Nonetheless, the picture of alchemy offered in Stephenson's SF is more accurate than the popular version offered in the article. Alchemy dates from a period when the boundaries between matter and spirit were porous. There wasn't really a materialist conception of the universe. So there was no astronomy completely distinct from astrology. The trials of Galileo and Bruno demonstrate that any claims about the nature of the universe had huge metaphysical implications. Similarly, chemical reactions were understood as the material manifestations of obscure, invisible powers that, given the prevailing world-view, were attributed to the numinous. It's really best to understand alchemy as the chemistry and particle physics of its day, a day when god was real. That said, and I don't want to seem snide but just straight-up serious and helpful: Stephenson isn't the place to go, nor is (far worse, really!) is Jung. There are plenty of good history books that are very interesting reading. The one I'd suggest is The Queen's Conjurer; it's a popular history about John Dee. It's got some issues, but it's a good introduction. If you have the stomach for some metaphysics, you might read Daniel Tiffany's Infidel Poetics, which addresses the slow transformation of our understanding of the invisible processes of nature from numinous to material. He does a particularly good job exploring the implications of Leibniz's monads.
http://www.snopes.com/military/woodbomb.asp
I'm sure that's not the final word, but the story seems too good to be true. Why forgo the value of having your enemy think you're fooled?
Others are posting on this, but I thought I'd post as someone who teaches creative, academic, and professional writing--and who has training in the pedagogical theory and assorted gobbledygook (ie theories I don't like). Yes, eliminating distractions as you draft is very helpful. And some people find it helpful to switch the tool or the context when drafting. Probably the best way to draft is to force yourself to write, with whatever tool, in 15-20 minute sprints, with no correction, pausing to think, or whatever. For more on this, you can read Writing with Power by the unfortunately named Peter Elbow. And, yes, a text editor is one way to avoid distractions, but so is a little discipline. Others opt for a legal pad. I myself use a legal pad with blue or black ink. Or I use MS Word or a "light" option for the Mac called Bean. When I'm writing stuff that feels good, I type in black. When it feels like it might not work, I type in blue. So blue is my code for "relax." I never use a text editor, but I can see why you would, if you're the sort of obsessive person who also thinks that a text editor merits a review with instructions for use, or if you're the sort of person who will choose a text editor so poor for you purpose that you have to talk about byte counts. But let's face it, writing those reviews, fiddling around with bite counts, looking for the perfect text editor that will blank our your screen and has a single-keystroke function to load content from lifehacker or the latest theories on sleep technology, well, that's all just a technique for PROCRASTINATION. My favorite advice on that is from an anecdote about Faulkner. He was once asked by a woman how he got inspired to write. He replied that he only wrote when he was inspired, and he was inspired every morning at eight.
I want to mention too that some docs jump on RSI as a diagnosis before considering other likely possibilities.. I had RSI-like symptoms and because of all the hype was treated for them by doctors for a few years. It did no good. I finally asked my GP, who was also a dean of medicine with a lot of experience (so very lucky for me), and he said, you read a lot, right? I said yep, and he said "Okay, let me see your elbows." 33% of us have an ulnar nerve that is exposed when our arms are bent. I'm on of those. Reading in bed, propping books up on chair arms, using arm rests--all a no-go of me. Got rid of those habits, and my hands and wrists were fine in a couple of weeks. After years of people telling me about RSI and carpel tunnel and surgery. I know my case is one case and anecdotal.... But you might be in a similar spot. It's worth asking anyway, especially if your current treatments aren't panning out.
Go to China if you really think that. Chinese companies ship imitations of western products to western nations. Go figure. They have plenty of products designed for domestic consumption that are very different from western products. It's been awhile, but I remember a wide variety of scooters, clothing types, and small consumer goods and appliances that were suited entirely to Chinese markets--products that had not been invented in the west. Oh well. Yes they go to people like Siemans or GM for some of their infrastructure, and their ideology and laws allow or encourage knock-offery, but we should always go in fear of nationalist/xenophobic/chauvinist/racist assumptions about "national" character. Such theories are, aside from ethical problems, seldom granular enough to account for reality.
As part of my graduate study, I happened to notice that in Puritan communities in New England many births were recorded less than nine months after marriages were recorded. Co-sleeping was an allowed, normal practice. They even had a special board called a "bundling board" that they would put between the co-sleepers to prevent funny business. Must have been some knotholes.
As a recovering redneck, and practicing marksman, I would like to inform you that different small mammals have different anatomies and are therefore susceptible in varying degrees to a specified projectile weapon. You can knock over a groundhog with a decent air rifle (Crosman 2200 or a powerful.177). A raccoon is somewhat tougher, but a.22 will do the job on most occasions. I have no idea who this guy is advising letting rip with a.223 for a critter on the back porch, but I doubt his sanity/judgement. At a range of 40 yards or more, you're definitely getting into.223 territory for the raccoon. But, for me, that's mostly a factor of trajectory flatness and easy of aiming rather than terminal ballistics.
Because they're not motivated by money? The Rosenbergs weren't. Some spies are motivated because they approve of the regime for which they are attempting to spy. Sometimes people do stuff like this for the science.... After all, it's worth considering all the motivations of the people working in the Manhattan Project. In this case, if you read the article, you'll see the guy was wanting someone to support his research. Anyway my point is: not everything is about money. (For good or bad.)
There's an office at your university for this. At my university, you'd consult disability services and the international students office. Otherwise, I'd say do what I do: walk around the room continuously, and ask students not to use electronic devices. If you need a dictionary, they're still available in paper. AND, normally the requirement is that such students be sufficiently proficient that dictionaries not be necessary in these situations. You can also answer language questions students might have. If they don't have enough English to understand explanation in English, they aren't second language students but still first language students and should be in remediation in your English/Comp department, not in major courses. Anyway, basically, sometimes the old answers are the right answers for the new problems.
I mean, if this were anyone but Herr Doktor Meester Apfel, wouldn't folks here be getting all libraritarian about it? I mean, so it's a hazard... to himself!
Wouldn't the LCD already be excluded? I mean those who are illiterate. I'd point out that the illiterate are from communities that haven't invested in--due to inability or disinterest--in mediocre/good public schools. So libraries are already near-useless for those people because of a cost issue.
I'll offer a further perspective. The e-portfolio is an online portfolio as seen and espoused by faculty who think that frequently and loudly saying "Web 2.0" and and "digital divide" make them hip and savvy. Such faculty prefer not to trouble themselves with educational assessments and studies of outcomes but instead give conference presentations (on Powerpoint) about topics like how awesome Second Life is.
There's a really funny little essay by Umberto Eco on "How to Recognize a Porn Movie" in which he concludes that [spoiler alert!] if all you care about is the ending, not how the plot gets from the beginning to the end, then its pornographic. So if all Agatha Christie's fans care about is the money shot, well...
Eco's essay is on Google Books (Google "Umberto Eco porn"; mercifully the book is so far the first hit). The essay's all there, except for the naughty bit at the end.
I've been looking into this a lot in the last few years because: a) I'm a scholar who relies on feminist approaches to literature for my work, and b) I've been the victim of false abuse claims. What I've found is that these laws are the result of a "perfect storm" combination of extreme feminists and extreme Christians, both groups with a more or less direct anti-sex agenda. Further, though there's no direct connection, it seems to me that there's a rather smooth progression from the witch/Satan hysteria of the 80s, which began with an attack on Halloween, but grew to include prosecutions of people for murders and abuse supposedly done at black Sabbaths, that became connected to an anti-gay hysteria that in turn forged a link to pedophilia, which in turn justified harsher responses to sex crime in general. So basically I'm saying that often it's a witch-hunt. And the book suggested below, The Trauma Myth, pretty much concludes the same. Just think about it, all someone has to do is point a finger, and guilty or not, the man is ruined. And, frequently enough, it seems to be that the "woman" is getting ruined--at least there seem to be a lot of attention on female high school teachers who are having sex with their male and female students.
Second time you've said this on this topic: English majors over-analyze everything. Let me guess, you do poorly with abstract or philosophical thought, got burned in English class? Hate all liberal arts types now? Too bad. I'm not quite sure that the "unexamined life isn't worth living." But there's something to be said for being a thoughtful and intellectually curious person. At the very least it makes you more interesting and less of a curmudgeon.
YES! When I am in Europe, I look forward to the high speed train as a place to relax and rest between visits with in-laws. That is, I look at it as a restful spot on my vacation. That's how nice it is. It's fast, comfortable, good service, accessible toilets. Price and speed are comparable to air travel (Remember to factor in drive to airport, delays, security.) The only drawback are the stinking hikers who crash the maternity cabin to sleep and refuse to move for the people with the screaming (also stinking) baby, or who sit next to you stinking in the regular cars. But the conductor will generally roust them if you ask nicely. And, yes, there's a special cabin for people with children. No extra cost, but extra room, with walls, for privacy for the family and peace of mind/ear for the other travelers. At any rate, in the trains between Bavaria and Austria. My experience is a bit limited.
With few exceptions federal tax revenue comes from the coasts and flows to states in the interior. Sorry, I'm not going to provide citations, as I'm saving work for, well, work, which starts in about twenty minutes. But I've read this factoid numerous times, and I'm going to throw it out, in hopes that someone else will chime in and disprove or prove it.
The people reading here are a self-selected group of "nerds." We like to tinker. So I read the comments and I see a combination of dismayed attempts to say why it is that these students don't "get it" or want to "get it" AND a lot of self-congratulation about how we all get it.
As a teacher, I can tell you that most incoming university students have a very limited set of computing and cognitive skills. They can text on the phone, get to facebook, read some digg or something. But they can't (don't care to) figure out how to insert headers in Word, find reliable web articles, and so on. That's mostly initiative. My wife did a smallish study (just over 100 usable, complete responses). Most students classified themselves as "very knowledgeable" about computers. Yet, when asked what they'd do if their hard drive died, most said "call dad." Almost none said they use a back-up strategy, almost none knew how to do basic maintenance on the machine, and so on. I'm afraid I can't give you more exact results, but maybe I will be able to give you a citation for the publication by next summer.
Now, there are quite a few nerds out there. Maybe one in 25 or so. These are generally male, interested in games, file-sharing and such. They're the ones who go around setting up friends' machines, or setting up big illegal file servers on the dorm networks, and stuff like that. I bet most of the people reading this comment were (or could have been) that guy. You know, if you're too old and weren't say, surfing the WWW via dial-up to a DEC VAX/VMS machine or networking by throwing rocks at an abacus.
Why did you even bother posting? Any boob could Google and find the answer the style guides provide (yours). Nope, this sort of topic is just an excuse for people (like me) to waste time best spent being productive.
Since I still have real work to do, let me continue. Using a proportional font, the standard is to add one space after the period. With nonproportional fonts, the standard is to double-space. There, I've said it. My credentials? English teacher. Former typesetter. I've read Bringhurst. Currently writing an essay, strangely enough, touching upon how pissed-off a poet was that the type-setters kept changing what he'd typed to what would fit their (admittedly beautiful) design standards. So his next book was printed all in Courier, which led all his readers to promptly poke out their eyes with correction pencils.
To conclude on a typographically philosophical note: Nor again is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain procrastination of itself, because it is procrastination, but occasionally circumstances occur in which procrastination can procure him some great pleasure. This is why the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
"robots don't explore space, people do." In what sense can the OP mean this? If robots are taken as tools, then, sure, people are doing the exploring, as they obtain data from and direct these robots. If it's meant in the sense that it takes human presence to count as exploration, I'd have to disagree. Most of the knowledge we have about our solar system is derived from various "robots." Manned space flight has made significant contributions, but most of those contributions are about manned space flight, about how humans will do in space. I'm not saying that's unimportant, but I'd, myself, take weather, telecom, and GPS satellites over everything Apollo did.
Yes. I've got tons of old articles in back issues of ATM that talk about how to build ponset tables. They're not great, but for work with a wide-angle 35mm, they're fine--which is what I'm assuming is the tool here, given the interest in the Perseids. I always enjoyed just setting up a tripod and catching nice streaks of meteor cutting across the arcs left by the stars. A good excuse to buy a solid tripod if you don't have one--like the old Tiltall.
It might only be $2.50 because they didn't have to pay for the rights? At least, a quick check shows it's freely available on the web. I notice this a lot, btw, that ebook vendors claim that have X number of cheap or free titles, but those titles are already available for free, often already in.epub.
When this new Kindle came out, I took a look at it as a vehicle for my pleasure reading, and what I found was that many things I recently read were more expensive at Amazon in ebook than in the paperback. And both versions were much more expensive than what I paid, as I had picked them up at the public library. So wasn't able to justify my lust for the updated toy.
My wife does research in instructional technology, and I am, as you might guess (since I'm on/.), a nerd. We both keep up on the research on the value of "tech" in teaching, and the results seem to suggest that technology is not so helpful in the classroom. Maybe this is because it's still often a distraction because teachers don't know how to use it well or because it's often still quite clunky to use. That said, one thing is certain: all the students (and people on slashdot) who say they can multitask with technology are very likely wrong when it comes to any task that requires recall or concentrated thought.
I am an advocate of using technology in the classroom when it is appropriate. I think many popular uses are not appropriate. Clickers are of dubious value. Online tech often encourages bad forms of testing, but it's very useful for unevaluated, "low-threat" fluency-building writing--BUT the pressure is always on, from students AND administrators to offer grades for all work. Admins need to demonstrate teaching's impact, while students don't want to work that doesn't have "count."
Tech is useful when it's very careful integrated into a lesson plan and sparingly used. But the main focus these days is on using tech to increase the ratio of students to teachers and/or classrooms. And a lot of the people who want to use or advocate for tech either are a) somewhat over-enthusiastic people who want to use computers for everything, including dessert topping and floor wax, or b) older people who are doing it for appearances. You end up with a lot of people using class time to teach the technology instead of the subject, or (worse) older people thinking it's cool and useful to convert all their old lesson plans to PowerPoint slide with snazzy transitions (they then spend 15 minutes of each class trying to plug the video cable into the Ethernet port).
Finally, and here's the kicker for me: tech is costly, either to students or to the institution. If we're going to spend money, it would be better spend on teachers because we no without any doubt that students benefit from greater direct access to faculty. But that's so old-fashioned, and you can't say cyber this and 2.0 that on the fundraising brochures if you're just hiring faculty.
Note: Why do I initially write "tech"? Because we always mean electronics. The chalkboard and whiteboard are tech, and they're often under-utilized or poorly utilized by teachers. (I realize I'm sort of blowing my ethos because I'm too lazy to get real paragraph breaks. But it's Sunday, and I'm feeling entitled.)
One more thing, seriously, administrators, 1995 is calling; it wants "cyber" back.
Slashdot Mirror
Nonetheless, the picture of alchemy offered in Stephenson's SF is more accurate than the popular version offered in the article. Alchemy dates from a period when the boundaries between matter and spirit were porous. There wasn't really a materialist conception of the universe. So there was no astronomy completely distinct from astrology. The trials of Galileo and Bruno demonstrate that any claims about the nature of the universe had huge metaphysical implications. Similarly, chemical reactions were understood as the material manifestations of obscure, invisible powers that, given the prevailing world-view, were attributed to the numinous. It's really best to understand alchemy as the chemistry and particle physics of its day, a day when god was real. That said, and I don't want to seem snide but just straight-up serious and helpful: Stephenson isn't the place to go, nor is (far worse, really!) is Jung. There are plenty of good history books that are very interesting reading. The one I'd suggest is The Queen's Conjurer; it's a popular history about John Dee. It's got some issues, but it's a good introduction. If you have the stomach for some metaphysics, you might read Daniel Tiffany's Infidel Poetics, which addresses the slow transformation of our understanding of the invisible processes of nature from numinous to material. He does a particularly good job exploring the implications of Leibniz's monads.
http://www.snopes.com/military/woodbomb.asp I'm sure that's not the final word, but the story seems too good to be true. Why forgo the value of having your enemy think you're fooled?
Others are posting on this, but I thought I'd post as someone who teaches creative, academic, and professional writing--and who has training in the pedagogical theory and assorted gobbledygook (ie theories I don't like). Yes, eliminating distractions as you draft is very helpful. And some people find it helpful to switch the tool or the context when drafting. Probably the best way to draft is to force yourself to write, with whatever tool, in 15-20 minute sprints, with no correction, pausing to think, or whatever. For more on this, you can read Writing with Power by the unfortunately named Peter Elbow. And, yes, a text editor is one way to avoid distractions, but so is a little discipline. Others opt for a legal pad. I myself use a legal pad with blue or black ink. Or I use MS Word or a "light" option for the Mac called Bean. When I'm writing stuff that feels good, I type in black. When it feels like it might not work, I type in blue. So blue is my code for "relax." I never use a text editor, but I can see why you would, if you're the sort of obsessive person who also thinks that a text editor merits a review with instructions for use, or if you're the sort of person who will choose a text editor so poor for you purpose that you have to talk about byte counts. But let's face it, writing those reviews, fiddling around with bite counts, looking for the perfect text editor that will blank our your screen and has a single-keystroke function to load content from lifehacker or the latest theories on sleep technology, well, that's all just a technique for PROCRASTINATION. My favorite advice on that is from an anecdote about Faulkner. He was once asked by a woman how he got inspired to write. He replied that he only wrote when he was inspired, and he was inspired every morning at eight.
I want to mention too that some docs jump on RSI as a diagnosis before considering other likely possibilities.. I had RSI-like symptoms and because of all the hype was treated for them by doctors for a few years. It did no good. I finally asked my GP, who was also a dean of medicine with a lot of experience (so very lucky for me), and he said, you read a lot, right? I said yep, and he said "Okay, let me see your elbows." 33% of us have an ulnar nerve that is exposed when our arms are bent. I'm on of those. Reading in bed, propping books up on chair arms, using arm rests--all a no-go of me. Got rid of those habits, and my hands and wrists were fine in a couple of weeks. After years of people telling me about RSI and carpel tunnel and surgery. I know my case is one case and anecdotal.... But you might be in a similar spot. It's worth asking anyway, especially if your current treatments aren't panning out.
Go to China if you really think that. Chinese companies ship imitations of western products to western nations. Go figure. They have plenty of products designed for domestic consumption that are very different from western products. It's been awhile, but I remember a wide variety of scooters, clothing types, and small consumer goods and appliances that were suited entirely to Chinese markets--products that had not been invented in the west. Oh well. Yes they go to people like Siemans or GM for some of their infrastructure, and their ideology and laws allow or encourage knock-offery, but we should always go in fear of nationalist/xenophobic/chauvinist/racist assumptions about "national" character. Such theories are, aside from ethical problems, seldom granular enough to account for reality.
As part of my graduate study, I happened to notice that in Puritan communities in New England many births were recorded less than nine months after marriages were recorded. Co-sleeping was an allowed, normal practice. They even had a special board called a "bundling board" that they would put between the co-sleepers to prevent funny business. Must have been some knotholes.
As a recovering redneck, and practicing marksman, I would like to inform you that different small mammals have different anatomies and are therefore susceptible in varying degrees to a specified projectile weapon. You can knock over a groundhog with a decent air rifle (Crosman 2200 or a powerful .177). A raccoon is somewhat tougher, but a .22 will do the job on most occasions. I have no idea who this guy is advising letting rip with a .223 for a critter on the back porch, but I doubt his sanity/judgement. At a range of 40 yards or more, you're definitely getting into .223 territory for the raccoon. But, for me, that's mostly a factor of trajectory flatness and easy of aiming rather than terminal ballistics.
Because they're not motivated by money? The Rosenbergs weren't. Some spies are motivated because they approve of the regime for which they are attempting to spy. Sometimes people do stuff like this for the science.... After all, it's worth considering all the motivations of the people working in the Manhattan Project. In this case, if you read the article, you'll see the guy was wanting someone to support his research. Anyway my point is: not everything is about money. (For good or bad.)
There's an office at your university for this. At my university, you'd consult disability services and the international students office. Otherwise, I'd say do what I do: walk around the room continuously, and ask students not to use electronic devices. If you need a dictionary, they're still available in paper. AND, normally the requirement is that such students be sufficiently proficient that dictionaries not be necessary in these situations. You can also answer language questions students might have. If they don't have enough English to understand explanation in English, they aren't second language students but still first language students and should be in remediation in your English/Comp department, not in major courses. Anyway, basically, sometimes the old answers are the right answers for the new problems.
I mean, if this were anyone but Herr Doktor Meester Apfel, wouldn't folks here be getting all libraritarian about it? I mean, so it's a hazard... to himself!
Wouldn't the LCD already be excluded? I mean those who are illiterate. I'd point out that the illiterate are from communities that haven't invested in--due to inability or disinterest--in mediocre/good public schools. So libraries are already near-useless for those people because of a cost issue.
I'll offer a further perspective. The e-portfolio is an online portfolio as seen and espoused by faculty who think that frequently and loudly saying "Web 2.0" and and "digital divide" make them hip and savvy. Such faculty prefer not to trouble themselves with educational assessments and studies of outcomes but instead give conference presentations (on Powerpoint) about topics like how awesome Second Life is.
Eco's essay is on Google Books (Google "Umberto Eco porn"; mercifully the book is so far the first hit). The essay's all there, except for the naughty bit at the end.
I've been looking into this a lot in the last few years because: a) I'm a scholar who relies on feminist approaches to literature for my work, and b) I've been the victim of false abuse claims. What I've found is that these laws are the result of a "perfect storm" combination of extreme feminists and extreme Christians, both groups with a more or less direct anti-sex agenda. Further, though there's no direct connection, it seems to me that there's a rather smooth progression from the witch/Satan hysteria of the 80s, which began with an attack on Halloween, but grew to include prosecutions of people for murders and abuse supposedly done at black Sabbaths, that became connected to an anti-gay hysteria that in turn forged a link to pedophilia, which in turn justified harsher responses to sex crime in general. So basically I'm saying that often it's a witch-hunt. And the book suggested below, The Trauma Myth, pretty much concludes the same. Just think about it, all someone has to do is point a finger, and guilty or not, the man is ruined. And, frequently enough, it seems to be that the "woman" is getting ruined--at least there seem to be a lot of attention on female high school teachers who are having sex with their male and female students.
Second time you've said this on this topic: English majors over-analyze everything. Let me guess, you do poorly with abstract or philosophical thought, got burned in English class? Hate all liberal arts types now? Too bad. I'm not quite sure that the "unexamined life isn't worth living." But there's something to be said for being a thoughtful and intellectually curious person. At the very least it makes you more interesting and less of a curmudgeon.
YES! When I am in Europe, I look forward to the high speed train as a place to relax and rest between visits with in-laws. That is, I look at it as a restful spot on my vacation. That's how nice it is. It's fast, comfortable, good service, accessible toilets. Price and speed are comparable to air travel (Remember to factor in drive to airport, delays, security.) The only drawback are the stinking hikers who crash the maternity cabin to sleep and refuse to move for the people with the screaming (also stinking) baby, or who sit next to you stinking in the regular cars. But the conductor will generally roust them if you ask nicely. And, yes, there's a special cabin for people with children. No extra cost, but extra room, with walls, for privacy for the family and peace of mind/ear for the other travelers. At any rate, in the trains between Bavaria and Austria. My experience is a bit limited.
With few exceptions federal tax revenue comes from the coasts and flows to states in the interior. Sorry, I'm not going to provide citations, as I'm saving work for, well, work, which starts in about twenty minutes. But I've read this factoid numerous times, and I'm going to throw it out, in hopes that someone else will chime in and disprove or prove it.
As a teacher, I can tell you that most incoming university students have a very limited set of computing and cognitive skills. They can text on the phone, get to facebook, read some digg or something. But they can't (don't care to) figure out how to insert headers in Word, find reliable web articles, and so on. That's mostly initiative. My wife did a smallish study (just over 100 usable, complete responses). Most students classified themselves as "very knowledgeable" about computers. Yet, when asked what they'd do if their hard drive died, most said "call dad." Almost none said they use a back-up strategy, almost none knew how to do basic maintenance on the machine, and so on. I'm afraid I can't give you more exact results, but maybe I will be able to give you a citation for the publication by next summer.
Now, there are quite a few nerds out there. Maybe one in 25 or so. These are generally male, interested in games, file-sharing and such. They're the ones who go around setting up friends' machines, or setting up big illegal file servers on the dorm networks, and stuff like that. I bet most of the people reading this comment were (or could have been) that guy. You know, if you're too old and weren't say, surfing the WWW via dial-up to a DEC VAX/VMS machine or networking by throwing rocks at an abacus.
Tell me about it! Most of my students don't even know how to shoe a horse!
That would be some RPG. I don't think there are shoulder-launch SAMs (MANPADs) that can reach that high.
Since I still have real work to do, let me continue. Using a proportional font, the standard is to add one space after the period. With nonproportional fonts, the standard is to double-space. There, I've said it. My credentials? English teacher. Former typesetter. I've read Bringhurst. Currently writing an essay, strangely enough, touching upon how pissed-off a poet was that the type-setters kept changing what he'd typed to what would fit their (admittedly beautiful) design standards. So his next book was printed all in Courier, which led all his readers to promptly poke out their eyes with correction pencils.
To conclude on a typographically philosophical note: Nor again is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain procrastination of itself, because it is procrastination, but occasionally circumstances occur in which procrastination can procure him some great pleasure. This is why the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
"robots don't explore space, people do." In what sense can the OP mean this? If robots are taken as tools, then, sure, people are doing the exploring, as they obtain data from and direct these robots. If it's meant in the sense that it takes human presence to count as exploration, I'd have to disagree. Most of the knowledge we have about our solar system is derived from various "robots." Manned space flight has made significant contributions, but most of those contributions are about manned space flight, about how humans will do in space. I'm not saying that's unimportant, but I'd, myself, take weather, telecom, and GPS satellites over everything Apollo did.
Yes. I've got tons of old articles in back issues of ATM that talk about how to build ponset tables. They're not great, but for work with a wide-angle 35mm, they're fine--which is what I'm assuming is the tool here, given the interest in the Perseids. I always enjoyed just setting up a tripod and catching nice streaks of meteor cutting across the arcs left by the stars. A good excuse to buy a solid tripod if you don't have one--like the old Tiltall.
When this new Kindle came out, I took a look at it as a vehicle for my pleasure reading, and what I found was that many things I recently read were more expensive at Amazon in ebook than in the paperback. And both versions were much more expensive than what I paid, as I had picked them up at the public library. So wasn't able to justify my lust for the updated toy.
I am an advocate of using technology in the classroom when it is appropriate. I think many popular uses are not appropriate. Clickers are of dubious value. Online tech often encourages bad forms of testing, but it's very useful for unevaluated, "low-threat" fluency-building writing--BUT the pressure is always on, from students AND administrators to offer grades for all work. Admins need to demonstrate teaching's impact, while students don't want to work that doesn't have "count."
Tech is useful when it's very careful integrated into a lesson plan and sparingly used. But the main focus these days is on using tech to increase the ratio of students to teachers and/or classrooms. And a lot of the people who want to use or advocate for tech either are a) somewhat over-enthusiastic people who want to use computers for everything, including dessert topping and floor wax, or b) older people who are doing it for appearances. You end up with a lot of people using class time to teach the technology instead of the subject, or (worse) older people thinking it's cool and useful to convert all their old lesson plans to PowerPoint slide with snazzy transitions (they then spend 15 minutes of each class trying to plug the video cable into the Ethernet port).
Finally, and here's the kicker for me: tech is costly, either to students or to the institution. If we're going to spend money, it would be better spend on teachers because we no without any doubt that students benefit from greater direct access to faculty. But that's so old-fashioned, and you can't say cyber this and 2.0 that on the fundraising brochures if you're just hiring faculty.
Note: Why do I initially write "tech"? Because we always mean electronics. The chalkboard and whiteboard are tech, and they're often under-utilized or poorly utilized by teachers. (I realize I'm sort of blowing my ethos because I'm too lazy to get real paragraph breaks. But it's Sunday, and I'm feeling entitled.)
One more thing, seriously, administrators, 1995 is calling; it wants "cyber" back.