Re:2008 - The Desktop Linux Dream Is Dead
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OSCON 2008 Roundup
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· Score: 1
If "asynchronous client-server" architecture makes something "the same as... X11", then practically all asynchronous networked software is the same as X11. That's not a meaningful distinction.
"Not hard"? I just installed Steam using Wine's MSI installer, and then I downloaded and ran Portal like normal, but with the -windowed option. Dead easy.
Go download and try the "Portal: the Flash Version" map-pack. It's an entire second story mode with its own levels, environments, story, and final challenge. And it's much harder than the normal story environments, with a brilliant, enjoyable challenge I haven't had from a video game since the Super Nintendo was still being sold.
Could you also maybe put a crimp in the tendency of science/engineering/math/compsci professors to essentially tell students "Go away and do these 40 math problems; I've got research to do!"?
From my perspective (CS undergrad), the biggest issues with university science education are:
1) GPA fixation. I mean it. If you want professors to teach genuinely hard courses you need to make them curve their grades so that some percentage of students can maintain a good GPA, because bad GPA make scholarships and work-study go bye-bye, followed by college enrollment itself. 2) The Research-Teaching Reward Paradox. At least where I go, the best researchers in CS get rewarded by not having to teach undergrads as often, and getting their pick of upper-level courses in their research area when they do. The paradox is that this effect means that 100 and 200 level courses are taught by those professors who really love to teach or, much more commonly, by the worst professors in the department who scarcely give a damn about research or teaching now that they've got tenure. The problem is that the reward of a lower teaching load for well-performing faculty is actually a punishment for undergrads, who have to work extra hard (sometimes even self-studying completely when we've got the *worst* profs) just to learn as much for the same grade as we could have gotten much more easily had the professor not sucked.
And yes, I'm eating sour grapes on the subject. I just sat through two semesters of the exact two worst CS professors my university has to offer, and my GPA has taken the hit since I had to self-study the material for one and the other graded like a high-school teacher.
Of course, there's also admitting that maybe school doesn't need to utterly consume the lives of students.
Just saying that if you kicked the dumb kids out of the class you could probably get by with a lot less homework, which I remember as a virulent poison that coursed through my life destroying much of what I now call "childhood". Why not actually make schools teach instead of passing that job on to the students?
First, I think the midset that says "It's ok for freshman and sophomore years to be horrible b/c it weeds out the underachievers" is the first thing that should go.
I hate having to repost this, but it really becomes relevant to every single discussion of the supposed "failure" of science education at any level in the United States:
I have a rule I use to distinguish good puzzles from bad puzzles: If the easiest method for solving the puzzle is a breadth-first search of the entire possible-solution space, it's a bad puzzle.
That sounds about right. I haven't played a game with properly difficult puzzles in its main levels (bonus levels and user-added levels don't count... looking at you, Portal) since Zelda: Link to the Past.
I'm still wondering when someone will release Portal, or a Portal-style game, for the Wii. COME ON PEOPLE! The Wiimote was freaking *made* for portal placement!
Ummm... actually the main levels in Portal didn't have really tough puzzles. The bonus levels and most map-packs however, definitely keep your brain working *hard*.
I don't know about showing women as degraded (since those are paid actresses who volunteer for their jobs), but isn't some of the stuff in more extreme pornos actually painful to perform for someone who hasn't trained their body to it?
And as (for some reason), nobody has pointed out, allowing clone machines kills Apple's business, just like allowing PC clones eventually (though very, very slowly) undercut and killed the IBM PC business. In all honesty if people want that Mac Touch so much they should just buy a damn Mac, or at least put the effort in to to customize a Linux distro to look and act like Mac OS X (not that much effort, really, I've done it) rather than killing Apple with a forced race-to-the-bottom in hardware.
And yes, it would become a race to the bottom. All PC markets with intense competition seem to have turned out that way.
OHAI. I just cleared the "Portal: The Flash Version" map-pack (it's really a full alternate game, a sort of "Portal Master Quest") on Portal tonight. While running Linux.
When I went looking for Linux drivers for my Macbook Pro (2007 model, ended up with ndiswrapper and a Windoze driver from my Leopard install disk) I read that the Airport Extreme *is* an Atheros model.
I'm sorry, which men are these that don't like fiction? Give me a decent sci-fi novel and I'm quite happy. The fact that school English classes don't teach sci-fi may be responsible for the apparent "difference".
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If "asynchronous client-server" architecture makes something "the same as ... X11", then practically all asynchronous networked software is the same as X11. That's not a meaningful distinction.
Funny, I found a Mac incredibly intuitive and easy to use -- especially after 5 years of Linux.
No, not really. I made it to blue and then had to move.
Funny, then, why aren't students going into engineering?
So can we get working on the artificial manipulation of the genome?
"Not hard"? I just installed Steam using Wine's MSI installer, and then I downloaded and ran Portal like normal, but with the -windowed option. Dead easy.
Go download and try the "Portal: the Flash Version" map-pack. It's an entire second story mode with its own levels, environments, story, and final challenge. And it's much harder than the normal story environments, with a brilliant, enjoyable challenge I haven't had from a video game since the Super Nintendo was still being sold.
A swarm of Vashta Nerada.
Could you also maybe put a crimp in the tendency of science/engineering/math/compsci professors to essentially tell students "Go away and do these 40 math problems; I've got research to do!"?
From my perspective (CS undergrad), the biggest issues with university science education are:
1) GPA fixation. I mean it. If you want professors to teach genuinely hard courses you need to make them curve their grades so that some percentage of students can maintain a good GPA, because bad GPA make scholarships and work-study go bye-bye, followed by college enrollment itself.
2) The Research-Teaching Reward Paradox. At least where I go, the best researchers in CS get rewarded by not having to teach undergrads as often, and getting their pick of upper-level courses in their research area when they do. The paradox is that this effect means that 100 and 200 level courses are taught by those professors who really love to teach or, much more commonly, by the worst professors in the department who scarcely give a damn about research or teaching now that they've got tenure. The problem is that the reward of a lower teaching load for well-performing faculty is actually a punishment for undergrads, who have to work extra hard (sometimes even self-studying completely when we've got the *worst* profs) just to learn as much for the same grade as we could have gotten much more easily had the professor not sucked.
And yes, I'm eating sour grapes on the subject. I just sat through two semesters of the exact two worst CS professors my university has to offer, and my GPA has taken the hit since I had to self-study the material for one and the other graded like a high-school teacher.
Of course, there's also admitting that maybe school doesn't need to utterly consume the lives of students.
Just saying that if you kicked the dumb kids out of the class you could probably get by with a lot less homework, which I remember as a virulent poison that coursed through my life destroying much of what I now call "childhood". Why not actually make schools teach instead of passing that job on to the students?
First, I think the midset that says "It's ok for freshman and sophomore years to be horrible b/c it weeds out the underachievers" is the first thing that should go.
Fixed that for you.
I hate having to repost this, but it really becomes relevant to every single discussion of the supposed "failure" of science education at any level in the United States:
Adjusted for IQ, quantitative skills, and working hours, jobs in science are the lowest paid in the United States.
If this country really needed more engineers, somehow I believe engineering salaries would go up.
I still hold to the Greenspun Maxim: if you want more people learning science better, make science jobs not suck.
I have a rule I use to distinguish good puzzles from bad puzzles: If the easiest method for solving the puzzle is a breadth-first search of the entire possible-solution space, it's a bad puzzle.
That sounds about right. I haven't played a game with properly difficult puzzles in its main levels (bonus levels and user-added levels don't count... looking at you, Portal) since Zelda: Link to the Past.
I'm still wondering when someone will release Portal, or a Portal-style game, for the Wii. COME ON PEOPLE! The Wiimote was freaking *made* for portal placement!
Ummm... actually the main levels in Portal didn't have really tough puzzles. The bonus levels and most map-packs however, definitely keep your brain working *hard*.
And by society you mean Californian society. A non-Californian has a snowball's chance in hell of getting in and being able to pay.
Because cheap and crappy wins in the marketplace far more often than expensive and excellent (which is what Apple sells)?
I don't know about showing women as degraded (since those are paid actresses who volunteer for their jobs), but isn't some of the stuff in more extreme pornos actually painful to perform for someone who hasn't trained their body to it?
And as (for some reason), nobody has pointed out, allowing clone machines kills Apple's business, just like allowing PC clones eventually (though very, very slowly) undercut and killed the IBM PC business. In all honesty if people want that Mac Touch so much they should just buy a damn Mac, or at least put the effort in to to customize a Linux distro to look and act like Mac OS X (not that much effort, really, I've done it) rather than killing Apple with a forced race-to-the-bottom in hardware.
And yes, it would become a race to the bottom. All PC markets with intense competition seem to have turned out that way.
OHAI. I just cleared the "Portal: The Flash Version" map-pack (it's really a full alternate game, a sort of "Portal Master Quest") on Portal tonight. While running Linux.
When I went looking for Linux drivers for my Macbook Pro (2007 model, ended up with ndiswrapper and a Windoze driver from my Leopard install disk) I read that the Airport Extreme *is* an Atheros model.
I'm sorry, which men are these that don't like fiction? Give me a decent sci-fi novel and I'm quite happy. The fact that school English classes don't teach sci-fi may be responsible for the apparent "difference".
Of course women have a similar impulse. Have you ever seen the things they'll forgive on an attractive alpha-male figure?