January 14, 2008
mitch @ 9:03 am on January 14, 2008
wow… 14 days into the year and this is my first post… starting the year out like i treated all last year… Anyway… lots going on currently… I have school and I’m contemplating weather I’m going to transfer to a new school now or wait until after I graduate with my Associates…
I’m also thinking about a new car again… and I’m back and forth (as you can probably see from previous posts) over which car I want… The only things that have remained true are that I’m favouring cars with all wheel drive and a turbo is always cool… So.. this leads me to what I’m currently thinking… I’m thinking I can currently afford a Subaru Impreza WRX STi. So… we’ll see.. probably won’t get any prior notification about me buying it, as it’ll probably be like when I bought my bike… however… me buying an STi… will probably also result in me selling the bike 
as much as I love it… I find I just don’t have the kind of time to ride it like I did when I was single… Also with my work schedule I hate sitting in traffic on it… it just seems like a waste to have it cooped up in traffic.
Also… probably going to happen before the STi, is getting some yard work done on the new house… including fixing my flooding basement problems… and getting the backyard with grass and such. So work can begin on the basement and upstairs… fun stuff…
Cars· Life· School — No Comments
August 30, 2007
mitch @ 6:36 pm on August 30, 2007
Ya know, I’m glad I’ve got the current class I do… I would have never known the exciting world of tech support that all of IT revolves around it would seem. How I ever was unfortunate enough to miss this exciting field of study I will never know, but at least now I get to hear about all the good and bad times to be had doing Tech Support….
shoot me… now…
I should really fix my categories… and add a sarcasm tag…
School — No Comments
August 28, 2007
mitch @ 5:56 pm on August 28, 2007
I don’t know why I still let this bother me… but I’m sitting here in my Network+ class… and the teacher… man… he has some really random thoughts, and I don’t see the purpose of them. I don’t find them useful in any real world situation. I guess I would much rather “talk” to the students and listen to them and really get them thinking in terms of Network and System management. Being that I have a bit of experience in the field, and I run into people that “believe” they know what they’re talking about but are most definitely missing the point. I believe they could learn a lot from having to come up with policies/procedures, and designs and then be corrected on them, or having to defend why they would design it one way over another. Granted this type of instruction can’t really be followed out of a book. But so much of IT can’t be either. We should be buying books that are reference manuals of the specific technology being discussed, with projects to discuss how the technology works, then either just discuss implementation of said tech, and products relating to it or have each student create their own implementation plans, along with costs and such, and preset that. With the students commenting on each. Those would be the type of classes I would like… maybe I’m alone in that…?
School — No Comments
July 17, 2007
mitch @ 6:26 pm on July 17, 2007
I’ve had problems with school since I started college. I’ve been through a couple different private colleges since graduating from college. My biggest frustration with them is the teachers are barely qualified to teach the subject. Some will even strut around pronouncing their own bias’ like they’re fact. Even after I’ve demonstrated that I know much more about the subject at hand than they think they do.
So, heres my question… is it wrong of me to interrupt? I don’t do it all the time, even tho I typically disagree completely with alot of what they say. I just don’t want to be the “ass” in the room and constantly correct the instructor, even tho they are BS’ing their way through the lesson. Why, oh why do I have to be so opinionated and right all the time? 
School — No Comments
April 12, 2007
mitch @ 1:55 pm on April 12, 2007
I’ve been in and out of smaller tech like schools since graduating from High School back in 2000. The reason for my preference towards them is that I’m not interested in a lot of BS. Why is it that employers only want people with degree’s? I can understand that some fields of study definitely require formal education and I wouldn’t want a Doctor or Surgeon with only a year or two under their belt studying basic anatomy. I don’t buy that jobs are more technical now than they were 30 years ago. Yes they use more technology now, but technology is usually adopted as the populace adjusts and becomes comfortable with it. I’m not against Education in general, in fact I love learning new things, and wish I could just take classes on various topics all the time. However, I fear the reason is a result of how the Baby Boomers view todays next generation(which I am apart of).
Doing any type of comparing our school systems to that of any other country’s, I don’t believe is really sinking in. I would like to argue that the biggest reason for needing even more education after High School is because of the lack of actual learning happening before and during High School. From my understanding, the problems with the public school system is more a result of society, and the lack of importance put on education. This results in a huge lack of caring for the children going through school. Making the teachers in public education, have to balance between being a baby sitter and education at the same time. My experiences through High School were…. uneventful. I dreaded every day, as I knew that most of the work being given to me, was not really for educating me about a subject, but merely a pacifier. Some of the subjects I was really interested in, but it always bothered me how fast the teachers moved through the chapters. My disdain was compounded by the constant battery of tests and quizzes that distracted me from actually learning the subject, and forced a mindset of just remembering the information long enough to take them. One of my favorite classes, and one I actually remember, was my 8th grade History class. With a teacher that actually made history come alive. His teaching style usually involved him telling stories about the American Revolution and other American History like they happened to a friend of his, or like it was his own story. It made what was written in the book much more interesting, and easier to remember.
What would have made school more likely to mean more, would be real world examples and experience. Apprenticeships come to mind. What ever happened to those? An apprenticeship with a PC builder, or small business, or even lost of guest speakers and tours of larger businesses with information on how their IT infrastructure is done. And after those trips, discussing in class making sure everyone understood the technologies in use by the places that were visited. Those first 12 years of school and especially High School is supposed to help prepare people for LIFE not push them to need more Education for life and career. Its supposed to be the introduction for the basics of life, how to earn money, balance a checkbook (tho, checkbooks should be obsolete in a few years), paying taxes, etc… Explaining the theory of relativity and pondering the purposes for life are not something fit for someone in High School(as it goes well beyond their world view at that time). I would even make the argument that anything past algebra 1 need not be required in high schools… still offer the more advanced courses, but not require them. And by all means, as part of the generals for colleges across the country, start with algebra 1 or 2. I think that exposing teenagers to this broad range of information as a way of making them well grounded try to help them figure out what life is about is the wrong way to approach the situation. Help them understand life, by bringing them into it and making them apart of it.
As a summary, what I’m trying to relay is that today, graduating from High School means little more than being a checkpoint before moving on to college. As such, there is little motivation to learn anything while in High School. Which is only adding to the baby sitter appearance. These are just my observations however, since I have not done much research to backup my points. But I do believe that kids would do better if High School was more focused on life rather than theory and arithmetic. That should be left to the colleges, where the subjects could be given a more just and in-depth look.
School — No Comments
March 7, 2007
mitch @ 5:15 pm on March 7, 2007
Wtf!?! Why is it that people think that only web traffic is needed? If they want to stop certain activities in various places, like keeping people from using IM and other various programs in the computer lab thats typically used for teaching “typing”, I can understand that. But I’m currently sitting in the computer lab, used for the computer science classes only. And still, EVERYTHING but http/https is block, and on top of that, there is some content filtering going on and I can’t get to my Gmail account. Google pulls up fine tho… hmmm. Believe me when I say I understand why its being done, but at the same time… I’m also now inspired to circumvent it… and I’m even tempted to figure out how its being filtered and really tax the damn thing and make it crash. I hate being blocked/filtered, and I only gives me motivation to get around it and cause havac… I also suspect I’m not the only one.
-UPDATE- They are also blocking ALL HTTPS!!!! so they could be watching me post this right now!!!! eat it!
School — No Comments
October 18, 2006
mitch @ 4:01 pm on October 18, 2006
I’m refering to a post about a school thats banning the game of “tag” and other contact games children might like to play during recess the story is linked up on slashdot. I mean really… what is this world comming to? Well, not really the world, but the US… and from what I’ve heard… England. We both seem to be responding to this notion that these things are bad for children. I, however, believe that this will screw them up even more, and be bad for the economy as a whole. “Playing it safe” is not a mantra that should be followed in all circumstances. This stifles creativity, individuality, and ingenuity. In order to advance as an individual, and as a society, you need people that are free thinkers, you need people that will “think outside the box”, they need to challenge the system. How are they supposed to do this when adults have pre-thought their paths for them every step they make? I understand that they are only trying to protect them from getting hurt, but that is all part of life. There is pain in life, and if you protect them from making the little mistakes here and there preventing them from having to deal with minor consequences of those mistakes, what happens when the big ones come along? Or it then becomes their responcibility to govern others? (such as they themselves becoming parents)
Anything that stops or tries to prevent these problems, inhibits free thinking which will become a very bad thing. Staying aware and growing with the world around you is the only thing that will keep us alive. We need to change and adapt to the changing world around us, or become extinct. It is the way the world is, and the way it always has been.
Questioning, and challenging the world around me, the “norms” so to speak. Growing and changing as I learn more about the world around me, not immediately trusting anything until I’ve looked into it enough to make a decision about it. I don’t know of any other way to really live to be honest. Doing anything less makes you a lemming, with no right to complain and no right to offer guidance, and not much of a life in the first place.
Life· News· School· Thoughts — No Comments
February 17, 2006
mitch @ 11:14 am on February 17, 2006
Why do I have to subject myself to this torture called school? I totally get the idea of school, but is it me, or is it possible that the decline in the public school system isn’t entirely their fault? I guess you could argue that if they took a page out of India’s schooling systems book and quit babying people, and making students keep up, or get transfered to a “lower” school system. I don’t know what the answer is for the school system, as I’m sure if I say anything I’ll overlook some circumstance thus being unfair to a few. Also knowing my position on my High School experience, I don’t know how or if my proposals would negatively affect me or if it would have been the insparation I needed to care about school. I didn’t do badly in school, just wasn’t ever trying to be an “over achiever”. I was perfectly happy with B’s and C’s in my classes. I hated busy work, and alot of times, I completly refused to do it.
However, I’m talking college here. I don’t believe they should be bending over to help people get through their courses… If they fail, they fail. Having courses that are designed to help the slower kids get up to speed, or having tutors, individual study courses, ect. Or going to the opposite, having Advanced courses for those that can be taken IN PLACE of the normal course, or even doing the self study courses that help the students that know the basics to really challenge themselves and learn. Of coarse I think a student that does these advanced courses should be able to get something on their degree that says they did take this advanced course as something to show to employers above the regular “degree”. But then that also brings into question… is a degree really worth anything? Is it just becoming “normal” and we are now starting to require more than a degree because the education system is really failing… its a vicious cycle. You don’t want to completly write people off, but is it right to punish the other 25%?
I don’t believe its right to punish either side… but something needs to be done about it.
School· Thoughts — No Comments
December 1, 2005
mitch @ 10:56 pm on December 1, 2005
Been a long time since I last posted… not sure why really, just haven’t felt like writing lately. I’ve worked out a deal with school and redid some of the payment options, so I’ll be getting back underway with school starting monday. However, one of my classes is all about Windows. Lately my Windows install on my laptop has been driving me nuts. I don’t understand anymore why people like that operating system… Why people willingly put up with the crap that happens with it… you install a couple apps and they’ll over run your machine making it crap slow… whats wrong with that picture? I don’t understand… why would you subject yourself to it? I guess not knowing that it doesn’t have to be that way is one thing, but please for the love, when will it die! Joking, joking… partly atleast Windows has its place, its not on my desktop however. I won’t willingly subject myself to that much torture. I do understand why others use it, for the apps mostly, familiarity and hardware support tied for second. The day will come (hopefully soon, but I won’t hold my breath) that Windows won’t be the only common thing on the desktop anymore, the market is big enough from multiple players. When that day comes we’ll see real innovation, after all, what innovation really needs is healthy competition. I guess the question that remains is, Will Windows and Microsoft know how to play a game with the turf being equal? If you’ve been paying attention to the MS vs ODF ordeal, it seems they’re pulling out every last stop they can come up with to prevent the turf from being equal for *all* sides. Their latest is an attempt to “open” their new Office XML format, thats turning out to be not so “open”. They must think people are dumb. The “open” format they’re trying to push, still prevents people from writing GPL’d apps that support the format…. Now how open can an “open” format be that still has restrictions? Silly Microsoft, tricks are for kids.
Legal· Microsoft· Open Source· School — No Comments
October 24, 2005
mitch @ 10:32 am on October 24, 2005
My little brother who’s blog is availible at http://shawn.metauser.net, told me that he’s unable to access my blog(at school), and his because of it. Says its blocked because its labeled as a “Forum/Discussion Board” web site. Which it is I suppose, blogs kind of stemmed from this. I’m not so much upset at the label their web filtering software has given my site. I’m more upset at the fact that they’re blocking those types of sites period. This is an education institution, their *job* is to teach kids how to learn. Learning is a two way street, in that for kids to learn they need to interact, and blocking web sites that inspire this interaction inhibits the learning of the student. In all honesty, I wouldn’t be where I am today without this interaction. Admitidly, I’m not very social in person(the reasons for that I’ll leave for another day), online however, I’m constantly reading through posts of personal opinions, learning from posts of others experiences in whatever subject has my interests at the moment. I also used to frequent IRC channels, and currently read through hundreds of emails a week from various mailing lists, replying when I have something to contribute. These things are what makes the internet community work, they’re the meaning of making the world flat again. Allowing people to communicate with anyone, anywhere in the world, without ever leaving the classroom. Socializing and new ways of thinking, expanding the minds and possibilities for anyone that learns how useful these mediums of communication can be. Why are educators compeled to remove these possibilities from students? Because they need to be protected from porn? Heres a thought: Teach them of the Internets possibilities and show it to them. I must admit that I don’t think its the kids that have trouble realizing this. Its the educators. Living in such a conservative state most adults here seem to fear change, fear things they don’t understand. Resulting in blocking everything out of their lives that *might* harm them. However, kids arn’t this fearful, and because these *adults* refuse to learn anymore about this technology than they absolutely have to, because its set in their minds that its evil and their kids shouldn’t be on it at all. Kids therefore are becomming the teachers, they’re learning more about this technology than the adults because they are open to it. Kids are then able to get around any kind of counter-measures an adult would put in place to protect their kids from some of the evil things of this world.
Kids, to some degree, early in their development need to be protected and taught right and wrong through the values of the parents. Only as they mature should they be exposed to more and more of the world around them(this will happen with or without the guidance of the parent, so a note to parents, follow along this path *with* your *student*). However, when the students understanding of this technology exceeds that of the teacher, when the proper grounding hasn’t yet been finnished, who then is the student going to learn from? Do you, the teacher, understand that making a stand and sticking your head in the sand is not going to stop the student’s curiosity? Life is about learning and growing, if you ever stop this process, or try to stop someone elses, you *will* loose.
Life· School· Thoughts — No Comments
