ccc @ccc@qoto.org

@herag Thing is, though - even with the flaws of the current system - it *does* give children a base of knowledge that they can build on. The current system is a lot better than just leaving the next generation to figuring everything out from scratch by themselves.

So - the way I see it - the current system should *not* be removed, *until* such time as a superior alternative can be found. If a superior alternative cannot be found, then the current system should be continued while we search for one.

@freemo Oh, if it's a *closed* room, that's different. Sorry, I somehow thought we were discussing rooms in a general sense; the average room needs ventilation, and is therefore not completely closed.

@allison That's fair. Neither would I.

@allison Ah, and presumably not *all* of that software is particular games.

Well, then good luck with that, I guess.

@allison ...why would anyone *want* to?

@freemo Air motion generates heat, yeah. But point a desk fan at an open window, and that heat isn't going to warm up the room it's in.

@freemo I'd go even further. A lot of the energy sent into the computer is emitted as motions of the air, propelled into motion be the internal fan. While this is intended to spread the heat out a bit, it does not in itself degenerate to heat *inside* the room - rather, it increases motion (and thus temperature exchange) between the inside and outside of the room. This, that portion of the power might actually *cool* the room.

@freemo Oh, it's definitely something to take on a case-by-case basis. Optimisation is something you want to do before putting your project into actual production; and yes, you *do* want to ensure that your program passes all the tests *after* optimisation.

And yes, in some cases, the program might not even *run* unoptimised. Then you might *need* to optimise early, just in order to get anything done at all.

"Optimise late" is not, in any way, intended as a hard and fast rule. Rather, it's suggested as a useful bias - in many but not all situations. And if you can identify whether or not it's a good idea in any particular situation... then you already know enough to know when to ignore that suggested bias.

@lradcliff @acustico

I stumbled across that post, without context, in my Federated feed.

@freemo Some of the electrical energy going into a computer is emittedd as light from the screen, though. This cuts into the electricity->heat conversion efficiency.

@herag One Laptop Per Child did once introduce a whole pile of tablets to a small village in Ethiopia where literacy was virtually unknown; you can see their results over here: http://blog.laptop.org/tag/ethiopia/

So educational tablets are very much a possible thing. Other options to traditional schooling include many varieties of homeschooling; though the big problem with homeschooling is that it can fail very dramatically if the parents aren't good educators. (Yes, it *can* work well in some cases; but it's hardly a one-size-fits-all solution).

So. What would you propose as an alternative method of education?

@acustico

...no mask? Huh. That doesn't sound like a good idea in the midst of a pandemic.

I guess you have to have your reasons, though; mind if I ask what those reasons are, just out of curiousity?

@thj@mstdn.io Then you will find out that people certainly care about your taxes. But do they care about *you*?

@thorhj@mastodon.cloud Going to be a while before we get the technology to do that.

@herag I think that we can say, with some certainty, that *education* is a necessity; and the only point of debate, really, is how this education should be administered and delivered.

@freemo Optimisation must, however, be done at the correct time.

And the correct time for optimisation is (usually) *after* you've done everything else you need to do with that program; because a lot of optimisations make it very tricky to *change* things later.

@freemo Your computer is going to be a terribly inefficient heater, though. You should get more heat with the same power with hardware that's actually designed for heating, instead of hardware that has heating as a mere unwelcome side-effect.

@lottev

A million years ago was well before the establishment of proper networking protocols. What were you running this forum on, NetBEUI?

@Catsandcats I read that as 'defenestrate' at first. Which made it sound like she was very deliberately climbing out of the window away from you.

@ElfLord The difference is that with a phone, he can virtually knock on your virtual door without having to to the trouble of actually getting up and walking there.

It's amazing what people will do if it doesn't trouble them to do so.