... The degradation, I'll have you know, is what causes the loss of historical context...
No, no, NO! No it doesn't.
DAMN no!
As an example, it was only the degradation of the Turin Shroud that gave us the historical context that proved it was fake. (infiltration of pollen from the wrong area etc...)
Any computer will only imitate. It cannot decide to do anything of it's own volition. Mozart can.
Even if you fed Handel and Correlli and Vivaldi and Hundereds of other composers into the computer it would only write a mish mash of the composers fed in, following a set of rules in it's code.
Mozart would add extra to the music. In computer terms he would create new rules without any prompting, without even being told he could create new rules (or break them).
... To create, one does not need previous examples...
Erm, that was my point. Mozart didn't need previous examples to write like Mozart. The computer does. The computer can only imitate and cannot, of it's own volition, decide to write like Mozart (having only heard Bach before).
Of course Mozart had heard Handel and Vivaldi and Corelli etc. before, as well as experiencing love, hatered, jealousy, dissapointment etc. But, he still wrote like Mozart without any prompting.
A nice analogy when people think computers can make decisions or have "Artificial Intelligence" of any merit.
Pupil (Excited about AI):- I have just written a programme that writes music in the style of JS Bach. Tutor (Seen it all before):- Really? How does that work then? Pupil:- I programmed all of the known manuscripts by Bach and the computer uses that to write new compositions. Tutor:- Great, can it write in the style of Mozart? Pupil:- Sure, give me all the compositions by Mozart and I'll show you. Tutor:- You mis-understand, can it decide, of it's own volition, to write in the style of Mozart. Pupil:- Well, no it needs to base it's composition on something. Tutor:- It has the entire works of Bach, is that not enough? Pupil:- No, it needs the entire works of Mozart to write in the style of Mozart. Hell, even music students need to have heard Mozart in order to write in the style of Mozart. Tutor:- Oh, so how did Mozart do it then?
RTFA, it means the rate of contributions goes down. If no articles are added or updated, wikipedia will die, despite the fact that the total number of articles has not gone down.
... reading time was traded away for time to maintain our applications...
Tell you what, lets all go back to using the printing press and stop wasting time maintaining our applications, because the printing press requires no maintenance and we could all afford one!
Also, the relative unpopularity of MacOS (v9 and previous) does pretty strongly refute your claim that 90% of people want the simplest system possible, because it doesn't get any more mind-numbingly simple than MacOS was.
"The relative unpopularity of MacOS..." had much more to do with the fact that Windows can be installed on any PC (made by an company). MacOS has to be installed on a Apple machine. This made the PC a much better choice for the vendors as they could target machines at different audiences and just install Windows on all of them.
As someone who has had kidney failure (now had transplant) I happen to know that there is an increase in Blood Urea Nitrate as it cannot be cleaned out by the failed kidneys.
This will escape through sweat glands and will show up as a positive test for "explosive residue". hmm somewhat stuck there. Honest, I'm on dialysis guv.
p.s. Osama Bin Laden also has kidney failure. How they going to cope with that one!
... * It discourages foreign workers from sneaking into the US. Getting $4.00 an hour is suddenly not so much compared to what they get paid in their home country....
Considering 1 US Dollar(USD) = 10.969 Mexican Peso(MXN) that aint gonna happen any time soon.
... I find myself wondering whether user-friendliness must inevitably mean discouraging users from exploring their systems or taking firm control over them...
and
... while even novices are unlikely to have much trouble if they accept the defaults, straying beyond them is difficult...
I think this is where us techies fall down sometimes. We assume that everyone who uses a computer wants to "Explore their system" or take "control over them".
Let's face it, probably about 90% of computer users use an office type application, a browser and an email client and the more advanced of them may use a feed reader of some sort. The most "control" they want over their system is to change the background and perhaps the colour scheme, and they want to do it easily, no code, no hassle.
And that's fine! Their computer is a tool to do their job. They learn how to do what they need to do and that's it.
So, it's a good thing that Ubuntu is easy to use. Us techies who want to "stray beyond the defaults" will find the way to do it anyway.
... the fleeting impermanence of handwritten notes...
If I go to the British Library, I can look at books that are (at least) 600 years old. Not only that but I can see handwritten notes in them by people like Sir Isaac Newton, in their own handwriting (which tells you a lot about the man, quite apart from the content of the notes).
There are some types of media that are now obsolete after only 30 years. It is either impossible or extremely expensive to read them now as no-one knows how to, or a piece of specialised equipment needs to be built to read it.
I agree with you that there is nothing wrong with laptops in the classroom, but I wouldn't say they have replaced handwriting.
I have yet to find an application that allows me to plan (say) a database structure as quickly or as easily as a paper and pencil or a whiteboard (especially if there is more than one person invoved in the planning stage).
Yes, I know if you plan it on the PC first you can convert it to SQL immediately etc... However, I always "step away from the computer" when planning any part of an application as the danger is I just start coding and before I know it I have written the structure and it's a lot more work to undo it.
Slashdot Mirror
No, no, NO! No it doesn't.
DAMN no!
As an example, it was only the degradation of the Turin Shroud that gave us the historical context that proved it was fake. (infiltration of pollen from the wrong area etc...)
Just seen your last point.
Any computer will only imitate. It cannot decide to do anything of it's own volition. Mozart can.
Even if you fed Handel and Correlli and Vivaldi and Hundereds of other composers into the computer it would only write a mish mash of the composers fed in, following a set of rules in it's code.
Mozart would add extra to the music. In computer terms he would create new rules without any prompting, without even being told he could create new rules (or break them).
Erm, that was my point. Mozart didn't need previous examples to write like Mozart. The computer does. The computer can only imitate and cannot, of it's own volition, decide to write like Mozart (having only heard Bach before).
Of course Mozart had heard Handel and Vivaldi and Corelli etc. before, as well as experiencing love, hatered, jealousy, dissapointment etc. But, he still wrote like Mozart without any prompting.
I agree it's not clever, but boy was it big!
In fact, just realised the title is "First Ever Web Design Survey Results", Not Web Designer
If you RTFS(urvey) it's a survey of a wide range of job types.
Actually, weren't all these features available in XP?
A nice analogy when people think computers can make decisions or have "Artificial Intelligence" of any merit.
Pupil (Excited about AI):- I have just written a programme that writes music in the style of JS Bach.
Tutor (Seen it all before):- Really? How does that work then?
Pupil:- I programmed all of the known manuscripts by Bach and the computer uses that to write new compositions.
Tutor:- Great, can it write in the style of Mozart?
Pupil:- Sure, give me all the compositions by Mozart and I'll show you.
Tutor:- You mis-understand, can it decide, of it's own volition, to write in the style of Mozart.
Pupil:- Well, no it needs to base it's composition on something.
Tutor:- It has the entire works of Bach, is that not enough?
Pupil:- No, it needs the entire works of Mozart to write in the style of Mozart. Hell, even music students need to have heard Mozart in order to write in the style of Mozart.
Tutor:- Oh, so how did Mozart do it then?
If you RTFA you would realise it's none of them. It's Manchester, UK.
I'm not entirely sure how you would encrypt a single bit!
RTFA, it means the rate of contributions goes down. If no articles are added or updated, wikipedia will die, despite the fact that the total number of articles has not gone down.
Ahem! There, fixed that for you.
As any astronomer would tell you, mixing up the two is a capital offence.
Tell you what, lets all go back to using the printing press and stop wasting time maintaining our applications, because the printing press requires no maintenance and we could all afford one!
Hmm!
So what dies that do to the meaning of this article???
But if USD vs JPY is 1:114, and Japan has a strong economy, isn't that a set up for one heck of an imbalance?
"The relative unpopularity of MacOS ..." had much more to do with the fact that Windows can be installed on any PC (made by an company). MacOS has to be installed on a Apple machine. This made the PC a much better choice for the vendors as they could target machines at different audiences and just install Windows on all of them.
Unless the Mexican economy is growing at a whizz bang rate(unlikely for any economy) then a 1:10 ratio is a pretty big gap and therefore has meaning.
As someone who has had kidney failure (now had transplant) I happen to know that there is an increase in Blood Urea Nitrate as it cannot be cleaned out by the failed kidneys.
This will escape through sweat glands and will show up as a positive test for "explosive residue". hmm somewhat stuck there. Honest, I'm on dialysis guv.
p.s. Osama Bin Laden also has kidney failure. How they going to cope with that one!
FTA
From the website of the International ISBN Agency
A range of umbers are assigned to them. How can the identification numbers be their intellectual property then?
Considering 1 US Dollar(USD) = 10.969 Mexican Peso(MXN) that aint gonna happen any time soon.
FTFA
and
I think this is where us techies fall down sometimes. We assume that everyone who uses a computer wants to "Explore their system" or take "control over them".
Let's face it, probably about 90% of computer users use an office type application, a browser and an email client and the more advanced of them may use a feed reader of some sort. The most "control" they want over their system is to change the background and perhaps the colour scheme, and they want to do it easily, no code, no hassle.
And that's fine! Their computer is a tool to do their job. They learn how to do what they need to do and that's it.
So, it's a good thing that Ubuntu is easy to use. Us techies who want to "stray beyond the defaults" will find the way to do it anyway.
Ha! 5? Mine goes up to 11, init!!
If I go to the British Library, I can look at books that are (at least) 600 years old. Not only that but I can see handwritten notes in them by people like Sir Isaac Newton, in their own handwriting (which tells you a lot about the man, quite apart from the content of the notes).
There are some types of media that are now obsolete after only 30 years. It is either impossible or extremely expensive to read them now as no-one knows how to, or a piece of specialised equipment needs to be built to read it.
I agree with you that there is nothing wrong with laptops in the classroom, but I wouldn't say they have replaced handwriting.
I have yet to find an application that allows me to plan (say) a database structure as quickly or as easily as a paper and pencil or a whiteboard (especially if there is more than one person invoved in the planning stage).
Yes, I know if you plan it on the PC first you can convert it to SQL immediately etc... However, I always "step away from the computer" when planning any part of an application as the danger is I just start coding and before I know it I have written the structure and it's a lot more work to undo it.
I think that might have been the point of the original post. The profs are just going to have to adapt.