A Washington Post article about banning laptops in the classroom claims that professors have found themselves losing to the “cone of distraction” generated by these devices. It’s ironic because the universities themselves exerted strenuous efforts to ensure that every student had a laptop only to find them a nuisance. They mandated them only to ban them.
A generation ago, academia embraced the laptop as the most welcome classroom innovation since the ballpoint pen. But during the past decade, it has evolved into a powerful distraction. Wireless Internet connections tempt students away from note-typing to e-mail, blogs, YouTube videos, sports scores, even online gaming — all the diversions of a home computer beamed into the classroom to compete with the professor for the student’s attention.
But although the Washington Post has cast the problem in terms of distraction these devices pose, the underlying difficulty may be more basic. The computer has become cybernetically part of many people. For many people, “you” no longer means just “you”. It means you and your computer. And how can a person attend class with an essential part of himself removed?
“My laptop lives with me. I’m always on it,” said Madeline Twomey, 20, a George Washington junior. Twomey has used a computer since age 6 and had her first laptop at 15. She senses a widening generation gap. “Most professors, even at their youngest, they’re in their 30s,” she said. “They don’t understand how much it’s become a part of our lives.”
Professors say that students who succumb to the distraction of their computing devices are more likely to do poorly in class. “One recent semester,[associate professor] Siebert tracked the grades of 17 student laptop addicts. At the end of the term, their average grade was 71 percent, “almost the same as the average for the students who didn’t come at all.” But failure is the student’s lookout. If a student is willing to spend money and effort to get into a top school only to opt not to listen, that is their problem. Faced with the prospect of failing, students can either adapt their behavior (put away the laptop) or accept the consequences. Dropping out (either to join a teach-in, become an activist, join a dueling society or play online poker) has always been an option. Why should professors worry any more about the computer than any other distraction?
Part of the answer may be that the wired computer is a direct competitor in the pedagogical delivery space. It is extraordinarily subversive of the student-teacher model. It’s not just a distraction, it’s an ever present competitor. No wonder professors find their use impolite and even offensive in their classrooms. But while turning laptops and the cellphone off (or at least set to vibrate) may become standard for some kinds of meetings and classroom settings, it fails to address the fact that for many people, the computer has become the main aid to memory. It is replacing pencil and paper and the trend is unstoppable.
Evidence of this is all around us. Some phone companies have recently made the delivery of printed phone directories optional because people no longer use them. More fundamentally, some people are learning at a different level of detail in response to the availability of the computer; they structure their knowledge acquisition diferently and focus on retaining an outline of facts with key detail omitted relying — perhaps unwisely — on the ominpresence of the computer to fill in the spaces. People with online stores of information actually think and learn differently from those who don’t have them. I know a gentleman in his late sixties who actually checks his own verbal assertions as he speaks. When we are on the phone he sometimes interrupts himself and says, “sorry, I see that Bob X was really born in 1959, not 1957 as I remember”. I can hear the click-clack of his keyboard in the background.
It is even worse in the field of our professional lives. A lot of people would be devastated by the loss of their email address books or even their cell phones. They have simply never bothered to remember even the smallest fraction of those contact details. It is no exaggeration to say they might not even remember their girlfriend’s phone numbers and birthdates without them. Without their trusty computers a lot of people would feel older, more disconnected and possibly even disoriented. Digital memory loss is a real and severe event.
Julian Jaynes in his “The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind” claimed that men once heard different parts of their brain as distinct voices. “According to Jaynes, ancient people in the bicameral state would experience the world in a manner that has similarities to that of a modern-day schizophrenic. Rather than making conscious evaluations in novel or unexpected situations, the person would hallucinate a voice or ‘god’ giving admonitory advice or commands, and obey these voices without question; one would not be at all conscious of one’s own thought processes per se.” It is possible that 21st century man is hearing voices once again in that part of thinking or remembering that has been delegated to the computer.
My guess is that higher education in the near future must seamlessly integrate the classroom channel with the “voice of the gods” that a generation of people has learned to hear from their laptops. As computing devices become ever more powerful, able to project 3D images into rooms, respond to their location and environment and serve as the key networking tool, they will become increasingly difficult to exclude. Jaynes says that the rise of language and writing forced the voices of the gods to merge into our “own” stream of consciousness.
Self-awareness, or consciousness, was the culturally evolved solution to this problem. This necessity of communicating commonly observed phenomena among individuals who shared no common language or cultural upbringing encouraged those communities to become self-aware to survive in a new environment. Thus consciousness, like bicamerality, emerged as a neurological adaptation to social complexity in a changing world.
Now the gods are back. And while academics may have temporary success at stilling their voices my prediction is that the contest between professor and laptop will be won by both.
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I will reserve judgment as to whether the greater reliance on computers is “bad,” although, instinctively, I leans towards the notion that it will prove a handicap. Being without the computer or similar device becomes like losing a prosthetic, whether a lower leg or one’s glasses.
I’m inclined to believe that training the brain itself rigorously is not only superior to reliance on outside devices, but also improves one’s ability to use those devices. For instance, I am able to search online with greater success and efficiency than most younger people because I have a larger ‘database’ of general knowledge in my head, and can cross-reference at a level they can’t match.
Human-made devices that enhance natural abilities will be the better answer, and they may be on the horizon. Laptops, i-Phones and Droids will seem clunky by comparison.
The other phenomenon I’ve noticed goes beyond just the ubiquitousness of laptops, and I think is the real underlying thing that is going on: More and more people seem to need to carry more and more stuff around with them than used to be the case. From water bottles to laptops, and i-Pods in between, they’re like updated, high-tech bag ladies, even to the point where they appear to be talking to themselves with their hands-off phones. Here in DC on the Metro it always looks like half the people on the train must be heading for the airport, so burdened down they are with “stuff,” when in fact, many of them are just headed for the office.
Read Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge
http://web.archive.org/web/20070602143143/http://vrinimi.org/rainbowsend.html
It is one possible future for education and a heck of a read.
(he put the whole thing on his web site)
BTW – Socrates being from an oral rather than literate culture believed that he heard the voice of god telling him what was good, true and beautiful.
http://daemonpage.com/socrates-daimon.php
First time posting
How long before we have implants and “skull phones” such as those described in Elizabeth Moon’s “Vatta’s War” series? This is both incredibly exciting and very disturbing. It is also IMO inevitable.
As to the Profs – it is hard to indoctrinate when the students can fact check, raise questions, and disrupt the narrative.
Whitt,
The “Skull Phone implant” was the plot basis for the movie The President’s Analyst with James Coburn.
Many years ago I had to read the South Carolina educational reports. They were priceless because they laid out all expenditures by race. Each year for many years the head of the State Agricultural and Technical School, the black college, wrote a letter begging for money that was included in the annual report. Each year his letter was the same and began with a description of how all a teacher really needed was a log to sit on and a student on the other end of the log. Then he would ask for money. The best education still does happen with one teacher, one student, and one log handy for either sitting on or wielding as an attention getting club. The faculty are suffering because the rules of common courtesy were deconstructed by their fellow academics. They are hypocrits for disliking the results which include ill mannered students, coworkers as feral as Amy Bishop and administrators more loyal to political masters than standards of scholarship. When schools reassert their authority to instruct the whole student, when they tell students to pull their pants up and shut the door after they leave, then they will find students focusing more on what is happening in the real classroom than on the virtual world in the toy before them.
A senior Australian politician was lost in the outback after being separated from his guide. Fortunately he had brought a satellite phone. Unfortunately he neglected to remember that he didn’t remember any telephone numbers.
He simply didn’t know any numbers. Fortunately the guide turned up and all ended well. It is the case that for many people, the cell phone directory is worth more than the phone itself. You can buy a new cell phone more easily than recover the numbers.
W
It’s Julian Jaynes, and that is from memory.
But I do use Google more and more as a cranial annex.
Whitt’s comment about fact checking also occurred to me, but if that were to happen laptops would certainly be banned from the classroom… and the student dutifully given a poorer grade.
It is true, I don’t know my girlfriend’s phone number. I know my parents’ land line number (but I grew up with it), and my father’s office number (but I also work with him… and I grew up with it), but I have no idea what my family’s cel phone numbers are. No clue. Couldn’t even guess.
My father probably has an average memory (certainly not great), but he still holds a small database of telephone numbers in his head for those we regularly do business with. I, on the other hand, can’t remember a single number for anyone, and now that I think about it… I’m profoundly bothered by that.
Do you know that little tinge of jealousy you feel of friends who have an active outdoor lifestyle? You know, the ones who go mountain climbing, or kayaking, or camping, or hell, even fishing! Maybe we don’t have to go all the way out to the wilderness or even the tennis court to feel that sense of freedom from whatever it is we’re doing today and whatever device we’ve managed to surgically attach to our fingertips. A good place to start could be freeing our own minds… Commit something to memory… Memorize some Plato, Lincoln, or Paul.
I think I’ll write my girlfriend a letter. She would love that… but of course… I have not idea what her address is… It should be in my iPhone.
RE: Jaynes and the Bicameral Mind.
Someone (I don’t know who) once said that his book was the most fascinating thing they had ever read that couldn’t possibly be true.
I wonder.
Being a technician of the computing type, I’d apply a different strategy to classroom computers: Set up a server, put my notes on it, and webcast in the classroom, live.
If that’s the channel they’re using, start by grabbing a hold of it. I would try and teach them to pay attention to the professor in class, they’re going to need that ability too.
Stephen,
Thanks. I forgot that it was Jaynes. I looked up the Wikipedia reference but neglected to use cut and paste for his name. Relying instead on my memory I wrote “Julian James” which is, of course wrong; that is how low a state my actual brain has fallen.
I fixed the name in the main post.
One of my professors back in the day said that 80% of engineering was knowing where to look it up. I think its still true, tho’ some part of that 80% is knowing what software to use. But the real, creative, problem solving work is the remaining 20% which is done by the mushware between our ears.
—————————
Urban – Can you still write? I havent written anything beyond a grocery list or a phone number since about 1995. (This is a blessing to my correspondents, BTW)
One of the key concepts of future combat systems is the integration of the individual soldier or marine into a network. Modern comm networks are self-configuring. They sense who’s on and create an environment from that. In ccombat, a soldier is expected to hear voices, whether from a his commander, an artillery unit or air support overhead will vary. He is also supposed to be able to call up a god’s eye view of the world. Look over the next hill. Lookup the identity of the man he is interrogating. In Homer’s Iliad people are always talking to the gods. Next time you walk down a big city street, notice the number of people who are seemingly talking to themselves. It’s just the great god Bluetooth, the messenger of Olympus that they are in converse with, that’s all.
Any wide ranging conversation with these wired wunderkinder, where you just look at each other and talk, is really hard work.
In my fifties, I haven’t gone with laptops or cell phones or their like. That said, without my desktop and access to the internet, most of my long-term memory would be gone.
I do have a broad knowledge base, but in my meat brain, it is merely indexed with the folders and books being online in someone else’s server.
@4 Lifeofmind, thanks for the movie tip and the insight. I have always thought the best teacher was one’s curiosity. In a formal setting, I have always enjoyed the teacher as facilitator and coach when what you often get is Moses spouting commandments.
The company I work for developed a rather extensive database for one of our major customers. After it was developed the customer asked that in the future we provide URL addresses for the sources of the data. This was a problem, since there is no guarantee that a given URL address will still be in existence a year later, to say nothing of 5 years later. When the URLs are for foreign sources the problem is even greater.
I addressed the problem by simply creating a PDF file of each webpage source and including with in the database in a separate file. That was a bit bulky and eventually it might have had limitations. Even this approach had some problems since it is not unusual for new data to come in that corrects the older data.
The problem I see with all this is that simply supplying a URL not only does not guarantee it will still be there later, it also does not guarantee that the information will not be changed before the next time you look at it. Books are solid and do not change unless another edition is printed. Even if you lose a book there will be others out there somewhere. Webpages are nebulous things and there are always people who would prefer that things be remembered differently.
The Internet is not just a huge source of data; it is potentially the ultimate memory hole.
By the way, as for Get Smart’s invention, the US Embassy in Moscow literally had a cone of silence device, a large plastic box isolated from the rest of the building where classified conversations could be held.
really, nobody has yet pointed out that
Resistance is futile.
–
rwe: By the way, as for Get Smart’s invention, the US Embassy in Moscow literally had a cone of silence device, a large plastic box isolated from the rest of the building where classified conversations could be held.
Built before or after the show?
I remember one episode where Smart taps the microphone at the podium and asks suspiciously, “How do I know this microphone isn’t bugged?”
OK, more seriously, it is a problem. I mean, what happened to The Academy, sitting around under a tree in togas and none of this bogus writing to help us pretend to real knowledge? Er, I said serious, OK, let me try again.
The only classrooms I’ve sat in, over the last ten years, were either graduate seminars or extension classes, and we sat inside rather than under a tree, but were otherwise pretty much classic academics, and only a minority of the students had laptops, some more had voice recorders, because none of the professoriat were keen enough to record it themselves and put it online.
So, thinking out loud, perhaps that’s the solution, a more savvy institution that uses a proper mix and quota of technology and bans any excess subject to abuse or distraction. It doesn’t have to be founded on a rock, just reasonable.
#1 Don Rodrigo:
Agreed. In a way, this goes back to the argument back when I was in high school and calculators became more common. Should kids in school be allowed to use calculators, or actually have to master basic arithmatic and other math concepts themselves before being allowed to use them. That battle is long lost. In no small part because, I suspect, because teaching multiplication tables and long division to a class of kids is quite a bit more work than most education school graduates want to do, plus it is the kind of thing that is easily measurable. Either most of your 3rd graders will know their tables or they won’t. If they don’t there is very little excuse that will not reflect on the quality of teaching. So grade school students use calculators.
I can see both the point of view that it is up to the student to pay attention or flunk out, and I can also see the problem of distraction. There is a solution that is kind of opposite of what #9 Larry D suggeste.
If they are surfing the web, etc. during class, and not using their laptops as notetakers; they are depending on a wireless phone connection. It is a fairly trivial techical problem to jam or interfere with the wireless signal in a limited area. It has been done before in theaters and restaurants. I could see that becoming the norm. Mind you, there will be some mickle-pissed students.
Subotai Bahadur
As you wish
No more the writing finger writ
No longer words on wall
A letter now is just a bit
In lecture’s empty hall
Professor at the lectern waits
His notes in easy reach
Until distracting noise abates
So he can once more teach
The problem is, to fill the gaps
The wired ones at least
Have much more info in their laps
The teacher having ceased
To be the one who must purvey
The knowledge and the facts
Beginning with the course survey
And on for several acts
Today a touch pad brings to men
The Universe complete
With Wi-Fi Solon lives again
Yo teach, you can’t compete
One of our Group is a recent University graduate, majoring in Mechanical Engineering with all of the necessary credits in other necessary classes. With two more years working for a company who sent him to several schools. He quit and went to work for a competitor because of their pay and politics. He is 28 years old, the youngest of our rebel group.
He said that the internet and the library saved him from his professors and the crap that they not only taught but demanded from their students to get a passing grade.
America’s higher learning centers are among the causes of our current situation. America has to take back these insitutions from the progressives.
We Must, if we are to change the direction of this Republic.
I had to counter the education of my grand children for the last fifteen years. It was hard and required much effort on my part but it was accomplished. Most parents and grand parents do not or can not do this, or are already brainwashed by this system.
Laptops are only part of the equasion to making good young Americans. It takes people that are willing to fight and vote against the monstrosity that our educational system has become.
Papa Ray
Subotai: In no small part because, I suspect, because teaching multiplication tables and long division to a class of kids is quite a bit more work than most education school graduates want to do, plus it is the kind of thing that is easily measurable.
That insight is like a diamond bullet. Completely true. Nobody wants anything that can be objectively measured, because it’s sure to reveal the depth of failure at hand.
Plus, it goes against current pedagogy that dwells endlessly on school being “fun” and “interesting.” Hey, guess what, learning math is never fun at a young age. And it shouldn’t be fun. Half the point is to learn that at the end of hard work and struggle comes an answer, and at the end of more hard work and struggle comes a reward (a good grade on the test).
I’ll chime in too and note that I don’t know my girlfriend’s phone number and I have tried many times to remember it. I simply can’t remember numbers any more. Though I do know the number from my childhood home, a number I haven’t called in 20 years. Those early things stick.
Whitt @3 beat me to the punch about student’s using laptops to real-time fact check the indoctrination they are getting. Given the state of things, it could easily lead to class becoming nothing more than a shouting match: “Professor, you are lying to us again.” One can only imagine. And one can only hope.
Finally, having spent six years in the teaching trenches, sometime back during the Punic Wars, my take is that letting students have laptops, iPhones, etc. in the class will guarantee a quite epic failure. Only the most strong willed and interested students (both of them) will have the mental wherewithal to resist the seduction of the electric.
Whitt,
When I got home I found the video. Behold the Cerebrum Communicator from TPC. The graphics are a perfect evocation of those used by corporations in the 1964-65 World’s Fair.
In my day I learned my math digitally, counts fingers. I could have gone for the advanced base 20 course but that involved removing your shoes.
I read Jayne’s “…Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind..” book back in my misspent youth. I remember thinking, then, “holy canoli!” Decades later, I still think he was onto something.
Luckily, the voices in my head now are from an electronic source…
Hey, if they can take it, I can take it. It’s foolish to compete with laptops in the classroom, and I don’t even try. Instead, I bombard my students with computations, questions, and references for them to hack away at–I often get them to research things real time that can be incorporated into classroom discussion. Granted, these are biology students studying statistics, but I seem to be gradually feeling my way towards making laptops (and BlackBerrys, and iPods, and Droids) into tools that contribute to my classes.
My 9th grade algebra teacher made us memorize the squares of the integers through 25. I thought I would never use those data, but I found that I they helped me on surprisingly many occasions.
There are facts you can look up, but your knowledge extends no further than where to look. This is often enough, but introduces friction in task completion. The abrasions arising from that friction may limit your ability to integrate disparate but applicable facts and abstract unimportant details away. When you have the essential particulars in long-term memory, they are your servants. When you must look them up you traverse or re-traverse the path to the starting line for solving the problem.
Facts are the sine qua non of critical thinking, hard to acquire, obscured by opaque expositions, and perhaps counter-intuitive. And all that without considering the fog of postmodernism, unjustified biases inherited from abusing science, and the distortions of propaganda. Our education system has been hijacked to give students the values of the Left, instead of the facts they need to fulfill their duties as citizens of The Republic. Let us hope that we have not exhausted the goodwill of Divine Providence; otherwise things are not looking too good right now.
In my classroom I use a cell phone blocker. It also blocks 3G wireless computer links. I had it sent from Hong Kong as it’s illegal in the U.S. It’s been a godsend. I am amused by the utter loss of self when my students realize they’ve been disconnected from their modern life for the hour or so they’re in my classroom. They actually walk around my rooom trying to get signal.
I need my computer/cellphone/internet.
No way can I go back to looking ‘stuff’ up in the right book (if I even have it) or finding an opinion other than my own or my family’s, or ‘creating’ something of value that I can’t ‘back-up’ on a hard-drive.
My G’ness! My life (and brain) would be a sticky-note MESS without my beloved 7 computers, wireless internet and 8 external hard-drives!
Jaynes… were not that impressed.
He presumed some physiological difference that was the basis of his bicameral mind concept. But the brain physiology is the same, based on finds of frozen ancients.
He posited that because ancient Greeks used a third person in stead of first person that it indicated a schizophrenia-like separation, where the subject did not have any “I” concept. Well, one may say the Germans do not have any “you” concept, as they use “they” instead. So, he presumed that a grammatic convention was a sign that the ancient mind worked differently. But if you look at other ancients of a comparable time frame, the concept of “I” was present.
Now, if he was right, we would find some bicameral mind features in primitive tribes (Amazon basin, Papua & NG). We don’t. So by some sort of osmosis or sheldrakic resonance, all brains all over got to the new I-ness stage? That is quite a stretch.
The gods… Sumerians called them “lofty ones” and they seemed to be really there, not as imaginary friends. Who they were who knows, but that does not mean they were a figment of imagination, or some form of sublimated I-ness a la Jaynes.
So, I ban the use of laptops my classes. Generally, I find that students cooperate. Occasionally, they fall back into the habit (acquired in other classes, no doubt) of keeping the damn thing open.
Like yesterday, I didn’t notice that a student on the top row had her laptop open until about 30 minutes into the class. (Yeah, go ahead and insert a snarky comment about my attentiveness here – but with 40-ish students, it happens.) Anyway, I then had to make the call – stop class and call her out, or let it slide. This time, I let it slide. Call me weak.
In any event, the latest problem is folks using smartphones during class. It’s too late to do anything about it this year, but next year I’m going to ban those buggers too.
But why? you may ask. Don’t you appreciate technology?
Appreciate it? Hell, I’m damn near addicted to it. But the classroom – at least the classroom I teach in – must be different. It should be a special place.
In teaching MBA students, I’m supposed to be preparing them for a future of leadership. To be a leader, however, you need to know more than facts. And you need to know more than “where to go to get the facts.” You have to be able to connect to people, put yourself in their place, and figure out how to help them get to wherever it is they’re supposed to go. Even if it’s not where you would go, or want them to go. (Failure to understand this, btw, is why most MBAs come across as arrogant jerks, and as leaders are epic fails.)
Teaching, I believe, is about helping people find their destiny. It is, therefore, strikingly similar to the role that a priest is supposed to play. God has a plan for us all. Sometimes it’s not a very pleasant plan (e.g. Job), sometimes it has a very unhappy transition (e.g. Paul and most of the Apostles), and sometimes it’s to die of old age having led a blessed, albeit occasionally tragic life (e.g. Mary). There are many paths, few of them flower-strewn or well-paved.
But they all have the same destination: Him. And His grace is the key that unlocks the gate that opens onto the path that takes us to where He wants us to go. One source of nourishment along the way is support, guidance, and counsel from those who have already traveled parts of that path. That is what great teaching is about: it is a gift of knowledge, a gift of experience, a gift of self. Without expectation of anything in return. In this life, at least.
And this giving is, at its core, sacramental. We are body and soul. And let’s face it – there is something different about interacting with people “in the flesh.” Distance learning is fine for learning facts. It’s fine for the Catechism, but not for the Eucharist.
I can tell you that when my classroom is really working, when students are attentive and prepared, when I’m connected with them and in their groove, there’s nothing better. They’re stretching their minds, seeing things from other perspectives, challenging their assumptions, and I’m weaving all of the threads from 40 different sets of experiences, 40 different viewpoints, 40 different thought-styles into one crazy, amazing, technicolor dreamcoat. It rocks.
Compare that with a conference call with 10 people trying to have a thoughtful discussion. No comparison. Fuggedaboudit.
Technology is cool, but there ain’t enough bandwidth in the world to transmit a complete connection between two people, between a student and a teacher. And while such a connection doesn’t happen very often, it never happens when the student is feeding her animals on Farmville, or trying to put together a golf game for tomorrow morning with his buddies.
All that being said, I’m sure that my hopelessly romantic vision of teaching will soon be viewed as downright quaint, and antiquated. So be it. Let the laptops and iPhones (and iPads!) take over. But I’ll go down fighting to the bitter end, because I’ve experienced these kinds of moments – as both teacher and student – and they are sublime. They are worth fighting for.
Unfortunately, the impacts of these moments do not show up in the standard measures. Test scores can be the same with our without them. But just because they’re not measurable doesn’t mean they’re not real. And meaningful.
A communion host, after all, just looks like a disc of unleavened bread. But it’s much, much more.
And it can’t be delivered over a broadband connection.
L3
OT blogged my response to a survey by the NY Botanical Garden, Obama Economy cost to Charity and Civilization. http://tinyurl.com/y8fh48e
Will imaginary Sumerian friends pay my rent?
Leo Linbeck III,
The greatest skill for a Leader is listening. Have you considered putting your students through an Active Listening training program with a lab exercise? It really is a learned behavior that can be mastered. Back in my day it was part of OCS and might have been the most useful thing we did, other than the fire fighting module.
LOTM,
SORRY, I’M NOT FOLLOWING YOU. YOU’LL HAVE TO SPEAK UP. HOLD ON, LEMME TURN OFF MY ZEPPELIN CD.
There. That’s better.
What were you asking? Oh, yeah, that’s right.
Yes. I definitely agree. Listening is the most important skill for leaders. Another argument against laptops in class!
Cheers,
L3
This is, I assume, a K-12 thing however the mistake is thinking that the “fun” and “interesting” is talking about “for the students”, it’s not.
RWE:
Your “plastic room” in the American embassy in Moscow is common in American embassies everywhere. That fact was long classified, but I doubt it still is. Now imagine, if you will, a plastic room (plexiglass, actually, and built that way so no listening device can be hidden in the walls or floor) with 20 or so people (the “country team”) sitting in it for an hour. Body heat would make it intolerable very quickly, so it has to be air conditioned beyond belief. Which is the reason we always referred to this isolation chamber as “the ice box” — when you first walk in at the beginning of a meeting the temperature is around 60 degrees. By the end of a normal meeting that’s climbed to the eighties or so. Meetings were mercifully self-limiting. F
Not to root my nose up Wretchard’s ass, but (butt) where else would you find this kind of in-depth thinking (seemingly apropos of nothing) anywhere else on a Wednesday night (Pacific Coast time)?
LotM: Will imaginary Sumerian friends pay my rent?
Imaginary friends don’t pay your rent, as a rule.
As for the Sumerian non-imaginary friends, they wanted everybody to pay theirs!
People thought they had very cool toys and that made them worthy of one tenth of whatever people had. At least people though so. Granted, they provided some services, as rule (of law), for instance, before establishing kingship.
10%. We may consider that a tax, can’t we?
Imagine, 10% tax rate!
Jaynes says that the rise of language and writing forced the voices of the gods to merge into our “own” stream of consciousness.
………
Jesus is fully God and fully Man.
I have contended from time to time that Jesus resolved the first millennium BC confusion pictured by centaurs or the minotaur in Greek mythology and the elephant men of Indian mythology by which god’s would come down to earth, mate with humans and create monsters.
Not for nothing is Jesus the word made flesh.
Up until 250 years ago internal talk was God directed in prayer. You didn’t talk to yourself.You didn’t worry yourself. You didn’t make two ventriloquist dummies out of portions of your mind and have each yap at each other.
You prayed to God.
The stream of consciousness the author referred to is modern thing. A creature of the novel form. Something by Joyce or Faulkner. But even that is fading rapidly.
I see the modern haunting in my dreams. Most of the population is not human. Rather they are projections of some kind of hive mind. A borg. I ask them questions. They answer. They ask me questions. I answer. We are both on a learning curve.
On Monday I was at my local gym working out on the crosstrainer, watching fox news and chatting with a woman working out on a cross trainer beside me. She complained of waking at 4 am & not being able to go back to sleep because her mind was turning over and over with worry. I mentioned that I learned some years ago to convert the worry to prayer by using the energy of worry to energize my prayers and then changing the address of my thoughts from myself to God. So instead of addressing my thoughts to myself–which is worry–I addressed my thoughts to God –which is prayer.
Its a great relief to cast your cares on the living God.
Though I belong to a generation that started using PCs in early youth, I still had time to develop reading skills with real books.
It is my comparative experience with younger people that those who got in touch with books earlier than with PCs have a different –and better– software inside their brains. Their memory is better, their ability of forming continuous images in their minds too, they can locate information quicker (and better, more meaningful information) than those who didn’t really learned how to read a book.
In some way, the printed word seems to carry with it some kind of software and to place it inside the brain during the very act of reading (for instance a novel) in a way that reading a laptop’s screen doesn’t.
There are scholars who say that the unique excellence of the Homeric poems comes from the fact that they were created or developed in an intermediary age, when the old oral memory skills weren’t lost yet, while the new writing resources were already available.
I’d really like to know whether there are serious studies comparing the old literacy (of those above 40/45) to the new one, that is, the literacy of those who could handle a laptop’s keyboard before they even learned how to read or write.
I don’t usually agree with the German Marxist philosopher Adorno, but I think he had a point when he said that 19th century music listeners were better than the modern ones. The old ones could read music and play an instrument: that was their most basic way of listening music. When the phongraph arrived, most listeners became musically iliterate, becoming at the same time unable to appreciate much of the complexity of the Western musical tradition.
So, will a guy who grew up in symbiosis with his laptop be able to read, say, War and Peace? And, if not, will this be an important loss?
As I am loosely engaged with school matters, beyond having a grade 11 son I am concerned with computer use in the classroom. At the moment we don’t allow it or provide service beyond the computer labs, however the idea that we should embrace it and use it to extend our students’ abilities is already on the table and it is interesting to hear that some people arte already do so. One of our major problems is not so much providing the equipment and good training. Our results with smart boards and teachers’ internet connections are mainly due to that.
Personally I am just as concerned that our kids are not learning to think. My kids pretty well can no longer watch television without having a connected computer on their laps (and I am nearly as bad.) However, they shower and I bathe. Don’t laugh. You can’t think in the shower, I never had a new idea there no matter how long the shower was. Now a nice relaxing bath is far more conducive. The point I am trying to make is that with constant entertainment on tap and mostly at least two distractions going most of our kids are not learning to think. (Come to think of it, most adults I know don’t have a lot of ideas either!)
Jaynes is an idiot.
Read Plato. Fully modern. How about them dialogs? Not to mention Shakespeare.
And I don’t doubt there were similar minds 10,000 years earlier.
peterike @ 23:
Horse hockey. Where is pseudopolymath when you need him? Mathematics is fun. Learning mathematics is ‘merely’ learning to think correctly and with rigor. After 4+ years of undergrad work in math I had one class, “Introduction to Analysis” that culminated the years I had put in. We took one rule, 4 postulates (Peano Axioms) and a “trick” and constructed calculus. THAT was eye opening.
IOW, mathematics is essential.
L3 @ 31:
Amen. To the whole post also.
I work in technology – automation systems (back to work again Monday after 18 months of not). Last good boss I served with (as a contract PM) would like you and you, he. His mission as the “Director” was not to ‘direct’ but to let people learn to do the work in good ways and guide.
Anecdotal evidence about laptops and concentration:
I certainly think distraction would be the best reason to ban laptops in the classroom, although I do not do that myself. I seriously considered it, however, after my experience in a colleague’s class. I was to conduct a peer review of her class, so got to the classroom early, sat in the back, tried to be as unobtrusive as possible. Several students were using laptops in the class. Not only were the screen flashes as students surfed from one web site to the next distracting for other students, but only two out of the seven laptop users I could observe were taking notes. Others were shopping, e-mailing, and the guy to the right of me was looking at porn. Maybe he was a multi-tasker?
“learning math is never fun at a young age. And it shouldn’t be fun”.
One of the few transcendental experiences I had in high school was on the first day of a plane geometry class when the teacher, a Christian Brother, walked up to the podium, picked up the geometry textbook held it up and said, “This is the only perfect thing you will ever deal with” and proceeded to convince us that he was at least mostly correct over the next 4.5 months.
It was enthralling. I used to buy other geometry books just for sport and to see how they chose to prove theorems and such like.
Math can be fun. I am still fascinated by its precision, logic and perfection, at least at the level I experienced.
Years ago I ran a small business and when we began we were “pencil and paper”. Years passed and we got a computer and we put all our bookeeping, records, etc. into that device. Couple of year passed and a newer version of the original computer crashed taking with it years of records. For about two hours I was in complete panic mode “What are we going to do?? How are we going to run the business?” Then the thought popped in my head, “Wait a second!! You started this business using pencil and paper and you can do it again.” Needless to say that thought was of great comfort. I can’t imagine what someone would do in similar circumstances if they had never been in business without a computer. And yes, we got our computer back up and ran the business once again with it (and were a heck of lot more viligant about backing up data).
I, too, am concerned that we have become too dependent on our technology and that the basic skills that we of the pre-computer era grew up learning are not being learned by our children. My son, while light years ahead of me in his computer skills and ability to adapt to new technology, is woefully ill-prepared for a non-computerized life should that day ever come. As is almost everyone in his generation.
“Woe is us! We’re in a lot of trouble!”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFvT_qEZJf8&feature=related
Re: 22 Papa Ray and 31 L3
The days are probably numbered for the university-level lecture hall class. If it’s a matter of students passively receiving an information dump from the instructor, remote learning is a superior model anyway. You’re not limited by geography or the size of your lecture hall.
I suspect that a model of self-taught ‘students’ actively pursuing and engaging quality learning materials remotely will become the accepted norm for many areas of advanced education.
But there’s still a place for the classroom. As L3 describes, it’s a meta-learning environment. Learning how to learn. Or learning a new way to approach problems or situations.
In law school, we had to learn ‘the law’ outside of class. This provided the baseline of material through which, in the classroom, we learned how to analyze and make legal argument. (AKA, learning how to think like a lawyer.)
(I’m not sure what this education has done for my mental well-being. But at least it’s provided a good living…)
Instead of reading their Power Point presentation verbatim and being forced to compete with a media-rich environment, why don’t the professors convert their classes to web-enhanced or web-based classes? That why students don’t have to turn to distractions from incompetent lecturers and the professors don’t have be insulted when they’re treated as they deserve.
I am not sure how education should be done, but I am quite sure there has to be a better way. I came out of college with an intense interest in learning and a complete disdain for formal education. Very little of what I was taught in the whole 12 years plus 4 seemed to be of any real use. Part of this was because much of it prepared you for eventually learning something useful, and part of it is simply because the teachers are being paid to teach and they run through the same program over and over again without ever considering why they are doing it. Learning the multiplication tables was useful and should be continued but still is drudgery. Cheap handheld calculators offer the opportunity to make math fun. After I got a 4 function calculator in college I would sit for hours and punch away, seeing how the numbers changed. But memorization is not education; if it were the CRC Rubber Company and Encyclopedia Britannica would rule the world.
Educational establishments at any level are first and foremost bureaucracies. They develop an inertia and that defines them. Like all bureaucracies they exist to serve themselves.
In my first job out of college I was writing and running test procedures, reviewing drawings to determine if they had adequate data for production, designing and drawing parts to be made, examining components to determine why they had failed, designing repair procedures, and assisting technicians performing overhauls when they got in over their heads. Twice I even had to derive equations. And all around me people were saying “You know, this is not engineering.” And that same observation was made in every engineering job I had. I soon came to realize that schools do not teach engineering; I don’t know what to call what they do teach.
In my writing I have found my niche in describing what really happened and why. It’s not a big niche but it is one that causes people to go “Ha! No one ever explained it to me that way!” Historians may chronicle history but rarely understand why something happened. The news media runs around saying “Look! This is the Next Big Thing!” and so the dialog becomes focused on mere sequential events and not why they occurred.
The media becomes the message with the result there often is no message, even in education.
IMHO… I’m sitting here in ITIL class, day two. It’s a matter of self discipline, you put the laptop on sleep and close the screen when the instruction starts.
Nothing new under the sun, this self discipline thing has been a problem since the forbidden fruit.
Oh, come one, Julian Jaynes? He was a crackpot, and his theory was nonsense.
speaking of bicameralism, how many here are interested in the “Slaughter Solution” being thrown around the room now? This is in regards to the HC bill and off topic but i’ve noticed a passion for revolution on this site over the years. I would love to hear Wretchard’s take on this issue. Also, I would love to hear everyone else’s too!! (hear=read)
If Slaughter were a Seargant, the threads of our society today could be tied up with a nice shiny bow.
BTW, i’m in Arizona and I need a job. Any takers???
Papa Ray@22 said:
America has to take back these insitutions from the progressives.
Agreed. However it can’t be taken back; because the extant infrastructure is immutable. All of our energies must now be focused on vouchers, charter and home schooling. Escape routes to student-centric education are needed ever more urgently.
Every dollar spent on the current public system finances and prolongs the sin. This scam costs US > $400 billion/yr. and denies education to tens of millions of citizens, across generations.
Just think, we can supply the latest laptop and hook-up 100% of the students in the US with highspeed connections; deliver a far richer and more extensive curriculum; transfer many more skills faster; measure performance and remediate the individual student in realtime at their pace; avail it anytime or where, and create thousands of new job opportunities while we’re at it, for far less money than we now spend annually. 10% of the Ed budget = > $40 billion/year.
But for the “accredited” interactive K-12 courseware titles. Produced once and continually improved and updated. Where are they?
Private enterprise must develop the media and perfect delivery of this virtual K-12 curriculum over the next few years, if only to serve all those students who are increasingly desparate to escape the crumbling public schools nationwide.
So US schools are spending > $7,500 per year per student on average. If I could offer an escape path that’s also a demonstrably superior educational experience (classroom and/or remote) for $1,000 per year, I suspect I could subscribe at least 1 million students within 2 years. $1M X $1K = $1B recurring revenues, with 20M US students left to serve and more parents equipped with $1K vouchers.
Isn’t it patently obvious that the virtual lesson is a far richer experience than no lesson? Which BTW, is the fate of 80% of the students in rest-of-world. Could I charge the worldwide audience more?
Sorry, it’s been a passion…ever since we built the first gunnery simulator (1981) for the M1 Abrahms and noted ASTOUNDING IMPROVEMENT vs. no experience because each trigger-pull in a real M1 cost thousands. Everyone 100X better. Couldn’t get the trainees to quit after 4 hour exercises. Captivated they were.
I think it’ll be easier to wrest education away, rather then take it back.
I guess I can’t relate to the existance or need of a computer to the extent described, but It strikes me that students who can achieve a 71% grade that is “…almost the same as the average for the students who didn’t come at all…” is the more serious problem.
My parents live in Scottsdale and I grew up there – but they’re retired and I don’t think they’re hiring.
Wish I could get back, with all the rain this should be one of the best years for the desert poppies ever.
Yeah, I have been teaching the required electrical circuits course to non-Electrical Engineering engineering majors — mainly Mechanical and Chemical. I have students on laptops instead of paying attention to the lecture at times. They are doing this because they don’t see the point of studying electrical circuits . . .
@ 48. RWE
I had a similar experiance from School and College. Last class I was in was in 1981 so the computer thing wasn’t an issue then but I had pleny of classes where I would have welcomed the distraction! Monotone boring lectures. What a waste of time for everbody involved.
I had many classes that could have been very worth while but were just “repeat after me” excercises. Take the right notes and put them right back on the test. Probably the same tests from 20 years prior. Very low on critical thinking for student or prof.
One of my very best/ favorite teachers ever was a retired Engineer from GE. Not and acedemic. Basic algebra in HS.
I was a process engineer right out of College and I learned more about interacting in the world in a year than the proceeding 16. No substitute for interacting with folks and you have to take the good and the bad!
Paul Milenkovic @57:
How ironic. I’m attending refrigeration school right now in the Phoenix area, and i’m in the residential wiring phase. I HAVE NO CLUE WHAT I’M DOING!! sry for the caps. Can you please explain how to wire up a master bedroom and bath? It’s supposed to be a loop circuit. Power coming from junction box, to the light in the room and also to a split receptacle, with regular receptacles spaced around the room. The master bath has a split recept also, with a GFCI i think. What circuit does the GFCI go to?? any links or help would be most appreciated.
“Now, if he was right, we would find some bicameral mind features in primitive tribes (Amazon basin, Papua & NG). We don’t. So by some sort of osmosis or sheldrakic resonance, all brains all over got to the new I-ness stage? That is quite a stretch.”
Jaynes did not say that the bicameral mind was a feature of primitive men living in tribes. His proposal is that it was a feature of early civilisations, when men started to live in communities bigger than tribes, where, as in cities, not everyone could know everyone anymore. The talk of the gods arose because of the stress of meeting strangers all the time and the need to suppress the urge to kill them. Sophistication of language, writing and the development of abstract concepts brought about then the breakdown of the bicameral mind. Put people unter severe stress and most of them start talking to themselves even without bluetooth. I also think that we now witness a revival of the gods. By gendermainstreaming little boys into little girls for instance. This will produce enough stress to bring about some nice soziopaths.
Can anyone characterize the difference between human language, mathematics, and computer language.
59 Ashen
Here is an idea. Go out to some electrical contractors offices. Find the owner or the manager and tell him you want to go on site where they are wiring houses and business. Tell him your situation and that you promise to keep your hands in your pockets.
Some will say no because of insurance restrictions, but sooner or later you will find one who will let you go out on his jobs.
You will learn more in one month than a year of schooling.
At Big Blue back in the day long ago we had a program for college kids somewhat along the same line. It worked great.
Papa Ray
P.S. As far as GFCI is concerned, there are hundreds of links about it as it is one of the DIY things that people want to know. The internet is your friend if you take the time to look, but it is much better to get first hand on the job with those that know what they are doing and have done it thousands of times under different conditions.
Just remember one thing concerning grounds. The ground from your electrical supplier is not a true ground and may even have voltage on it. A true ground is an EARTH ground and only works if it is deep enough to reach moisture that will be there year around.
Charles @ 61: Can anyone characterize the difference between human language, mathematics, and computer language.
Many people amuse themselves trying.
Gottlub Frege. Jerry Fodor. Noam Chomsky. Even Ludwig Wittgenstein.
Me.
Of the topics, perhaps the most mysterious is computer language – that is, computers themselves. That’s me speaking. What is a computer? Is it a mathematical abstraction? In which case, what is that thing you’re typing on?
Why do you ask? To judge the use of computers, how computers as tools relate to human learning, or what could be the mathematical model of a bicameral mind?
Ashen #59:
I think I was still in high school when it occurred to me that it would be a good idea to put all of the overhead lights on their own circuits and the power receptacles on their own circuits. That way if you were working on one you could kill the power to it and still have a way to get light so you could see what you were doing. It was not until decades later that I encountered houses that actually were built that way.
I would recommend you go to the public library and look for the Audel series of books. They are simple straighforward manuals for doing that kind of thing and are very common in public libraries and have been so for decades.
O/T
From yesterday:
77. dwall:
I wasn’t aware of the Matt Damon/Howard Zinn connection so thanks for the info.A great counter to the late Mr. Zinn’s Marxism is Dr.Forrest McDonald works.
Zinn’s magnum opus is, of course, A Peoples History of the United States , published in 1980. It is, in the jargon of the New Left, a “history from the bottom up,” meaning he quotes a great deal from the diaries, journals, and letters of the common folk, which is not a bad way to write history. I have problems with a number of Professor Zinn’s conclusions but for the sake of space I’ll mention just one.
First, Zinn “utilizes” the 1913 Charles Beard book, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States to denigrate the founders. This work was thoroughly discredited by the acclaimed historian, Forrest McDonald, in his brilliant rejoinder, We the People: The Economic Origins of the Constitution , destroying Beard’s fallacious conclusions and weakening Zinn’s argument that the Contitution,
“illustrates the complexity of the American system: it serves the interests of the wealthy elite, but it also does enough for small property owners, for middle-income mechanics and farmers, to build a broad base of support”.
I have read many of Dr. McDonalds books after encountering Zinn’s fallacious Peoples History . McDonald sets it straight.
Papa Ray. “A ground from your elecrical supplier…” is not a ground, it is a neutral, and an entirely different thing. In old days they were frequently combined on site.
Neutrals are about generators, Grounds are about safety.
Anything built, legally, in the last 50 years or so has independent grounds and neutrals. In residential and light commercial work, where there were still copper water lines into the house, that served very well indeed and grounds were simply strapped onto the copper pipe. Plastic water lines now require the use of a ground plane as you describe. Electric Co/ inspector tests its resistance to ground (ie will it dump elec. to the ground fast enough to trip the breaker and ‘make safe’) as part of code.
PS the neutral is part of the reason one of the holes on a 110VAC recepticle is larger than the other, it is for polarity.
In bigger projects, those designed by an EE, the details are more rigorous. Indeed.
enjoy.
Thomas Fink/60
His proposal is that it was a feature of early civilisations, when men started to live in communities bigger than tribes, where, as in cities, not everyone could know everyone anymore.
Early cities–pop about 700 to 1200 heads, for a ref. In our terms, a small town.
The talk of the gods arose because of the stress of meeting strangers all the time and the need to suppress the urge to kill them.
Odd reasoning. Thought early cities were somewhat self-sufficient, they needed to trade from inception. The tribal urge to kill strangers was suppressed by the need to trade. If you kill strangers coming to your town, then you be killed when you took your goods to their town. No need to invent gods.
If you do some anthropological research, you’d find out that despite of apparent polytheism of primitive tribes, that ain’t so. They have at the core of their beliefs on god-creator, and then plethora of spirits. Early researchers took that as a proof of polytheism, by misconceptions and mostly due ton several layers of mistranslation/misinterpretation. Here you have your god without any city conditions.
Sophistication of language,
Dagestan highlanders have 52 (fifty two) declinations. Some tribes in all over globe have a sophisticated vocabulary that employ nouns in states (manifestations). One of the most ancient languages, Aymara, employs trinary logic, while all other languages use binary logic. The trinary logic enable one express relationship in much more precise form than our fuzzy grammar. Our languages reflect then environment we live in. To presume that by moving to cities people needed more sophisticated language is a common misconception. They needed language that was appropriate for the city life.
writing and the development of abstract concepts brought about then the breakdown of the bicameral mind.
I too love categorical statements. That does not make them true.
Put people unter severe stress and most of them start talking to themselves even without bluetooth.
I experience that under a stress, granted. But it usually manifest in a reduced vocabulary laced with expletives!
I also think that we now witness a revival of the gods. By gendermainstreaming little boys into little girls for instance. This will produce enough stress to bring about some nice soziopaths.
Sociopaths are not gods, only to themselves, they don’t create new ones, if–then only as means to achieve their own aggrandizement . The example you mention is a result of warfare of another kind (go youtube and search for Bezmenov). It is not something organic, though I can see parallels with the decline of Rome.
michaelhoskins Everything you said, is true, and better explained than I did. Many people including some ol’ time electricians will argue with you about ground, neutral and such. I had many a heated discussion when we were installing large and medium systems and trying to get the proper electrical setup installed.
And also don’t forget about telling people about The Basics of Isolated Grounding Receptacles
They are relatively expensive but for your computer it a good thing as Martha used to say.
Papa Ray
twobyfour:
“He (Jaynes) presumed some physiological difference that was the basis of his bicameral mind concept. But the brain physiology is the same, based on finds of frozen ancients.”
I don’t think this is right. Jaynes’ whole point was that the physiology didn’t change, just the way of thinking. And it changed in a few centuries, because of the earthquake that blew Thera apart and scattered settled tribes across the Levant.
Josh:
“Jaynes is an idiot.
Read Plato. Fully modern. How about them dialogs? Not to mention Shakespeare.
And I don’t doubt there were similar minds 10,000 years earlier.”
I don’t think you’ve read Jaynes. The change he’s talking about he conceives of as happening about 1500 B.C., a thousand years before Plato. The Classical Greek civilization is a result of this change, not a proof that it didn’t happen. Even today, though, seeing a hugely tall building tickles some primitive fancy deep inside us and almost makes me hear voices.
63. Josh:
Why do you ask?
Just curious.
I once had a chance to ask the question at a colloquium of physicists & mathematicians. I thought of the question and just couldn’t quite get it out.
I never actually came to terms with the odd way that language is used in the New Testament until I studied java programming language back in the late 90′s. Java is a programming language used in cell phones and other hand held devices devices and their various applications. The problem is that all of the major companies around the world are constantly developing new applications and new ways of using the hand held devices. The result result is that the hand held devices will quickly become unable to talk to each other if there were not agreement among the manufacturers as to the meaning of symbols. Meaning here conveys that what one device sends –is the same–both implicitly and explicitly as what another device receives. so java scientists from telephone manufacturers around the world gather a couple times a year to standardize new syntax and symbols. Why is java used and not another programming language like say c++. Well back in the 90′s there were many java evangelists–and that’s what they were called –evangelists– went around selling the java programming language. Java was considered to be a more stable form of c++. C++ is considered to be much more versatile than java. c++ can do more stuff. But java seem to perform better under high pressure. java is more stable.
How do you interpret what I just said vis a vis human language vs computer language. Well, in programming language — ontology is not an issue.
My chief breakthrough in understanding Christianity was that propositions of language actually precedes ontological propositions.
As far as math is concerned I will tell my nieces and nephews that the money math is probably algorithms for applications and statistics for management. Mix algorithms with C++ and you get the heart of some big software programs.
I have a lot of informal ideas about how human language mathematics and computer language share common characteristics and how they differ.
I could say that human language enables people to talk to each other. Computer language enables machines to talk to each other. Mathematics enables people to talk to machines.
But all this sounds very fuzzy and informal.
RWE @ 64 said:
“I think I was still in high school when it occurred to me that it would be a good idea to put all of the overhead lights on their own circuits and the power receptacles on their own circuits. That way if you were working on one you could kill the power to it and still have a way to get light so you could see what you were doing. It was not until decades later that I encountered houses that actually were built that way.”
The think(?) the National Electric Code (NEC) requires the light and receptacle circuits to be separate (please correct me if I’m wrong about this). My house was built in California in 1953. I have almost replaced all of the original wiring in my house (the insulation was dried out fabric soaked in asphalt). In the process of doing this, I noticed that there was one circuit for the lights with 15 amp Romex and another for the receptacles rated at 20 amp. With modern Compact Florescent Lights (CFLs), it makes perfect sense to have two separate circuits with the CFL driving circuit using cheaper lower amp wires. I also removed the original circuit breakers and replaced them with Ground Fault Interrupter (GFI) and Arc-Fault Circuit Interrupter (AFCI) breakers. I strongly recommend installing Arc-Fault Circuit Interrupter Breakers because you never know when you might accidentaly hit a Romex cable when nailing something into the wall or have a mouse/rat/dog/kid chew on a wire. With the original wiring that I removed, I noticed two separate hot wires that were protected by separate 20 amp circuit breakers but were wired to a common neutral. This was idiotic because it would have been possible to drive 19.9 amps through each of the hot wires without popping the circuit breakers and have a total of 39.8 amps going through the common neutral wire. Also none of the original wiring had separate ground wires. I’ve gone whole hog the other way by installing ground wires on all receptacles and GFI sockets or GFI circuit breaks where ever it was possible for an electrical appliance to come into contact with a strong ground like the cold water supply. Also it’s money well spent to install commercial grade switches and receptacles versus the much more cheaply made residential grade. Electricity can be very dangerous and I have young children in the house so I’m very focused on safety.
re: penmanship. Sigh. Yes. A disappearing art. It probably means pen-based tablets or folios as a replacement for in-class note taking (in addition to all the distractions of a laptop) will never succeed. I can’t even read my own notes from three months ago, save if I half-remember the context and then the finger-brain interface fires the specific memory and I have the aha that goes with puzzle solving. (But I do have to admit that the office “one note” application w/ its ink & written object support is very impressive.. have not seen an equal).
re: silicon-amplified humans. I’m waiting for the court cases where the ADA (disabilities act) is used to argue that the “testimony” from my silicon and rust should be treated no differently than the words of a person with an encyclopedic memory. Especially when this means that most electronic records are then excluded from evidence – i.e. the jury will have to decide based on (only) what you (and/or your enterprise) did (or others can prove that you did), not what you thought or said.
Well, I can dream.
Typos’R'us.
For many people the on line life becomes all there is to life.
I think I’ll go and throw some hay and apples at my horses.
Robert Speirs/69
Yes,there was a change about 1500 BCE. But entirely different from what Jaynes presumes. It was a profound change, resulting in many cultures that started doing human sacrifices. That profound change it was. The stresses were enormous, but not caused by a city life. One culture, amongst a few with a similar trend, went in an opposite direction than the HS cultures. Moses’ judaism. The rest is a blurry and fuzzy history.
HEP-T @ 74:
“For many people the on line life becomes all there is to life. I think I’ll go and throw some hay and apples at my horses.”
Along this line, I’m getting tired of being “entertained” by people I have zero respect for. When I was sitting through “Avatar”, you could have seen smoke coming out of my ears because I was so angry at James Cameron’s repellent politics. Habu already brought up Matt Damon (who is a serious moonbat). Long ago, I took down the television antenna and disconnected the cable. Unfortunately too much modern “progressive” culture is still leaking in via DVDs.
Eggplant, whatsa television?
Disconnected the tube in 2002 and going.
75. twobyfour:
I’ve heard people try to explain the fire in the sky that Moses saw as Thera blowing its top.
Exodus 13 (New International Version)
20 After leaving Succoth they camped at Etham on the edge of the desert. 21 By day the LORD went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel by day or night. 22 Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people.
The great shift of 1500 bc may have been from a pictographic written language to a phonetic written language.
High culture tends to be visually dominant. I would argue that an interesting characteristic of the New Testament is its insistence that the sense of hearing be dominant over the sense of sight.
Charles @ 70 said:
“Why is java used and not another programming language like say c++. Well back in the 90’s there were many java evangelists–and that’s what they were called –evangelists– went around selling the java programming language. Java was considered to be a more stable form of c++. C++ is considered to be much more versatile than java. c++ can do more stuff. But java seem to perform better under high pressure. java is more stable.”
My business card says I’m a “scientist”. I’m actually trained as an aeronautical engineer but the truth is I’m a C programmer. Not surprising, I’m a dyed-in-the-wool C Programming Language bigot. To my mind, C++ is an abomination and Java is worse than an abomination. Java is a “C-like” programming language designed to run on “virtual machines”. The basic idea was these Java virtual machines could be fire walled from the real hardware and the Java applet run without risk to the host machine from hacking, viruses, etc. Of course it didn’t work and Java represents a significant security risk.
The original C Programming Language was written in the 1970s by the computer geniuses at Bell Labs. The great beauty of C is it was designed with the KISS principle in mind, i.e. Keep It Simple Stupid. C was deliberately designed such that it was very easy to write compilers for new machines. C is also very powerful and effectively a high level assembly language. This simplicity coupled with high power is why C is the language of choice for operating system and firmware programmers. I write scientific programs in C and IMHO, C is way better than Fortran for scientific application. Also IMHO, C++ is an abomination because its designers lost sight that C is beautiful because it’s fast and simple (C++ is slow and complicated). The funny thing about most C++ code is it’s typically vanilla C with only a C++ comment style.
When Jaynes’s book was reviewed in Time magazine shortly after its release, I recall feeling extreme skepticism then, as a callow and jaded yoot. First, from a deep distrust of toplofty psychologists claiming to be able to peer objectively into the human mind; second, from a deeper distrust of those same psychologists claiming objectively to be able to peer into the minds of persons centuries dead; finally, from a firm sense that in fact, we probably have NOT emerged as a species from unconsciousness anyhow.
What evidence is there that any particular person is “conscious?” In my rescue training, I’ve been acquainted with the Glasgow Consciousness Scale, and I can tell you, most of the people I deal with on a daily basis for most of the time are just able to respond to painful stimuli.
Distinguish between political systems or identify the good and bad points of fossil fuels versus nuclear? Fergit it…
79. Eggplant:
So how would you characterize the difference between human language, mathematics language and computer language.
Eggplant #71:
All of the houses I was familiar with while I was growing up were built in the 30’s and 40’s and the circuit breakers were arranged on an area basis, rather than with overhead lights separate. My current home was built in 1978 and seems to be the way you describe. Of course there have been some mods, including a rather interesting approach someone had for adding exterior lights at the corners of the house that featured ceramic receptacles with ordinary bulbs rather than spotlights – and one of which does not appear to have an off switch anywhere I can find.
The GFI’s for the bathrooms are installed at the circuit breaker box rather than at the receptacle, an approach I do not recommend. If I crank up my amateur radio SSB HF transceiver in the garage, which uses an in-attic longwire antenna, I trip the GFI, apparently due to RFI.
And it has come to my attention that at some point they changed the pin-out of SPDT switches meant for lights that are to be controlled by two switches, so you can not simply replace an old one by moving the wires over to the same points on the new switch. I would like to see that the people who made this change are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
Charles/78
I’ve heard people try to explain the fire in the sky that Moses saw as Thera blowing its top.
A short term event. Considering the distance and earth geometry, it’s a silly idea. It was something else.
The great shift of 1500 bc may have been from a pictographic written language to a phonetic written language.
Not really. Take Negev script. Though it uses sort of pictographs, it was a syllabical script. The cuneiform is another example. Even Egyptian hieroglyphic had a cursive version at the time that was phonetic entirely, while hieroglyphics were for the most part phonetic. The only writing that was pictorial (a letter representing a word) in the “old world” was Yao chinese. The ME scripts developed from the Negev script (the early Sumerian bears a close resemblance) and yet, the characters did not represent words but syllables. So, again, green is the tree of life.
I would argue that an interesting characteristic of the New Testament is its insistence that the sense of hearing be dominant over the sense of sight.
Given the conditions at the time, it is understandable. The conditions were fairly well described in Ipuwer papyrus.
RS @ 69: No, I never read the book, but thought it predicated the bicameral mind to the last couple of centuries. No? A quick Google confirms your 3,000 year or so horizon. Was there someone else who made the more modern claim? But I don’t much buy it at any time, not any time in the last 100,000 years anyway.
Charles: I could say that human language enables people to talk to each other. Computer language enables machines to talk to each other. Mathematics enables people to talk to machines.
But all this sounds very fuzzy and informal.
Well, I could go on about this at very great length, and hope to do so (at moderate length) in published form some day.
Human language certainly enables humans to talk to each other, but just *exactly* how that actually works, is still obscure.
Computer language is more about getting a computer to behave in certain ways, than about communications as such, though we are generally much more interested in just those machines which are communicating with us, and each other.
Mathematics I think is other than you say by most accounts (including mine), is more about corresponding to things in the world, either formally or essentially.
It’s funny that a lot of people who don’t like Jaynes have never read his works.
If you read him, you’ll find that even if you don’t agree with him, that he’s led you out of that mental rut you’re in. His thinking was completely outside of the box, especially for the times.
Thinking outside of the box is a good thing.
Thinking inside boxes is for slaves and peasants.
Free men think for themselves.
RWE @ 82 said:
“All of the houses I was familiar with while I was growing up were built in the 30’s and 40’s and the circuit breakers were arranged on an area basis, rather than with overhead lights separate.”
Those older houses typically use knob-and-tube wiring along with screw-in type fuses. Both are obsolete and dangerous.
RWE also said:
“The GFI’s for the bathrooms are installed at the circuit breaker box rather than at the receptacle, an approach I do not recommend.”
Groan! Yes, I’ve had similar experience with our kitchen stove. It’s a gas stove with an electric clock and computer for controlling the cooking (Sears Kenmore). The stove’s circuit has a very slight electrical leak to ground that will randomly pop the GFI circuit breaker but never a conventional GFI wall socket. As an experiment, I installed GFI wall sockets in the kitchen on a circuit protected by an AFCI circuit breaker (best of both worlds). That design works great and is quite stable. Unfortunately I wired the stove’s circuit to a GFI circuit breaker with conventional wall sockets and that’s flakey (overly sensitive). I’ve since jury-rigged the fault by not using the stove’s intended receptacle which is behind the stove and instead plug the stove into a kitchen counter GFI receptacle. The correct long term solution is to pull the GFI circuit breaker, replace it with an AFCI circuit breaker and replace the conventional receptacle with a GFI wall socket. Unfortunately fixing the ground leakage in the stove is too hard (probably a leaky capacitor).
Charles @ 81 asked:
“So how would you characterize the difference between human language, mathematics language and computer language.”
I’ve actually explored this concept. Many years ago, I was still programming in Fortran and the people running the computer facility would poke fun at me for doing so. Then one of the computing staff took pity on me and did a proper job of convincing me to convert to C. So I had to teach myself C and opted to write a big toy program on a home computer where I could exercise the full power of the C programming language. It so happened that I’ve always been interested in natural language and enjoyed playing the original text adventure game named “Adventure”. So I wrote my own adventure game with the goal of programming it such that it could understand ordinary English. After I was finished with the process, I released the game as open source freeware and it’s probably still out there somewhere on Internet. My game wasn’t as fun to play as other text adventure games but it did have the feature of being able to understand almost anything one said to it.
Anyway, getting back to Charles’ question: Mathematics is the language of science and is the best descriptive tool for modeling nature. People like to say that God invented the integers which is an interesting idea. The whole question of whether mathematics is more primitive than physics is also interesting (I believe mathematics comes from physics and not the other way around). However Charles is probably more interested in the issue of natural language versus computer languages. The simple truth is the word “language” is probably being misused in this case. Ultimately computer languages are focused upon the issue of being “Turing Complete” and doing Boolean arithmetic. This is actually a very deep subject and has theological implications. Stephen Wolfram recognized this when he got involved with the simplest universal Turing machine. The theological aspect is the process creating order from chaos thus demanding a very simple Turing machine.
A natural language like English is a completely different beast from a programming language like C. Natural languages are a manifestation of a deep language structure that exists within the human brain. This is sometimes called the “Ursprache”. There is this basic syntax inside the human brain that all language seems to overlay. Of course this is where the science of linguistics comes into play. The evil villain Noam Chomsky established his credentials as an intellectual studying this problem. Anyway, with my goofy adventure game, I mainly looked at the problem of command syntax and adjectives, e.g. “Go to the well and take the red bucket and draw water”. The program’s parser would reduce previous sentence to “go well take red bucket draw water”. The articles, prepositions and conjunctions were treated as “noise words” and ignored. This works due to the confining aspect of the game. For example, I tell you that you are in front of a well and you see a green bucket and a red bucket. You might respond “play the flute” and I would then lamely respond “I do not understand what you want”.
While on this topic, it is interesting that information request commands in English start with “W”, e.g. Where are you?, Who are you?, What is that?, etc. Again there is probably some deep brain thing and relic of the Ursprache that drives us to have “W” in front of question words.
Eggplant, the “W” is Germanic, except English and maybe Dutch, it is closer to “V”. Latin – Q (kv). Slavic – K, C (ts), Č (ch or cz) , Ш / Щ (sh/sht). Etc. Varies.
I remember reading some book a long time ago where some dude took English as a basis for his thesis to prove linguistically Atlantis. Boy that was a hoot!
Twobyfour @ 87 said:
“the “W” is Germanic, except English and maybe Dutch, it is closer to “V”. Latin – Q (kv). Slavic – K, C (ts), Č,(ch or cz) , Ш / Щ (sh/sht). Etc. Varies.”
Yes, Twobyfour is quite correct, the first letter is language dependent, e.g. Quo vadis? Qui bono?
What is “Who”, “What”, “Where”, “When” in Hebrew or Arabic? I should know this but whenever I try to fetch up an Arab word I get something in German.
Twobyfour also said:
“I remember reading some book a long time ago where some dude took English as a basis for his thesis to prove linguistically Atlantis.”
There are people who believe in the Bible story that the Ursprache was the language spoken prior to the Tower of Babylon. Again, I see it as a deep brain thing. There is an interesting chicken-and-egg question: Does sentience (self awareness) arise from language or does language arise from sentience? I’m inclined to think that sentience comes first but it does seem that sentience is language driven. I’m also inclined to think that human sentience is a scaled up version of the limited sentience used by a domestic cat with the added advantage that the human brain is not hard wired with instinct like a domestic cat’s.
Eggplant@79:
Perhaps a different point of view:
As a practical matter, C WAS a great language. However, object oriented design and development currently is the standard. Even Apple apps are developed using the Objective C/C 2.0 compiler(s). In the .NET environment, C++.NET is the language of choice for writing non-managed code. However, even as I write this, some very bright young computer scientists somewhere are creating new development paradigms that obsolete the current battery of object oriented programming languages.
Once again, as a practical matter, software projects that 10 years ago would take 1-2 years from start to release are being produced in half the time, … or less. The tools are getting constantly better, both in the proprietary sense, and in open source. Take a look at Ruby on Rails for web development or the Arduino micro controller and it’s programming environment (kind of C++, but generally with only two functions/methods required because of the built in framework). Take a look at the free Express versions of the Visual Studio development tools provided by Microsoft. Look at the MVC SDK. Great stuff.
Just my $.02.
programmer @ 89 said:
“As a practical matter, C WAS a great language. However, object oriented design and development currently is the standard.”
Most C++ compilers compile to C then to the local assembly language and finally to machine language. Consequently, any construct written in C++ can be written C. It so happens that I use data structures and address pointers in a way that closely mimics object oriented design. It has been my experience that constructing data structures in a way that parallels the physics and natural logic of the process being modeled makes programming much simpler. In fact, I’ve observed this weird effect that if I can get the program’s logic and data into sync with the natural process’ logic then I cease to be an innovator and become a participant, i.e. the software seems to program itself and I’m just watching it happen. However doing this with straight C requires mental discipline unlike with C++ where the programmer is forced into it by the language. The problem with being forced into it, is the performance hit the executable takes dealing with all the OOP overhead and being even more separated from the hardware. Again, a big advantage with C is its really just a high level assembly language. I like being up close and personal with the hardware.
O/T, but wait ’til Whiskey sees this.
#51 ashen:
speaking of bicameralism, how many here are interested in the “Slaughter Solution” being thrown around the room now? This is in regards to the HC bill and off topic but i’ve noticed a passion for revolution on this site over the years.
I am watching. If they in fact take the action of passing laws without voting on them, the social and political contract is irretrievably broken. A regime that is subject to our Constitution that takes this step has become illegitimate, as are its further actions.
I assume that I am not the only one watching carefully. Further this deponent sayeth not for the moment, but I would also be extremely interested in what our host would have to say since he has seen the elephant firsthand.
Subotai Bahadur
Eggplant@90:
So you want to get to the hardware, do ya’?
The following compiled and run via VS 2008 C++ compiler
// Assembler110.cpp : Defines the entry point for the console application.
//
#include “stdafx.h”
#include <iostream>
int add(int num1, int num2)
{
return (num1+num2);
}
int _tmain(int argc, _TCHAR* argv[])
{
// This variable will hold our return value
int returnValue;
// Call the inline assembler
// Note that the standard code in C/C++ to achieve the same
// result is simply “int returnValue = add(16, 10);”.
__asm
{
// Push parameters on to the stack (arguments pushed in
// right to left order using the standard cdecl calling convention)
push 10
push 16
// Call the add function
call add
// We should now restore the stack pointer. We have pushed two
// values on to the stack, each element on the stack
// takes up 4 bytes (32 bits), so we need to increment
// the stack pointer 8 places.
add esp, 8
// The cdecl calling convention puts the return value in the EAX register
// so we move the value stored in EAX into our returnValue variable
mov returnValue, eax
}
// Output the result
std::cout << "Return value = " << returnValue;
std::cin.get();
return 0;
}
Ouputs to screen: Return value = 26
Thanks to http://www.dreamincode.net/code/snippet5089.htm
Otherwise, I would be up all night writing this.
NOW, programmer slowly turns, moves to the rear, then breaks into a run as fast as he can for the exit and proceeds to watch his back for the rest of the week.
“Thinking inside boxes is for slaves and peasants”
not nice for the peasants, but you wanted to say serfs anyway !
Charles (#78): “I would argue that an interesting characteristic of the New Testament is its insistence that the sense of hearing be dominant over the sense of sight.”
Exodus 20:14: “Now all of the people were seeing the sounds”
DaveH (#58): “I had pleny of classes where I would have welcomed the distraction! Monotone boring lectures. What a waste of time for everbody involved.”
If the lecture isn’t worthwhile or you can’t/won’t concentrate, then just don’t show up. (I oppose mandatory attendance, with caveats.) But do have the minimum courtesy of not actively distracting those students who are trying to pay attention.
Subotai, If current “s laughter” approach is utilized with success, look for a modern version of the Reichstag fire and subsequent emergency powers legislation.
If then, expect a long list of changes tumbling along in heaps and bunches. They will follow a pattern familiar to students of a particular period of post-WWI culture. *
…actually, just as they are already.
__________________________________________
* What’s the point of enumerating? Anyone who can ‘t see and acknowledge the pattern presently unfolding will just deny it, and the perpetrators already know what they’re doing.
96. bob:
Charles (#78): “I would argue that an interesting characteristic of the New Testament is its insistence that the sense of hearing be dominant over the sense of sight.”
Exodus 20:14: “Now all of the people were seeing the sounds”
………..
Exodus 20:14 (New International Version)
14 “You shall not commit adultery.
I was for more than 20 years involved in an ancient tradition (Tibetan). I could still meet very old persons who came out of this now lost world. All dead now. Later I read Jaynes, and it really made sense to me. Because all they do in this traditions, all this sophisticated technics of dealing with the mind have one goal: getting back to the bicameral mind, hearing the talk of the gods again. And it works, it is called “entlightenment”: “being free from doubt” by cutting through the reasoning of dualistic mind. I think after all that dualistic mind is not such a bad development and that some gates should not be opened again. But this is said in vain. It will not stop modern day sociopaths from acting out what the king of the Na´vi tells them to do.
I recently downloaded a couple cool apps for my iPhone. The first is called “What Knot to do in the Greater Outdoors,” a useful-but-also-advertisement tool by Columbia Sportswear. The second is a Latin phrasebook and study guide.
The ability to tie a bowline knot and to pepper one’s daily conversations with appropriately contextual Latin phrases used to be commonplace. Any aspiring Renaissance Man should be able to do both, even simultaneously, without conscious thought. Do I really need an iPhone to help me with that? Do I have time to learn that stuff? Is it important anymore?
The last person to know everything there is to know died a long time ago. No matter how much I try to shove in to my brain, there are simply too many distractions of modern life to know all that I would like to know.
My 7 year-old daughter gave me a beautiful drawing/collage of an iPhone a few days ago. It even had a little application icon/button with a heart on it. It’s yet another in a line of many reminders that I should spend a more time away from all of that accessed-by-technology information.
The ability to internalize information in a way that allows one to utilize it later in meaningful ways is basically a language acquisition skill. While attempting to wire the brain for math by playing Beethoven to a pregnant belly is fairly useless, the exposure to other foreign patterns of thought or language at a young age is priceless, I think. If Bicamerality existed it could be the effect of trade and exposure to other language and thought that perhaps caused a rewiring away from such patterns of thought.
That would explain how knowledge blossomed so early among humans in Greek and the Arab society. It would also explain the rise of Egyptian and later Italian culture and Mayan too.
Such theory doesn’t explain the effect of noise nor can it explain Chinese, IMO.
One of the reasons that I think these years maps over well onto the beginning of the 1500′s– is that–just as that age marks the age of the the beginnings of the exploration of the new world–this age marks the beginnings of the exploration of space.
The second thing that happens — almost 30 years after the discovery of the new world in 1492– is the beginnings of the protestant reformation with Martin Luther’s visit to Worms in 1517 where he nailed his 95 Thesis to the church door at Wittenberg.
We’re not there yet. But I think that the failure of the Global warming Gaea sect religion may set the stage for same.
In the last couple years an acquaintance of mine visited the church in Worms and listened to the sermon preached. It would have fit comfortably within the confines of global green theology.
It may be no coincidence that Julian Jaynes book was published only a couple years after some Americans landed on the moon. Because space provides a dream space as well as a physical space.
Like a lot of other people I don’t have many phone numbers memorized anymore, but that doesn’t necessarily mean there’s no more memorization going on. It’s a matter of importance; the ease and simplicity of carrying around a phonebook makes memorizing numbers a waster of time. I have several memorized, but far fewer than I once I did. Today I have dozens of ip addresses and user login/password combos memorized–because I have to use them without assistance more often. Many data centers disallow bringing in cell phones with cameras, which means ALL cell phones now, and while I can sometimes bring in a laptop I can’t always do that either. The point is you memorize what you NEED, and phone numbers don’t rise to that level any more. The same goes with many different kinds of information. You don’t need to memorize and encyclopedia to function or do your work, but it’s helpful to have one along. However information isn’t knowledge, and it is knowledge rather than information that is supposedly being taught in schools & universities. Simply dumping information on students is useless, and memorization is useless without context. Information is important, but a pile of facts don’t necessarily make knowledge, and a pile of knowledge doesn’t necessarily make wisdom. The trouble with schools isn’t just method, it’s purpose. The old ideal of a well-rounded citizen still exists in a vague form, but the underpinnings thereof are gone gone gone. Before restructuring schools what is needed is a new concept of what a well-rounded citizen needs to know. Some things won’t change–reading/writing, basic mathematics, enough history & philosophy to be a reasonably informed voter, etc. Some things might be completely different once somebody sets out to design a new model. But as in everything else, action follows belief. As long as teachers believe in the quasi-cynical/quasi-intellectual anti-heroic model of a ‘good guy,’ that’s what they’ll turn out with too few exceptions. Change the beliefs and the rest will follow.
It comes always back to Freud (and a rehash via Campbell). Though he was erring in some stuff, his brilliant insight into structure of personality/mind with Id, Ego, I–was truly pioneering. Can we call it tricameral mind?
Jaynes just did some repackaging and reduction–maybe thinking that 3 strata is too much to handle. He is a binary logic man.
I am much into trinal-ities and trinary logic, so Freud-Campbell is closer to my paradigm. I interpret things differently than Campbell, though, there was a physical reality behind much of the stuff he pondered upon.
frum whut i’v seen frum curent coledge stoodents tehxtingis n oxymoreon & coding wud be a stretch
Proofreader for hire. Reasonable rates;). Swearing under the breath at atrocious spelling and avoidable errors comes free of charge.
Seriously speaking though, two of my best professors came from “opposite” sides of the spectrum. One stifled dialogue, but made students present a memorized performance (along with other options. The first line of that poem is still with me and won’t leave me alone (even though another student owes me library fines on the books I loaned her–yes, “Neither a borrower…” but does that apply to libraries???). The other was your classic prep school stereotype, but the man would discuss any, any topic students gravitated to, from atheism to sex. In. Judeo-Christian. Lit.
I started bringing a laptop to class in the early 00′s (before there was really such a thing as wifi) in order to make my note-taking process more fluid. Instead of taking notes by hand during class and then transferring them onto Word later- it was simply a time-saving device, and a reasonable and practical use of this technology.
Then my professor told me to stop typing because the noise distracted him! He was a socialist and it was a class on Marxist theory. Figures.
Anecdote: My after-school job in HS was at McDonald’s. One Sunday morning the whole system crashed. We couldn’t close the store, obviously, so the whole business had to rely on my memory for the exact price of hotcakes, BECs, hash browns, etc. + tax. I will admit we used calculators to add up the orders, but it was busy! When everything was fixed and the drawers counted at the end of the day, not a penny out of order
Stephanie at 107.
Sure. Pathetic.
RWE wrote:
<>
First I find it sad that a person could spend that much time and not learn something or find something useful. My experience with education is that you get out of it what you put in.
In regards to teachers being paid to teach, in higher education this is simply not true. Professors are paid to publish and bring in grant money that partially funds the university’s operating expenses and doesn’t even go to the professor doing the work. This skimming is factored into the grants. A few small private schools still hire and retain their faculty on the basis of teaching ability. My parents used to joke “Those who do, do. Those that can’t do, teach. Those that can’t teach, teach teachers.” By the way, they were each teachers at some point in their careers. This is truly a joke because all you have to see the fallacy of this is try to teach someone something that you think you know and that they don’t. Teaching it is a lot harder than doing it. If you really want to master doing something, teach it to someone. Over and over and over.
I’m over 60. But I’ve use computers since the mid-70s. Mylar tape and punch buttons and all that.
What I realized a decade or so ago is I must discard to discard information that is not immediately useful.
Take phone numbers for an example. I know three by rot, my work phone, my home phone and my wife’s work phone. A couple of others but I have to think of them for a (short) while.
I shed information rapidly because I know I can recreate it, or at least find it again.
Bravo to my sons, grand children and their children who will navigate.
Heaven help us if EMP is real.
#54 geoffgo,
Pennsylvania has a Cyber Charter that I believe provides the type of lessons you describe.
Since it qualify’s as a “public school” it gets state funding far in excess of $1,000.
Paul Milenkovik @57 : You teach “‘Lectronics for Dummys”? I thank you for persevering, as I can no longer thank the professor who 30 years ago turned this electron-blind ME major into somebody who is at least conversant, even if I’m a lot more comfortable as a structural designer. The associated hands-on lab was even more valuable. I know the associate prof. who taught our class (in his first year!) frequently despaired, but was at least rewarded with witnessing a large percentage of “Eureka” moments! And in return, my career has featured two large interactions with EEs – arranging components and laying out the mounting provisions for the avionics suites for the current Atlas Centaur upper stage and Ares Pathfinder. I’m considered to be one of the few structures people at my company who can work with the avionics guys without going crazy, or making them crazy. I couldn’t have done that without the insight I learned in the class you teach. Keep after it!