Cage's Second Law: If you make a machine with a screen people can read to tell them what they're doing wrong, you will discover that people cannot or will not read. Case in point: Kid at the bottle-return machines, at least 12 years old judging from his size. Kid stuffs the same 2-liter bottle neck-first into the machine over and over, which flashes its screen in error until the kid removes it. Lather, rinse, repeat. The message on the screen in 1-inch letters: "INSERT BOTTOM FIRST". Exactly how did we wind up with a growing segment of the populace which behaves as if it hasn't got the brains nature gave a turnip?112 responses total.
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(...not enough Star Trek novels.)
Thats too easy. Clearly the user interface wasn't approved by OSHA.
And clearly the libertarian approach would leave it up to the marketplace. The machine should have charged the user a fee to insert the bottle in the first place, thus repeated insertions generating an icreased profit margin.
Audio-visual outputs should be complemented with mechanical outputs like an arm that comes out and smacks the dumb. :) Btw, I think you should replace "American" with "people".
when i boot all the linux machines here, there is a login prompt. i'd say about half the customers are completely perplexed by this even though the username and password is pasted in large letters on the monitor. today, when a guy asked about this i pointed out the login/pass was right there and he still could not seem to login. i had to do it for him, though i shouldn't have.
Why don't you have them set up to start X as soon as the machine boots up? Might make it a bit easier for your users.
it does, then runs gdm. one has to be logged in, and it gets old logging in 10 computers everytime when the people can just do it themselves. it's even a nice pretty M$-esque-graphical-friendly login display..
Sounds like you need some new users.
ya, but this place is a public internet cafe.
Roads are public places too but not everybody should be allowed to drive. ;) Can't you set up an autologin? Might save you from the trouble of having to do it.
or could just make the people feel really really stupid.
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c'mon we've already made it easy enough for them. at one point we even drew a big blue 'e' for them to click on to bring up mozilla. but what we really want is make people more comfortable using linux so maybe they will ditch their insane realiance on M$.
I am not sure that's the problem though . . . even Windows requires you to log in. If they can't figure out how to do that much, why are they around a computer? Linux isn't any harder to use than MS now with all the KDE and Gnome stuff available.
ya zactly.
Re #0 - Maybe the kid couldn't read?
What good will a computer do someone who can't read?
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A little pesticide never hurt anyone.
I'm talking about the guy and the bottle. Maybe the kid couldn't read. Doesn't mean he's dumb, just illiterate. There's a difference
Might have a lot to do with the fact that even most people who can read don't read warning labels and the like.
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thar ya go.
re 18. In the late 80s our house was almost completely Macs, except for my husband's computer. Our kids were 3, 5, and 7 years old. And you know what? even the pre-literate 3 year old could use the Macs. But none of them could use the DOS computer on their Dad's desk. Philosophically, I don't think computers _should_ be designed to require literacy in order to operate them. Why waste a visual interface on a linear text model?
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If you shouldn't be able to have to read to be able to use a computer, then what you use it for would be severely limited to the point of silliness. Most of what you do with a computer is reading in one form or another.
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I can't read, but I can sorta write... Automagically...hehe People are so afraid their going to break something by trying something new, that they break things all the time.....Know what I mean? When I run into a new user that is so timid that they won't even exercise their right to read, I encourage them to stop "looking good". I believe success in life is directly proportional to the weight one places on other people's opinions of one's self. Not to say that other people's opinions are not key to understanding at times, but that they are not absolutely "true" from a personal perspective. As for the boy and bottle, I'm not sure what's up with that. Perhaps a candidate for ridlin and a tutor.
Or he can't read English.
heck, maybe he just thought it was fun putting the bottle in and watching it come out.
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novomit: say that to six million murdered Jews, you Nazi.
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Re #29: Didn't you mean "inversely proportional"?
Re # 37 nope.
Re #17: Possible. Or just functional illiterate. Gave me dirty looks after I said "It says bottom end first. Can't you read?" Re #23: From the apparent weight, that wouldn't be a bad guess either.
Re#37 Yep....stand corrected....hehe
What do Holocaust victims and computer reading skills have to do with each other?
If you don't know, then remind me never to send you to the store for smoked fish!
Now smoked fish is related to computers?
I'm talking about pesticides, novomit.
For your information, I take a small does of Raid Roach Killer each Monday. I find it makes it easier for me to get thorugh the day. Lots of vitamins as well.
Why did you say pesticides never hurt anyone, when they killed 7 million Jews?
I said a *little* pesticide never hurt anyone. It took a considerable amount to kill 7 million Jews.
It didn't take much to kill one.
How much exactly did it take to kill only one?
The machine should not have a high refusal rate. At that point, the store is refusing to take a bottle return, a violation of the Michigan return law.
The machine's refusal does not constitue a violation so long as the store takes it.
Most of the bottle return machines I've used reject about one can out of ten. Those cans go in again. If they're rejected twice, I throw them in the trash because I know better than to waste my time trying to get the minimum-wage store help to try to take care of it.
I seldom have anything rejected unless the machine is malfunctioning or the can is crumpled. Moving to another machine or crumpling the can a bit differently so the bar code is readable usually works. Taking ten seconds to get ten cents isn't a bad payoff for time.
I have perfectly pristine cans get rejected all the time. Maybe the idea of these machines is to convince people to oppose the bottle return laws by making it as much of a hassle as possible.
Or perhaps the store has somebody go through the bin and retrieve that percentage people toss when the machine doesn't accept them. Hmm... sounds like a conspiracy, alright.
TOMRA machines become soiled with use through the day and with increasing frequency through the day wrongfully reject returns. In a time of decreased retail business, the tendency is to schedule fewer hours at the very time of year when beverage sales alone peak. If the employer only schedules maintanence at the beginning of the day, the solution to troublesome rejections is to disconnect the offending TOMRA. The increased traffic to the remaining machines hastens the onset of further faulty operation. In Michigan, the bottle bill has great popularity with consumers. Consequently, those same consumers know enough to blame store mis-managment and not the bottle bill. Trash bins are presumed to contain non-returnable containers and the whole affair is dumped regardless of the obvious otherwise recyclable nature of its contents. If you see Meijer employees pawing through the bins, they are naughty children looking for bottle caps with undetected premiums. (This is conversion: ANYTHING found in the store belongs to the store and must be turned in.)
Re #56: I've wondered what it might take to get retailers to put out recycle bins for the non-deposit containers. It might save them enough on trash disposal to make it worthwhile.
The Farmer Jack on washtenaw in Ypsi had a separate bin for recyclable-nonreturnables at one point, but I haven't shopped there in about three years since I moved from the area.
Re #57: Meijer (in Grand Rapids) has had prior experience with complete recycling. Several stores had huge, partitioned dumpsters for self-sorting of glass by color, metal and paper. The result was litter dispersal, smell, noise, abandonded furniture and dead pets. I can't speak for the company, but I rather think that the employees now have a 'not in my backyard' attitude. If you propose these bins inside of the stores, you cramp the style of some department that would like nothing more than to build a display wherever you think the bins should go.
Didn't I hear the retailers comment that "grocery stores aren't dumps" (or words to that effect) during the recent dispute over ownership of un-redeemed bottle deposits? I like the idea of recycling bins near the refund machines, but I don't think it's gonna play in Peoria.
I cannot see how a product can be touted as 'green packaged' unless there is recyling available at the point of purchase.
The fruits of 150 years worth of government-run schooling.
Um, Mike, when I think of American public schooling, I think of the 97% literacy rate for Americans. The school system is not perfect, but it is one of the great innovations of our country.
With a recent study showing that a rising percentage of high school graduates are unable to pass introductory college English and mathematics courses??
Cite?
Whether or not there's a current reduction in the capability to do college course work, the modern American literacy rate is higher than it was before American children attended public school. If you think the public school system is ineffective, I think you can only be arguing from the point of view of a fanatic, and that your views don't need to be taken seriously by most people.
Oh wait, I suspect klg's statistics are part of the usual right-wing false premise propaganda. More people than ever are going to college is the likely basis for more people than ever not doing so well on college exams.
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The sad news: Wednesday, August 20, 2003 '03 grads lag in math, science By Fredreka Schouten / Gannett News Service WASHINGTON -- Many high school graduates who took the ACT college- admissions exam are unprepared for the math and science classes they will face in college, according to a report released Tuesday. Only about 25 percent of students in the Class of 2003 who took the ACT are likely to earn at least a C in a first-year college biology class, and only about 4 in 10 are likely to get at least a C in college algebra.
Damn the lack of internet at home! I can't follow up on this right now. What's the time frame, though? Say, since the scores were higher than now. How does that fit in with W. Bush's reign?
Ah, OK, that's an awfully short story. http://www.detnews.com/2003/schools/0308/20/a01-249520.htm Doesn't say anything about trends, though. Seems like that would be especially useful in determining if a problem is getting better or worse.
Our public schools suck but they are better than nothing.
In my own experience, scientifically unverfied though it be, and consisting of knowing several (five?) honors high school students who got very good grades and got into great schools without knowing basic spelling or grammar (I was pressed into service as a proof reader for these kids/now young adults) -- it's rather scary that someone who is undeniably bright and talented can't be taught the basics of the ENglish language until he or she is in college. (It wasn't that they were stupid or impaired, mind you, it was just that they weren't taught grammar. Scary. And these were in several schools, not just one -- Community High School and whatever it is in South Lyons, and Huron.)
Yes. And, parents beware, this problem is getting worse. The teachers now coming out or college never learned proper spelling and grammar (or geography or mathematics or etc.) and are unprepared to provide that instruction. Very sad situation. No wonder the practice of home schooling and the demand for private education is rising.
you must be a teacher.
I just finished Composition I at WCC. I had the instructor for an Lit class a couple of semester ago and we developed a beginning friendship at that time. We did peer reviews of our papers. She divided us into groups and we did feedback on our group members. From the papers of the other 3 members of my group, and the members of Damon's group (including Damon), they are no longer teaching grammar or sentence structure in public school. Because of our friendship, she asked me to do feedback outside my group when she was having problems getting a group to work together. From her comments on my papers, some email and phone calls what I saw was endemic to the class. She kept commenting on how easy it was to grade my papers and the fact that I had to do very little revising. Even Damon noticed that one member of my group used three different verb tenses in one sentence. It was painful for me to have to do just three feedbacks per paper, I can only imagine how hard it was for her to have to do 14, and to have to do them in more detail than I had to.
No, Ms. oval. Guess again.
Heh. We just had a talk with a client who paid a P.R. firm to do a press release...but the P.R. firm clearly didn't know "its" from "it's" and about half a dozen similar sad mistakes in two simple paragraphs. The release had already gone out to the media before we got a copy to put on their web site (& called 'em right away).
i was only basing it on your grammar skils.
One need not be a teacher in order to have good grammar. In fact, now being a teacher might, in fact, be a handicap.
I'm a copy editor, and I see it every day. It's very scary.
I only went to public schools for high school, and I only ran into the concept of sentence structure in two places: foreign language classes and in my freshman english class. In the latter, it wasn't a regular part of the class, it was a week or two that the teacher added, perhaps in desperation. Most of the other kids in the class were stunned, and had no idea what the heck he was talking about. I don't think it's any kind of exaggeration at all to say that grammar and sentence structure are no longer taught in public schools.
We had sentence structure in grade school, adn I took several classes in advanced english sentence structure in college. 1960' and 1977. But I also had english teachers in college that said it didn't matter anymore, that anything would go as long as people could understand it. They didn't even worry about spelling.
I went to the same high school flem did, and we sure as hell didn't have any kind of sentence structure in english class. Come to think of it, while my papers were often marked up for having run-on sentences, I'm fairly sure no one ever bothered to define the term "run-on sentence". German had a fair amount of sentence structure in it--but then German sentence structure bears little to no resemblance to the English equivalent.
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I learned lots about English grammar in studying German in high school for three years. I think I was more ready to learn grammar then than I was in elementary school where we parsed sentences.
We learned about parts of speech in grade school, and I recall learning various grammar rules. We did some sentance diagramming but I never really understood the point of it. Mostly I just got exposed to good writing often enough that I developed a gut feeling for what did and didn't "sound right", and most of the time that doesn't lead me astray.
You'd expect people to write run-on sentences if they do not do much writing. Modern written English style is very terse compared to typical spoken style, and someone who writes the way they speak would probably use much longer sentences. (It was not always thus, as anyone who's read "Tom Jones" knows.) This confirms that today's students do not do enough writing.
(as an additional data point [I'm a year older than flem and lynne, and I attended AAPS for all thirteen of my grade school years], I remember going over basic sentence structure in 3rd grade for a day or two. I also remember spending a week on prepositions in 8th grade, and it's entirely possible that grammar rules were covered at other points during my education. it's also possible that the time spent on English resulted in our math teams being inferior to those in the Tappan and Slauson areas. it's not as if we needed English in the 80's to beat the Japanese.)
Re #88: I actually tend to have the opposite problem. My writing often tends to be choppy, with a lot of short sentences. Often when I go back and edit, I combine some of them. Re #89: I think I agree with what you're getting at -- that English has been deemphasized in the last decade or so in favor of subjects like math and science where there is a perceived national security/economic interest. Trends in education are almost always reactionary. People complain we're falling behind the Japanese, and we get more math; companies complain that they're getting engineers that can't write, and we get more English.
Sorry, but from my recent experience in math and science classes, we aren't doing too well there either.
I've heard it suggested that the reason we have problems with science education is because we teach it in reverse order - we start with biology, then go to chemistry, then physics, even though chemistry relies on principles of physics and biology relies on principles of chemistry.
Re #90: I think the issue is more that writing is a skill which has to be practiced, and not for its own sake either. Like reading, writing is a medium which must be filled with content. Students should probably be showing their knowledge of other things by writing about them rather than checking bubbles, and they should be graded on their presentation as well as their content. Computers should be allowed from the earliest grades. I hated to write because I got horrible writer's cramp and couldn't stand to do more than a page or so in longhand. Keyboards liberated me. Re #92: I am inclined to agree with the people who say that science is taught poorly because the teachers know it poorly, and that the curricula focus on disconnected atoms of fact rather than the fascinating (and romantic) process which uncovered them. Of course, any teacher who cannot handle all the basics as well as everything in their speciality should spend their summers in remediation, so their students won't have to.
Re #93: > I am inclined to agree with the people who say that science > is taught poorly because the teachers know it poorly, and that the > curricula focus on disconnected atoms of fact rather than the > fascinating (and romantic) process which uncovered them. Actually, I have the same complaint about the way history is taught. In most of my grade-school history classes it was taught as a series of boring dates and facts, to be memorized and then regurgitated for a test. It wasn't until I got to college and took a class from someone who knew how to present history as what it is -- a series of fascinating, often rather sordid stories with real people involved in real conflicts and dilemmas -- that I really got interested in it.
I still get disgusted whenever I think back to something that happened several years ago: as a senior in college with a double major in chemistry, and integrated science, my parents asked me to help my little brother with his high school chemistry homework. I had a look at it and could not for the life of me figure out what the teacher was trying to teach. He had essentially made up his own chemistry which bore no resemblance to anything that I have yet come across (I will receive my PhD in chemistry in about a year's time). When I asked my brother about it he said that the teacher openly admitted that this wasn't really chemistry as accepted by the rest of the world, this was his own creation. I really, really wanted to go back and cause some trouble for this guy--forebore at the time in the interests of not screwing things up for my brother. Now he's graduated, I should see about that.
Speaking of chemistry teaching, I think that it is misdirected in the schools my daughter attended. They made it mostly physical chemistry, I suppose in order to have things to calculate, but they didn't convey very well the nature of "chemistry" and the chemical behavior of chemicals. (I recall undergraduates at UM in our chemical engineering laboratories that didn't know copper sulfate (hydrate) was blue, or whether many simple chemicals were gases or solids, or what common substances were soluble or insoluble in water, or much else about what reacts with what.)
I Like how Doc Barry put Chemistry into college context on the last lecture day. He presented the chemistry of brewing beer.
Heh. Chemistry is far from the only "science" where the goal of modern academic training appears to be making sure that students gain absolutely NO basic practical knowledge or experience whatever. We've interviewed a few U-M Comp. Sci. majors at work for real-world web/ database programming positions. The *only* thing that those poor kids seemed prepared for was spending more time in the ivory tower.
You seem to be confusing universities with trade schools.. That's not a surprise -- most people do -- but there's a fundamental difference in intention between an organization devoted to disseminating and advancing knowledge and one intended to develop vocational skills desired by employers. It's no wonder that their results are different.
Re 97: Doc Barry or Dr. Berry? Dr. Berry taught first-year chemistry at MTU a _long_ time ago.
Dr. Myron Berry at Michigan Tech retired from his position teaching chemistry in the early 1980s, and opened a rock shop in, I believe, Eagle Harbor. He was immortalized in the MTU Engineer's Fight Song: I died at MTU and was buried in the snow, They laid a slide rule at my feet in 33 below, They told Doc Berry that I'd died and had been laid to rest, I'd have to come at a later date, to take the chemistry test. Now, old Doc Berry being the good old soul he is, searched me out in Hell and gave me the chemistry quiz. Satan said (with no surprise), "Doc Berry's come again, He's been messing up the freshmen since I can't remember when."
In Clinton Elementary, both of my boys were taught that science is memorizing facts, with the process of discovery being completely passed by. My son, who just started 2nd grade, had a science class where the teacher demonstrated that, if you stuff a paper towel into a cup, turn the cup open side down, and press it into water, the paper towel will not get wet. The kids didn't get to do it themselves; they just watched the teacher do it.
So, none of them went home and tried it?
They were demonstrated to, so they did get to see it happen. What would have been bad was if they were just told about the existance of air, with no proof whatsoever.
Yes, they were apparently shown the experiment - BUT DID ANY OF THEM GO HOME AND TRY IT THEMSELVES? That is the test of whether any sense of a scientific method had been conveyed. Did your son show you the experiment before describing it, jep? Or was the lesson that only the "authority figure" can perform experiments?
Budget cuts. They couldn't afford cups and paper towels for everyone. ;>
My son told me about it in the car so he couldn't show it to me. We
strained his linguistic skills in getting him to describe it to me, so
it wasn't a complete waste. I don't know if he tried it at his
mother's house.
He was able to explain why the paper towel didn't get wet. ("Air
takes up space so the water couldn't get in.") That's as much as you
could expect him to learn from an experiment like that, I would
think. He seemed to understand it, and I wasn't displeased by that.
My point was just that the kids didn't do the experiment in school, as
I'd have expected; the teacher did it and they just watched.
And my point is that *verifying* a reported, or even demonstrated, finding, is at the heart of the scientific method. But I'm glad your son was impressed enough to at least report it to you.
I've taken a few demonstrations on faith before. As long as he understands the explanation he's learned something. Maybe you could play around with it at home, possibly relating it to the inverse demonstration: An upside-down cup of water which stays full as long as the open bottom stays below the water level in the sink.
Now you're getting the idea. At that age it should be mostly play. I haven't been suggesting that this be made heavy - no need to mention the "scientific method" unless it comes up naturally. But discovering things about the world is fun but teachers (including parents) can help kids learn something from their play. Incidentally, there are many "demonstrations" of the substantuality of air, such as paper gliders, windmills, etc. The glass experiment is nice, though, to show that air also resists compression. You can even show the relative compressibility of air with it, although that takes more careful observation.
When my dad taught science classes, he used to do the experiment where you fill a glass completely with water, then put a piece of cardboard on the bottom and invert it. Air pressure will hold the cardboard in place. He used to hang the glass from the ceiling afterwards. The kids always got a kick out of trying to guess how long it would stay full before air leaked in and let the water fall out. Usually it was a week or two before the cardboard disintegrated enough for the seal to fail.
On the bottom, or on the top? I guess I'll have try it myself. :)
You have several choices: