After struggling with the PowerPC assigned to me for more than a week, I decided to give up on it. And when I say give up, I'm saying that my humble laptop can perform way better than the Mac OS X in that PowerPC in all respects that I need my desktop for.
Basically, I failed miserably in trying to dual-boot Linux on the PowerPC. Linux was installed but there was no way to boot it. Something to do with the bootable hard disk and stuff like that. But that's okay, because it's not essential for my tasks.
However, I needed MatLab and NCView as well, and I went mad trying to get them working on the PowerPC. For the former, the version that was supported for PowerPC was not available on the ANU MatLab website, so I had to hunt down the CD from the IT guys. And it was an old version which I suspect may not be compatible with the toolboxes that I need. For the latter, it just refuses to compile for no apparent reason.
So for a week I clashed with the desktop, and it was pretty much a draw: I got some stuff working but not all that I need. And a couple of days back, I brought my laptop and installed all that I need within one hour.
What can I say? Ubuntu rocks!
16 July 2010
13 July 2010
Good Student, Bad Teacher
From BBC News,
Atkins, the chairman of Office for Standards in Education in UK, stressed that she is not telling schools not to eradicate bad teaching, but her point is that bad teachers may serve a purpose.
Actually, I do agree with her, in that a bad teacher can "teach" students something. For example, a crappy teacher may force students to learn on their own, to form study groups and assist each others, or even prompt students to take this issue up with the school and gain a lesson on activism. Lacking a concrete real life example, one can look at Harry Potter, who, in the fifth book, set up his own group for his peers to learn what their lousy teacher refused to impart.
Nonetheless, for bad teachers to "teach well", it will depend on the students themselves. If they are apathetic on their education, then bad teachers are bad. And it may also depend on the subject itself, because certain fields require much guidance.
So basically, bad teachers teaches students self-learning. And that's a quality one should have.
Zenna Atkins, stressing these were her personal views, earlier told the Sunday Times "every school should have a useless teacher".
Atkins, the chairman of Office for Standards in Education in UK, stressed that she is not telling schools not to eradicate bad teaching, but her point is that bad teachers may serve a purpose.
Actually, I do agree with her, in that a bad teacher can "teach" students something. For example, a crappy teacher may force students to learn on their own, to form study groups and assist each others, or even prompt students to take this issue up with the school and gain a lesson on activism. Lacking a concrete real life example, one can look at Harry Potter, who, in the fifth book, set up his own group for his peers to learn what their lousy teacher refused to impart.
Nonetheless, for bad teachers to "teach well", it will depend on the students themselves. If they are apathetic on their education, then bad teachers are bad. And it may also depend on the subject itself, because certain fields require much guidance.
So basically, bad teachers teaches students self-learning. And that's a quality one should have.
06 July 2010
Wrestling with PowerPC
There is some sort of Mac fever in the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics lab that I'm under. Pretty much all the desktops and laptops issued to staff and students are all Macs, and I've been assigned an old PowerPC system.
It doesn't matter much to me that it is old because I won't be performing high-power computing with the system. Nonetheless, the different shortcut keys and ways of handling files always irritates me whenever I used Mac, so I was determined to install Ubuntu on it (not to mention the increase in speed that will come with Linux).
But boy it was not easy. For some reason I could not get the Ubuntu CD to boot, only to discover today that PowerPCs require a different boot CD. And that's after I've burnt like two different CDs in my previous attempts. And my desk is out of CD-Rs. Moreover, there seem to be this tiny problem that the monitor cannot detect signals before Mac OS X boots. So when I try to bring up the boot selection screen, I cannot see a thing.
Hopefully, when I bring over a fresh CD-R tomorrow, I can get Ubuntu up and running without much problems...
It doesn't matter much to me that it is old because I won't be performing high-power computing with the system. Nonetheless, the different shortcut keys and ways of handling files always irritates me whenever I used Mac, so I was determined to install Ubuntu on it (not to mention the increase in speed that will come with Linux).
But boy it was not easy. For some reason I could not get the Ubuntu CD to boot, only to discover today that PowerPCs require a different boot CD. And that's after I've burnt like two different CDs in my previous attempts. And my desk is out of CD-Rs. Moreover, there seem to be this tiny problem that the monitor cannot detect signals before Mac OS X boots. So when I try to bring up the boot selection screen, I cannot see a thing.
Hopefully, when I bring over a fresh CD-R tomorrow, I can get Ubuntu up and running without much problems...
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