When I was having thanksgiving dinner with my extended family, the wife of one of my cousins was complaining about her kid's schooling. In the same breath she complained about how the schooling was inadequate, and how they give the kids too much homework.
How could this be, I wondered. I added that from my experience (and the experience related by my friends who did not go to a private school like I did), kids needed *more* homework, not less.
Her reply? "Just wait until you have kids, and have to spend your time helping them with their homework."
And there, my friends, is why our educational system is in the crapper.
Well, I can't confirm that the difference between RCA and S-Video is great, I can confirm that a Toshiba flatscreen 19" and S-Video looks freakin' awesome on the X-Box.
I was surprised how cheap it was, relatively. I did some MPEG captures from a videotape over a s-video cable and RCA stereo cables. Took me about 10 minutes but I got it working. Final result was pretty nice looking for $200
I also play Dark Age of Camelot using it and the performance is very nice. I get beautiful graphics at a very nice speed running at 1024x768
The point is that someone will pay attention if they suddenly get a string of numbers that is definitely non-random.
We'll save the formal introductions for later. As informal beginnings go, mathematics is probably the least-likely to get us incinerated on accident, I'd think.
I seriously think that this varies _widely_ from program to program (that being degree program, not the other kind). For example, the degree program I am (finally) finishing this December selected coursework so that you couldn't _get_away_ from the history of Computer Science (to the point where the upper division classes were poorly attended for the first week once the "history of computers" bit started, because after a dozen times through it, it started to drag). Then again, I'm not sure how many degree programs include classes on Computer Ethics, either.
But in the case of the systemtoolbox article, I'm not entirely surprised that 2600 members don't know the history of the very scene they're in. It seems like the newer "computer enthusiast" generation in their teens isn't as "do-it-yourself" oriented as we needed to be in the previous 2 or 3 generations (depending on when you make your chronological divisions). A lot of them seem to be inspired by the "cool factor" the computer scene has received lately from movies like "Hackers" (ironically the title of a _great_ book by Steven Levy, whom I'm sure very few kids have read these days) and "the Matrix".
Finally, I too have noticed the glut of people who have entered computer degree programs hoping for easy employment in high paying jobs. It's really annoying, but my two consolations are 1) that a great number of those people don't make it through the early "weed-out" classes, and 2) They tend to not have the drive that "true" enthusiasts have, so serve as a good basis for allowing me to excel when it comes to grading curves >=)
Feh. Listen, TOS is dated in all sorts of styles, including the theme song.
The _problem_ people have with the Enterprise theme song is that they're stuck in this rut of what Star Trek is "supposed" to be. What the plots are supposed to be like, what they're supposed to do, what they're supposed to look like, what they're supposed to sound like, etc. It's the same arguments people made with Babylon Project: Crusade vs. Babylon 5. Now, granted in Crusade the CGI sucked massively when compared to S1-S3 B5, but that's not the point.
The _point_ is that the theme song is perfectly good on its own. There's no law saying that the Enterprise theme song needs to be a pseudo-Williams classical piece. For my part, when I heard the intro the first time I thought, "Ooh, nifty, maybe this series will be different than the lousy drivel we got with Voyager."
The Bebop soundtrack is very cool, indeed. If you like the music, though, check out other Yoko Kano written music as well. She's done music for a lot of shows, not just Bebop.
No, Windows 98 does not support DVD movies right out of the box. "Windows 98 out of the box" means that a standard install of W98 has DVD support, which is not true. Now, it may certainly be true that some PC manufacturers included software with their systems that they sold which used 98 as the operating system. In that case those _systems_ run DVDs "out of the box" but not 98.
I wouldn't call myself a PC zealot (even though I'm buying my first Mac after 20 years of PCs just this week), nor would I call myself a Mac nut either. Obviously this poster, however, is a PC zealot.
It certainly does seem ridiculous that this song would be banned out of all the songs that _could_ be banned. A song that cautions us against going off to war. But then again, I suppose it could depend on the political leanings of the parent company. Right now military action against terrorists is a very popular line in politics, peaceful methods are out of style (which would be more effective is another discussion).
Besides, the Deutsche version is better. Translating songs always messes up the rhyme/rhythm of the song.
"Shoot the messenger" also seems to result from people who believe they are UberAdmins, and have their systems set up in a way that makes them think they've got everything covered. When you point out a problem to these sorts of people, it's not so much an assault on the system (if indeed it is even a security issue at all!), but rather an assault on their ego.
I've had a run in or two with a particular systems administrator who insists that because a particular setup works with his personal account, there's no possible way that he needs to be bothered to deal with any other account configurations, and furthemore shouldn't need to deal with them, since if it isn't like his, it's Their Fault not his.
When did people forget that IT is at its core a customer service profession?
Re:mandatory laptops
on
Dorm Storm?
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
I couldn't agree more with this. We had a "movement" (read: Adminstration pushed plan with the backing of some "students" who basically were in it for some more scribbles on their resume) a few years ago on the campus I am currently working/studying on. The plan, of course, was (eventually) for all incoming freshmen (regardless of their degree program, how ridiculous is it for a theater arts major to be required to have a laptop?) to pay some $xxxx amount of money per semester to get this laptop.
Now, let's make the (rash and perhaps partially correct) assumption that mommy and daddy have enough money to foot the bill for this little toy. Well, it turns out that like many Universities, they lacked the infrastructure (or even the _plan_ for infrastruction) to support 2000 new students with laptops. Furthermore, they lacked faculty support (CS department wanting to know why student who spend most of their time hacking on Sun machines were going to need laptops), student support, and though I wasn't working for the IS department here at the time, I'm guessing IS support. So, after a "campus meeting", during which a few gamers expressed their glee that now they'd be able to play a kickass game of Quake in freshman Physics lecture, the "decision" was may to delay the plan's implementation while they "studied the issue further", or some such nonsense.
Why do I say it is nonsense? Because the very next semester, the pilot program had already started (with, you guessed it, theater arts being one of the pilot degree programs). And to add to the foolishness, under the nose of nearly everyone the science and engineering college is requiring little WinCE gadgets for all incoming freshmen (which, of course, ended up requiring the IS department to give those little toys to all their staff members this summer _just_ so that they could be able to support them). Nevermind that the "plans" for using them are little more than vaporware (I'm told that one CS professor has some software developed over the summer to use in lecture notes in the CS Intro series, but other than that...), or that the wireless network on campus won't be anywhere near adequate to support a couple thousand people for another year or two. Oh, did I mention the WinCE pocket rockets run around $600 a piece?
And why do we have these lovely bits of technology? We're told it's to "make the University more competative with other schools around the country", but it's not the faculty, staff, or students who want these things. It's the administration with their "technology makes education better" mindset. It seems to be a foregone conclusion that if you introduce technology to an educational setting the quality of education automagically increases. Then again, these people often haven't set foot in a classroom for decades, if ever in a non-priviledged situation, so their experience with that kind of educational environment is lacking.
The point? Students don't _need_ laptops. In my experience they're more of a pain in the ass for everyone, rather than being a benefit. They cost too much for the average student's budget, and most professors don't know what to do in order to make them valuable in terms of assisting their course plans (putting notes in PDF form to reduce photocopy costs really doesn't count). Support for them can be a pain (unless everyone uses the exact same system/software combo, which seems like a pipe dream to me), assuming you can organize any at all (it was amusing to watch the IS folks play a game of "not it" when it came to WinCE gadget support).
In short, Friends Don't Let Friends Support Manditory Laptop Programs.
Except that some of us have better things to do when we get home at night than read slashdot at all =P... So it says something, just not what you might have thought it said.
Two points:
1) The lag time between release in Japan and release in America is growing shorter as the genre becomes more popular and it becomes more profitable for companies to subtitle/dub and release them to the english speaking public.
2) Fansubs will continue to be made by capable otaku who want to make their favorite non-english-language-release-as-of-yet series/movies available.
This was a great concert, incidentally (yes, I was there). I frankly had _no_ idea that she had been Minmei in "Macross: Do You Remember Love?" until she asked if anyone had seen the movie (ironically, a lot of the younger fans there hadn't even been born in 1984), but it made my heart happy to have her sing a live version of the first Japanese (and anime) song I'd ever heard.
Yes, there were a ton of Sailor Moon outfits, but don't let that fool you into thinking the costumes were singleminded (or bad, since there were some very nice Sailor Senshi outfits). If you want to see them (especially the very cool Lodoss and Spawn costumes) check out A Fan's View
Anime conventions happen every month across the country (and world), there's many places that give notification and info on what conventions are coming up. The Animerica magazine lists them, as well as Anipike
Well, actually, demigods could die from accidents or injuries, classically.
And I believe the key isn't to keep the telomeres from dividing, but rather find a way to reconstruct them, or generate new cells with new, full-length telomeres.
Crusade was about as good, script-wise and plotwise as Season 1 B5. I've noticed that people who watch S1 tend to think it moves really slow and don't really understand the value of it until they see the rest of the series.
The Excalibur wasn't intended to me a small cruiser like the White Star fleet was.
But yeah, TNT did some nasty things to Crusade. Sad to say that JMS was right when he said, "I'd rather stop it now and have it become a legend rather than continue and compromise the integrity of the series, making it a disappointment to the viewers."
"its using 90% of my processor cycles, and i don't want it on my computer lab station."
I dunno, I run seti@home (not RC5)constantly on my k6/2-400, 96mb, etc running *gasp* win98 and I honestly don't see enough of a performance hit in anything to justify complaining.
Then again, I suppose that depends on whether or not one agrees that win98 delivers "performance" in the first place }:D
It's actually more properly "the news is less than perfect". I mean, you're landing this little thing on another planet. The chances of everything working exactly like planned the first time around is pretty small. It'll work. Trust me >:D
Slashdot Mirror
When I was having thanksgiving dinner with my extended family, the wife of one of my cousins was complaining about her kid's schooling. In the same breath she complained about how the schooling was inadequate, and how they give the kids too much homework.
How could this be, I wondered. I added that from my experience (and the experience related by my friends who did not go to a private school like I did), kids needed *more* homework, not less.
Her reply? "Just wait until you have kids, and have to spend your time helping them with their homework."
And there, my friends, is why our educational system is in the crapper.
The Mac version of IE is also one of the very few browsers that properly implements transparency in PNG images.
Well, I can't confirm that the difference between RCA and S-Video is great, I can confirm that a Toshiba flatscreen 19" and S-Video looks freakin' awesome on the X-Box.
Now, back to Buffy.
I have this problem from DAoC when I go on IRC. I'll constantly type /send instead of /msg.
Can be very embarassing.
I was surprised how cheap it was, relatively. I did some MPEG captures from a videotape over a s-video cable and RCA stereo cables. Took me about 10 minutes but I got it working. Final result was pretty nice looking for $200
I also play Dark Age of Camelot using it and the performance is very nice. I get beautiful graphics at a very nice speed running at 1024x768
He probably doesn't get the irony.
The point is that someone will pay attention if they suddenly get a string of numbers that is definitely non-random.
We'll save the formal introductions for later. As informal beginnings go, mathematics is probably the least-likely to get us incinerated on accident, I'd think.
I seriously think that this varies _widely_ from program to program (that being degree program, not the other kind). For example, the degree program I am (finally) finishing this December selected coursework so that you couldn't _get_away_ from the history of Computer Science (to the point where the upper division classes were poorly attended for the first week once the "history of computers" bit started, because after a dozen times through it, it started to drag). Then again, I'm not sure how many degree programs include classes on Computer Ethics, either.
But in the case of the systemtoolbox article, I'm not entirely surprised that 2600 members don't know the history of the very scene they're in. It seems like the newer "computer enthusiast" generation in their teens isn't as "do-it-yourself" oriented as we needed to be in the previous 2 or 3 generations (depending on when you make your chronological divisions). A lot of them seem to be inspired by the "cool factor" the computer scene has received lately from movies like "Hackers" (ironically the title of a _great_ book by Steven Levy, whom I'm sure very few kids have read these days) and "the Matrix".
Finally, I too have noticed the glut of people who have entered computer degree programs hoping for easy employment in high paying jobs. It's really annoying, but my two consolations are 1) that a great number of those people don't make it through the early "weed-out" classes, and 2) They tend to not have the drive that "true" enthusiasts have, so serve as a good basis for allowing me to excel when it comes to grading curves >=)
Feh. Listen, TOS is dated in all sorts of styles, including the theme song.
The _problem_ people have with the Enterprise theme song is that they're stuck in this rut of what Star Trek is "supposed" to be. What the plots are supposed to be like, what they're supposed to do, what they're supposed to look like, what they're supposed to sound like, etc. It's the same arguments people made with Babylon Project: Crusade vs. Babylon 5. Now, granted in Crusade the CGI sucked massively when compared to S1-S3 B5, but that's not the point.
The _point_ is that the theme song is perfectly good on its own. There's no law saying that the Enterprise theme song needs to be a pseudo-Williams classical piece. For my part, when I heard the intro the first time I thought, "Ooh, nifty, maybe this series will be different than the lousy drivel we got with Voyager."
The Bebop soundtrack is very cool, indeed. If you like the music, though, check out other Yoko Kano written music as well. She's done music for a lot of shows, not just Bebop.
No, Windows 98 does not support DVD movies right out of the box. "Windows 98 out of the box" means that a standard install of W98 has DVD support, which is not true. Now, it may certainly be true that some PC manufacturers included software with their systems that they sold which used 98 as the operating system. In that case those _systems_ run DVDs "out of the box" but not 98.
I wouldn't call myself a PC zealot (even though I'm buying my first Mac after 20 years of PCs just this week), nor would I call myself a Mac nut either. Obviously this poster, however, is a PC zealot.
It certainly does seem ridiculous that this song would be banned out of all the songs that _could_ be banned. A song that cautions us against going off to war. But then again, I suppose it could depend on the political leanings of the parent company. Right now military action against terrorists is a very popular line in politics, peaceful methods are out of style (which would be more effective is another discussion).
Besides, the Deutsche version is better. Translating songs always messes up the rhyme/rhythm of the song.
"Shoot the messenger" also seems to result from people who believe they are UberAdmins, and have their systems set up in a way that makes them think they've got everything covered. When you point out a problem to these sorts of people, it's not so much an assault on the system (if indeed it is even a security issue at all!), but rather an assault on their ego.
I've had a run in or two with a particular systems administrator who insists that because a particular setup works with his personal account, there's no possible way that he needs to be bothered to deal with any other account configurations, and furthemore shouldn't need to deal with them, since if it isn't like his, it's Their Fault not his.
When did people forget that IT is at its core a customer service profession?
I couldn't agree more with this. We had a "movement" (read: Adminstration pushed plan with the backing of some "students" who basically were in it for some more scribbles on their resume) a few years ago on the campus I am currently working/studying on. The plan, of course, was (eventually) for all incoming freshmen (regardless of their degree program, how ridiculous is it for a theater arts major to be required to have a laptop?) to pay some $xxxx amount of money per semester to get this laptop.
Now, let's make the (rash and perhaps partially correct) assumption that mommy and daddy have enough money to foot the bill for this little toy. Well, it turns out that like many Universities, they lacked the infrastructure (or even the _plan_ for infrastruction) to support 2000 new students with laptops. Furthermore, they lacked faculty support (CS department wanting to know why student who spend most of their time hacking on Sun machines were going to need laptops), student support, and though I wasn't working for the IS department here at the time, I'm guessing IS support. So, after a "campus meeting", during which a few gamers expressed their glee that now they'd be able to play a kickass game of Quake in freshman Physics lecture, the "decision" was may to delay the plan's implementation while they "studied the issue further", or some such nonsense.
Why do I say it is nonsense? Because the very next semester, the pilot program had already started (with, you guessed it, theater arts being one of the pilot degree programs). And to add to the foolishness, under the nose of nearly everyone the science and engineering college is requiring little WinCE gadgets for all incoming freshmen (which, of course, ended up requiring the IS department to give those little toys to all their staff members this summer _just_ so that they could be able to support them). Nevermind that the "plans" for using them are little more than vaporware (I'm told that one CS professor has some software developed over the summer to use in lecture notes in the CS Intro series, but other than that...), or that the wireless network on campus won't be anywhere near adequate to support a couple thousand people for another year or two. Oh, did I mention the WinCE pocket rockets run around $600 a piece?
And why do we have these lovely bits of technology? We're told it's to "make the University more competative with other schools around the country", but it's not the faculty, staff, or students who want these things. It's the administration with their "technology makes education better" mindset. It seems to be a foregone conclusion that if you introduce technology to an educational setting the quality of education automagically increases. Then again, these people often haven't set foot in a classroom for decades, if ever in a non-priviledged situation, so their experience with that kind of educational environment is lacking.
The point? Students don't _need_ laptops. In my experience they're more of a pain in the ass for everyone, rather than being a benefit. They cost too much for the average student's budget, and most professors don't know what to do in order to make them valuable in terms of assisting their course plans (putting notes in PDF form to reduce photocopy costs really doesn't count). Support for them can be a pain (unless everyone uses the exact same system/software combo, which seems like a pipe dream to me), assuming you can organize any at all (it was amusing to watch the IS folks play a game of "not it" when it came to WinCE gadget support).
In short, Friends Don't Let Friends Support Manditory Laptop Programs.
Except that some of us have better things to do when we get home at night than read slashdot at all =P... So it says something, just not what you might have thought it said.
Two points:
1) The lag time between release in Japan and release in America is growing shorter as the genre becomes more popular and it becomes more profitable for companies to subtitle/dub and release them to the english speaking public.
2) Fansubs will continue to be made by capable otaku who want to make their favorite non-english-language-release-as-of-yet series/movies available.
This was a great concert, incidentally (yes, I was there). I frankly had _no_ idea that she had been Minmei in "Macross: Do You Remember Love?" until she asked if anyone had seen the movie (ironically, a lot of the younger fans there hadn't even been born in 1984), but it made my heart happy to have her sing a live version of the first Japanese (and anime) song I'd ever heard.
Yes, there were a ton of Sailor Moon outfits, but don't let that fool you into thinking the costumes were singleminded (or bad, since there were some very nice Sailor Senshi outfits). If you want to see them (especially the very cool Lodoss and Spawn costumes) check out A Fan's View
Anime conventions happen every month across the country (and world), there's many places that give notification and info on what conventions are coming up. The Animerica magazine lists them, as well as Anipike
Well, actually, demigods could die from accidents or injuries, classically. And I believe the key isn't to keep the telomeres from dividing, but rather find a way to reconstruct them, or generate new cells with new, full-length telomeres.
Even _I_ figured that one out! :P Some people just have no ability at all to translate music from text. >:)
A couple of points of clarification:
Crusade was about as good, script-wise and plotwise as Season 1 B5. I've noticed that people who watch S1 tend to think it moves really slow and don't really understand the value of it until they see the rest of the series.
The Excalibur wasn't intended to me a small cruiser like the White Star fleet was.
But yeah, TNT did some nasty things to Crusade. Sad to say that JMS was right when he said, "I'd rather stop it now and have it become a legend rather than continue and compromise the integrity of the series, making it a disappointment to the viewers."
Yeah, but "Infection" is far worse than "TKO"
PRO-TECT!!! *zapp*
Ugh
I dunno, I run seti@home (not RC5)constantly on my k6/2-400, 96mb, etc running *gasp* win98 and I honestly don't see enough of a performance hit in anything to justify complaining.
Then again, I suppose that depends on whether or not one agrees that win98 delivers "performance" in the first place }:D
It's actually more properly "the news is less than perfect". I mean, you're landing this little thing on another planet. The chances of everything working exactly like planned the first time around is pretty small. It'll work. Trust me >:D
It's about 2 months old, this review. So really, it's not "about time" =)