I just hired a couple of talented youngsters, and it's fun to call a pop all-hands BS session and whiteboard a real problem and interact with them.
I think it's programmed into humans that, as we get older, we want to teach. It's clearly a tribal survival thing.
I think that, as we get older, we also want to give things away. Well, some of us.
-- John Larkin Highland Technology Inc www.highlandtechnology.com jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com Precision electronic instrumentation
I have 100 year old technical books that I can still read. Will ebooks be usable even 20 years from now?
-- John Larkin Highland Technology Inc www.highlandtechnology.com jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com Precision electronic instrumentation
And "google" is what we technologists call a "search engine."
-- John Larkin Highland Technology Inc www.highlandtechnology.com jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com Precision electronic instrumentation
Well, I was 34 when I started writing it, which fits some but not all definitions of "older". :)
Cheers
Phil Hobbs
-- Dr Philip C D Hobbs Principal Consultant ElectroOptical Innovations LLC Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics 160 North State Road #203 Briarcliff Manor NY 10510 hobbs at electrooptical dot net http://electrooptical.net
So you're about the same age as my oldest child ?>:-} ...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson | mens |
| Analog Innovations | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| San Tan Valley, AZ 85142 Skype: skypeanalog | |
| Voice:(480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |
I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.
55 this coming September.
Cheers
Phil Hobbs
-- Dr Philip C D Hobbs Principal Consultant ElectroOptical Innovations LLC Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics 160 North State Road #203 Briarcliff Manor NY 10510 hobbs at electrooptical dot net http://electrooptical.net
My oldest will be 53 in January. ...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson | mens |
| Analog Innovations | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| San Tan Valley, AZ 85142 Skype: skypeanalog | |
| Voice:(480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |
I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.
Fred has rather better search skills than John can claim. I think he was objecting to Haitic's introducting of the acronym without going to the trouble of spelling it out.
One of my responses to Haitic does spell it out - if as a Massive Online Open Course which is what Google found for me (25 million hits as opposed to Haitics, which only scores 17 million hits).
-- Bill Sloman, Sydney > > > > > > -- > > > > John Larkin Highland Technology Inc > > www.highlandtechnology.com jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com > > > > Precision electronic instrumentation
I have somewhere a copy of the "sci.electronics.repair FAQ" and "the jargon file" from the early 90's, copied onto modern media, as ASCII text both are still readable.
DRM, bit-rot and media obsoleteion, are AFAICT the main hazrds.
-- umop apisdn --- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: news@netfront.net ---
I still have color audio video material from 1976 or so, now on M-Disc. The text is also still readble (copyright etc). OTOH I printed out some pdfs last week, is sometimes easier to quickly look up something.
Funny: proprietary but very popular formats, like MS Word, will be around at least as long as MS is around, which has already been quite a while. Obscure but open formats, like LaTeX, have been around for even longer, and are still readable (I expect some original TeX from 1982 or whenever would look quite strange, but without much work using standard tools, still compile alright; in contrast, a modern ConTeXT or whatever variant might have serious problems if the tools become lost).
Funny thought: would simple, plain text, procedural scripting languages
*ever* be considered obscure? Many (e.g. Python) are simple enough to resemble generic procedural formats that should be relatively easily mapped from/to any other similar language. In contrast, bytecode formats are probably more susceptible.Tim
-- Seven Transistor Labs Electrical Engineering Consultation Website: http://seventransistorlabs.com
I went through ~80% of an online SMPS course. (I watched all the video's but got bogged down with other stuff and didn't do the last few HW assignments.) I think that makes me typical as I read that only ~5% finish the courses.
Oh, I still have the book which is decent, and the course notes.
George H.
@@@@@ The point here is interesting - which I will summarize - The point is that a "MOOC" (massive online open classroom) will never disrupt a book like "Building EO Systems," because the people who would study it in a systematic way are too scarce, lack the focus to do so, and cannot encompass the whole thing in a practical effort to be an expert. Putting words in your mouth, this is because there isn't enough economic advantage to be a master of your field, it being too narrow and specialized, too "researchy." ?
If so, this is an interesting data point on MOOCs. IOW, the large enrollment in MOOCs is just the phenom that people like to get something for free. Some numbers certainly support that view.
Now, you use the word "audit," and that prompted me to think, "He is implying a degree-aspirant is getting a grade, and is more than auditor." OK - if this MOOC thing is really disrupting the university, and if electro-optics is something generally useful in technology, (I don't honestly know it is - I would imagine so.), then you would logically formalize your MOOC and issue a degree. A masters and a PhD, maybe. Follow me on this.
"Wait," you cry! "This is not accredited by the university accreditation association!" I reply, "Who give a FF?" If you can institute a training program which induces a higher skill level, and it gets recognized, then an employer will go for it. There still are people out there who must get actual things done. (I think.:)
So the "disruption" of the university happens on several levels, and conferring an actual degree based on online study is a necessary step to disrupting the corrupt and expensive 'higher education' system.
When PC's (Personal Computers) first came on the market around 1973, there was a pervasive feeling they were not serious tools. IBM made what could be termed the biggest blunder of "market myopia" of all time. They gave away the OS to a skinny kid in Seattle. It's easy to see this in retro, but the myopia is still operative in human awareness today. People cling to the specifics of what they are used to. What makes them comfortable.
And of course, in every case, there is a group of "rent seekers" who say, "You can't do that." "It's unworkable, immoral, dangerous, ineffective, etc."
None of my cogitations say that a MOOC will succeed in the arcane fields such as EO. But I think I am corrct in saying that the disruption of universities will happen when e Hobbs Degree in EO becomes legitimate currency for hirers.
The PC took off when tax accountants could fire up a spreadsheet like Visicalc and, by gosh, get work done. Employes did not allow PC's in some cases, but they were brought in on personal expense.
jb
"What do you call a donkey with a burden of learned books on it's back?"
You're talking to yourself again.
Cheers
Phil Hobbs
-- Dr Philip C D Hobbs Principal Consultant ElectroOptical Innovations LLC Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics 160 North State Road #203 Briarcliff Manor NY 10510 hobbs at electrooptical dot net http://electrooptical.net
Yes, I've often carried a load of knowledge and continued to eat hay. Guilty as charged. :) I can't think of the dumbet thing I have done, recently. (I did so many dumb things when I was young, that it would be a long list.)
Well, recently, I lost the keys to my car. I searched everywhere I was visiting a friend. So eventually I had to join AAA and get the car towed to my house. Then, after 4-5 hours of this, we discovered the keys were in my pocket! I had put on a pair of cargo pants with weird pockets, and the keys were in a corner of the pocket.
Whenever I get the idea I'm clever, I refer to that incident. :)
I have some files from DOS Microsoft Word, and I think modern word won't open those, though it has been a while since I last tried.
In some fields like chip design, you might go back to something and want to edit it after 20 years, when all the cad tools have changed and even hard drives have different plugs on them. It seems like it would not be totally stupid to (in addition to archiving all the files) put a laptop with the cad tools set up just right and all of the libraries and the design, and just stick that in the safe as insurance against the tools and libraries being hard to resurrect. I guess a VM might also do, provided the VM format doesn't go and change.
I wonder if anyone has thought of making a line of laptops that would (apart from the battery) be specifically designed to be likely to work if you turned them on in 20+ years.
Chris
Universities have been awarding advanced degrees in "extension" campi for decades. GT is now awarding a MSEE for online study (for $7000).
Hindsight is 20/20. The real blunder was giving away the BIOS, so easily. OTOH, one can't assume that we'd be where we are without those two "blunders".
That wasn't what I meant--I wasn't intending to be insulting, just to agree with you that you're putting words in my mouth, and therefore talking with yourself and not with me.
Cheers
Phil Hobbs
-- Dr Philip C D Hobbs Principal Consultant ElectroOptical Innovations LLC Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics 160 North State Road #203 Briarcliff Manor NY 10510 hobbs at electrooptical dot net http://electrooptical.net
Computing might have evolved more along the DEC/PDP11/VAX/UNIX model, rather than the Microsoft/Intel path. We'd probably be a lot better off.
-- John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com http://www.highlandtechnology.com
Ya but, have you ever searched for your cellphone while you are talking on it!
Mikek
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