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User: hedwards

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  1. Re:Both! on Estonian Schools To Teach Computer-Based Math · · Score: 1

    The problem is that you rarely, if ever, see somebody that can't do basic arithmetic who is able to understand things well enough to use a calculator. I tutor developmental math students on this stuff, and by and large I don't see very many of them that understand the concepts without being able to perform basic arithmetic. It's far more common for them to get the arithmetic, but be completely unable to do math.

  2. Re:Both! on Estonian Schools To Teach Computer-Based Math · · Score: 1

    There's no contradiction there. There is some declarative knowledge that you have to learn in any field. If you don't know your times tables, it's difficult to function at all in society where math is being used. It was expected of myself and my classmates to be permitted to move to fifth grade that we know our times tables up to 10x10.

    In fact without some declarative knowledge you'll never advance very far. It's declarative because there isn't really anything to understand other than the fact that it is what it is.

    But, what I'm talking about is that they'll be expected to do question after question extremely quickly without being asked to understand why or be able to come up with the equations on their own. It's basically completely worthless in the real world as nobody ever gives you a problem like that to solve outside of the academic world.

  3. Re:Both! on Estonian Schools To Teach Computer-Based Math · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The US has been focused more on mathematics for as long as I can remember. That's one reason why the US is usually behind China in terms of math, China places a ton of value on turning children into calculators rather than understanding any of the math they're being expected to rote memorize.

    I'm not so sure that going the computer route is such a great idea. It's all well and good to use computers and calculators, but if you don't know your times tables and you can't do long division, you're going to be stuck having to have a calculator at all times. Which is more reasonable now than it used to be, but you'd be surprised how much faster it can be to do things on paper sometimes.

    Oh, and good luck getting a calculator to tell you what went wrong when a number you get isn't right.

  4. Re:Slashvertisement for Snake Oil? on Brain Age: Concentration Training Tests Your Brain, and Patience · · Score: 0

    Not really, gaming in general does have positive impacts on the brain. This specific type of game is too new to make those sorts of definitive statements. But, it's been known since at least the early '80s that gaming does improve the rate at which people think beyond the typical hand eye coordination claims.

    I'd recommend reading Maximum Brainpower by Breznitz, Shlomo before making such claims. The research is less conclusive when it comes to things which happen once one is an adult and it's unlikely that anything will change the outcome once dementia is already present, but the idea that the brain doesn't adapt to such stimulation at all or does so in such a specific way is not something that's particularly well supported.

  5. Re:OTOH on Professors Rejecting Classroom Technology · · Score: 3, Informative

    No, that's actually more recent. I remember when I was a kid having to do a lot more work because my handwriting was much smaller than my classmates. The reason for the specificity is that students get rather good at using the largest margins, typeface and font size that they can get away with to pad their work. It means that if they want to pad out their work, they have to go to a lot more work than just adding additional points to their report.

  6. Re:sample data on Raytheon's Riot Program Mines Social Network Data For Intelligence Agencies · · Score: 1

    Private data no, but I'm pretty sure that FB requires people to pay if they want to use spiders to get all the data that's been posted, rather than just small amounts about individuals.

  7. Re:The FED on Australian Govt Forces Apple, Adobe, Microsoft To Explain Price Hikes · · Score: 1

    Thank you for proving my point. It's well established that you can't make money if you're being paid less in interest than you're losing to inflation. In order to make money you need to actually have interest rates marginally higher than inflation. What's more, you can't invest small amounts of money as efficiently as you can large amounts of money leading to the situation that the GGGP was talking about.

    But, then again, why should I assume that a specialty that only recently discovered that not everybody makes purely rational decisions with full knowledge of what they're doing, would understand something that simple.

  8. Re:Why is this on slashdot? on Pope To Resign Citing Advanced Age · · Score: 1

    So, you've successfully proven that you're a bigot and don't require the Pope to rationalize your bigotry. I'm sure your mother would be so proud of you.

    The Pope should have been passed over in favor of somebody a little more aware of the consequences of his words.

  9. Re:The FED on Australian Govt Forces Apple, Adobe, Microsoft To Explain Price Hikes · · Score: 1

    It's not really that complicated, as long as you don't have a PhD in economics it's pretty clear. The fact that it's not more commonly known is purely because people are incredibly lazy when it comes to intellectual matters.

  10. Re:Is the same true for the Nexus 4? on Surface Pro Sold Out; Was It Just Understocked? · · Score: 1

    Looks like I pissed off one of the 503 people that actually was foolish enough to buy one of these things.

  11. Re:Oh, the irony! on Apple Said To Be Working On a 'Watch-Like Device' · · Score: 1

    Indeed, that's why I generally glance at other people's watches during meetings, it's much less likely that anybody will figure out what's going on.

    Also, it's astonishing how many people make those sorts of claims, like the GP, about young folks when it's those young folks parents who apparently failed to instill the values that they're then bitching about young people not having.

  12. Re:Oh, the irony! on Apple Said To Be Working On a 'Watch-Like Device' · · Score: 1

    Or, you buy ones that are a year or so out of fashion at a massive discount. My Seiko was $150, IIRC, and that was a huge discount off the price when that model was current. Plus, since they tend to last forever, nobody realizes that I got a really good deal on it.

  13. Re:The iWatch on Apple Said To Be Working On a 'Watch-Like Device' · · Score: 2

    That's only guaranteed if the messages don't need to move between servers. If they do, then there's the theoretical 5 days or so that the servers are supposed to keep trying to find a route before giving up. One of the downsides to the decentralized nature of the net is that sometimes things just get lost.

  14. Re:How bizarre... on Should the Start of Chinese New Year Be a Federal Holiday? · · Score: 1

    Doing it wrong? You can't grade papers when you're giving classes. And they typically don't give you more than an hour of prep time a day. Which means that you're working outside of school time to keep up with the demands of the job.

    I'm very curious as to how one avoids doing any of the prep work or grading that's associated with giving out home work. Yes, the ratio is a bit better if you're giving more homework, but students don't have unlimited time to do homework and if each teacher assigns 15 minutes of homework, that adds up to an hour and a half a night. On top of which you've then got to grade probably 5 classes worth of homework.

    If there were an easier way without completely abandoning the students, I think teachers would be doing that.

  15. Re:Is the same true for the Nexus 4? on Surface Pro Sold Out; Was It Just Understocked? · · Score: 0

    I'm not sure about the Nexus 10, but remember the MS Kin? I suspect they destroyed more of them than they sold as they only sold a total of just over 500. And it's difficult to produce things in runs of under 10 grand without having them be extremely expensive.

  16. Re:How bizarre... on Should the Start of Chinese New Year Be a Federal Holiday? · · Score: 1

    And you probably aren't expected to spend your free time grading papers, writing exams and planning classes.

    Seriously, if I assign a class 5 minutes of home work to do, that's a minimum of 20 minutes per class that I have to spend grading. And that's just for a very quick look and check mark to grade. There's easily another half hour planning the assignment so that I get what I'm asking for rather than something that's technically in compliance with the instructions.

    Teachers spend a lot more time working than what is represented in the class schedule and thanks to budget cuts, end up spending a lot of time doing things like copying and research which really ought to be done by support staff so we can focus on the students.

  17. Re:i'd like to see that on Six Months Without Adobe Flash, and I Feel Fine · · Score: -1, Troll

    I like how the barely literate whine about minor typos rather than contributing something to society. Keeps them from fucking up things for the rest of us.

    OTOH, perhaps getting medication for that obsession would be a good idea, I'd hate to think that I'd run into one of these grammar nutjobs someday.

  18. Re:How about the US-Canadian/US-Mexico border? on DHS Can Seize Your Electronics Within 100 Mi.of US Border, Says DHS · · Score: 1

    Freedom to drive without seat belts is unlikely to be something that was considered when the state was choosing a motto. Also, seat belt laws are typically a state law rather than a federal one.

  19. Re:Better answer... on Adobe Hopes Pop-up Warnings Will Stop Office-Borne Flash Attacks · · Score: 2

    Well, didn't MS pretty much invent documents as an attack vector. Perhaps my memory isn't so good, but the first cases I remember of that were for Word.

  20. Re:Tango Waltz Whatever on Adobe Hopes Pop-up Warnings Will Stop Office-Borne Flash Attacks · · Score: 2

    It's a moot point because MS decided to hide the file extension from the user and let the file contain the icon for the file.

  21. Re:Separate the code and the data on Adobe Hopes Pop-up Warnings Will Stop Office-Borne Flash Attacks · · Score: 2

    And, this is why Adobe should have removed the ability of Flash to expand randomly to trick the user into clicking on something they clearly didn't want to click on in the first place.

    Well, not Adobe, that's why Macromedia should have done it and why webmasters shouldn't be doing it.

  22. Re:Way to go, patenting the fucking obvious on Amazon Patents the Milkman · · Score: 1

    Yeah, well, so was the place I ordered them from. And yes, I know you're joking.

  23. Re:Way to go, patenting the fucking obvious on Amazon Patents the Milkman · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I used to have vitamins shipped to me every couple months on a subscription basis. I'd be very curious as to what about this patent is novel in any way.

  24. Re:Mess! on Apple Holds Firm As Publishers Settle With DoJ Over e-Book Pricing · · Score: 1

    Which works great if you don't spend a lot of time traveling. Or have a huge house.

    Personally, I use the library and only buy books that I'm going to want for years to come.

  25. Re:The standards are published in English on Ask Slashdot: Do Most Programmers Understand the English Language? · · Score: 1

    And that works out fine as long as you don't need the ones that aren't and aren't worried about what gets lost in translation.

    And as long as you don't care about being limited to mostly just French speaking programmers.