"Seriously? Repeatedly pressing keys in some bizarre numeric-to-alpha scheme is easier than using a QWERTY touchscreen?"
Oh we're talking about keypads, rather than keyboards? I thought you had your semantics right on this, but I guess not. Regardless, you'll still type faster with numeric to text pads if you've been using them long enough than you ever will be able to with a touchscreen virtual keyboard. QWERTY itself is illogical if you cannot type properly on it (i.e. 10 fingers, both hands), so your implication that numeric to alpha schemes are bizarre, whilst suggesting minimised qwerty isn't is rather hilarious.
"Just because Wikipedia says it, doesn't make it true. A "virtual" keyboard is just as physical as any other keyboard. Otherwise, how would it exist?"
Reading this hurts so much, it's like trying to explain to a 6 year old.
"So, where's your evidence for this? Is typing on a "virtual keyboard" always faster than typing on, for example, a chiclet keyboard? There are some pretty horrible "physical" keyboards out there, how can you be so certain that physical keyboards are always faster?"
I was speaking in general, of course you could choose a retardedly gimped keyboard which would be slower, but that's obviously a dumb comparison. It's like saying cars aren't in general faster than walking and using a broken down car to prove your point. Clearly a dumb comparison however, that ignores the fact that working cars are indeed generally faster at getting you from A to B than walking when travelling between buildings worth driving between.
"So, by your definition, a keyboard that required one to mechanically lift a 200 pound weight, and place it on a grid with letters spaced 10 feet apart would be "proper" keyboard?"
For someone so caught up in precise defintions and semantics, you don't have struggle with some basic terminology and tenets of the English language. It was pretty clear to anyone with a basic understanding of English what I was referring to. When I said I was referring to physical keyboards with the use of the term proper, that does not mean I was referring to all possible keyboards real and imaginary, including the most ludicrous ones that only a child's mind could come up with like the example you just gave.
"Correct. The term has always been a misnomer."
Well no, it hasn't. You see, the term virtual is used to describe a software representation of a separate physical whole, this includes virtual keyboards, virtual memory, virtual discs, virtual CD drives and so on. You seem to be confused and think that virtual means "doesn't really exist", all that demonstrates is that you don't really know what the term virtual means- but don't worry, others make this mistake too, you're not alone. Just because you don't understand the term does not mean there is a problem with it, your understanding is the problem here.
"But it involves hardware elements. It doesn't exist purely in software. Otherwise, how could it detect fingers touching it?"
You really are struggling to understand what virtual means aren't you? Perhaps IT isn't for you if you can't grasp simple, but quite fundamental concepts like the separation between representation of an item, and an item itself. Regardless, I'll try again- the touch screen is not a keyboard, the software is not a keyboard, together they are a representation of a keyboard, but they are not a physical keyboard, it is hence a virtual keyboard, or an on-screen keyboard or whatever you wish to call it. It is not a physical keyboard, because a physical keyboard has physical buttons, not software representations of buttons.
"I would call it an image of an orange."
Ah, so you are capable of understanding it then? Capable of understanding that your on-screen keyboard, is an image of a keyboard and not an actual physical keyboard then? Just because you interface with that image of a keyboard, that piece of software, with a physical input device- your touch screen, does not make the system a physical key
"So, any average mobile phone with a numeric keypad has a "proper" keyboard just because it has "physical" switches? I don't think you'll find many people agreeing with that."
Perhaps some may disagree, but all most the most ignorant zealots will agree that typing on such a physical keyboard is far easier than any touch screen implementation be it the iPhone or Android.
"Also, how is a touchscreen keyboard not physical? It uses touch sensors and emits light. Are those somehow against the laws of physics now?"
Because it's virtual. The touchscreen is not the keyboard, it's merely a method to interface with the virtual keyboard. See here:
"And plenty of people argue the same thing about touchscreen keyboards. Which just goes to show that the definition of a "proper" keyboard is highly subjective and variable."
Bollocks. No one can ever reach the same typing speed on a virtual keyboard as can be achieved on a physical keyboard because of lack of true tactile response, and the inherent relative slowness of software. On screen keyboards can be pretty good, but never as good.
"Perhaps you should not have chosen that term to describe the keyboard? For many people, anything short of a full-sized keyboard that one can touch-type on is not a proper keyboard. For others, a T9 numeric keypad is their standard keyboard."
Semantics. I clarified that by proper I meant physical.
"Again, how is a touchscreen keyboard not a physical keyboard? It exists in physical reality, so how is it not physical? It uses physical motions to detect input, so it must be physical."
By that argument, nothing is virtual, because everything virtual, including software exists as a set of real, physical, electrons, or markings on a disk platter or whatever. I suggest you look into better understanding the meaning of virtual before engaging in arguments that are merely about semantics, and hence have no relevance to the discussion other than petty rantings.
Still, to just clarify that again for you, and hence answer your question more precisely, an on screen keyboard is not a physical keyboard because of the fact it is not actually a keyboard, but merely a software representation of what we know as a keyboard. To give you an analogy to ponder over, would you call an on screen image of an orange, a physical orange even if you could interface with that image using the touch screen to rotate it and so forth?
It doesn't need to be full sized as it's still fine to type on, it is the physical nature of it that matters. Besides, the on screen keyboard of the iPad is limited by the screensize, and hence must be even smaller again so if size of keyboard is an issue, then the iPad suffers even more there.
I wont pretend I could jump straight onto a netbook keyboard and type away as flawlessly as on a normal desktop keyboard, I did make a couple more mistakes on average, but it's something you rapidly get over- it's really just getting used to the fact the distances between keys are a little smaller, but at least they're real, proper, responsive, keys. That's what really matters when typing.
For what it's worth I also have a virtual keyboard (http://reviews.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/inputdevices/0,1000001008,39165419,00.htm) which I used to use with my old PDA, but despite it being a reasonable size, it still wasn't a match for a physical keyboard.
I actually noticed that slip up when I read through my post after posting (there's a moral to be learned from that I think), I thought oh it wont notice, but I should know, if I've learned anything on Slashdot this last 10 years or so, it's that no embarassingly bad phrasing of sentences gets past Slashdot;)
I'm glad you've defined for me what I should be doing with my netbook. I will cease taking notes, writing papers and design documents on it immediately when I travel so that it can be replaced by a tablet PC in future.
Seriously though, people use Netbooks for all sorts of things, an onscreen keyboard will almost certainly never cut it for my usage patterns. If netbooks dissapeared tommorrow, I'd just have to go back to carrying a full blown laptop around, a tablet still wouldn't cut it. I do have a 15 inch laptop too for when I'm having to write code on the move, but usually that's done at my desk where it otherwise stays docked.
My girlfriend also really likes netbooks, because she is a retail area manager for a large fashion chain, it's small enough to fit in her fashionable handbag which is part of her role (to use the products she sells), but has a proper keyboard allowing her to type up notes whichever store she's travelling too.
Sometimes normal laptops are just too much of a ballache to lug around with you, and really if all you need to do is use an office suite, a netbook is plenty powerful enough, particularly when you can get 10.5hr battery life out of them which is great when doing long journeys.
"It is immature and reeks of disorganization."...and yet despite that, as we saw with the Scientology protests, it's one of the few online communities that has got involved in any real political activism, and arguably the largest and most successful in making their voice heard in real life so far.
So whilst people like yourself will sit here and whinge and infringements of civil liberties and so forth, but not actually act on that, they are actually out there getting involved.
I'm not exactly a fan of 4chan, and think some of Anonymous' actions have been idiotic, but at least they're doing something to make their point heard rather than just whinging.
In fact, further to my other response to you, thinking about this, is it actually a problem? They're talking about raising from eggs I believe, so would an egg born squid suffer the problem if brought up entirely in a much lower pressure body of water?
Is the ability to only be able to cope with high pressure genetic, or is it merely a result of natural growth at that pressure?
I was thinking about this issue myself when I read it. How hard would it be to emulate the pressure on a body of water large enough for a squid to survive in? I'd imagine pretty damn hard and extremely expensive right?
Alternatively couldn't it just be because the period of comparison that TFA is using is a comparison between a period of boom against one of the worst recessions in the last 100 years?
Is it really suprising that in a recession economic activity decreases, jobs go and so forth?
That's certainly a decent option, but obviously for large codebases with many different combinations of actions that can be performed it may become unweildy.
Personally, I'd argue one of the best things someone can do to help themselves in this situation is to learn design patterns, and learn to recognise them.
Even if people don't specifically follow design patterns, they often do so unintentionally, because this is really the beauty of design patterns- they are common solutions to common problems. If you can start to recognise design patterns, then you find you are no longer looking at lines and lines of code, but you are looking at the bigger picture, beginning to see what sections of code do in general, and can then get to grips with the role of these more abstract components in the larger system and understnand how it works.
You will still have to figure out how the algorithms in each component work, but you should at least be able to understand how those components fit in the bigger picture and their effect on the system as a whole.
Anything that makes their favourite entity appear 'not perfect' is hard for a fanboy to believe.
Don't hate them for it, they're just easily controlled and can't help the fact they'll irrationally defend the undefendable even though they owe nothing to said entity, because said entity has in fact exploited them for high profits.
I suppose it's like the abused wife going back to her wife beater husband, there's just some emotional attachment there they can't let go of.
No certainly, but what if there isn't a program for them and comp. sci. is the closest there is? I'm not saying they should necessarily get a comp. sci. degree, but that perhaps, a better solution would be to grade students in a range of ways- give them a rating on their communication abilities, their implementation abilities, their knowledge and so on. As I say, I really don't know what the solution is and it's not something that can be solved in a Slashdot thread.
I suppose really to put what I'm saying another way, does it matter if a cheat slips through the net when there's so many other people the current system does a hopeless job of fairly grading on their real worth anyway? The current system gives an often effectively meaningless metric either way.
"Scenario 1: unlikely. I'm a tutor, have been for years, the number of people that have low test grades, but can actually do the stuff I've run into? none."
If this is the case, then why as an employer do I consistently run into first class honours graduates incapable of doing the job to which their degree is suited to? Why is it of all the graduates I've had, despite a handful being from Oxford and Cambridge the best employees I've had have been a 3rd class, two 2:2s and a single 2:1 as well as rather amusingly, a guy who did't even go to uni at all (he went straight into IT support, then moved into dev from there)? Keep in mind that I've had enough 1st class candidates to fill every post and have even got some in a couple of posts, so it's not as if there has even been a shortage that has led to this pattern. Surely probability would dictate that whilst you might run into the odd case where a lower grade is better than a higher grade, it's unlikely that not one of the 1st class graduates would be anywhere near as good as even 2:2 students? There are plenty of good 1st class students out there, but it's pretty clear that university grade is a useless indictator of real world ability, which you somewhat recognise yourself later on in your post.
The 3rd class student in particularly clearly got low grades, but he's the type of guy I could throw a language and a set of frameworks/APIs at and in a short time he'd be able to bang out a well engineered prototype with those tools. In contrast, I've had 1st class students who just sit gazing at the API documentation, they seem to get the documentation, but seem to struggle with where to begin with it, how to use it, how to write code with it.
Maybe this is a particularly British problem, I'll admit I've not really had any overseas candidates (I say really, because I've had a couple, but they weren't even worth taking to interview stage), but I'd be suprised if that's the case when we're one of the only countries that manages to hold a handful of universities up against the US in the global rankings.
Besides, lasers are a bit girly, they're just like overpowered flashlights;) There's something more manly about accurately launching a solid lump of metal 200 miles at just short of mach 8!
"You're merely applying the same thought toward removing rigor from the computer science curriculum. Most of the tasks you mentioned should have separate programs. Are you seriously suggesting that someone who can't code be able to graduate from a CS program because he's good at accepting user feedback?"
No, but you're saying that someone who can remember all the sorting algorithms off by heart, but can't fit them into a full blown application should pass with flying colours, whilst the guy that can't remember them off by heart, but can look them and can then use them in a full blown application should fail, and therein lies the problem. The whole point in university is to produce people who can either do further useful research, or who are beneficial to the workplace.
I'm not saying someone should pass a CS program because he's good at accepting user feedback, but should he fail university altogether when the A student who can recite, but is useless in the real world passes with flying colours? If he's more useful than that guy, because in the real world you do need people capable of communicating with users, then it's idiotic that we have this situation where he's "rated" lower than the other guy who would require a lot of work to be productive in the real world.
Degrees that are simply about reciting facts are completely and utterly pointless and it's precisely why recruiters are paying ever less attention to degrees. Degrees need to be meaningful again, they need to represent what they are supposed to represent- a students worth to potential employers.
I'm not advocating not teaching grammar, it's stupid to suggest I am, because those are things that are taught well before you start grading people- in the UK our first main exams that mean anything are GCSEs at 16, I'd sure as hell hope fundamental science, numeracy and literacy have been taught long before that, I'm not sure what country you're in if that's not the case but it sounds rather backwards. My points are in relation to the later stages, where students get to the point where they are given more choices as to what they want to do, but where it's still possible to make the wrong choice.
Some of the finest developers I've met never even got degrees at all, whilst some of the graduates who come to job interviews fresh out of uni (and I'm not even that old myself, I'm still in my 20s) despite having first class honours degrees have shockingly low levels of ability even when coming from some of the top unis- clearly their grade does NOT represent their ability level. As a disclaimer, I was also a first class honours student in CS myself, so it's not as if I don't know what gets taught and what is required to get to the top, but I had an interest and strong knowledge of the subject well before I even started university and do not believe that university alone would've prepared me for the real world, particularly judging by the level of ability. I strongly support education, and think it's extremely important, hence why I'm doing a second degree in my spare time alongside work, this time in maths, but to suggest the grading system is somehow a useful demonstration of ability is rediculous.
Maybe they're trying to imitate EMI's recent success.
For those who don't know, EMI, who own the likes of the Beetles records and so forth recently just announced a £1.5 billion loss over the last financial year. They currently look like they could very well be heading to bankruptcy.
At least if they do end up that way, that's what, 1 down, 3 to go?
I do have to wonder if cheating even really matters.
People will cheat for a number of reasons including those you mention, but also perhaps because they find the assessment entirely unfitting to their way of thinking. for exams for example, tThe fact is, exams just aren't representative of real life and I've met many people who can excel outside exam conditions, but struggle with exams, even though the low grade from the exam has no relevance to their ability to perform in the real world. The other side of that of course is that there are also a lot of people out there who excel at exams, but truly suck at using that knowledge dynamically, in the real world.
But even if people don't cheat for this reason, and cheat because they find the course boring, or because they are interested in it but really can't do it I still have to wonder whether there is any actual harm.
Look at the effects, of each scenario:
Scenario 1: Person cheats because they struggle with exams, despite being good at the subject in a real world situation. No real harm is done, beause they'll still do a good job, and cheating really just gave them a grade that is perhaps more representative of their ability.
Scenario 2: Person cheats because they picked the wrong course and would rather have done something else, but need the points anyway. Does it really matter? Chances are if they didn't like the topic they wont be making use of the elements of the course in the real world anyway, and so even if they cheated to get a good grade, they're not going to end up in a real world situation where they're unable to perform.
Scenario 3: The person who cheats because they enjoy the topic but still struggle with it is going to have one of two outcomes, the first is that they continue to work at the subject until they are good at it precisely because they do enjoy it, the second and most harmful of all is that they remain incompetent and do use their cheated grade to get a job in the subject, obviously this is bad for the employer, but I would argue only in the short term- making use of the subject will either make them better over time, or their employer will begin to realise they suck and get rid of them anyway.
I'd argue the real problem is that despite the fact we know that people learn in different ways, despite the fact we know some people that are crap at recalling facts, but awesome at putting them to use if we have them in a reference, and contrary to that, have people who are awesome at remembering facts, but hopeless at applying them, or the much rarer case of people being good at both, we still use an assessment system that we've used for hundreds of years and which doesn't take any of this into account. That's before you factor in other complications that are important to a person's ability to do a job- some people might write good code, but can't for the life of them architect it, some are great at talking to people and getting user feedback, but hopeless at implementing and so on, none of which assessment really measures.
So effectively, whilst we have a fundamental flaw in how we rate people to begin with, it's hard to worry that there are people who don't adhere to the rules of said system.
I'd argue if we sort out the assessment system in general, cheating will be irrelevant anyway. I don't know what the solution is, and suspect whatever it is it'll require more effort from lecturers, but perhaps one option would be to have students both make a FOSS contribution, and peer review other contributions, and then have the lecturer or whoever evaluate the contribution and the review. Just throwing that out there though, I'm sure there are flaws in the plan but either way, it can't really be any worse than the current mainstream system which is both horribly outdated and fundamentally broken.
It's been a bit hit and miss all along really this one though, it's been a fine line- first off the details were going to be released, then they weren't, then they were, then we had to wait for a home office appeal, now the home office finally lost the appeal and they were released.
So to be fair, this one has been swaying either way so long, I don't think that's it.
The oink ruling was a bit more of a pleasant suprise though, although that was trial by jury so I suspect even that ended as it did for different reasons- i.e. the fact that statistically, 3 people in the jury were likely file sharers, and that again, statistically, everyone in the jury knew at least one file sharer. In this respect, the IFPI probably didn't have the benefit of jury ignorance of file sharing on their side.
In this respect, jury trials probably don't bode well for the music industry.
British courts did the right thing this week too- they ruled against the British government/US attempts to cover up US intelligence handed to the UK proving that one of our citizens was tortured before being moved to Guantanamo before being eventually released with no charges.
Turns out British intelligence was aware of the torture, which is why most people assumed our foreign office had such an interest in keeping it covered up in the first place.
Despite American threats to withdraw intelligence sharing if the data was released, our courts ruled that the data should be released, so it's a bit of a double win this week in standing up to oppressive American strong arm tactics of threatening to put us at risk from terrorists if we don't do what they say.
Strong AI was certainly the original motivation for what led to AI because it's really been in the human imagination for centuries, with the likes of the mechanical turk, and even ancient greek myths such as Talos, the bronze man.
But it's wrong to think that all initial AI research focussed on this because that's far from the truth, the motivation for AI stemmed from trying to understand what intelligence was, and attempts to replicate some elements of intelligence. This largely centred around symbolic systems and search at first, but over time evolved to include attempts at replicating natural intellience with things like ant colony optimisation and particle swarm optimisation, also we had genetic algorithms and eventually more solid implementations of neural networks (although the foundations for all these things were set decades previously).
When there's still debate as to what intelligence actually is, how it's defined, what it's comprised of then it's pretty clear that it's foolish to predict when we will be able to create it before we've even got it defined.
For what it's worth, expert systems and so forth are called weak AI, that is a solid, correct term, but as all AI developed to date, and for the forseeable future is weak AI, then that is why the term is rarely used and why AI is simply used instead. It has nothing to do with glamour, just the fact that all current AI is weak AI.
The Dartmouth conference after which the AI term was really first coined occured in 1956 did indeed have the goal of a strong AI within around 30 years or so (so by around 1986), but even the result of this was to concentrate on separate problems like search and so forth as individual problems.
See my response to the other guy- I think the point is really this, there's individual health, and there is population health.
I was really referring to individual health, and I would not include diseases in a measure of individual health, because many of them really don't depend on someone's health, but depend on sanitary conditions, pandemic controls and so forth- all of which I agree are much better now.
The plague for example would kill you off just as well if you were healthy as if you were unhealthy, so really isn't a measure of how healthy someone is individually , but the ability for plague to spread is certainly an indicator of quality of population health measures.
Also as I said to the other guy- in balance, I think things are better in general nowadays by a long shot, all I was really disagreeing with was the idea that everything is better, because as I say, I think there are still quite a decent amount of things which certainly are not.
It's really the difference between individual health and personal health.
Mortality rate and such are evidence of improved sanitation standards and disease prevention and control measures, but not evidence that individuals are more healthy, because the healthy are just as prone to such illnesses anyway.
The poor are better off in some ways, but it's a tough call. They might not die so early now, but there is a far greater proportion of poor people who are massively overweight. It really comes down to what's more important- the idea to live a decent life, or life expectancy. If the poor 500 years ago died early but were at least able to be active, is that really any worse than living longer slouching in front the TV, so overweight you struggle to walk, depressed, living off takeaway meals and such? Of course, that question is really a different argument, but really my point is this- clearly it's not all an improvement. I suspect this is what you are trying to get at- generally things are better, and yes if that's your point, I totally agree. I'd still rather live now than back then because generally things are indeed better, I just disagree with the idea that everything is better, some things certainly aren't.
Yeah I agree it's getting better now, but that's really only in what, the last 20 years? even now it still has a long way to go of course. I hope things stay this way and the trend doesn't reverse, it strikes me as odd in the UK for example that people have more rights covering their religion, which is a choice, than they do for their sexuality, their height, their hair colour and even until recently, their age, all of which are natural, genetic traits which no one can choose.
I was referring more to most of the 20th century where great people like Alan Turing were pressured into suicide over it and thousands of other war heroes despite their efforts were punished simply for who they were.
Actually, I think it's about keeping it in the media. If they can keep up the regular news about such extortionate awards in the media, they're probably hoping it'll continue to act as a deterrent to people.
Slashdot Mirror
"Seriously? Repeatedly pressing keys in some bizarre numeric-to-alpha scheme is easier than using a QWERTY touchscreen?"
Oh we're talking about keypads, rather than keyboards? I thought you had your semantics right on this, but I guess not. Regardless, you'll still type faster with numeric to text pads if you've been using them long enough than you ever will be able to with a touchscreen virtual keyboard. QWERTY itself is illogical if you cannot type properly on it (i.e. 10 fingers, both hands), so your implication that numeric to alpha schemes are bizarre, whilst suggesting minimised qwerty isn't is rather hilarious.
"Just because Wikipedia says it, doesn't make it true. A "virtual" keyboard is just as physical as any other keyboard. Otherwise, how would it exist?"
Reading this hurts so much, it's like trying to explain to a 6 year old.
"So, where's your evidence for this? Is typing on a "virtual keyboard" always faster than typing on, for example, a chiclet keyboard? There are some pretty horrible "physical" keyboards out there, how can you be so certain that physical keyboards are always faster?"
I was speaking in general, of course you could choose a retardedly gimped keyboard which would be slower, but that's obviously a dumb comparison. It's like saying cars aren't in general faster than walking and using a broken down car to prove your point. Clearly a dumb comparison however, that ignores the fact that working cars are indeed generally faster at getting you from A to B than walking when travelling between buildings worth driving between.
"So, by your definition, a keyboard that required one to mechanically lift a 200 pound weight, and place it on a grid with letters spaced 10 feet apart would be "proper" keyboard?"
For someone so caught up in precise defintions and semantics, you don't have struggle with some basic terminology and tenets of the English language. It was pretty clear to anyone with a basic understanding of English what I was referring to. When I said I was referring to physical keyboards with the use of the term proper, that does not mean I was referring to all possible keyboards real and imaginary, including the most ludicrous ones that only a child's mind could come up with like the example you just gave.
"Correct. The term has always been a misnomer."
Well no, it hasn't. You see, the term virtual is used to describe a software representation of a separate physical whole, this includes virtual keyboards, virtual memory, virtual discs, virtual CD drives and so on. You seem to be confused and think that virtual means "doesn't really exist", all that demonstrates is that you don't really know what the term virtual means- but don't worry, others make this mistake too, you're not alone. Just because you don't understand the term does not mean there is a problem with it, your understanding is the problem here.
"But it involves hardware elements. It doesn't exist purely in software. Otherwise, how could it detect fingers touching it?"
You really are struggling to understand what virtual means aren't you? Perhaps IT isn't for you if you can't grasp simple, but quite fundamental concepts like the separation between representation of an item, and an item itself. Regardless, I'll try again- the touch screen is not a keyboard, the software is not a keyboard, together they are a representation of a keyboard, but they are not a physical keyboard, it is hence a virtual keyboard, or an on-screen keyboard or whatever you wish to call it. It is not a physical keyboard, because a physical keyboard has physical buttons, not software representations of buttons.
"I would call it an image of an orange."
Ah, so you are capable of understanding it then? Capable of understanding that your on-screen keyboard, is an image of a keyboard and not an actual physical keyboard then? Just because you interface with that image of a keyboard, that piece of software, with a physical input device- your touch screen, does not make the system a physical key
"So, any average mobile phone with a numeric keypad has a "proper" keyboard just because it has "physical" switches? I don't think you'll find many people agreeing with that."
Perhaps some may disagree, but all most the most ignorant zealots will agree that typing on such a physical keyboard is far easier than any touch screen implementation be it the iPhone or Android.
"Also, how is a touchscreen keyboard not physical? It uses touch sensors and emits light. Are those somehow against the laws of physics now?"
Because it's virtual. The touchscreen is not the keyboard, it's merely a method to interface with the virtual keyboard. See here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_Keyboard
"And plenty of people argue the same thing about touchscreen keyboards. Which just goes to show that the definition of a "proper" keyboard is highly subjective and variable."
Bollocks. No one can ever reach the same typing speed on a virtual keyboard as can be achieved on a physical keyboard because of lack of true tactile response, and the inherent relative slowness of software. On screen keyboards can be pretty good, but never as good.
"Perhaps you should not have chosen that term to describe the keyboard? For many people, anything short of a full-sized keyboard that one can touch-type on is not a proper keyboard. For others, a T9 numeric keypad is their standard keyboard."
Semantics. I clarified that by proper I meant physical.
"Again, how is a touchscreen keyboard not a physical keyboard? It exists in physical reality, so how is it not physical? It uses physical motions to detect input, so it must be physical."
By that argument, nothing is virtual, because everything virtual, including software exists as a set of real, physical, electrons, or markings on a disk platter or whatever. I suggest you look into better understanding the meaning of virtual before engaging in arguments that are merely about semantics, and hence have no relevance to the discussion other than petty rantings.
Still, to just clarify that again for you, and hence answer your question more precisely, an on screen keyboard is not a physical keyboard because of the fact it is not actually a keyboard, but merely a software representation of what we know as a keyboard. To give you an analogy to ponder over, would you call an on screen image of an orange, a physical orange even if you could interface with that image using the touch screen to rotate it and so forth?
I hope that helps clarify it for you.
Proper = physical.
It doesn't need to be full sized as it's still fine to type on, it is the physical nature of it that matters. Besides, the on screen keyboard of the iPad is limited by the screensize, and hence must be even smaller again so if size of keyboard is an issue, then the iPad suffers even more there.
I wont pretend I could jump straight onto a netbook keyboard and type away as flawlessly as on a normal desktop keyboard, I did make a couple more mistakes on average, but it's something you rapidly get over- it's really just getting used to the fact the distances between keys are a little smaller, but at least they're real, proper, responsive, keys. That's what really matters when typing.
For what it's worth I also have a virtual keyboard (http://reviews.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/inputdevices/0,1000001008,39165419,00.htm) which I used to use with my old PDA, but despite it being a reasonable size, it still wasn't a match for a physical keyboard.
I actually noticed that slip up when I read through my post after posting (there's a moral to be learned from that I think), I thought oh it wont notice, but I should know, if I've learned anything on Slashdot this last 10 years or so, it's that no embarassingly bad phrasing of sentences gets past Slashdot ;)
I'm glad you've defined for me what I should be doing with my netbook. I will cease taking notes, writing papers and design documents on it immediately when I travel so that it can be replaced by a tablet PC in future.
Seriously though, people use Netbooks for all sorts of things, an onscreen keyboard will almost certainly never cut it for my usage patterns. If netbooks dissapeared tommorrow, I'd just have to go back to carrying a full blown laptop around, a tablet still wouldn't cut it. I do have a 15 inch laptop too for when I'm having to write code on the move, but usually that's done at my desk where it otherwise stays docked.
My girlfriend also really likes netbooks, because she is a retail area manager for a large fashion chain, it's small enough to fit in her fashionable handbag which is part of her role (to use the products she sells), but has a proper keyboard allowing her to type up notes whichever store she's travelling too.
Sometimes normal laptops are just too much of a ballache to lug around with you, and really if all you need to do is use an office suite, a netbook is plenty powerful enough, particularly when you can get 10.5hr battery life out of them which is great when doing long journeys.
"It is immature and reeks of disorganization." ...and yet despite that, as we saw with the Scientology protests, it's one of the few online communities that has got involved in any real political activism, and arguably the largest and most successful in making their voice heard in real life so far.
So whilst people like yourself will sit here and whinge and infringements of civil liberties and so forth, but not actually act on that, they are actually out there getting involved.
I'm not exactly a fan of 4chan, and think some of Anonymous' actions have been idiotic, but at least they're doing something to make their point heard rather than just whinging.
In fact, further to my other response to you, thinking about this, is it actually a problem? They're talking about raising from eggs I believe, so would an egg born squid suffer the problem if brought up entirely in a much lower pressure body of water?
Is the ability to only be able to cope with high pressure genetic, or is it merely a result of natural growth at that pressure?
I was thinking about this issue myself when I read it. How hard would it be to emulate the pressure on a body of water large enough for a squid to survive in? I'd imagine pretty damn hard and extremely expensive right?
Alternatively couldn't it just be because the period of comparison that TFA is using is a comparison between a period of boom against one of the worst recessions in the last 100 years?
Is it really suprising that in a recession economic activity decreases, jobs go and so forth?
That's certainly a decent option, but obviously for large codebases with many different combinations of actions that can be performed it may become unweildy.
Personally, I'd argue one of the best things someone can do to help themselves in this situation is to learn design patterns, and learn to recognise them.
Even if people don't specifically follow design patterns, they often do so unintentionally, because this is really the beauty of design patterns- they are common solutions to common problems. If you can start to recognise design patterns, then you find you are no longer looking at lines and lines of code, but you are looking at the bigger picture, beginning to see what sections of code do in general, and can then get to grips with the role of these more abstract components in the larger system and understnand how it works.
You will still have to figure out how the algorithms in each component work, but you should at least be able to understand how those components fit in the bigger picture and their effect on the system as a whole.
Anything that makes their favourite entity appear 'not perfect' is hard for a fanboy to believe.
Don't hate them for it, they're just easily controlled and can't help the fact they'll irrationally defend the undefendable even though they owe nothing to said entity, because said entity has in fact exploited them for high profits.
I suppose it's like the abused wife going back to her wife beater husband, there's just some emotional attachment there they can't let go of.
Interesting, I wonder why the US authorities continued to threaten Britain over it after it was already public?
I assume they would claim it was the principle of it?
No certainly, but what if there isn't a program for them and comp. sci. is the closest there is? I'm not saying they should necessarily get a comp. sci. degree, but that perhaps, a better solution would be to grade students in a range of ways- give them a rating on their communication abilities, their implementation abilities, their knowledge and so on. As I say, I really don't know what the solution is and it's not something that can be solved in a Slashdot thread.
I suppose really to put what I'm saying another way, does it matter if a cheat slips through the net when there's so many other people the current system does a hopeless job of fairly grading on their real worth anyway? The current system gives an often effectively meaningless metric either way.
"Scenario 1: unlikely. I'm a tutor, have been for years, the number of people that have low test grades, but can actually do the stuff I've run into? none."
If this is the case, then why as an employer do I consistently run into first class honours graduates incapable of doing the job to which their degree is suited to? Why is it of all the graduates I've had, despite a handful being from Oxford and Cambridge the best employees I've had have been a 3rd class, two 2:2s and a single 2:1 as well as rather amusingly, a guy who did't even go to uni at all (he went straight into IT support, then moved into dev from there)? Keep in mind that I've had enough 1st class candidates to fill every post and have even got some in a couple of posts, so it's not as if there has even been a shortage that has led to this pattern. Surely probability would dictate that whilst you might run into the odd case where a lower grade is better than a higher grade, it's unlikely that not one of the 1st class graduates would be anywhere near as good as even 2:2 students? There are plenty of good 1st class students out there, but it's pretty clear that university grade is a useless indictator of real world ability, which you somewhat recognise yourself later on in your post.
The 3rd class student in particularly clearly got low grades, but he's the type of guy I could throw a language and a set of frameworks/APIs at and in a short time he'd be able to bang out a well engineered prototype with those tools. In contrast, I've had 1st class students who just sit gazing at the API documentation, they seem to get the documentation, but seem to struggle with where to begin with it, how to use it, how to write code with it.
Maybe this is a particularly British problem, I'll admit I've not really had any overseas candidates (I say really, because I've had a couple, but they weren't even worth taking to interview stage), but I'd be suprised if that's the case when we're one of the only countries that manages to hold a handful of universities up against the US in the global rankings.
My money is on railguns being the most practical weapon first:
http://gizmodo.com/351467/navy-rail-gun-test-destroys-everything-it-touches-at-5640-mph
Besides, lasers are a bit girly, they're just like overpowered flashlights ;) There's something more manly about accurately launching a solid lump of metal 200 miles at just short of mach 8!
"You're merely applying the same thought toward removing rigor from the computer science curriculum. Most of the tasks you mentioned should have separate programs. Are you seriously suggesting that someone who can't code be able to graduate from a CS program because he's good at accepting user feedback?"
No, but you're saying that someone who can remember all the sorting algorithms off by heart, but can't fit them into a full blown application should pass with flying colours, whilst the guy that can't remember them off by heart, but can look them and can then use them in a full blown application should fail, and therein lies the problem. The whole point in university is to produce people who can either do further useful research, or who are beneficial to the workplace.
I'm not saying someone should pass a CS program because he's good at accepting user feedback, but should he fail university altogether when the A student who can recite, but is useless in the real world passes with flying colours? If he's more useful than that guy, because in the real world you do need people capable of communicating with users, then it's idiotic that we have this situation where he's "rated" lower than the other guy who would require a lot of work to be productive in the real world.
Degrees that are simply about reciting facts are completely and utterly pointless and it's precisely why recruiters are paying ever less attention to degrees. Degrees need to be meaningful again, they need to represent what they are supposed to represent- a students worth to potential employers.
I'm not advocating not teaching grammar, it's stupid to suggest I am, because those are things that are taught well before you start grading people- in the UK our first main exams that mean anything are GCSEs at 16, I'd sure as hell hope fundamental science, numeracy and literacy have been taught long before that, I'm not sure what country you're in if that's not the case but it sounds rather backwards. My points are in relation to the later stages, where students get to the point where they are given more choices as to what they want to do, but where it's still possible to make the wrong choice.
Some of the finest developers I've met never even got degrees at all, whilst some of the graduates who come to job interviews fresh out of uni (and I'm not even that old myself, I'm still in my 20s) despite having first class honours degrees have shockingly low levels of ability even when coming from some of the top unis- clearly their grade does NOT represent their ability level. As a disclaimer, I was also a first class honours student in CS myself, so it's not as if I don't know what gets taught and what is required to get to the top, but I had an interest and strong knowledge of the subject well before I even started university and do not believe that university alone would've prepared me for the real world, particularly judging by the level of ability. I strongly support education, and think it's extremely important, hence why I'm doing a second degree in my spare time alongside work, this time in maths, but to suggest the grading system is somehow a useful demonstration of ability is rediculous.
Maybe they're trying to imitate EMI's recent success.
For those who don't know, EMI, who own the likes of the Beetles records and so forth recently just announced a £1.5 billion loss over the last financial year. They currently look like they could very well be heading to bankruptcy.
At least if they do end up that way, that's what, 1 down, 3 to go?
I do have to wonder if cheating even really matters.
People will cheat for a number of reasons including those you mention, but also perhaps because they find the assessment entirely unfitting to their way of thinking. for exams for example, tThe fact is, exams just aren't representative of real life and I've met many people who can excel outside exam conditions, but struggle with exams, even though the low grade from the exam has no relevance to their ability to perform in the real world. The other side of that of course is that there are also a lot of people out there who excel at exams, but truly suck at using that knowledge dynamically, in the real world.
But even if people don't cheat for this reason, and cheat because they find the course boring, or because they are interested in it but really can't do it I still have to wonder whether there is any actual harm.
Look at the effects, of each scenario:
Scenario 1: Person cheats because they struggle with exams, despite being good at the subject in a real world situation. No real harm is done, beause they'll still do a good job, and cheating really just gave them a grade that is perhaps more representative of their ability.
Scenario 2: Person cheats because they picked the wrong course and would rather have done something else, but need the points anyway. Does it really matter? Chances are if they didn't like the topic they wont be making use of the elements of the course in the real world anyway, and so even if they cheated to get a good grade, they're not going to end up in a real world situation where they're unable to perform.
Scenario 3: The person who cheats because they enjoy the topic but still struggle with it is going to have one of two outcomes, the first is that they continue to work at the subject until they are good at it precisely because they do enjoy it, the second and most harmful of all is that they remain incompetent and do use their cheated grade to get a job in the subject, obviously this is bad for the employer, but I would argue only in the short term- making use of the subject will either make them better over time, or their employer will begin to realise they suck and get rid of them anyway.
I'd argue the real problem is that despite the fact we know that people learn in different ways, despite the fact we know some people that are crap at recalling facts, but awesome at putting them to use if we have them in a reference, and contrary to that, have people who are awesome at remembering facts, but hopeless at applying them, or the much rarer case of people being good at both, we still use an assessment system that we've used for hundreds of years and which doesn't take any of this into account. That's before you factor in other complications that are important to a person's ability to do a job- some people might write good code, but can't for the life of them architect it, some are great at talking to people and getting user feedback, but hopeless at implementing and so on, none of which assessment really measures.
So effectively, whilst we have a fundamental flaw in how we rate people to begin with, it's hard to worry that there are people who don't adhere to the rules of said system.
I'd argue if we sort out the assessment system in general, cheating will be irrelevant anyway. I don't know what the solution is, and suspect whatever it is it'll require more effort from lecturers, but perhaps one option would be to have students both make a FOSS contribution, and peer review other contributions, and then have the lecturer or whoever evaluate the contribution and the review. Just throwing that out there though, I'm sure there are flaws in the plan but either way, it can't really be any worse than the current mainstream system which is both horribly outdated and fundamentally broken.
It's been a bit hit and miss all along really this one though, it's been a fine line- first off the details were going to be released, then they weren't, then they were, then we had to wait for a home office appeal, now the home office finally lost the appeal and they were released.
So to be fair, this one has been swaying either way so long, I don't think that's it.
The oink ruling was a bit more of a pleasant suprise though, although that was trial by jury so I suspect even that ended as it did for different reasons- i.e. the fact that statistically, 3 people in the jury were likely file sharers, and that again, statistically, everyone in the jury knew at least one file sharer. In this respect, the IFPI probably didn't have the benefit of jury ignorance of file sharing on their side.
In this respect, jury trials probably don't bode well for the music industry.
British courts did the right thing this week too- they ruled against the British government/US attempts to cover up US intelligence handed to the UK proving that one of our citizens was tortured before being moved to Guantanamo before being eventually released with no charges.
Turns out British intelligence was aware of the torture, which is why most people assumed our foreign office had such an interest in keeping it covered up in the first place.
Despite American threats to withdraw intelligence sharing if the data was released, our courts ruled that the data should be released, so it's a bit of a double win this week in standing up to oppressive American strong arm tactics of threatening to put us at risk from terrorists if we don't do what they say.
Strong AI was certainly the original motivation for what led to AI because it's really been in the human imagination for centuries, with the likes of the mechanical turk, and even ancient greek myths such as Talos, the bronze man.
But it's wrong to think that all initial AI research focussed on this because that's far from the truth, the motivation for AI stemmed from trying to understand what intelligence was, and attempts to replicate some elements of intelligence. This largely centred around symbolic systems and search at first, but over time evolved to include attempts at replicating natural intellience with things like ant colony optimisation and particle swarm optimisation, also we had genetic algorithms and eventually more solid implementations of neural networks (although the foundations for all these things were set decades previously).
When there's still debate as to what intelligence actually is, how it's defined, what it's comprised of then it's pretty clear that it's foolish to predict when we will be able to create it before we've even got it defined.
For what it's worth, expert systems and so forth are called weak AI, that is a solid, correct term, but as all AI developed to date, and for the forseeable future is weak AI, then that is why the term is rarely used and why AI is simply used instead. It has nothing to do with glamour, just the fact that all current AI is weak AI.
The Dartmouth conference after which the AI term was really first coined occured in 1956 did indeed have the goal of a strong AI within around 30 years or so (so by around 1986), but even the result of this was to concentrate on separate problems like search and so forth as individual problems.
See my response to the other guy- I think the point is really this, there's individual health, and there is population health.
I was really referring to individual health, and I would not include diseases in a measure of individual health, because many of them really don't depend on someone's health, but depend on sanitary conditions, pandemic controls and so forth- all of which I agree are much better now.
The plague for example would kill you off just as well if you were healthy as if you were unhealthy, so really isn't a measure of how healthy someone is individually , but the ability for plague to spread is certainly an indicator of quality of population health measures.
Also as I said to the other guy- in balance, I think things are better in general nowadays by a long shot, all I was really disagreeing with was the idea that everything is better, because as I say, I think there are still quite a decent amount of things which certainly are not.
It's really the difference between individual health and personal health.
Mortality rate and such are evidence of improved sanitation standards and disease prevention and control measures, but not evidence that individuals are more healthy, because the healthy are just as prone to such illnesses anyway.
The poor are better off in some ways, but it's a tough call. They might not die so early now, but there is a far greater proportion of poor people who are massively overweight. It really comes down to what's more important- the idea to live a decent life, or life expectancy. If the poor 500 years ago died early but were at least able to be active, is that really any worse than living longer slouching in front the TV, so overweight you struggle to walk, depressed, living off takeaway meals and such? Of course, that question is really a different argument, but really my point is this- clearly it's not all an improvement. I suspect this is what you are trying to get at- generally things are better, and yes if that's your point, I totally agree. I'd still rather live now than back then because generally things are indeed better, I just disagree with the idea that everything is better, some things certainly aren't.
Yeah I agree it's getting better now, but that's really only in what, the last 20 years? even now it still has a long way to go of course. I hope things stay this way and the trend doesn't reverse, it strikes me as odd in the UK for example that people have more rights covering their religion, which is a choice, than they do for their sexuality, their height, their hair colour and even until recently, their age, all of which are natural, genetic traits which no one can choose.
I was referring more to most of the 20th century where great people like Alan Turing were pressured into suicide over it and thousands of other war heroes despite their efforts were punished simply for who they were.
Actually, I think it's about keeping it in the media. If they can keep up the regular news about such extortionate awards in the media, they're probably hoping it'll continue to act as a deterrent to people.