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psikeyhackr
Inner Party Member
Post #59458
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Posted: Wed 2009-09-23 00:25
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| Politics: Friggin Wacko! |
Country: United States |
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| Netbooks and the CyberSaturated Society |
Post Rating: 2.8/4 (5 votes cast) |
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New South Wales has just done the biggest leap into computerized education that I know of:
| From http://www.linuxtoday.com/it_management/2009082800235NWDPSW |
Australian State Rolls Out Windows Netbooks but Adds FOSS
Aug 28, 2009, 01 :33 UTC (3 Talkback[s]) (2285 reads)
(Other stories by Dahna McConnachie)
[ Thanks to Inkslinger for this link. ]
"Over the next four years, each Year 9 student will receive one of the devices as a gift, which they can keep once they have left school. A total 267,000 netbooks will be handed out over the course of the program, which is part of the Rudd Government’s $2.2 billion Digital Education Revolution. |
I have been following netbooks for a few months and have gone to a show for VARs and tested a couple with the Byte benchmark from 1983. That is not how most people test. 
| From http://www.netbookation.com/netbkbnch.htm |
| Code: |
Computer Language Seconds
IBM 3033 Assembly Language 0.0078 fastest CPU+SWare tested
IBM 3033 PL/I 0.036 21.7% efficient
IBM 3033 COBOL 0.0824 9.5% efficient
68000 8 MHz Assembly Language 0.49
VAX-11/780 C (UC Berkley) 1.42
8086 8 MHz Assembly Language 1.90 100%
8086 8 MHz C (Digital Research) 2.8 67.9% efficient
8086 8 MHz C (Microsoft) 6.0 31.7% efficient
8086 8 MHz C (Computer Innovations) 7.2 26.4% efficient
8088 5 MHz Assembly [CPU of IBM PC] 4.0 100%
IBM PC 5MHz C (Computer Innovations) 22.0 18.2% efficient
---------- New tests on modern CPUs ----------
TI OMAP5910 150 MHz GNU C Pocket CPU 0.0522 Archos PMA400 Linux
Pent 2 300 MHz GNU C 0.0148
AMD 433 MHz GNU C 0.0122 OLPC-XO 1
Pent 3 500 MHz GNU C 0.0087
Pent 3 1.3 GHz GNU C 0.0035
Pent 4 1.8 GHz GNU C 0.0024
Atom 1.6 GHz GNU C *NETBOOKS 0.0022 Asus/Lenovo
Pent 4 2.66 GHz GNU C 0.0020 Single-Core 1 program
Pent 4 2.66 GHz GNU C 0.0040 Single-Core 2 programs
Pent 2D 2.8 GHz GNU C 0.0019 Dual-Core 1 program
Pent 2D 2.8 GHz GNU C 0.0019 Dual-Core 2 programs
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So how much power do grade school kids really need and what is this stuff going to really do to society?
psik
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RAK
Minster of Plenty
Post #59479
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Posted: Fri 2009-10-02 21:36
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| Politics: Democratic Socialist |
Country: Ireland |
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Post Rating: 3.0/4 (2 votes cast) |
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As you might be aware, I've been examining the integration of technology into education, and like you, I feel it's lagging far behind its capabilities. However, I can offer a reasoning into why people might suggest that netbooks "don't have enough power"'; despite the massive increase of raw computational power that computers have acquired over the last thirty years, operating systems have not been able to take advantage of that power.
I began using computers in the era of 486s and early Pentiums; not the IBM 3033 or System/34 days that you were present for, but the gap in computational power, memory, hard drive space, et cetera, will do for the comparison. My first computer was a 25MHz 486 with 8MB of RAM and 80MB of hard drive space. It ran Windows 3.1 and MS-DOS 6.0, which took up a combined total of about 20MB of that hard drive. It didn't run particularly quickly, but some of the slowdown was due to my practice of running .WAV files through the PC speaker in lieu of a working sound card.
Now, let's move to the netbook, which I'll take as having an Intel Atom running at 1.6GHz, 1GB of RAM and 160GB of hard drive space (well, the OS recognises it as 137GB, because hard drives are sold in decimal gigabytes, and operating systems use binary gibibytes, but I digress). If Windows Vista were used on such a netbook, it would probably take up 20GB of hard drive space to begin with, before we got to swap files, Aero effects and whatnot, and with only 1GB of memory and the Atom processor, it would probably run as quickly as my old 486 did when it was running Windows 3.1. Not good.
As it stands, most netbooks run Windows XP Home. I don't see why they don't just use WinXP Professional; I successfully and smoothly ran it on a computer with less RAM than most netbooks have, and I still run it today - not a bad run for an operating system that's eight years old. I suppose it's the cheaper cost of licensing for the Home variant; when Windows 7 comes out, I won't be surprised to see Home Basic variants being used. This runs somewhat more quickly than using Windows Vista, but considering the massive increase in computing power, you'd expect more of an improvement. I'm considering this to be a case of the computer being hamstrung by the OS.
Anyway, I don't see a particularly useful future for the educational computer myself; there are plenty of possible uses for the netbook, such as the ready availability to carry a huge amount of media, including books, on a single lightweight device. Unfortunately, few publishers want to risk entering the world of e-books until they have to, especially the makers of university textbooks and other technical literature. Understandable, when they can make €60 a book and rake it in when every university science student or whatnot needs to buy a copy of some of these books.
Then, there's the always-present difficulty of following a book on a screen instead of in a hard copy form. Any person familiar with reading books on a computer screen or a portable device (and I'm certainly one of them - I've read whole books on a mobile phone with a 2.5" screen) knows that it isn't exactly the most pleasant way of intaking the literature. It often makes it more difficult to follow, and you have the trade-off between flexibility of motion and comfortable screen size. Even the lightest netbook couldn't be considered to be as handy as a paperback novel, and when you get down to the PDA-size devices, you can start saying "hello" to eyestrain.
Personally, I'd much rather carry a single device into university containing all of my textbooks and various pieces of literature, safe in the knowledge that I'd have space to carry thousands of extra books. Unfortunately, as a current university student studying a course with no direct connection to computing, I can tell you that my experience is that computers, as they stand, are mostly useless for educational purposes. Until somebody with the imagination to integrate education with computers in the correct manner, third-level students are just going to waste all of that potential on Facebook and YouTube. I should know - I've wasted two years on my life on devices which have not only failed to help me progress in my education, but have actually held me back because of my weak will and high tendency to procrastinate.
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"Rejection of technology ruins a good mind." - RAK
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carldiesturmer
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Posted: Sat 2009-10-03 00:19
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| Politics: Oligarchical Collectivist |
Country: United States |
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| MS Vista is the New Dinosaur |
Post Rating: 0.0/4 (0 votes cast) |
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I am with ya on this, basically the screen interface, without being touch-screen, it could be more page-like, so some form of tactile knob to offer feedback in portrait form as it is too easy slip off off-page. Touch-pad and mouse don't do it for me, so cursor keys on the screen edges just with one thumb.
I believe there is the swivel screen but that's off the netbook price range for the time being ohcrap.
PS: there are series of netbooks running a custom distro of Linux OSs at lower prices (Ubuntu * current edition 9.04**,*** is neat with very low power specs which I run as Live OS disc and flash-memory at a min. 2 Gigs), which could bring the extra functions within the netbook price range. Licensing is cheaper but the OS could be unsupported(?) by Asus, so there is MS CE XP yet again.
* to create a bootable disc or USB memory stick, download unetbootin plus the .ISO file.
Bang you have an OS on a portable USB memory stick, which can be replicated license-free into any PC/Netbook, neat shit. Have fun with those old PCs' low/old specs.
http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/
http://www.ubuntu.com/GetUbuntu/download
** comes packaged with Open Office's main utes plus Acrobat Reader, unlike Fedora O/S.
*** fine grain brightness control for those suffering eye fatigue
_________________
What is a Democratic Socialist?
It is a Communist who is cowardly
enough to call himself what he's not, for fear of backlash on the Semantics. It is about the "Speed" of the "Revolution".
Like Hitler said "get them persuaded and us elected"
Caveat Emptor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabian_Socialism
DO NOT USE BIG BROTHER'S LIBERTARIAN POLICIES AND BELIEFS AGAINST HIS HIMSELF AND HIS FORUM |
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psikeyhackr
Inner Party Member
Post #59523
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Posted: Fri 2009-12-04 17:33
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| Politics: Friggin Wacko! |
Country: United States |
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| Cybercation |
Post Rating: 0.0/4 (0 votes cast) |
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| Quote: |
Anyway, I don't see a particularly useful future for the educational computer myself; there are plenty of possible uses for the netbook, such as the ready availability to carry a huge amount of media, including books, on a single lightweight device. Unfortunately, few publishers want to risk entering the world of e-books until they have to, especially the makers of university textbooks and other technical literature. Understandable, when they can make €60 a book and rake it in when every university science student or whatnot needs to buy a copy of some of these books.
Then, there's the always-present difficulty of following a book on a screen instead of in a hard copy form. Any person familiar with reading books on a computer screen or a portable device (and I'm certainly one of them - I've read whole books on a mobile phone with a 2.5" screen) knows that it isn't exactly the most pleasant way of intaking the literature. It often makes it more difficult to follow, and you have the trade-off between flexibility of motion and comfortable screen size. Even the lightest netbook couldn't be considered to be as handy as a paperback novel, and when you get down to the PDA-size devices, you can start saying "hello" to eyestrain. |
The problem with e-readers is that they try to emulate books too much.
Reading, as in a novel (science fiction of course) and studying a text-book are two different things. I prefer my PMA400 to a paperback even though it is smaller than a paperback and can store thousands of books on its 30 gig hard drive. When you read you only actually see a few words at a time. I can control the font size and make the characters twice as tall as in a paperback so it is actually easier to read than a book. I don't doubt that some people will remain fixated on books. Since it is also an MP3 player I can listen to classical music while I read or I play audiobooks.
Larger tablets may be better for textbooks but they may not be carried around as much but how would that be bdtter than a netbook?
Since things like math and physics don't really change from year to year we just need a few public domain books of each type of those. Once they are distributed they can be used for decades. There is no doubt that textbook publishers are in trouble. The schools are not really about education they are about selling credentials. Harvard graduates that cannot explain what causes winter and summer are truly hilarious. The credentials are just about getting a job.
I was just calculating a few days ago what storage capacity might be sufficient for education. Suppose a person read 10 books per week and each book as 2 megabytes and this was done for 70 years. That is about 70 gigabytes. Netbooks commonly have 160 gigabyte hard drives though SSD machines may be smaller. And I am not saying that all 70 gig has to be on the machine all of the time.
If the computers are not adequate for education now then they never will be. It is only a matter of how we decide to use them and what software we put on them. But I am sure some people, probably a lot of people, don't want them used effectively for education. It would change the entire school system and educational paradigm.
Here is a free bookreader:
http://www.rudenko.com/ebook.html
Here is a book for it:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/24161/24161-h/24161-h.htm
How about astronomy:
http://www.shatters.net/celestia/
The operating systems are bloated and designed to help Macro$cam make money off people and Linux for ubergeeks to be cool with overcomplications. But it is all we have to choose from.
psik
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RAK
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Post #59538
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Posted: Thu 2009-12-10 20:42
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| Politics: Democratic Socialist |
Country: Ireland |
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| Re: Cybercation |
Post Rating: 0.0/4 (0 votes cast) |
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| psikeyhackr wrote: |
| Reading, as in a novel (science fiction of course) and studying a text-book are two different things. I prefer my PMA400 to a paperback even though it is smaller than a paperback and can store thousands of books on its 30 gig hard drive. When you read you only actually see a few words at a time. I can control the font size and make the characters twice as tall as in a paperback so it is actually easier to read than a book. I don't doubt that some people will remain fixated on books. Since it is also an MP3 player I can listen to classical music while I read or I play audiobooks. |
I tend to use my PDA for reading written material, myself. It only has capacity for 2GB SD cards (any more than that, and you need to download a commercial program), but it's enough for lecture notes. I suppose I could use it for reading books as well, either by using pure text files, or setting PDF files to reflow on the screen, but I've always found it more comfortable to read novels from a paperback.
A lot has been made of e-readers, and you're probably right to criticise them for trying too hard to resemble books. I think that my PDA works well for the lecture notes and whatnot because it's a pocketable device. In the same vein, a lot of people think that Apple's entrance into the e-book market will be through the iPhone and the iPod Touch, but seeing as these are almost purely single-tasking devices (amusing, considering the fact that they use a form of UNIX), they're not really appropriate for taking on some of the higher-end devices in either market, phone or media player. Either way, it will probably be multi-capable devices which take over in the market, likely modified smartphones or media players which will become the strongest players in the e-book market.
| psikeyhackr wrote: |
| I was just calculating a few days ago what storage capacity might be sufficient for education. Suppose a person read 10 books per week and each book as 2 megabytes and this was done for 70 years. That is about 70 gigabytes. Netbooks commonly have 160 gigabyte hard drives though SSD machines may be smaller. And I am not saying that all 70 gig has to be on the machine all of the time. |
It's not a lot, certainly. In fact, the statistic is certainly one of the more impressive parts of an argument for e-books. A portable hard drive can carry considerably more than 70 gigabytes, and still remain under the $200 mark. SSDs are dropping in price all the time, and will likely take over from hard drives in time. And, of course, netbooks have made the computer far more portable, with all of the power that the average user needs. The hardware is either there already, or forthcoming. It's all going to be about what software we use it with, and it would seem a waste to use it all on the casual internet surfing that most people would use their computers for.
| psikeyhackr wrote: |
| If the computers are not adequate for education now then they never will be. It is only a matter of how we decide to use them and what software we put on them. But I am sure some people, probably a lot of people, don't want them used effectively for education. It would change the entire school system and educational paradigm. |
Well said. In a way, despite my pessimism, I'm looking forward to it. The technology deserves to be used properly rather than wasted, but it will take people who know what they're doing to be able to properly exploit the power that they'll be calling upon.
_________________
"Rejection of technology ruins a good mind." - RAK
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INTERNET NEWS SERVICES
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psikeyhackr
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Post #59548
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Posted: Tue 2009-12-15 04:30
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| Politics: Friggin Wacko! |
Country: United States |
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Post Rating: 0.0/4 (0 votes cast) |
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| Quote: |
| I tend to use my PDA for reading written material, myself. It only has capacity for 2GB SD cards (any more than that, and you need to download a commercial program), but it's enough for lecture notes. |
I want to hear one of those 1.75 GIGABYTE lectures.
How many hours did you say it was? Only 3 weeks?
You don't talk fast enough. 
psik
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