Math does not have to be limited by immediate application of the principles being taught, and doing so results in an unnecessarily constrained syllabus that denies students skills that they may find useful later in life.
I agree. I wish it was easier or perhaps more common to teach the ability to apply more advanced mathematics to a situation when possible. I remember going through school you always heard the line, "We're never going to use this anyway," when referring to math anywhere above algebra, and I have to say that I generally agreed with it. There have been some advanced mathematical skills that I've used since leaving school, but they've all been applied inside of IT or programming, so perhaps I'm a bad example.
My personal largest problem, though, has to do with literacy. Though I'm quite skilled with language, excessive comma usage notwithstanding, I find that when trying to read about advanced math or physics principles on Wikipedia for example, I'll see a theorem written using symbols and functions that I know were covered in the math classes I had in high school but I can't look at those same symbols and functions and turn them into words that accurately explain or describe the principle I'm reading. Perhaps I'm alone in that situation, but attempting to read advanced theorems and math does give me insight into what text must look like to illiterate people who still know their ABC's.
Have you forgotten that cassette tapes only recorded *within* human hearing ranges?
I didn't forget that, I just didn't know it. As an analog device, I can't think of any reason off the top of my head why such devices wouldn't record outside of human hearing ranges, but I honestly don't know the specifics of how analog tape works, other than "Sound > Mic > Electricity > Tape Head > Magnetism > Magnetized Tape."
Bonus points to the first person that can rip an mp3/flac from an old cassette and get the program to load.
Has anyone ever done that? Come to think of it, since MP3 discards audio outside of human hearing ranges, would it even work? I suppose that since (usually by limiting to 9600bps or so) you can get a fax machine to work on a VoIP line, this could work as well though.
That'd be really neat/useless, feeding MP3 files to a c64 emulator to load applications.:D
Like old cars the old computers get passed down to the lower income brackets
While I share your idea of turning old machines into miniature philanthropic endeavors, that's not what's being referred to here. I read a very eye opening National Geographic article about a year ago on this.
"Tech junk" frequently wanders its way through dozens of hands until it finally leaves the borders of the US or Europe, and then eventually ends up dumped, for very small sums of money, into the hands of third world nations. Once there, local people take the tech junk and "refine" it for salvageable, recyclable commodities such as copper and lead. They do this because, for example, the copper buyers will take wiring (think power supply leads) but only if the insulation has been removed. The common way to do that, of course, is to burn the wiring, standing over your acrid, carcinogen-belching brazier the whole time so you can pick the bundles out once they're ready for sale.
PCB's too are broken up and heated to extract lead, which can then be collected, poured out, and sold by the kilogram. There was a photograph of a man extracting lead from such PCB's using large pots and pans... the same cookware he uses to prepare dinner for his family.
It's a really ugly story, but the fact is that unscrupulous tech "recyclers" are able to offer the lowest disposal fees because they exploit this economy.
A custom system built on a low powered processor can be the media center and server at the same time.
Thinking about what you said there, I think it would be pretty cool if, instead of hooking an HTPC up to my television, I could, using the latest RDP tech where 3D acceleration and HD video can be played back on the client, remote into a virtual machine instead or into a second login session on my desktop or laptop, eliminating the need for the HTPC altogether.
Wonder how long it'l take to actually see in a live product and how much it'll really cost.
A company called Teradici has been doing this for a while with the PCoIP tech. They partnered with VMWare a while back as part of VMWare's VDI initiative.
Difference is, I suppose, that the Teradici solution is completely hardware based, but on the flip side I think you can do a single remote system for a few hundred bucks.
There's a neat video on youtube of someone playing Crysis over 802.11n on an HDTV with their hardware.
on my wireless mouse the batteries always went flat in the middle of a game.
Logitech makes a couple of mice with removable batteries that charge in the mouse dock. Good for solving that issue.
Personally, I use a bluetooth mouse, but I get around the dying battery issue by having two of them. MX-5000 desktop was on clearance for $30 at best buy some years back, so I got 5 for the price of 1 and outfitted two laptops, desktop, HTPC, and so on.
Two frames, plus just under the full input latency. 32.99ms! Pressing it later and later gets you slowly back towards pressing it 1ms before the input sample for a frame is taken.
I like your analysis of the issue, but quite frankly you're really proving my point.
The "Ack, wireless = delay = fuck wireless" was a good argument back when it was noticeable on all wireless mice say 6 or 8 years ago. Now, however, assuming your wireless mouse doesn't blow a boatload of goats, you're talking a maximum visible difference between a wireless and wired mouse being, on average, zero to one frames.
I don't really care how much of a pro/gosu/azn/twitch gamer you are, if you're bitching about one frame, the difference is in your head, not your eyes.
2007 doesn't require hardware virtualization either, only the Windows 7-only version does.
There was a bit of upset about that point when XP mode got reviewed. Since it's based on VPC and not Hyper-V, it shouldn't require x64 and AMD-V or Intel-VT, but for some reason, it does. A lot of people considered that to be all sorts of bullshit because Intel uses their VT feature to differentiate product lines; I.E., moderately priced business desktops don't support XP mode. Of course, that bullshit is actually Intel's fault, so I tend to cast a more glaring eye at them when I think about it.
America should let the free market come up with at least 3 competing, mutually incompatible charging standards. Each with its own DRM system to prevent nimbler third parties from offering cheaper alternatives!
LG, Apple, and Motorola are all showing tech demos of their chargers next week, with the trade shows being sponsored by Verizon and AT&T. Rumor has it that the LG charger's locking mechanism will break off sometime before you're finished paying your car loan, Apple's charger is a massive dock connector that's already compatible with a huge range of iCar accessories, and Motorola's charger will be covered under warranty, but any rust on the vehicle's underbody will somehow void the warranty on the charger.
You can, of course, buy an insurance policy for your vehicle, but they'll charge extra for a rental while your new model is air-freighted from China over a period of three weeks. You also have to pay for return shipping.
our soldiers were prevented from correctly disposing of the enemy in the field.
I don't consider myself particularly well informed on the matter of taking prisoners, but there's a difference between war and genocide.
Just because someone fights for his country doesn't mean he truly desires the death of all the people he fights against. I'd imagine he should desire victory and the ability to one day return home.
and the cost to the state will be more than $55/hour including benefits...
Well... duh. Assuming 40 hours/week and 4 weeks/month, that's 160 hours. I know a man who's recently retired and has some serious risk factors that put private insurance for him at $600+ per month, so assuming he's the high end of that... it's what, just under $4/hour more?
Round it up to $60/hour for the pay+benefits for each man hour they incur, and they're still more than halving their costs. That sounds like a win to me, and I'm not even into finance.
Still, are you claiming this is a bad thing? I personally think that IT departments should be insourced, but I guess I've never seen objective research that says such practices are wholly beneficial (or the other way around).
That may sound easy (and I agree with you, I think it is) but people who don't understand how the abstraction works can't use that kind of setup correctly.
It just doesn't fall into the "ZOMG I'm a moron and this iPhone is just so intuitive" setup that the phone generally has.
Getting those two to work together is as easy as controlling two computers with Synergy.
It's interesting that you chose Synergy as your example. Synergy is a royal pain in the ass to configure for all but the most logical and technical minded people.
For a user who doesn't understand how contacts are stored, where they come from, or why they end up getting duplicated (or at least appear to be that way) without making a really stupid car analogy that won't actually transfer back to referenced analogous use of the device... I'll presume you get the idea.
It can encrypt all data by default and remotely wipe the device, and even end users can get the GPS coordinates of the device if they have MobileMe.
I know this, because I work for an iPhone nut.
If you're a business user, you're using Exchange 2007 with ActiveSync to remotely manage the iPhone and deliver email. If you've got a wish to drive yourself insane, you're also using MobileMe on that same device.
MobileMe has some neat features, but quite frankly it's complete bullshit that those features (Find my iPhone et. al.) are mutually exclusive from a phone with an ActiveSync binding. MobileMe + ActiveSync is highly discouraged by all of the Apple support reps I've spoken with, and to date, my boss has had nothing but nightmares involving the combination of the two.
Not that dignifying an AC with a response is a worthwhile endeavor, but my point is that Systems Admins seem to know more about the architecture of Windows than app developers do.
So, while you're busy determining the relevance of an IT shop, I'll be busy making sure that, at the very least, I can expect the same things of a third party application that Microsoft tells me I should. And when that doesn't happen, the ensuing "WTF" is well placed, at the very least.
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I've heard that SQL server is licensed per core, but Windows Server is licensed per socket.
Server Enterprise, IIRC, is licensed per socket. I think a single license is good for up to 4 sockets.
Math does not have to be limited by immediate application of the principles being taught, and doing so results in an unnecessarily constrained syllabus that denies students skills that they may find useful later in life.
I agree. I wish it was easier or perhaps more common to teach the ability to apply more advanced mathematics to a situation when possible. I remember going through school you always heard the line, "We're never going to use this anyway," when referring to math anywhere above algebra, and I have to say that I generally agreed with it. There have been some advanced mathematical skills that I've used since leaving school, but they've all been applied inside of IT or programming, so perhaps I'm a bad example.
My personal largest problem, though, has to do with literacy. Though I'm quite skilled with language, excessive comma usage notwithstanding, I find that when trying to read about advanced math or physics principles on Wikipedia for example, I'll see a theorem written using symbols and functions that I know were covered in the math classes I had in high school but I can't look at those same symbols and functions and turn them into words that accurately explain or describe the principle I'm reading. Perhaps I'm alone in that situation, but attempting to read advanced theorems and math does give me insight into what text must look like to illiterate people who still know their ABC's.
Have you forgotten that cassette tapes only recorded *within* human hearing ranges?
I didn't forget that, I just didn't know it. As an analog device, I can't think of any reason off the top of my head why such devices wouldn't record outside of human hearing ranges, but I honestly don't know the specifics of how analog tape works, other than "Sound > Mic > Electricity > Tape Head > Magnetism > Magnetized Tape."
Bonus points to the first person that can rip an mp3/flac from an old cassette and get the program to load.
Has anyone ever done that? Come to think of it, since MP3 discards audio outside of human hearing ranges, would it even work? I suppose that since (usually by limiting to 9600bps or so) you can get a fax machine to work on a VoIP line, this could work as well though.
:D
That'd be really neat/useless, feeding MP3 files to a c64 emulator to load applications.
Yes.
Hunger is a more directly solvable issue, and is much cheaper to treat than cancer.
Please quit being an asshole.
increased solar activity with the peak expected in 5 years' time.
It must have something to do with metric/imperial conversion, but 2012 is in 2.5 years, not 5!
Silly NASA.
I don't see that it's a big deal.
Like old cars the old computers get passed down to the lower income brackets
While I share your idea of turning old machines into miniature philanthropic endeavors, that's not what's being referred to here. I read a very eye opening National Geographic article about a year ago on this.
"Tech junk" frequently wanders its way through dozens of hands until it finally leaves the borders of the US or Europe, and then eventually ends up dumped, for very small sums of money, into the hands of third world nations. Once there, local people take the tech junk and "refine" it for salvageable, recyclable commodities such as copper and lead. They do this because, for example, the copper buyers will take wiring (think power supply leads) but only if the insulation has been removed. The common way to do that, of course, is to burn the wiring, standing over your acrid, carcinogen-belching brazier the whole time so you can pick the bundles out once they're ready for sale.
PCB's too are broken up and heated to extract lead, which can then be collected, poured out, and sold by the kilogram. There was a photograph of a man extracting lead from such PCB's using large pots and pans... the same cookware he uses to prepare dinner for his family.
It's a really ugly story, but the fact is that unscrupulous tech "recyclers" are able to offer the lowest disposal fees because they exploit this economy.
The faster we can replace the old stuff, the better.
That's true, but for the foreseeable future, it's still a cycle. I think the point here is: The less frequently we replace the old stuff, the better.
A custom system built on a low powered processor can be the media center and server at the same time.
Thinking about what you said there, I think it would be pretty cool if, instead of hooking an HTPC up to my television, I could, using the latest RDP tech where 3D acceleration and HD video can be played back on the client, remote into a virtual machine instead or into a second login session on my desktop or laptop, eliminating the need for the HTPC altogether.
Something to think about I suppose.
Wonder how long it'l take to actually see in a live product and how much it'll really cost.
A company called Teradici has been doing this for a while with the PCoIP tech. They partnered with VMWare a while back as part of VMWare's VDI initiative.
Difference is, I suppose, that the Teradici solution is completely hardware based, but on the flip side I think you can do a single remote system for a few hundred bucks.
There's a neat video on youtube of someone playing Crysis over 802.11n on an HDTV with their hardware.
on my wireless mouse the batteries always went flat in the middle of a game.
Logitech makes a couple of mice with removable batteries that charge in the mouse dock. Good for solving that issue.
Personally, I use a bluetooth mouse, but I get around the dying battery issue by having two of them. MX-5000 desktop was on clearance for $30 at best buy some years back, so I got 5 for the price of 1 and outfitted two laptops, desktop, HTPC, and so on.
Two frames, plus just under the full input latency. 32.99ms! Pressing it later and later gets you slowly back towards pressing it 1ms before the input sample for a frame is taken.
I like your analysis of the issue, but quite frankly you're really proving my point.
The "Ack, wireless = delay = fuck wireless" was a good argument back when it was noticeable on all wireless mice say 6 or 8 years ago. Now, however, assuming your wireless mouse doesn't blow a boatload of goats, you're talking a maximum visible difference between a wireless and wired mouse being, on average, zero to one frames.
I don't really care how much of a pro/gosu/azn/twitch gamer you are, if you're bitching about one frame, the difference is in your head, not your eyes.
, its not huge, but enough to notice when playing fast paced games
You need to have your head examined.
At 60 FPS, a frame is 16.7 ms long. I.E. adding 7ms to your input latency doesn't even show up on the screen.
2007 doesn't require hardware virtualization either, only the Windows 7-only version does.
There was a bit of upset about that point when XP mode got reviewed. Since it's based on VPC and not Hyper-V, it shouldn't require x64 and AMD-V or Intel-VT, but for some reason, it does. A lot of people considered that to be all sorts of bullshit because Intel uses their VT feature to differentiate product lines; I.E., moderately priced business desktops don't support XP mode. Of course, that bullshit is actually Intel's fault, so I tend to cast a more glaring eye at them when I think about it.
Yes, we're usually too busy trashing yesterday's security issue that today's tends to *whoosh* right over our heads.
America should let the free market come up with at least 3 competing, mutually incompatible charging standards. Each with its own DRM system to prevent nimbler third parties from offering cheaper alternatives!
LG, Apple, and Motorola are all showing tech demos of their chargers next week, with the trade shows being sponsored by Verizon and AT&T. Rumor has it that the LG charger's locking mechanism will break off sometime before you're finished paying your car loan, Apple's charger is a massive dock connector that's already compatible with a huge range of iCar accessories, and Motorola's charger will be covered under warranty, but any rust on the vehicle's underbody will somehow void the warranty on the charger.
You can, of course, buy an insurance policy for your vehicle, but they'll charge extra for a rental while your new model is air-freighted from China over a period of three weeks. You also have to pay for return shipping.
our soldiers were prevented from correctly disposing of the enemy in the field.
I don't consider myself particularly well informed on the matter of taking prisoners, but there's a difference between war and genocide.
Just because someone fights for his country doesn't mean he truly desires the death of all the people he fights against. I'd imagine he should desire victory and the ability to one day return home.
The better test would be to give all the parts set on the table along with all the screws.
AND make EVERYONE use the same 50 cent Wal-Mart non-magnetic screwdriver!
and the cost to the state will be more than $55/hour including benefits...
Well... duh. Assuming 40 hours/week and 4 weeks/month, that's 160 hours. I know a man who's recently retired and has some serious risk factors that put private insurance for him at $600+ per month, so assuming he's the high end of that... it's what, just under $4/hour more?
Round it up to $60/hour for the pay+benefits for each man hour they incur, and they're still more than halving their costs. That sounds like a win to me, and I'm not even into finance.
Still, are you claiming this is a bad thing? I personally think that IT departments should be insourced, but I guess I've never seen objective research that says such practices are wholly beneficial (or the other way around).
That may sound easy (and I agree with you, I think it is) but people who don't understand how the abstraction works can't use that kind of setup correctly.
It just doesn't fall into the "ZOMG I'm a moron and this iPhone is just so intuitive" setup that the phone generally has.
Getting those two to work together is as easy as controlling two computers with Synergy.
It's interesting that you chose Synergy as your example. Synergy is a royal pain in the ass to configure for all but the most logical and technical minded people.
For a user who doesn't understand how contacts are stored, where they come from, or why they end up getting duplicated (or at least appear to be that way) without making a really stupid car analogy that won't actually transfer back to referenced analogous use of the device... I'll presume you get the idea.
It just doesn't work or behave the way it should.
The app store is NOT about security, it does not make you magically protected.
The app store is about Apple's guaranteed 30% cut.
It can encrypt all data by default and remotely wipe the device, and even end users can get the GPS coordinates of the device if they have MobileMe.
I know this, because I work for an iPhone nut.
If you're a business user, you're using Exchange 2007 with ActiveSync to remotely manage the iPhone and deliver email. If you've got a wish to drive yourself insane, you're also using MobileMe on that same device.
MobileMe has some neat features, but quite frankly it's complete bullshit that those features (Find my iPhone et. al.) are mutually exclusive from a phone with an ActiveSync binding. MobileMe + ActiveSync is highly discouraged by all of the Apple support reps I've spoken with, and to date, my boss has had nothing but nightmares involving the combination of the two.
Not that dignifying an AC with a response is a worthwhile endeavor, but my point is that Systems Admins seem to know more about the architecture of Windows than app developers do.
So, while you're busy determining the relevance of an IT shop, I'll be busy making sure that, at the very least, I can expect the same things of a third party application that Microsoft tells me I should. And when that doesn't happen, the ensuing "WTF" is well placed, at the very least.
I was tempted to mod flamebait, but I had to say that Admins don't put data inside of Program Files.
Idiotic programmers put data inside of Program Files.
Admins put data in AppData, a directory in the application user's home/profile folder, where it belongs.