Category: observations

close to breaking my vow

TeledyN

Sorry, madam, but this isn’t a school. It’s just a training center for churning out well-behaved consumers, grooming them from Kindergarten age to adolescence to obediently learn to buy Microsoft. Now this is funny too: If you go to their ‘system requirements’ page, message tells you they won’t tell you unless you come back with the right O/S!

This sums up my opinion on computers in school quite nicely. See here for more. The thread was a good one.

two approaches to online business

Google is growing, AOL not so much. Perhaps these articles give a clue why that’s so.

Free Content Online? Publishers Are Divided

AOL, [AOL’s Jonathan Miller] argued, had a great opportunity to act as a “toll booth,” gathering these services and selling them to members, adding the cost to their monthly AOL bills, and collecting a percentage.

Sites Become Dependent on Google

Think of it as the Google economy. Much as eBay spawned an army of entrepreneurial auctioneers, Google has become enough of a Web gatekeeper that its leads now prop up plenty of commercial sites.

My generation’s “Great Depression?”

Nicest of the Damned

Frank noted this story: it’s about the last thing I wanted to read today. After almost two years feeling much the same as the folks interviewed for this article, I’m trying to figure out what my next career will be. Or will it just be a job with no measurable trajectory? Not that it makes much difference to me. Career-type opportunities might pay more, but the uncertainty, especially as the whole economic infrastructure seems to be re-inventing itself, isn’t worth it.

The most promising leads I have now are far removed from my days of bit-wrangling and cat-herding: on the upside, a Commercial Drivers License can be useful.

no more blows against the empire

I am going to try to refrain from adding my voice to the anti-MSFT chorus in future. No compelling reason, other than boredom with the whole topic. There’s nothing new to talk about. How many times does anyone want to read or write about lousy business practices, shoddy design and implementation, an utter lack of regard for customer choice or desires, and an unwillingness to do anything about any of these things?

There are lots of other weblogs that link to the same bug reports, the same pithy attacks: the Waypath results I was getting helped me realize how unoriginal my gripes were, so I’m going to leave it to others to work those fields.

hard to tell if this works

HT-26

First, how can you accurately diagnose yourself for developing kidney stones? Easy. Sit down and place one of your foot on your knee. There’s a small bone protruding out at the bottom of your ankles. Note the small semi- depressed area between that bone and your Achilles tendon toward the back of your foot. Use your thumb and with some pressure, push around that area. If you feel a strong reaction of some sort, that means you have stones. No reaction, no stones. The right foot corresponds to the right kidney. The left foot the left kidney. If you have even the slightest response, take HT-26. Within 2-3 days, the developing stones (size of grains of sand) will pass. If you have a strong reaction, it is recommended that HT-26 be taken for a longer period of time. When can one stop taking HT-26? When all pain or reactions from ‘pressing’ on the side of your foot/ankle is completely gone. This method for detecting kidney stones is very easy and accurate, so you can check every day to see your progress.

According to this, I’m stone free. I have my doubts about that, as much as I’d like to believe it.

I may be wrong on this one

The Seattle Times: Nation & World: Laptops for all? ‘Stupidest idea’ makes grade

But the governor compares the critics to naysayers who rose up generations ago when schools talked about sending children home with other learning devices. “They said they could throw them at each other, or dump them in mud puddles and destroy them,” King said. “They were talking about books.”

I have been and continue to be opposed to widespread use of computers in the classroom for a variety of reasons. But this article may answer a lot of my arguments.

For one, there’s no access problem: everyone gets one. For another, I suspect they didn’t cost as much as if each parent had bought their own (Apple would love to get back into education and if I read the story right, some Gates Foundation money funded this: sweet irony). And while it’s early, it seems to be effective at getting kids focused on their work: discipline problems are down, attendance is up. Obviously, some other things have changed to make the equipment useful: the same old “chalk and talk” techniques don’t really leverage a school full of wireless networked laptops, and that aspect of things didn’t get much attention.

For now, I’ll stay with my old position: I still think, given the way coursework is designed and taught, all a computer is really good for is to teach typing or keyboarding as it’s now known.

One of my biggest issues has been that by teaching with a computer, you teach the student about the computer itself: it becomes a distraction. And given the pace of innovation (slow though it is in these monopoly-dominated times), what will a seventh grader learn that will help him ten years later as he enters the job market? Put another way, do you need ten years to learn how to manage files and do basic word processing?

Of course not. And we’re starting to see exciting developments in the interfaces we use (mouse gestures, for example) that make keyboard skills less essential. Funny how the big innovative company makes the only browsers that don’t use this . . . . . .

Mark me down as interested but not convinced.