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Computer Files Are Going Extinct

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Re: Computer Files Are Going Extinct

#391

Post by robocat »

singingfish wrote: post #373
robocat wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Losing the word "meme" to the colloquial definition is a loss and a massive disappointment to me I love "The Selfish Gene", but it make me happy that memes and virality are modern metaphors for chunks of thought transmitted by wet symbolic processors. I believe that children now bellyfeel the meanings which is fantastic, even if they don't know the exact sense. > Literally should mean literally, and only literally…

The selfish gene is a great book. I read it when it was about 15 and it really resonated with me. Except the last chapter about f$%#ing memes. Hated it. It was like taking the core idea of the book and providing a cumbersome over-extended metaphor about ideas. So the colloquial meme is just as bad because it constantly reminds me of the original shit-house idea. Climbing Mount Improbable was good, but I can't rate Da…

I think that memes are actually driving a lot of human activity.

When you read about how selfish genes work, and then relate that to what is happening with certain "meme" concepts in the world, it makes sense to me.

The Extended Phenotype is really hard to grok, but I still love that book. I'm not sure I've ever been able to apply the idea.

I completely ignored any of his God bothering stuff - to me it seemed he was pushing his own religion (note: religions are a type of meme too).

Re: Computer Files Are Going Extinct

#392

Post by michaelmrose »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #304
jacobolus wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? Have you ever graded written papers? Have you ever seen a paper graded by a good teacher? We’re not talking about pages of written commentary here. The most “effective and efficient” approach involves circling words or phrases, underlining sentences, writing arrows from one part to another, scribbling some wavy lines in the margin, writing a few words here or there, ... There is a very limited amount of time av…

"Effective and efficient"? Or just lazy but fast?

Achieving the goal with less effort so that you can spend more effort on other aspects of the job or on other endeavors is effecient.

Wanting each of your teachers to learn how to use a constantly changing array of 20 different social image sharing services in order to receive work in a format that is more work to process is lazy.

Re: Computer Files Are Going Extinct

#393

Post by michaelmrose »

detaro wrote: post #335
TeMPOraL wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Effective and efficient"? Or just lazy but fast?

the former. Even some professional editors prefer pen/stylus for some review stages.

You can do this with a pdf with annotations and a touch screen with a pen

Re: Computer Files Are Going Extinct

#394

Post by twirlip »

beerandt wrote: post #326
robocat wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love the renaissance of language, the minting of new words and concepts, the remixing of our heritage words with new Unicode characters and the mashing of new syntax. I see it as progress - which destroys meanings as much as liberating new meanings. A word becomes a poetic palimpsest of needlessly complex layers. I am an engineer-type, I like concrete words with focused meanings, I failed English at school while ex…

Latin was invented for a reason. Common language became vulgar.

Er, the Romans spoke Latin, as well as read it and wrote it. It was their vulgar language (from "vulgus", Latin for "common people"). The first Latin Bible was called The Vulgate because it was written in then common tongue of Latin instead of Greek or Hebrew. Latin was the language of commerce and conquest for the Roman Empire, as English was for the British Empire. Lastly, every language is invented, no?

Re: Computer Files Are Going Extinct

#395

Post by ubu7737 »

nostrademons wrote: post #96
unqueued wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a very similar anecdote. I had a long conversation with a friend who is a high school science teacher. She told me that computer literacy has plummeted in the last ten years. She has her students go into the field and collect data in the form of photos, spreadsheets, and typed reports. She wants students to bundle these files in zip files, and email them to her. Students have no idea how to do this. Some of th…

I'm curious if this is actually computer literacy plummeting or if it's a wider population of students being expected to understand computers. When I was in high school the vast majority of my peers understood how to bundle up a bunch of photos, documents, etc. into a zip file and e-mail them. This is because my peers were nerds, and we were excited about this new computer technology and eager to learn everything we…

> it's a wider population of students being expected to understand computers

There it is.

It isn't just education, obviously. All software has to be subjugated to an ease-of-use that buries details.

Re: Computer Files Are Going Extinct

#396

Post by pasabagi »

beerandt wrote: post #384
pasabagi wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure. I read a lot, a lot of which is old. I enjoy a wide variety of writing styles.

Yes, but reading old books doesn't usually capture the old vernacular well. Even if written (professionally) with that intent (Mice and Men, Flowers for Algernon) movies and audio were generally more accurate, (even if exaggerated) in that they're not subject to interpretation. The writing of an un-edited grandparent might be a more accurate account of this. Or not.

You might be right. I find a lot of old vernacular pretty objectionable on stylistic grounds - if I was going to describe it, I'd call it 'semi-colon heavy'. Lots of big, chunky sentences with curlicues. It's a hard style to like. Then again, Moby Dick is written in that style, and it's amazing. I think it's like beef wellington or lobster thermidor. It's amazing if it's done really well, but a mediocre one is horrible.

Re: Computer Files Are Going Extinct

#397

Post by psaux »

kzzzznot wrote: post #190
psaux wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They should teach them Terminal on OSX. I would expect most CS folks would need it per building code or Git. Maybe I am too disconnected, and life is now IDE. I showed my son at a young age terminal commands to browse the filesystem. It really seems to be helping him now that he coding.

How old was your son when you started teaching him the command line, coding etc?

Started using command line at around 11 on his Mac. Really started to understand coding at 13, writing in Java and Python.

Re: Computer Files Are Going Extinct

#398

Post by detaro »

anderspitman wrote: post #358
detaro wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a page with a form you can upload files through. You can setup something like that e.g. with Owncloud/Nextcloud. And dedicated education tools also often have it. For normal document-sized files, email is fine though too IMHO, for university stuff I never really cared which way was used.

NextCloud is quite a dependency for a simple file upload.

Sure, if you just install it for that. But it's a reasonably common service (e.g. around here, many universities have it for their employees and students) with that feature.

Re: Computer Files Are Going Extinct

#399

Post by drdeadringer »

chrisseaton wrote: post #191
drdeadringer wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes exactly, and thank you. Imagine if you edited a photo in Photoshop and could only access that edited photo through "Photoshop Live" or some-such. File management in the wild is dirty. Either "there is only one" or there is the Clone Wars. This is real. For anecdotal example, a family member had this issue with Picasa [before it was purchased by Google]. "I rotated and cropped thousands of my pictures, but when I…

> For anecdotal example, a family member had this issue with Picasa [before it was purchased by Google]. "I rotated and cropped thousands of my pictures, but when I look at them in my 'Pictures' folder my edits aren't there. Where are my edits? Why aren't my edits in Picasa in my 'Pictures' folder pictures?" But Apple have solved this confusion by removing the files and folders and making the application the one plac…

Apple's solution is the problem I spoke about.

Putting blinders on a horse allows the horse to behave for the driver. I want the horse to behave like a horse.

Re: Computer Files Are Going Extinct

#400

Post by pm90 »

mpweiher wrote: post #372
pm90 wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're reading too much into conspiracy theories. That can be fun and all but I can assure you these things are emergent and not some concerted effort to keep wages lower. The Steve Jobs market manipulation was def a dick move, but.. well, its Steve Jobs. There will be other such efforts too, but that alone doesn't indicate the kind of concerted market manipulation that you think exists. The emphasis on codin…

> The Steve Jobs market manipulation It wasn't "Steve Jobs", it was most/all of the tech giants colluding.

If I understand the case correctly it was a plot hatched and masterminded by Jobs. No other individual holds as much charisma and economic power as he did in his prime.
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