zero opportunities. They can't go to a better school, there aren't any for miles and miles. Probably not too many museums or other places to go for enrichment. They might find a summer program, but what about the other 9 months of the year? Unless their school provides some kind of opportunities, all their ambition is going to rot away.
Slashdot Mirror
In OS X, the first time you run any program it says "This is the first time you've run Program X. Do you want to continue?" Which means that, unless you are SO dense that you click yes when it asks if you want to run Program I Didn't Mean To Download, the spyware might be on your machine but will never get to run.
(Of course, all the rumors - not to mention common sense - are pointing towards an intel powerbook, and I'm looking at ibooks, so I'm starting to think it's not worth waiting.)
I'm sure video games are going through the same process, and in another decade or two will be more recognized as possible works of art - especially when some other medium comes along that can't *possibly* be regarded as a mode artistic expression (yet).
I was also once not allowed into an 18+ club b/c I didn't have my license on me, despite having proof that I was a junior in college and having credit and debit cards that I couldn't have had before age 18. But I think the girl was just being a bitch that time.
And I was carded for alcohol just about every time I bought it in college.
I'm sure enforcement is much more lax in some areas than others - but in my experience enforcement of IDs for R-rated movies is higher than enforcement of IDs for M-rated video games.
Right. And my point is that they still DO, even though they don't HAVE to. And guess what? Nobody tries to make laws about it, becuase they just do it. That's how self-regulation of an industry works. When stores *don't* card for M-rated games? That's how self-regulation doesn't work, and that leads to people shouting for laws about it, which leads to whining about these laws.
Movie theaters card kids for R-rated movies, why is this so hard?
It probably depends on whether they count iTunes gift cards when they're bought, or when they're spent.
Makes me wonder what the least-offered majors are...
I doubt he had the cash on hand to hire a PhD (in a field with very few experts worldwide) before the venture capital came in. It says he was making like $30K a year to work on this PLUS a bunch of other toy ideas originally - I doubt the chemist was paid only $30K.
Do you really think they're going to notice the subtle difference between a clean tooth and one covered in bacteria? I swiped the toothbrush over my teeth once, I taste minty, that's good enough, right? There are TONS of products out there to help kids learn to brush long enough.
Which means this is quite a good deal - a double album, a bunch of extras, and a USB memory stick (I've been meaning to pick one of those up), for only a bit more than what the music alone would cost on iTunes - and without the DRM, if you're worried about that.
Although, if you look at this photo, you can see the listing of live tracks in addition to Barenaked for the Holidays - there seem to be seven. Plus 20 on the holiday album... That's two songs short. Hm... (I can't seem to find an actual track listing anywhere, that photo's the best I could do.)
In fact, Darwin himself made predictions based on his theories that were proven true. Here is a quick overview of one example - he saw a particular flower and predicted that a particular shape of insect must exist to pollinate it, even though he knew of no such insect at the time. Such an insect was found many years later.
Evolution is called a theory because it does meet the scientific criteria for a theory - it has been thoroughly tested (come on, it's been around for over a century, do you HONESTLY believe no one has thought to test it??) and, yes, mathematically modelled even. Many times.
The problem with Intelligent Design is that it does NOT meet the criteria (that you yourself give) for a theory, but its supporters try to present it as one on equal footing with evolution. ID is a hypothesis or a conjecture, evolution is a theory. You seem to understand the difference - most people's problem is that they don't, and they think that since evolution is a theory that means we have no clue if it's really right.
So I have to wonder - was their sample all Windows-users? I didn't see anything about that in the article, unless I just missed it.
If Macs really have a 16% install base, plus say another 5% for *nix etc users, that's like a fifth of the population - the most geek-heavy fifth, I might add - out. Even if you don't buy the 16% number, they're still discounting the geekiest 10%. Do you think that would affect their results? I mean, a lot of the stuff probably wouldn't be changed much - but, for instance, the 18% of people who d/l games to cel phones... Is their sample possibly less gadget-philic than the total population?
I have friends who did some Discovery Channel special, and their "results" were way faked - but watching the special afterwards, you'd never know that. Have they (meaning, I guess, the Discovery Channel or producers or whoever) ever made you fudge some of your results to support or refute a myth they particularly liked/didn't like?
Read her LJ for a taste, or to hold you over til it comes out in the US. I'm considering ordering the book from amazon.co.uk to give my sis for Christmas, international shipping be damned.
Ah, see, here is the problem. In many cases (yes, this is when things are poorly implemented - but it's reality), the students are forced (through certain types of groupwork) to either teach the other students or just do the work for them - and many times, the brighter students just choose the latter and the slower students learn nothing in the process. I'm certainly not against allowing students to help others - but when it becomes expected of them, you're taking it too far.
Plus, who says that it has to be above-average kids teaching the lower kids? Often smart kids need help that they can only get from other smart kids, and the slower kids have a lot to teach each other. Oftentimes, someone who "got it" instantly won't be able to explain how they figured it out to someone who doesn't understand. However, someone else who had to struggle to understand knows what steps they took and can explain it to someone else who's having trouble understanding.
Check out "full inclusion," a concept growing in popularity and support, in which "special ed" people are included successfully in "normal" classrooms when a proper support structure is instituted.
Although the research is split on "full inclusion" for special ed kids (yes, some research shows it works - but some shows it doesn't), it's pretty well-established that it tends to have negative effects for gifted kids. Check out Kulik & Kulik's meta-analysis... 1992, I think?
Unfortunately, we now have rent/morgages and utilities to pay, food to buy, student loans to pay off, medical bills... I'm asking my mommy for a gamecube for Christmas.
No, actually, I'm not willing - or able, honestly - to pay $400 for a freaking game console, plus $50 per game. My SNES has served me well all these years, but I've just about played it out and it's time to upgrade. Even as a gift, though, I can't imagine asking for a console that costs over $100. And that way I can get more games with it.
Obviously, flush toilets cause heart disease.
(I have a bachelor's in cognitive science and a master's in gifted ed - applying for PhD programs. My top choice is currently Northwestern's Learning Sciences program, but if wherever you are is doing a lot of research specifically in intelligence I might take a look.)
Most politicians have an IQ only about 10 points or so above the average IQ of the people they are leading. People don't like to be led by anyone a whole lot smarter than them.
Those few world-changers who make great scientific discoveries aren't generally super-ultra genius material, but rather tend to be the hard-working, driven variety of the more common "lesser" genius.
Well, to be a successful scientist, there's generally a base "cutoff" IQ of about 140. Meaning, very few people with an IQ under about 140 manage to sustain a career as a scientist (as in, PI, not lab lackey). So you've already cut out most of the just plain "gifted" people and gone into the realm of "highly gifted." You're already into the top less than 1% of people, so "more common" is kind of a relative term.
Among these people, there is a correlation among higher IQ and unique contributions to their field, but yeah - motivation and creativity start to play a bigger role so it's not as strong a correlation as the 140 thing. There's definitely a correlation, though. But then, there are also some correlations between IQ and creativity, so it's hard to tease out all the causes.
However, that's not all gifted education can be. That's just, unfortunately, the most common way that it's implemented. If you actually give kids accelerated classes and opportunities to actually analyze things on a deeper level, they can be really great experiences.
You might want to check out the National Association for Gifted Children website.
Well, there are people who are working full time, every day to try and improve it - check out www.nagc.org.
but can you really blame school districts for not wanting to go out on a limb and classify students? How many lawsuits would that bring up?
Actually, depending on how the state's constitution is worded, some schools have gotten slapped with lawsuits for NOT providing gifted services. In some states gifted services are mandated, but even in others, if the state constitution calls for a "free and appropriate" education for every child (as opposed to simply "free" or "free basic education"), some parents have been successful in arguing that their child was not receiving an appropriate education without gifted education.
I was tested at 160+ in kindergarten. Then I moved in high school and had to be retested, and got 149. Still got into the gifted program, but I was left wondering where my IQ went.
Then a couple years ago I went to a session at the National Association for Gifted Children conference given by Linda Kreger Silverman. She runs a center for the gifted in Denver, and she's been doing research on 160+ kids for the past couple decades.
Turns out that the most recent IQ tests (Stanford-Binet IV, WISC-R, and WISC III) have lower ceilings than the old Stanford-Binet LM form, and so the extreme high end kids run up against the ceiling effect and you can't get an accurate read on their abilities. She says that any kid who scores over 140 on these tests should be retested with the LM because of its greater accuracy at this end, and many will have 20-point gains.
I checked, and sure enough I was tested on the S-B in kindergarten (at that time the LM was the only form of it available), and the WISC-R in high school.
Supposedly, the newest forms (S-B V and WISC IV), which had just come out at the time of her talk, have higher ceilings to account for this, but the research is still being done to see if there's really a change.
Unfortunately, this just isn't true, and can be a dangerous assumption. I'm guessing you grew up in a middle class suburban home, and that's why you've been able to float along on laziness. However, what about the really smart kids growing up in the inner city? They're bored to death by school, where can they find a challenge? Climbing to the top ranks of your local gang and making some money dealing drugs probably poses a much more interesting challenge than coasting through high school, right?
Not to mention the kids growing up in extremely rural areas - these kids who may be full of ambition and ready to tackle whatever is thrown at them, but find themselves surrounded by zero opportunities. They can't go to a better school, there aren't any for miles and miles. Probably not too many museums or other places to go for enrichment. They might find a summer program, but what about the other 9 months of the year? Unless their school provides some kind of opportunities, all their ambition is going to rot away.