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Comment Fewer exams doesn't necessarily mean fewer finals. (Score 4, Insightful) 371

It's worth noting that it says "three-hour exams," and nothing else. There are other courses that could have other kinds of finals -- for example, engineering courses with comprehensive final projects or liberal arts courses with final papers/presentations and the like. In some ways, it makes more sense for students to work on a final project that utilizes the skills they're supposed to have learned in real-world situations -- especially for engineers.

Comment Re:Reboot is such a poor word (Score 3, Interesting) 275

The way I see it is that "reboot" and "restart" are pretty much synonymous, so outside of the computer context, people say that they're "rebooting" a show or series. The difference in that area, for me, is that "restarting" implies that there's some kind of continuity -- for example, the modern Doctor Who show builds off of the old one and shares continuity. A "reboot," on the other hand, is a ground-up revamping. It still probably annoys you though.

Comment Rail System Needs (Score 4, Insightful) 1139

My problem with trains in American isn't speed.

I'd rather have a train system that had a range of trains to different places at lots of different times, every day. But most importantly, I'd like to have a train system that actually follows the time table. Nobody wants to pay for public transportation when you have to arrive early, wait a long time, and then not leave on time... and probably not arrive at your destination on time.

Wait, we do that for airplanes. Nevermind. Go about your business.

Comment Re:As a self-taught programmer... (Score 1) 393

It seems to me like you're defining "the box" incorrectly... not knowing what things are called doesn't define "the box" -- to me, it just makes communication more difficult. You end up saying things like "the thing with the thing that does the thing and acts like this..." while someone else who knew the name would just say "oh, the X sort" and everyone else nods in agreement. Communication is more efficient when everyone has a common vocabulary. Imagine trying to talk programming in C with someone who didn't know what different variables were called and instead just said "oh, the thing that just holds one character, but we can make it an array for this..."

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