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2010-02-15 Comment: Education Kills Creativity
A friend of mine told me about this video and I found it quite interesting--and accurate.
http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html
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2010-01-13 Update: MASSIVE Update
Happy new year! If you go to my home page, you will see that it has changed significantly. The changes include:
<nav> and <footer> tags help bots make more sense of the page. Unfortunately this may cause a few problems for Internet Explorer users (IE is the only modern browser that does not support HTML5), but this can be solved with Google Chrome Frame.
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2009-12-02 Update: Scorp on Docs
I finally got around to uploading the Scorp dictionaries to Google Docs. Now you can view them online anywhere (assuming that "anywhere" has Internet). Also, I am working on a larger update to the site in my free time. Unfortunately I do not have much of that, so the update may not come as soon as I would like and might be released in smaller pieces rather than all at once.
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2009-11-03 News: Comments
Wow, three posts in one week. I am on a roll here! Anyway, I wanted to point out that I am testing a system for commenting on news posts. You may remember when I tried putting all the news posts on a wave and that did not work very well. I am trying a new system that will not have posts in waves, but will instead use waves for just the comments. If you have a Google Wave preview (not dev preview this time), take a look here. Currently only the three most recent posts have commenting available. In the future I may add comment waves to older posts if people request it. Please note that you may not add bots or gadgets to these comment waves (unless approved by me). Also, please do not say anything offensive in your comments. I will edit/remove any inappropriate comments. Finally, remember that this is just a test, so do not expect it to be perfect!
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2009-11-02 Observation: Droid Lies?
I have been looking into the new Verizon Droid phone recently (mainly because of interest in the Android 2.0 OS) while on the Droid website, I happened to notice something. Right there under the big "Turn-By-Turn Nav". "Multi touch". This is strange, because the Droid does not support multi-touch, so why would it be mentioned on the site?
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2009-10-30 Observations: Companies' Responses To Windows 7
The Windows 7 RC has been available for over seven months now, but people are just starting to modify their applications to take advantage of Windows 7's features. Here are some I find particularly useful.
It appears that iTunes 9 has the same thumbnail buttons as WMP12 as well as a jump list with options to open or search the iTunes store. It does not, however, have WMP's "Play all music" or "Resume last playlist" options, nor does it have a list of frequently played songs/videos/playlists. Unfortunately iTunes has yet to support Aero Snap properly.
One other feature that was added that I have not seen in any other program but Windows Explorer is having the taskbar icon double as a loading bar when you are downloading or updating a game Unfortunately, Steam still has no support for Aero Snap.
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2009-10-20: Apology + Update + Rant: I Think I Am Missing Something Here...
Sorry about not doing much here recently. Been busy with other stuff (school, inProd, a little gaming if I ever have a free moment (which does not happen often thanks to the first two)). I can tell you that at inProd, we are working on something really awesome. I cannot give any details, but trust me, you are really going to like it. I have also finished some nice updates to the inProd website and my math-on-computer tutorials section (which I hope to expand at some point to general school-on-computer topics).
Anyway, now that I have explained why I have not updated the site in so long, I thought I might rant for a little. I actually have a few rants that I will hopefully post some time soon (assuming I have another few minutes of free time), but I decided put up this one since we are about two months (give or take depending on where you live) into the school year and are once again dealing with good, not-so-good, and just plain bad classes and teachers. Please note that many of my rants are written so that there will be some disagreement. I will try to put up pages for comments. Unfortunately, this will only be open to Google Wave users. Anyway, here we go...
This is how school works: You ride a bus to a (relatively) big building. You go to a room full of desks and chairs and learn information from a teacher. At various points during the day, you might go to a different room, also filled with desks and chairs, and learn things from a different teacher. After several hours of this, you leave the building, get on a bus again, and go home. At least, that is how school os supposed to work. How does school not follow that? That minor detail of "...and learn information from a teacher." For some reason, it seems like few teachers actually teach. And of those who do, many of them show signs that seem to indicate that they do not do their jobs very well. Let me explain by going through a few classes I am taking or have taken.
One great example was biology. I can barely remember anything that was actually taught to us by our teacher. Most of the year consisted of reading from a textbook, possibly being given a lecture (i.e. the teacher read off some PowerPoint slides that always seemed to have errors even though she claimed she had been using them for several years), and then taking a test. And later in the year, the lectures were removed, leaving taking notes from the textbook and taking tests. The only times we did labs were when we had a visitor and when the school or county required it.
Another example is my current world history class. We are expected to read approximately ten pages from the textbook and write a “response” every night. On top of that, our discussions in class are often not directly related to the readings but are more philosophical. This would be great, except the material on the tests is not about what we talked about in class! It is only the information from the textbook.
One more example. In Japanese class last year, we would usually learn things based on the textbook but not only from the textbook. This year, however, we are expected to teach ourselves from the book and take tests almost every class. You have probably noticed that in all three of the examples, the material that the teacher seems to think is important, the material that we get tested on, the material that our grades depend on comes from a book. So if we just learn from textbooks, why not fire those teachers? It is not as though the school system just has extra money to throw away! Also since we are expected to do this reading at home, then why can I not leave school ninety minutes earlier for every class with a non-teaching-teacher?
Now those examples above are a bit extreme. I will give some less severe, but more common cases. Here there will probably be a bit more argument. One is pretty much every math class I have had since sixth or seventh grade. Essentially each day the teacher teaches us a lesson, we do some problems that use what we were taught, and then we go home and do homework relating to that lesson. The thing is that maybe in middle school, where classes were only fourty-six minutes it made sense to require that some work be done out of class. But in high school classes are twice as long! And yet still we have to do work at home. Often enough work to fill another full class period. Do my math teachers feel that they are not good enough to be able to teach me something given over an hour? Especially something that I have already been taught twice (and in a few cases two years before by her!) and know well enough to teach myself. I understand that some students do not pick up math as fast as some of my friends and I do, but is that not the point of separating the math classes? Is that not the point of having a whole separate school for math/science/tech. geeks? And if something does need “reenforcing,” maybe the teacher should try to teach it more clearly.
Now I often get annoyed when people complain without giving a solution, so I will list some examples of classes that seem to do things correctly. The first is my computer science class last year. Every day the teacher would explain some topic, possibly give us an assignment to complete that day or by a certain date (usually the end of the week or the end of the quarter). We would often spend about half of each class period in the computer lab working on our programs. We would occasionally have tests on things we had been doing. The only homework was usually either extra credit or if you were taking an especially long time on a particular program. There is not textbook, but the teacher recommended a programming book for anyone who had to have a book associated with the class.
Another example: Design and Tech. At the beginning of the year, we would spend each day learning about something, whatever that something may be. Eventually we would start a project, often based on that something we had been learning about. We would work each period on that project. Eventually the project would be due and we would start on something else. We would occasionally be tested on whatever we had been learning about. The only homework was if you were studying for a test or had to do extra work on a project (and the latter was usually because you wanted to).
One more example is my AI class this year. Each day we start by getting a mini-lecture (usually accompanied by a non-PowerPoint presentation and a lot of drawing and writing on a whiteboard) about whatever we are working on. Each day's lecture usually builds off the previous day's. The second half of each class is spent programming. There is no homework besides working on your programs if you choose to. Quizzes are common, but are very short and mainly test your knowledge of computer science or Python. There is a textbook, but the teacher neve uses it. He just tells us in case anyone wants to use it.
You probably noticed some major differences between these examples and the ones above. One is that the teachers teach us everything we learn. They do not force us to read from a textbook and at most just mention it as an option for those who require reenforcement of what was learned in class. Similarly there is rarely required homework. All teaching, normal reenforcing, and work is done in class.
Clearly it is possible to have a class in which the teacher teaches, everything is taught during class, and school and home stay separate. So why can this not happen in all classes?
2009-07-23: Starting on 07-28-09, I will be away for almost a month without my computer and probably without Internet. This of course means that I will not be updating the website or responding to e-mails. The site, however, will still be up. Just wanted to let you know!
2009-07-21: Some random comments (information follows):
2009-08-25: I am back + some thoughts about the world
First of all, I am back. Camp was awesome. Woot 'Rah '09, Hudes and Eddie were generals!!, yay Red team!, “So many milk squads...” and so on.
I will begin my rant by talking about something that everyone who knows me is probably sick of hearing about: Google Wave. One of the many things I love about Wave is one of the reasons it was created, which is that some people realized that something that everyone knows and accepts (e-mail) has stayed almost the same while its environment (the Internet) has evolved around it could be improved. Something I have wondered is why does this happen so rarely. I know that I personally cannot always think of how to improve something simply because I am used to it as it is, but the problem is that most people do not even try! I think more rules and ways, especially ones that have been around for decades or centuries, should be rethought. Sometimes some of those things have lasted that long because they are good and they work, but in other cases they still exist only because everyone is so used to them that no one bothers to look for a better way. FINISH
07-17-09: A friend of mine created a map for Team Fortress 2 (you may remember that I made one a few months ago and recently released an alpha version. The interesting thing about his map is that he does not own TF2 and built the map in the Portal map editor. After some--scratch that, a TON--of retexturing and some changes to accomodate the differences in size between Chell and the Heavy in the TF2 map editor on my PC, the map was somewhat playable. We are now at alpha 5.1 and the map is looking pretty good. We have not been able to test it on a "real" server (i.e. the best we have had is 1-on-11 over LAN) so we do not know how well the map plays, but it looks like it should work pretty well. You can see its page on TF2maps.net or download older versions from my Google Site. Enjoy!
07-15-09: I saw the new Harry Potter movie this morning (the only reason I woke up before noon). These are my feelings about it. Click here to read more
07-15-09: I just wanted to mention that I have updated the RSS feed and plan to resume updating it regularly. In addition, there is now a page for archived news. After being on my home page for a while or when a more important news post takes its place, a news post will be removed from my home page, however it will remain in the archive forever or until the file and its backups get corrupted or lost or I am forced to remove it from the server, whichever comes first. In addition, the RSS feed will contain the previous two news posts as well (in case there are any of you on the Internet who only check the feed).
07-10-09: I got my laptop back and as promised I have uploaded my TF2 map (the link is below this paragraph). Not only that, but the version number has gone up! To test it, save the file to "C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\[yourUserName]\team fortress 2\tf\maps" (replace "Program Files" with "Program Files (x86)" if you have 64-bit) and it will show up under the map drop-down menu in the "Create Server" box in TF2.
Click here to view a page where you can download versions of my TF2 map
06-29-09: I do not have my laptop (I am borrowing someone else's computer to post this update), so I will not be uploading anything new for a little while. Hopefully I will get around to uploading some (or hopefully all) of the video games section when I get it back. The main update today (besides letting the Internet know I have not forgotten about my site) is putting a link to my Portal map pack!!!(the link is right below this paragraph) On a semi-related note, my TF2 map is no longer on the server, but I will finish some improvements I have been making when I get my own laptop back and re-upload the map when that is done. Umm...I think that is all for now.
Please try my Portal map pack, "PortalZ"!!
