Things have certainly changed.

The last time I was seriously in a classroom, the Internet was just a few strands, and the web was nothing more than a vague notion in Ted Nelson’s fevered dreams, and the most powerful and intelligent electronic device available to me, in a classroom or otherwise (other than via a DECwriter terminal) was an HP-41C calculator, so I have no experience with classroom websurfing.

I do have a lot of experience with classroom lectures, though, both boring and otherwise.

I don’t take in information very well through my ears. When someone verbally asks me to do a list of things, I usually request that they email it to me. I have two problems with lectures–one is that I have a lousy memory, which means taking notes, which I hate. The other is that the baud rate is so low, compared to reading the same information. I’ve never understood why anyone gets much value out of going to listen to a professor drone on, sometimes verbatim, from a text book that you have at home and can read much more quickly.

For example, I know several programming languages, with various degrees of facility. I’ve only taken one programming class in my life (ALGOL), and that was because it was a graduation requirement. Actually, I was supposed to take FORTRAN, because I was an engineering major, but no one told me that, and it seemed to satisfy those who handed out the diploma. And I’m actually glad that I took ALGOL rather than FORTRAN, because being a structured language, it instilled a lot of good programming habits that I’ve noticed many engineers don’t have.

But I digress.

My point is, that when I was in college, I only attended class if: a) the prof was entertaining, and/or provided information that complemented the text; b) class attendance was directly reflected in the grade; c) I knew no one else in the class from whom I could get assignments; or d) there was some hot girl in it who I was trying to get to know.

So it makes little sense to me to be websurfing during a lecture, unless I’m in class for reason (b) and/or (d) and no other. What’s the point in attending class if you’re not going to listen, or ask questions?

To me, it begs the larger question of what many students are doing in college at all, other than because it’s just what everyone else was doing, and Mom and Dad are paying for it.

This is hilarious. I especially like the bewildered expression on Chavez’ face in the accompanying photo.

Cal Thomas has a profoundly confused and incoherent column in today’s Washington Times about the evils of cloning. You see, we have clones today because the Supreme ruled the wrong way thirty years ago about abortion. If Roe v. Wade had gone the other way, there would be no cloning research, nor any desire for it.

Right.

He does make one point with which I agree somewhat..

…the population-growth fanatics don’t mind when science kills, but they oppose anything that would add to our numbers. “We are more inclined to support science when it stops births than when it enables them,” he said.

This was a cite from another columnist. I don’t quite understand his point here, though. He seems to agree with them on the cloning issue, but not on the abortion issue.

He trots out the nonsensical myths about clone armies, and writes:

Clone wars might remove any sense of morality or immorality about war since those who are killing, or being killed, would be the fruits of soulless technology and of no greater value (but less expense) than an airplane or tank.

This is ignorant unsubstantiated nonsense. Clones are no more the “fruits of soulless technology” than was Louise Brown, the first “test-tube baby.” A quarter century on, her soul would seem to be as real, or not, as anyone else’s, and no rational person questions her humanity. What would be different about a clone, other than the fact that the genes were predetermined, rather than a random mix of two individuals’? Personhood is not conferred by the method of egg fertilization, and if souls exist, a clone has just as much of one as the younger of a set of identical twins.

At the end he despairs.

After 40 million (and counting) aborted babies in the United States, who, or what, is going to stop cloning? And on what grounds?

Who indeed? And on what grounds, indeed? Certainly none offered up in this editorial.

This is the kind of thing that doesn’t get enough attention, amidst all the wailing about the evils of technology. There’s a man who’s come up with a way to dramatically reduce the cost of making eyeglasses, potentially bringing clear vision to millions, particularly in the third world, who previously couldn’t afford the simple act of seeing.

The Prof’s AWOL on a Sunday again, so it’s my duty to notify the blogosphere that Will Vehr’s done his usual thing.

Now the Indians are getting into the act. They plan to have manned launches by 2015.

Well, now we know who’s going to run the lunar motels.

It was announced at an Indian science conference in which:

They were also discussing topics including genome research, nanotechnology, climate change and information technology.

Interesting.

I don’t know if this is something they’ve been doing for a while, but ESPN is now putting links in the text of its stories (at least in this morning’s front pager about the Fiesta Bowl). On-line Big Media is finally starting to catch on to how to write for the web.

First they compared the Israelis to Nazis. Now they’re comparing them to Stalinists. Arafat is accusing Israel of building a “Berlin Wall” around Jerusalem.

Since the BBC can’t be bothered to do it, I will.

Hint, Yasser. The Berlin wall kept enslaved people in Berlin. The Jerusalem wall is to keep human bombs out of Jerusalem.

You, and the inevitable idiots who will no doubt parrot you in the coming days should practice. Say “in, out…in, out…in, out,” until you understand the concepts and the difference between them.

I guess we have to add another pair to the old Orwell litany. War is Peace, Up is Down, In is Out…

Mindles H. Dreck reminds us of the cornucopia of capitalism, and the idiocy of those who (truly) mindlessly rail against it. It’s a perennial topic, but there are always newcomers who are unfamiliar with the facts of the matter.

No, not the garden kind. Warning, geeky stuff ahead.

I just made the mistake of upgrading from Redhat 7.3 to 8.0. I don’t know why I never learn. I’ve never done a major-number RH upgrade without fubaring my machine.

It crashes on install because it’s got some kind of disagreement with XFree86 4.2. My version isn’t a Redhat package. I installed it from tarball on a previous upgrade (to 7.2), otherwise I wouldn’t have had X at all.

Despite the crash, it rebooted into what appeared to be 8.0, with the Bluecurve desktop theme.

But my menus are all bolloxed up. Turns out RH has standardized the Gnome 2.0 menus in Bluecurve, and they neglected to include a menu editor, so I’m stuck with them as is, unless I manually edit it. Finding out how to do this has been painful. There are a few comments on the boards, but they’re mostly cryptic, and unhelpful.

However, for anyone who’s been having the same problem, I finally found a How-To here.

I don’t know if it works, but at least it’s somewhat clearly written. I’ll update on whether it’s useful or not a little later.