True, but the president's powers do include acting as the gate keeper for laws Congress tries to make. The policies he declared on the trail are indication of what bills might pass or be vetoed (if he follows through on them). Also importantly, the president (if popular) can be a guiding figure for the party he represents which now controls both the House and Senate. His priorities will likely influence theirs. In addition, he is the Command in Chief and he does have the power to pull troops out of Iraq and fulfill the promises me made on that account.
...they take what could be a straight forward question and then obfuscate it behind a bunch of random noise merely to confuse the test taker.
...
There is a difference between testing knowledge of the subject matter, and giving the test taker a hard time. A "difficult" question might be great to ponder when you have unlimited time, but in a time pressured test, it is not appropriate.
I would love a job where I only puzzle over problems with no obfuscation or, even better, unlimited time to solve "difficult" problems. It just so happens that my life has limited time with noise and obfuscation aplenty.
Seriously, doesn't the ability to filter out noise help display understanding of the theories and concepts? I remember a teacher assigning a series of story questions with the explicit instructions: find the "question statement" then cross out any unnecessary information before trying to solve it.
I know very few teachers who write test "merely to confuse the test taker." Most of which were professors who only taught because they were required to by the university or were weeding out the less-committed students.
A kindergarten teacher I know has pointed out that, oddly enough, kindergarten has the reverse trend. Their standards of reading and arithmetic has gotten higher over the last decade or two.
And it's not like many educators are test-driving these games either. At least the newer ones are being taught better. I had some friends who studied elementary education about 6 years back. I know they took a technology in the classroom course for which testing and analyzing technology (primarily games) was a large part of the course and grade. One of the primary factors to consider was fun (or at least what the current literature and studies said the age group enjoyed).
This comment is so delayed that I doubt many people will read it, but I am going to post it anyway. I stopped buying video games years ago when I was a teenager. I don't have a console anymore. The last computer game I bought only runs on Windows 95/98. So what games do I play? Scrabble, Chess, Uno, Skipbo, Phase 10, Monopoly, Risk, Battleship, and the list keeps going. Do you want epic single player games? A good book or just some time day-dreaming. What do these cost? Depends on where you get them but the most I have spent is $20 for a very nice edition of Stratego. Some day I may break down and fork out the cash for Settlers of Catan or Princes of Florence. Books (from the library) and day-dreaming are free. I enjoy playing video games when I get the chance; I just don't think the enjoyment return on investment is worth the little bit of cash I have.
On another note: My last roommate had his NES and a bunch of games. I think it is amazing how much good game-play you could get out of it with so little graphics. Even though we had an xbox (or was it a play station?) available we spent much more of our time playing head-to-head Tetris II on the NES.
At this point, I doubt this comment will ever be read, but I wanted to respond to a few comments that have been posted...
IS vs CS:
About 1.5 years ago I graduated with a BS in Information Systems (IS). The IS program was housed in the Business department. The point of the degree was to give a broad look at Information Technology: databases, networks, programming (Java), and web architecture; and then allow the student to pick a path and pursue that interest. There was also a class on system design and development which was highly recommended to all students. An internship (strongly encouraged) or a senior project was required to graduate. The internship provided at least a glimpse at what the graduate had waiting for them, and the senior project was targeted at those planning to head straight to graduate school (which is what I did). The required math class for the degree was Statistics (required for everyone in the Business department). I realize that I never was introduced to much discrete mathematics, or many of the things that are traditionally taught in CS. But if you wanted that, there was a CS department on the other side of the campus. (Some of the guys in my program minored in CS so they could pick and choose what they wanted from that department.)
The point of a college degree:
You can never learn it all, regardless of the college's curriculum. But that isn't the point of college. You go to get a very good introduction in a broad area (CS, Biology, English) combined with some depth in a small area (Databases, Cellular, Editing), but more importantly, you learn how to learn, and you learn how to think. My program taught Java/JSP with Oracle in a Windows environment. Now I work mainly with Perl, PHP, and MySQL in an OSX environment. If my next job needs something else I am confident in my ability to ramp up quickly.
Learning the Project Lifecycle:
As for designing/developing/QA as part of the curriculum? Part the problem it is not having the time available to do what needs to get done. If you consider that school takes more time than a 40 hour work week (60-70 for many) and part-time employment, a single class is about one fourth of your course-load (or less in some cases) than you have approx 10-17 hours a week (or less) to work on that project. Now, coordinate your available time with the rest of your team and your client. Good luck. The senior project I worked on was a continuation of a project that had two semesters (two teams per semester) of student work already (that alone taught me a lesson on project documentation and the hell left by those who leave none). We didn't bring it to competition either. I learned a great deal about team management, working with a client, the necessity of documentation, and being thrown into someone else's partially completed work. Although we did get to do a bit of design (and redesign), we never got to the project completion/QA part. These projects can teach a lot, but don't count on getting to go through the entire cycle without liberal amounts of time. (The systems design class I mentioned above in "IS vs. CS" discussed the various theories of project management, but didn't attempt to have us experience them.)
Slashdot Mirror
Someone correct me if I'm wrong
This is Slashdot. Someone will correct you whether you are wrong or not.
A good reading of the story can be found @ EscapePod.
Sounds like two options on a slashdot poll: "Which one is most likely to exist?" God, Aliens, Santa Claus, Spiderman, or CowboyNeal?
The president makes NO laws.
True, but the president's powers do include acting as the gate keeper for laws Congress tries to make. The policies he declared on the trail are indication of what bills might pass or be vetoed (if he follows through on them). Also importantly, the president (if popular) can be a guiding figure for the party he represents which now controls both the House and Senate. His priorities will likely influence theirs. In addition, he is the Command in Chief and he does have the power to pull troops out of Iraq and fulfill the promises me made on that account.
I'm still waiting for "Jane Austin's MS Paint 2000" to be bundled with the next version of windows.
Rather: Jane Austin's MS Word 2000 && M. C. Escher's MS Paint 3000
I will let someone else who can express this better than I explain: http://cavlec.yarinareth.net/archives/2008/05/26/why-blogs-arent-journals/
...they take what could be a straight forward question and then obfuscate it behind a bunch of random noise merely to confuse the test taker.
...
There is a difference between testing knowledge of the subject matter, and giving the test taker a hard time. A "difficult" question might be great to ponder when you have unlimited time, but in a time pressured test, it is not appropriate.
I would love a job where I only puzzle over problems with no obfuscation or, even better, unlimited time to solve "difficult" problems. It just so happens that my life has limited time with noise and obfuscation aplenty.
Seriously, doesn't the ability to filter out noise help display understanding of the theories and concepts? I remember a teacher assigning a series of story questions with the explicit instructions: find the "question statement" then cross out any unnecessary information before trying to solve it.
I know very few teachers who write test "merely to confuse the test taker." Most of which were professors who only taught because they were required to by the university or were weeding out the less-committed students.
A kindergarten teacher I know has pointed out that, oddly enough, kindergarten has the reverse trend. Their standards of reading and arithmetic has gotten higher over the last decade or two.
This comment is so delayed that I doubt many people will read it, but I am going to post it anyway. I stopped buying video games years ago when I was a teenager. I don't have a console anymore. The last computer game I bought only runs on Windows 95/98. So what games do I play? Scrabble, Chess, Uno, Skipbo, Phase 10, Monopoly, Risk, Battleship, and the list keeps going. Do you want epic single player games? A good book or just some time day-dreaming. What do these cost? Depends on where you get them but the most I have spent is $20 for a very nice edition of Stratego. Some day I may break down and fork out the cash for Settlers of Catan or Princes of Florence. Books (from the library) and day-dreaming are free. I enjoy playing video games when I get the chance; I just don't think the enjoyment return on investment is worth the little bit of cash I have.
On another note: My last roommate had his NES and a bunch of games. I think it is amazing how much good game-play you could get out of it with so little graphics. Even though we had an xbox (or was it a play station?) available we spent much more of our time playing head-to-head Tetris II on the NES.
Of course, your mileage may vary.
At this point, I doubt this comment will ever be read, but I wanted to respond to a few comments that have been posted...
IS vs CS:
About 1.5 years ago I graduated with a BS in Information Systems (IS). The IS program was housed in the Business department. The point of the degree was to give a broad look at Information Technology: databases, networks, programming (Java), and web architecture; and then allow the student to pick a path and pursue that interest. There was also a class on system design and development which was highly recommended to all students. An internship (strongly encouraged) or a senior project was required to graduate. The internship provided at least a glimpse at what the graduate had waiting for them, and the senior project was targeted at those planning to head straight to graduate school (which is what I did). The required math class for the degree was Statistics (required for everyone in the Business department).
I realize that I never was introduced to much discrete mathematics, or many of the things that are traditionally taught in CS. But if you wanted that, there was a CS department on the other side of the campus. (Some of the guys in my program minored in CS so they could pick and choose what they wanted from that department.)
The point of a college degree:
You can never learn it all, regardless of the college's curriculum. But that isn't the point of college. You go to get a very good introduction in a broad area (CS, Biology, English) combined with some depth in a small area (Databases, Cellular, Editing), but more importantly, you learn how to learn, and you learn how to think. My program taught Java/JSP with Oracle in a Windows environment. Now I work mainly with Perl, PHP, and MySQL in an OSX environment. If my next job needs something else I am confident in my ability to ramp up quickly.
Learning the Project Lifecycle:
As for designing/developing/QA as part of the curriculum? Part the problem it is not having the time available to do what needs to get done. If you consider that school takes more time than a 40 hour work week (60-70 for many) and part-time employment, a single class is about one fourth of your course-load (or less in some cases) than you have approx 10-17 hours a week (or less) to work on that project. Now, coordinate your available time with the rest of your team and your client.
Good luck.
The senior project I worked on was a continuation of a project that had two semesters (two teams per semester) of student work already (that alone taught me a lesson on project documentation and the hell left by those who leave none). We didn't bring it to competition either. I learned a great deal about team management, working with a client, the necessity of documentation, and being thrown into someone else's partially completed work. Although we did get to do a bit of design (and redesign), we never got to the project completion/QA part. These projects can teach a lot, but don't count on getting to go through the entire cycle without liberal amounts of time. (The systems design class I mentioned above in "IS vs. CS" discussed the various theories of project management, but didn't attempt to have us experience them.)