"Fresh" from Slashdot:
[url=http://www.newsweek.com/id/106554][/url]
One of the funniest articles you can read these days, this guy couldn't be more wrong

I especially like the one about replacing competent teachers (dime a dozen in real world):

Quote:The truth in no online database will replace your daily newspaper, no CD-ROM can take the place of a competent teacher and no computer network will change the way government works.

Wow... I think you're right. He couldn't be more wrong. He even attacked educational video games and those have -definitely- been helpful.

embarassing to say the least

He doesn't actually say educational games don't work. He says computer-aided education won't, or something. "Sure, kids like videogames" is simply a reference that you can't possibly make interactive software for teaching fun, even though kids like games. I mean, I'm sure he *would* mock them, and he'd still be wrong. ;p

Ah, '90s tech-writing/punditry. Takes me back... I mean that was before--or after--my time. Time to dig out my old copies of Mondo 2000. That I may or may not have bought recently or a long time ago. /obscurantism

To quote one of my teacher (who is one of the at least two who influenced my life): "Do you see how times change"? Everything that the visionaries predicted came true.

Of course, I will have to agree with the human contact thing, especially on his more... "Freudian" point. (You know what I mean if you remember the "seduce" story.)

It cracks me up when people say things are impossible/won't happen. I absolutely love technology and history has taught me a very important lesson; consider ideas and be foward thinking. I often talk about what I think I'll see in the future and mostly all people have to say is "that will never happen"... yet, thinking from a standpoint 100 years in the future it seems like a self-evident truth to me. People forget progress is literally exponential and when an exponential function reaches the "hockey stick" on the graph, it's like hitting a 38psi turbo in a V8 and then NOS after that.

This guy's article from 1995 is a classic example of nay-saying proven wrong. Yes, we still have offices to do business and and we still meet friends for coffee in real life but social networking and business over the internet have exploded in recent years. The internet was a very different landscape back in 1995, no google, youtube, wikipedia. Back then Newgrounds was the place to go and after that you'd head to some anonymous chat room that took 5 mins to load.

The internet will continue to develop and expand in ways we can't yet predict or imagine. That's just the nature of technology and I think that's why I love it so much.

Well, this might change your opinion of Cliff-- or maybe not.

"The first time you do something it's science. The second time, it's engineering. The third time it's just being a technician. I'm a scientist. once I do something, i want to do something else..."

Quote:no CD-ROM can take the place of a competent teacher

totally agree

At least the author himself can recognize how funny this article he wrote is: http://www.slate.com/id/2246515/

"Of my many mistakes, flubs, and howlers, few have been as public as my 1995 howler.

Wrong? Yep.

At the time, I was trying to speak against the tide of futuristic commentary on how The Internet Will Solve Our Problems.

Gives me pause. Most of my screwups have had limited publicity: Forgetting my lines in my 4th grade play. Misidentifying a Gilbert and Sullivan song while suddenly drafted to fill in as announcer on a classical radio station. Wasting a week hunting for planets interior to Mercury's orbit using an infrared system with a noise level so high that it couldn't possibly detect 'em. Heck - trying to dry my sneakers in a microwave oven (a quarter century later, there's still a smudge on the kitchen ceiling)

And, as I've laughed at others' foibles, I think back to some of my own cringeworthy contributions.

Now, whenever I think I know what's happening, I temper my thoughts: Might be wrong, Cliff...

Warm cheers to all,
-Cliff Stoll on a rainy Friday afternoon in Oakland"

leosmith Wrote:

Quote:no CD-ROM can take the place of a competent teacher

totally agree

ruiner Wrote:no competent teacher can take the place of a CD-ROM

Totally agree. Wait, what's a CD-ROM?