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The fact is, and that I keep on bringing up in these discussions, is that most education is quite useless and a waste of time for most people. For example, most medical doctors are required to take "science" courses like biochemistry even though they don't plan on becoming biochemists. It's quite useless, but to those people who have passed the course they often rationalize its importance (sometimes with lame reasons like it helps push their competition outside of the bell curve).
FWIW, as someone in the middle of a medical education, I can tell you that while the vast majority of the stuff in basic science courses isn't particularly applicable, some of the basics are indeed very important. My chemistry and biology courses (to include biochem) allow me to understand why medications that are quaternary amines such as Pyridostigmine don't usually cross the blood-brain barrier, why certain medications exhibit different efficacy in various parts of the body due to pH differences, and why G protein-coupled receptors are both slower and diverse in their actions than ionotropic receptors. Our curriculum is based on the assumption that we already have a fundamental understanding of physics, biology, and chemistry, and thus can understand the principles underlying physiological and pharmacological actions. To put it another way, undergrad put a lot of stuff in my mental toolbox that I'll likely never need, but thus far I've always had the tool for the job given to me in my training. cheers.
What do the Slashdotters think? What would you tell your offspring (*shudder*) about online cheats? Was this solution merited on a technical level, or just revengeful overkill?""It seems that many of the players on Battlenet install hacks, patches or cracks that enable them to cheat (spy on other players, see things they shouldn't, etc.) My son and his buddies were tired of losing to these cheaters, so he decided that he would just become one himself (that is a whole other character issue we have dealt with.)In his pursuit of a crack, he was apparently presented with one of those "You've got spyware installed! Download this program to fix it!" popup ads. I guess he knew he was treading on dangerous ground and thought that perhaps he had messed up and should try to fix it, when in fact there wasn't really anything wrong at all. He ended up installing Anti-Verminiser, one of the most notorious lieware programs out there. . . . The result was I told my son that he was going to lose everything he had on the computer, all his maps, saved games, videos he had made, and more. Like we say at the office when someone brings in an infected computer, it was time to "format C:". And that is exactly what happened. He lost it all."
On-line, adj.: The idea that a human being should always be accessible to a computer.