Constructive Criticism

It's been pointed out to me that I've posted twice now denouncing retards with doctorates, this last time in a rant about "Little Einsteins". This is a show that's intended to teach music to preschoolers. Rather than presenting the subject, the producers try to hide it within something "entertaining" in the guise of science, a subject for which they have no respect.

And that's part of the problem... when experts talk outside of their expertise they're not experts at all. If they're going to play in another educator's sandbox, they'd better be prepared to be respectful of the peripheral subject they're presenting, or be prepared to "face the music." In the case of "Little Einsteins" it's a music appreciation show couched in science fiction, with damned near no respect for the science. They should have brought in science educators to assist with the scripts.

It's not just these people, but many, many, many others. Television shows that have been pitched as "educational" include such abominable crap as "Jimmy Neutron", "Tutenstein". The best educational animation to date was "Schoolhouse Rock", and the best recent example is (embarassingly) the historical and geographical songs on "Animaniacs" done in the style of Tom Leherer. I'll give some other positive examples below.

(BTW, "Fat Albert" aspired to be educational, but it was really social engineering although most educators are too indoctrinated to recognize the difference. There's nothing wrong with the proper social engineering, mind you; but there is a distinction between that and education. If you don't think so, contemplate the distaste you feel for the phrase "re-education camp". Get it now?).

Me, I'm a parent of three children, and I've been a trainer in both electronics and IT for over 20 years. I don't at all pretend to be an "expert" in education, but damn it, for some things you just don't have to be. For example:

You do not have to make an effort to engage and entertain children... if you've properly presented the subject matter, then the material itself will engage and entertain them.

A beautiful example here is Carl Sagan's "Cosmos". It needed no artificially forced "excitement". Because of the focused presentation of the subject matter it was engaging and entertaining for all age groups. It's seeing a revival on cable. See it on Tuesdays and Wednesdays on the Science Channel.

As much as I like Bill Nye, the silliness didn't add to his show, and neither did the guy in the rat suit. The best part about Mr. Wizard was it was just really cool science, with experiments you could do yourself.

You do not always have to come up with something new. Everything is new to preschool children. You should never make the mistake of thinking that because you've seen something before, the kids will respond with "been there, done that."

In other words, Mr. Wizard's still cool. My kids say so.

You do not ever have to "dumb down" your explanations: the point of early education is not to have the children retain everything they're exposed to; it to expose the children to the subject in the first place so they'll be on familiar ground when when it's repeated later. Dumbing down the explanations increases the likelihood that you'll have to re-teach the stuff you got wrong in the first place.

This last item brings to the fore the very important point that you always move from the known to the unknown. It's perfectly possible and OK to simplify an explanation without dumbing it down. For example, you can tell a preschool music student that the composer Antonín Dvorák lived over 100 years ago without expecting him to know any exact dates or the names of his works. You can tell grade school kids that 'enzymes' assist in the replication of DNA without going into detail about what enzymes are or how they work. If students express a desire to know more then you're doing somethign right. Encourage them to study on their own. Point out some good age-appropriate references.

Another thing is to use the Socratic method. That was where a show like Mr. Wizard's World shined. Every episode he had a guest child. He could lead the child through a series of questions, and when all was said and done the child worked out the problems for himself. By asking the questions of the guest, Don Herbert was by extension asking the audience and promoting independent thought.

It's a shame that the educators of today haven't learned from these examples.

Microsoft says its search will be better than Google soon - Computerworld

Microsoft says its search will be better than Google soon - Computerworld

No news there. Microsoft says a lot of things. Wake me up if and when it is better.

There's "free" and then there's Free.

I got my MSDN Flash email today, describing thoroughly Microsoft's idea of "free"... Basically they say, "We've got all kinds of free stuff for you today, like:

• A second shot at at taking and incredibly overpriced exam you've been studying for at great expense all last year. All you have to do is fail it the first time.
• 21 hours of training. Oh, wait, it's not free at all... we only put it in this list because we're idiots.
• Some more exams, but these are beta exams, so you don't get any certification. You just get to spend a lovely afternoon taking the exam and giving us free feedback. That makes it doubly free!.
• And to cap things off we decided to throw in something really free: the Composite UI Application Block. This application block is a reusable, source code–based component based on the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0. That's as opposed to all the NON-source code-based components you have clogging up your compiler.
  

Ain't we great?"

There. That was a lot shorter and easier to read than the actual mail.

On the other hand, there are really free things out there... I keep a list of the ones I use the most. Here's a few new ones:

• Stellarium Stellarium is free GPL software which renders realistic skies in real time with openGL. With Stellarium, you really see what you can see with your eyes, binoculars or a small telescope. So says the website. And guess what? They're not lying. It's an absolutely beautiful piece of software. If you've got any interest at all in the heavens you should most certainly check this out.
• DominoWiki is a fine little wiki I found on OpenNTF.org. Best of all, it runs on a Domino server and is distributed in a single Lotus Notes database. I happen to like it a lot... it's easy to install, easy to configure, and easy to maintain. Like any good wiki, it's easy to use.
• And, of course, there's the new release of VIC CRM. It's free and useful.

Have fun!

Hamas and Mideast Peace

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Hamas 'secures' stunning victory

I see that Hamas has won control of the Palestinian government in the recent election. While some may see this as a problem, I think it's possibly not a bad thing.

Granted, Hamas has not revised their official policy of calling for the destruction of Israel. On the other hand, repressing a large portion of the Palestinian populace is no way to win a lasting peace. Instead, Hamas has to come to the realization that sponsoring terror is no way to achieve their goals.

Look at it... terrorism did not place Hamas in charge of the Palestinian government: elections did. If the elected leaders realize this fact and are successful in maintaining a stable political government then perhaps they will make the small leap toward the realization that similar peaceful strategies will garner the political independence that decades of terrorism have failed to deliver.

It is our diplomats' job to help Hamas come to this realization if they don't on their own.

Dell Doldrums, and Linspiration

A little over year ago my son received a Dell Dimension 2400 as a Christmas present. Thanks to a combination of clicking where he should and some overzealous antivirus software, he completely lost the networking components and his internet connectivity.

"No problem," says I, "we'll just reinstall the missing components from your OEM disks." As I have a spacious basement, I've kept all of the material that came with the computer, including the original packaging. But guess what... there were no OEM disks. So I determined to look for the missing DLLs in the Options directory commonly used by OEM manufacturers to store the .cab files. Wouldn't you know it, the Dell didn't have that, either.

So I decided to call Dell's famous technical support. It was, of course, expired. Before I could even talk to somebody about providing the materials that they should have included in the first place, they wanted my credit card number and $40. No way. It's not the money, it's the principle. The license to the software was already purchased with the computer. Dell flatly neglected to provide materials to which the buyer is entitled. It is the END USER that is the licensee of Windows XP, NOT DELL. For those asleep at Dell's legal department, that's why it's called an "End User License Agreement". Duh. So I choose not to deal with Dell any longer, and I won't be purchasing any more of their computers, sorry.

On the theory that I'd simply install an existing copy of XP (after all, we do have a valid license... the registration key is on the computer itself) I did exactly that. That's when I discovered that Windows XP knows nothing about the hardware on a Dell Dimension 2400. It recognized neither the Sound, nor the Graphics adapter, nor the NIC card, nor the modem. And without the NIC or modem there's no networking, and no connecting to the Internet to get the proper drivers. (A nice racket Dell and Microsoft have worked out amongst themselves, no?)

So, the answer is, to hell with them both. I installed Linspire, a variant of Debian Linux. Linspire installed immediately, HOURS faster than Windows + updates, and came with the OpenOffice.org productivity suite. It recognized all of the hardware immediately, including his 3D graphics accelerator, recognized the broadband connection with no bloody wizards needed, and secured nicely and securely.

Linspire's CNR (Click and Run) service, at about $25 per year, is absolutely excellent! You will never again see a setup wizard for software. Instead, you simply browse Linspire's CNR Warehouse. When you see a program you want, simply click the green CNR icon next the the program, and a few moments later the program appears in your menus, ready to run. It simply cannot be easier.

For my son it's a breeze. He can use the same Firefox browser and OpenOffice.org productivity software on Linux as he was previously using on Windows. (We don't use MS Office here, as it makes exactly zero financial sense whatsoever on a home machine.) Using GAIM he's also able to connect to all of the same IM services he previously used in Windows. He can burn CDs, play awesome 3D games, listen to MP3s... everything he did in Windows is done faster and more easily in Linspire.

If you haven't tried Linux on your desktop, I wholeheartedly recommend Linspire. If you're staying with Windows because you believe it's somehow "easier", then you're sadly misinformed. Linspire easily outstrips Windows in ease of installation and use.

As long ago as 2002 I predicted that Linux would be ready for home consumers desktops by Christmas of 2004. Though the date came and went without fanfare, Linspire 5.0 proves that the promise has been delivered.

A Slick Idea

OK, this is petty, but I've had a problem with 'schmutz' gathering on the nylon slides on the underside of my mouse. This makes the mouse movement a little jerky (even with my optical mouse), and requires that you stop occassionally and scrape it off.

Here's my solution: a little furniture polish on the underside of the mouse. Put it on a paper towel first and apply it only to the slides: avoid getting any on the LED section. This keeps the mouse cleaner longer and improves its usability.

Much better!

Lambourghinis and Hondas

On ZDNet recently, George Ou recently posted a shootout of Excel vs. OpenOffice Calc, and Microsoft predictably came up looking pretty good on performance (the only measurement George seems interested in). He later posted an example of a thoughtful response to the shootout.

Here's my response: Of course, I use Word as example rather than Excel, but I justify that by saying that one does not buy Microsoft Excel... one buys Microsoft Office and Excel is just a component.

A Lambourghini Countach is unquestionably a higher performance machine than a Honda Civic. Nevertheless, many companies purchase fleets of Hondas for business use, and not one company of note has purchased a fleet of Lambourghinis for the same purpose. The very same business customers you cite as preferring to pay for performance would scoff at the purchase of the superior automobile as a frivolous waste. Why is that? It's because business purchasers know what you evidently do not: that your argument based on pure performance is pure rubbish.

The applicable business measurement is not, nor has it ever been, pure performance. The applicable measurement is price/performance. When the price side of that ratio is zero, then the performance side must be appreciably better to justify the expense of a competing expensive product.

Taking a few seconds longer to save or load a document is a petty measurement at the most charitable best... You spend more time mullling over punctuation than you spend waiting on the document.

especially when measured against the frustration and time wasted by such MSOffice "features" as its tendency to "accidentally" reformat paragraphs, requiring lengthy manual re-formatting. This, btw, has never happened to me in OpenOffice.org with its superior use of paragraph styles and character styles (which don't appear in MS Office at all).

Considering that the time wasted by correcting just one or two lengthy Word documents is more than compensated by the increased load and save times of every OpenOffice document I've opened in my five years of using it, the /overall/ performance of Word looks damned shabby.

"Good enough" is exactly that. It's the difference between the Lambourghini and the Honda. Lambourgini will never match the sales of the Civic through improved performance; there's not enough speed in the world to overcome the price difference. With OpenOffice, price is zero and performance, like the Civic's, is good enough. Microsoft is not going to regain my business through a superficially flashier interface or through petty improvements in load time.

So far Microsoft's been riding the wave it created when competing against similar commercial products. Now, savvy managers are starting to do the calculations whereas before they simply purchased Office without thought. Now, if you want Microsoft Office, you'd better be able to justify the purchase with substantial benefits.