OLDaily

The world’s slowest, most boring bus simulator finally has a VR version
Sam Machkovech, Ars Technica, 2017/12/05

Stuff like this is what makes the internet great. "After roughly 22 years, one of the worst video games of all time, Desert Bus, finally has a sequel. In very good news for anybody who hears "notorious game's sequel" and flinches, this new take, dubbed Desert Bus VR, is now completely free to own for PC gamers, whether they own a virtual reality headset or not... You drive forward for quite some time, with nothing in the way of turns or oncoming traffic to deal with. If you wanna add some "pizzazz" to the gameplay, you can reach with your hands for a latch that opens the bus's door, or you can drive long enough to see things like the sun go up, the sun go down, and the occasional bug colliding with your windshield." Yeah! And you can't just let it run on its own; it will go off the road. You have to sit there and drive the bus.

[Link] [Comment]

Is Private Education in Africa the Solution to Failing Education Aid?
Danish Faruqui, Sudeep Laad, Mary Abdo, Priyanka Thapar , Stanford Social Innovation Review, 2017/12/05

The answer the author provides is "yes". But the actual answer is, of course, "no". Let me explain how private education offers a "solution": it charges fees to prospective students. This means that it avoids the messy need to teach the really poor; it teaches those who can afford to pay. Read this article and tell me that this isn't what they're proposing! But this is no solution at all! For one thing, those who actually receive an education pay more than they would have otherwise. But worse, a large number of people receive no education at all, perpetuating the economic issues that have kept the country from progressing. Even worse, this article suggests that this is the approach charities should be taking. Let there be no mistake: societies progress as a whole, not by privileging an elite.

[Link] [Comment]

Citations and the fallacy of division
Cameron Neylon, Wonkhe, 2017/12/05

I've seen various promotion criteria worded "candidates will need 100 publications..." as though that were a measure of anything real (it also demanded a certain H-index as well). But there is no correlation between citations and academic merit. "Not only are the statistics flawed but no rigorous and comprehensive theoretical link can be made between what we are measuring and what we want to evaluate."

[Link] [Comment]

How to reach high achievement through listening skills
Jennifer Abrams, eSchool News, 2017/12/05

Listening is a type of literacy and one I didn't learn properly (if at all!) until adulthood. t was part of a self-study course I took at Texas Instruments in 1981 (the same one that taight the feel-want-willing style of communications, called "On the Way Up"). It promoted "active listening" where I would respond by testing my understanding by repeating back, in my own words, what I was hearing. This article discusses some of the "set asides" people use incorrectly, including autobiographical listening, dishing the dirt listening, and solution-oriented learning.

[Link] [Comment]