Ah, got to love the snark. You think you're smart, but you're actually being obtuse. Happens to me ALL the time. I think jehanBUNCHOFNUMBERS wants to see the comet NOW, so s/he needs some orbital data or an ephemeris. Luckily amateur astronomers have access to The Google, and he'll find the comet despite your and my snarking.
Re:More bias from women than from men, against wom
on
Sexism In Science
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Or, if you actually, read some of what these feminists write, you'd know that it's exactly what they say: women adapt to and adopt patriarchy. They, so to speak, out-Herod Herod. You could also argue that these scientists' perspectives on salaries are based on their own salaries. So women, paid less, offer less.
Re:While we're talking about sexism in Science
on
Sexism In Science
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Yeah I know what you mean! In my grad program there were all these incentives for BLACKS! And of course we were just over-run with African-American students in the field. Why, looking back, in the time it took me to get my doctorate, we must have had as many as one. Yep. One. Maybe we need some incentives. I mean, boohoo, for me and all, as I'm a white guy. No scholarships for you buddy! But, looking around, it seems like we don't really need incentives for white men in my field. And, hell, not for the white women either. All the ones I know are paid less than me, so they're clearly willing to do it without incentives. Probably because women are stupid and can't drive, or something like that.
Re:You Are Not Paying For An Education
on
The Rage For MOOCs
·
· Score: 1
Aphorism's like Frank's sound so smart because they're glib. The value of a university education is not just based on belief. Yes, Charles Murray and other conservatives really, really want you to believe that. And they will flat-out state that we need more ditch-diggers and fewer college-educated people. But the wealthy aren't lining up to become ditch-diggers, so what they're talking about is reducing opportunities for upward mobility.
But, the value? Well, how do you measure it? What do you measure? If you say "skills," the what skills? As I got my degree at a brick and mortar institution I not only learned various forms of math, science, and other crap I don't use all that much, I also learned things about how to dress, how to speak, how to carry myself in ways that don't reveal that I'm from a town of less than a 1,000 in the rural South. I learned to tolerate, accept, even like gay people, black people, foreign people, even though what I'd be taught and what is still taught in my home community is very different. I was also exposed to, by force, a wide range of topics and fields, some of which inform my life today. Sure, I don't use science much at my job, but I remember enough to read science articles with interest, to immediately know that something like the Star Wars missile shield was not going to work without some unobtainium and flux capacitors, &c &c.
And having exhausted all those things, I'll return to the skills we can measure, "book larnin'." I can think of four people who changed my life as a learner, as a scholar, my mind, and of whose provocations I think at least weekly. And those interactions occurred, and I do not think could occur outside of, "meatspace" interactions. One example was a person saying to me "I don't think he cares what you think." Such a mundane, common thing to say. But in the context and in person, where I could not shrug it off or be angry at it, the impact was profound. I had to actually sit there, on the spot, in front of a witness and absorb an unpleasant fact about how I was letting my narcissism impact my scholarship. Of course scholar X didn't care that I disapproved of his ideas. If I wanted to challenge him, I would have to.... And of course today, much of my research is based on the work of scholar X, who has himself become one of my mentors.
I don't think you can get that in these MOOCs or other online environments because largely and necessarily they are based on a mass-production model. It's an option, an alternative, but one that, I believe, is meant to be a palliative alternative, a sort of sop to disguise the fact that the best learning and interaction is taking place elsewhere and is more and more for those with the social clout and real capital to acquire it. Basically, to me, these things are what ketchup packets are to vegetable servings.
And I'm damned sorry, but no option I pursue will preserve paragraphs in my postings.
I see this at the university where I work. Lowered barriers to entry result in a higher turnover. I can't say that out loud, at least until tenure. But it's the truth. If it has a low perceived cost, it's less valuable. Easy come, easy go.
I have to offer a mixed response to this claim that teaching must be developed into a science, so I'll comment, even though I came to this discussion to dispose of mod points. Some teaching of pedagogy is influenced by real, hard science. There are courses and teachers who are teaching pedagogy with cognitive psychology, outcomes evidence based on sufficiently large numbers of sample to be relevant, and that sort of thing. However, the _impression_ I get is that a lot of people in education departments are not basing their work on any real science. For example, there are still lots of education people talking about multiple intelligences, when there is no real evidence for it. Basically, it seems that ideology drives education pedagogy. There's a lot of marxist-lite thinking that is in actuality a sort of watered-down Romanticism. One good example of this is the belief that encouraging expressive fluency in writing will produce students who can write analytical arguments. The thinking still seems to be based on ideas like universal grammar, that we have a "language instinct" that will flourish if we nurture it and blossom into a set of skills that are actually conventional rather than innate. And, of course, there are more right-wing tinged methodologies too. My favorite example of ideologies determining pedagogical practice is the war between whole language (left) and phonics (right). Both camps are wrong because neither will accept that there's something in the other side's method, as well as because neither side is paying much attention to any actual science on the topic (the discourse seems to be more driven by marketing than anything else). That said, there was a day when a lot of science was behind universal grammar-type educational practices.... It's easy to cook your results, without even knowing it. And certainly a lot of education research is barely research, relying as it does on very small sample sizes. And, frankly, there's generally not that much funding for the good research because so much of the funding comes with the expected outcome more or less built in.
Because of the millions and millions of ordinary, wonderful people there? The millenia of art and poetry it has produced? The fascinating urban and rural landscapes? The fantastic cuisine? To learn something about a country that is still largely isolated? Because you want to do something to overcome the human rights abuses? Or just because you're a curious person and not a xenophobe. Or simply because opportunity has knocked. I can think of few places in the world I wouldn't visit if I had the opportunity. And I'm a homebody and a shitty traveler.
How do you find a good one? Seriously. I'm a school teacher on a budget, and I've been shopping, but it's hard to find reliable-sounding reviews. I'm comfortable with modding, so the firmware isn't a problem, unless the thing won't take Cyanogen.
For me the best vacuum for your money is a blue one. I have a blue vacuum cleaner, and it picks up the cat hair from the carpet and the dust bunnies and little bits of kitty litter too. It uses an advanced paper-bag filtering system, which both collects dirt and hair while filtering the air it returns to the room. It also has a sophisticated height-adjusting system that allows me to use it both on carpet and on smooth surfaces, such as hardwood floors. Additionally, it has a binary power control system allowing me to adjust its state of function independent of my proximity to the wall outlet. It is truly a superior device.
So are you opposed to demands for financial disclosure when there may be a conflict of interest? Or are you just opposed to demands that politicians who guide fiscal policy reveal their own fiscal maneuverings? Or is it the criminality of this that's problematic?
Amen to this. I'm a college prof, and it's the same for us. However, I will add a few caveats, speaking as an English teacher. First, those horrible packages sound so good. "You mean I can have my students learn basic mechanics thru online exercises I don't have to grade myself? Sweet! That will really help out this semester, because I'm teaching 20% more students and have two papers I need to get to press!" Three weeks into the semester, and the shit doesn't work. And I made my students pay out the butt for the inconvenience. I feel like a heel. I'll never do it again. Let's f-forward to next year. Dean Pelton comes raging in, "Hellooooo everyBODY!!! I've got this grate new invenshun we're going use; it's some courseware with a code that comes with this $300 book! I know, I know what you're thinking, THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS! But the code makes it TOTES worth it!!!111" Well, fuck, here we go again.
This is not to mention the naifs with their tablets telling us that the urinals will be Web 2.0 interactive in the future and that we need to be down with the Digital Natives.... I wish I could catch break enough to set up my own textbooks using as much copyright-free stuff as possible. But that would not do shit for my promotion, and I really, really need that pay bump. And to keep my job. And what little I do manage to do gets fucked by the bookstore. I ordered a package set of books this semester, total cost $60. What did the bookstore do? Not order the package. Instead they charge $60 for both items in the package. As soon as I get tenure, I'm going to get a group together and we're going to write some open freaking courseware and stick it to these sphincters.
That turned into a rant. But screw it. I'm leaving it. Now I'm going to start filling out paperwork. And grading.
Um, a sportbike isn't going to do much damage. That's obvious. Mass matters. If you're using your truck for what it's intended, good on you. But I see far too many trucks that have never hauled or pulled, and Landrovers and the like that have never been more off-road than the lawn. It's simply because in the US we have a lot of income to dispose on vehicles, and we use them as much symbolically as practically.
Just change how your browser reports itself. If your website locks out Android browser, tell it to identify as iPhone. If Macs are locked out, tell FF to pretend its Windows Firefox. I love this crap. I mean just love it. My school doesn't support Chrome, but our Blackboard only supports Chrome for several key features. And not Chrome from last year, but Chrome from umpteen versions back. If you try to use it, and it doesn't work, and you're on a newer Chrome the IT people are "that's not supported." If you try to use Chrome elsewhere and run into snags, well, that's not supported either. Here's another good one: I ask for access to a printer, any printer, anywhere on campus, and they say "you have access." I say no I don't, the machine isn't authenticated. Ok, we'll send someone over to do that. Every semester, and no one ever shows. Why? We have a new seventy million dollar stadium going up, 6,000 students, and TWO fulltime IT people. Last fall campus wifi worked for 2 out of sixteen weeks of the semester. I don't know about other faculty, but that's why I hate technology. That and the fact that many of my students are like little lab rats programmed to click that damn phone every thirty seconds for their FB fix.
You can install from unknown sources without rooting or unlocking the bootloader....
"leads to" -- it's a gateway drug. once you start mucking around down in the OS, you're apt to all sorts of perversity. like learning terminal commands.
Rooted custom OS leads to installing from "Uknown Sources." Installing apps from unknown sources leads to installing pirated apps. Installing pirated apps leads to installing pirated media. Pirating media leads to terrorism. Terrorism leads to death. QED.
Students will say all sorts of things when confronted with cheating. I could give you example after example of outrageously implausible denials. I find it's best to make the accusation in writing, via e-mail, in a dispassionate tone "I discovered X passages in this paper that directly match text in sources A, B, and C." Then the student has time to come to terms with the deep doo-doo they're neck-deep in before speaking with me about the problem. Confronted in person, students tend to immediately go into "I did not have sex with that woman" mode. Two I heard last year were a) "it's not my fault my sister wrote my paper" and a claim that three out of five pages exactly matching Wikipedia were just a coincidence.
Well, I may be no true Scotsman, but I care about the standards because it means my students can use many more word processors, and it levels the playing field for students whose parents are wealthy and for those who are not.
I have to disagree. Austria and Bavaria seem to me far nicer than Alabama and Tennessee. When it comes to taxation, you _can_ get what you pay for. My income tax in the US is 27.5% (state and federal income tax with medicare/social security), and in two years I'll likely be in the next bracket up, which puts me at about what my similarly-employed relatives are paying who live in Austria and Bavaria. But they get operas, healthcare, museums, beautiful cities. I get a town that's socially and culturally in a coma, ABC stores, almost daily gunfights, and downtowns built for cars and not people. I mean, Alabama is great if your idea of culture is geriatric hair bands, and it'd be fine for me if I were single again and could invest time in hunting and fishing as I once did. But for urban culture, it's hard to beat some places in Western Europe. But then again, I'm not all "socialism is slavery," and I'll never earn in those brackets where a German is paying 60% of his income in taxes.
My lower back health and mood changed greatly when I started taking breaks every half hour to do push-ups, planks, lunges, squats, whatever would get my blood flowing. I also lost about 5 pounds in 15 weeks. I highly recommend getting up and moving around. It really brightened the day.
I've met "those" Christians. I've heard them scream and rant in their churches on Sunday in Knoxville, Tennessee as I walked past with my wife and kids on our way to the park. I've listened to them calling female college students witches and whores in Iowa City (IA) and Knoxville. I sat in the little church I attended as a kid and watched the congregation nod and "amen" as our polyester-clad minister called down damnation on the librulls. So where are all you "not like us" Christians when I've seen these people? Walking by doing nothing, that's where. You only have the courage to talk to sane people who are justifiably scared of your more extreme coreligionists. You, too, are afraid of these nutbars who actually want to follow the Bible's Old Testament advice about stoning people who wear their socks on the wrong foot or what-have-you. So afraid that you won't even admit that you've seen them.
Slashdot Mirror
Read the parent post more carefully. "Stupid people buy iPhones" does not say "Smart people don't buy iPhones."
Ah, got to love the snark. You think you're smart, but you're actually being obtuse. Happens to me ALL the time. I think jehanBUNCHOFNUMBERS wants to see the comet NOW, so s/he needs some orbital data or an ephemeris. Luckily amateur astronomers have access to The Google, and he'll find the comet despite your and my snarking.
Or, if you actually, read some of what these feminists write, you'd know that it's exactly what they say: women adapt to and adopt patriarchy. They, so to speak, out-Herod Herod. You could also argue that these scientists' perspectives on salaries are based on their own salaries. So women, paid less, offer less.
Yeah I know what you mean! In my grad program there were all these incentives for BLACKS! And of course we were just over-run with African-American students in the field. Why, looking back, in the time it took me to get my doctorate, we must have had as many as one. Yep. One. Maybe we need some incentives. I mean, boohoo, for me and all, as I'm a white guy. No scholarships for you buddy! But, looking around, it seems like we don't really need incentives for white men in my field. And, hell, not for the white women either. All the ones I know are paid less than me, so they're clearly willing to do it without incentives. Probably because women are stupid and can't drive, or something like that.
Aphorism's like Frank's sound so smart because they're glib. The value of a university education is not just based on belief. Yes, Charles Murray and other conservatives really, really want you to believe that. And they will flat-out state that we need more ditch-diggers and fewer college-educated people. But the wealthy aren't lining up to become ditch-diggers, so what they're talking about is reducing opportunities for upward mobility. But, the value? Well, how do you measure it? What do you measure? If you say "skills," the what skills? As I got my degree at a brick and mortar institution I not only learned various forms of math, science, and other crap I don't use all that much, I also learned things about how to dress, how to speak, how to carry myself in ways that don't reveal that I'm from a town of less than a 1,000 in the rural South. I learned to tolerate, accept, even like gay people, black people, foreign people, even though what I'd be taught and what is still taught in my home community is very different. I was also exposed to, by force, a wide range of topics and fields, some of which inform my life today. Sure, I don't use science much at my job, but I remember enough to read science articles with interest, to immediately know that something like the Star Wars missile shield was not going to work without some unobtainium and flux capacitors, &c &c. And having exhausted all those things, I'll return to the skills we can measure, "book larnin'." I can think of four people who changed my life as a learner, as a scholar, my mind, and of whose provocations I think at least weekly. And those interactions occurred, and I do not think could occur outside of, "meatspace" interactions. One example was a person saying to me "I don't think he cares what you think." Such a mundane, common thing to say. But in the context and in person, where I could not shrug it off or be angry at it, the impact was profound. I had to actually sit there, on the spot, in front of a witness and absorb an unpleasant fact about how I was letting my narcissism impact my scholarship. Of course scholar X didn't care that I disapproved of his ideas. If I wanted to challenge him, I would have to.... And of course today, much of my research is based on the work of scholar X, who has himself become one of my mentors. I don't think you can get that in these MOOCs or other online environments because largely and necessarily they are based on a mass-production model. It's an option, an alternative, but one that, I believe, is meant to be a palliative alternative, a sort of sop to disguise the fact that the best learning and interaction is taking place elsewhere and is more and more for those with the social clout and real capital to acquire it. Basically, to me, these things are what ketchup packets are to vegetable servings. And I'm damned sorry, but no option I pursue will preserve paragraphs in my postings.
I see this at the university where I work. Lowered barriers to entry result in a higher turnover. I can't say that out loud, at least until tenure. But it's the truth. If it has a low perceived cost, it's less valuable. Easy come, easy go.
I have to offer a mixed response to this claim that teaching must be developed into a science, so I'll comment, even though I came to this discussion to dispose of mod points. Some teaching of pedagogy is influenced by real, hard science. There are courses and teachers who are teaching pedagogy with cognitive psychology, outcomes evidence based on sufficiently large numbers of sample to be relevant, and that sort of thing. However, the _impression_ I get is that a lot of people in education departments are not basing their work on any real science. For example, there are still lots of education people talking about multiple intelligences, when there is no real evidence for it. Basically, it seems that ideology drives education pedagogy. There's a lot of marxist-lite thinking that is in actuality a sort of watered-down Romanticism. One good example of this is the belief that encouraging expressive fluency in writing will produce students who can write analytical arguments. The thinking still seems to be based on ideas like universal grammar, that we have a "language instinct" that will flourish if we nurture it and blossom into a set of skills that are actually conventional rather than innate. And, of course, there are more right-wing tinged methodologies too. My favorite example of ideologies determining pedagogical practice is the war between whole language (left) and phonics (right). Both camps are wrong because neither will accept that there's something in the other side's method, as well as because neither side is paying much attention to any actual science on the topic (the discourse seems to be more driven by marketing than anything else). That said, there was a day when a lot of science was behind universal grammar-type educational practices.... It's easy to cook your results, without even knowing it. And certainly a lot of education research is barely research, relying as it does on very small sample sizes. And, frankly, there's generally not that much funding for the good research because so much of the funding comes with the expected outcome more or less built in.
Because of the millions and millions of ordinary, wonderful people there? The millenia of art and poetry it has produced? The fascinating urban and rural landscapes? The fantastic cuisine? To learn something about a country that is still largely isolated? Because you want to do something to overcome the human rights abuses? Or just because you're a curious person and not a xenophobe. Or simply because opportunity has knocked. I can think of few places in the world I wouldn't visit if I had the opportunity. And I'm a homebody and a shitty traveler.
How do you find a good one? Seriously. I'm a school teacher on a budget, and I've been shopping, but it's hard to find reliable-sounding reviews. I'm comfortable with modding, so the firmware isn't a problem, unless the thing won't take Cyanogen.
For me the best vacuum for your money is a blue one. I have a blue vacuum cleaner, and it picks up the cat hair from the carpet and the dust bunnies and little bits of kitty litter too. It uses an advanced paper-bag filtering system, which both collects dirt and hair while filtering the air it returns to the room. It also has a sophisticated height-adjusting system that allows me to use it both on carpet and on smooth surfaces, such as hardwood floors. Additionally, it has a binary power control system allowing me to adjust its state of function independent of my proximity to the wall outlet. It is truly a superior device.
So are you opposed to demands for financial disclosure when there may be a conflict of interest? Or are you just opposed to demands that politicians who guide fiscal policy reveal their own fiscal maneuverings? Or is it the criminality of this that's problematic?
Yes. I've been told this by people working in academic publishing. It's a method to get around the used book market.
Amen to this. I'm a college prof, and it's the same for us. However, I will add a few caveats, speaking as an English teacher. First, those horrible packages sound so good. "You mean I can have my students learn basic mechanics thru online exercises I don't have to grade myself? Sweet! That will really help out this semester, because I'm teaching 20% more students and have two papers I need to get to press!" Three weeks into the semester, and the shit doesn't work. And I made my students pay out the butt for the inconvenience. I feel like a heel. I'll never do it again. Let's f-forward to next year. Dean Pelton comes raging in, "Hellooooo everyBODY!!! I've got this grate new invenshun we're going use; it's some courseware with a code that comes with this $300 book! I know, I know what you're thinking, THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS! But the code makes it TOTES worth it!!!111" Well, fuck, here we go again. This is not to mention the naifs with their tablets telling us that the urinals will be Web 2.0 interactive in the future and that we need to be down with the Digital Natives.... I wish I could catch break enough to set up my own textbooks using as much copyright-free stuff as possible. But that would not do shit for my promotion, and I really, really need that pay bump. And to keep my job. And what little I do manage to do gets fucked by the bookstore. I ordered a package set of books this semester, total cost $60. What did the bookstore do? Not order the package. Instead they charge $60 for both items in the package. As soon as I get tenure, I'm going to get a group together and we're going to write some open freaking courseware and stick it to these sphincters. That turned into a rant. But screw it. I'm leaving it. Now I'm going to start filling out paperwork. And grading.
Um, a sportbike isn't going to do much damage. That's obvious. Mass matters. If you're using your truck for what it's intended, good on you. But I see far too many trucks that have never hauled or pulled, and Landrovers and the like that have never been more off-road than the lawn. It's simply because in the US we have a lot of income to dispose on vehicles, and we use them as much symbolically as practically.
Congratulations! You just got to the 18th-century! Now, if we could just drag a few more people out of the 16th-century, we'd be doing just fine.
Just change how your browser reports itself. If your website locks out Android browser, tell it to identify as iPhone. If Macs are locked out, tell FF to pretend its Windows Firefox. I love this crap. I mean just love it. My school doesn't support Chrome, but our Blackboard only supports Chrome for several key features. And not Chrome from last year, but Chrome from umpteen versions back. If you try to use it, and it doesn't work, and you're on a newer Chrome the IT people are "that's not supported." If you try to use Chrome elsewhere and run into snags, well, that's not supported either. Here's another good one: I ask for access to a printer, any printer, anywhere on campus, and they say "you have access." I say no I don't, the machine isn't authenticated. Ok, we'll send someone over to do that. Every semester, and no one ever shows. Why? We have a new seventy million dollar stadium going up, 6,000 students, and TWO fulltime IT people. Last fall campus wifi worked for 2 out of sixteen weeks of the semester. I don't know about other faculty, but that's why I hate technology. That and the fact that many of my students are like little lab rats programmed to click that damn phone every thirty seconds for their FB fix.
You can install from unknown sources without rooting or unlocking the bootloader....
"leads to" -- it's a gateway drug. once you start mucking around down in the OS, you're apt to all sorts of perversity. like learning terminal commands.
Rooted custom OS leads to installing from "Uknown Sources." Installing apps from unknown sources leads to installing pirated apps. Installing pirated apps leads to installing pirated media. Pirating media leads to terrorism. Terrorism leads to death. QED.
Has this ethicist seen it?
Students will say all sorts of things when confronted with cheating. I could give you example after example of outrageously implausible denials. I find it's best to make the accusation in writing, via e-mail, in a dispassionate tone "I discovered X passages in this paper that directly match text in sources A, B, and C." Then the student has time to come to terms with the deep doo-doo they're neck-deep in before speaking with me about the problem. Confronted in person, students tend to immediately go into "I did not have sex with that woman" mode. Two I heard last year were a) "it's not my fault my sister wrote my paper" and a claim that three out of five pages exactly matching Wikipedia were just a coincidence.
Well, I may be no true Scotsman, but I care about the standards because it means my students can use many more word processors, and it levels the playing field for students whose parents are wealthy and for those who are not.
I have to disagree. Austria and Bavaria seem to me far nicer than Alabama and Tennessee. When it comes to taxation, you _can_ get what you pay for. My income tax in the US is 27.5% (state and federal income tax with medicare/social security), and in two years I'll likely be in the next bracket up, which puts me at about what my similarly-employed relatives are paying who live in Austria and Bavaria. But they get operas, healthcare, museums, beautiful cities. I get a town that's socially and culturally in a coma, ABC stores, almost daily gunfights, and downtowns built for cars and not people. I mean, Alabama is great if your idea of culture is geriatric hair bands, and it'd be fine for me if I were single again and could invest time in hunting and fishing as I once did. But for urban culture, it's hard to beat some places in Western Europe. But then again, I'm not all "socialism is slavery," and I'll never earn in those brackets where a German is paying 60% of his income in taxes.
My lower back health and mood changed greatly when I started taking breaks every half hour to do push-ups, planks, lunges, squats, whatever would get my blood flowing. I also lost about 5 pounds in 15 weeks. I highly recommend getting up and moving around. It really brightened the day.
I've met "those" Christians. I've heard them scream and rant in their churches on Sunday in Knoxville, Tennessee as I walked past with my wife and kids on our way to the park. I've listened to them calling female college students witches and whores in Iowa City (IA) and Knoxville. I sat in the little church I attended as a kid and watched the congregation nod and "amen" as our polyester-clad minister called down damnation on the librulls. So where are all you "not like us" Christians when I've seen these people? Walking by doing nothing, that's where. You only have the courage to talk to sane people who are justifiably scared of your more extreme coreligionists. You, too, are afraid of these nutbars who actually want to follow the Bible's Old Testament advice about stoning people who wear their socks on the wrong foot or what-have-you. So afraid that you won't even admit that you've seen them.
Or people who think lesbians are perverts and feminists are nihilists could crawl back under their rock and let the 21st century get on with business.