avsbst's comments

Seems like he's claiming it's fact -- https://twitter.com/johnsifton/status/345864867946827777

Do you have any proof it's fictional writing?

It is tragic that certain individuals lives are effectively destroyed by losing a genetic lottery, but in the end genetic diversity allows a species as a whole to adapt and deal with unexpected changes in their environment. Even for mutations like FOP there's the possibility that it could benefit humans in the long run.

Perhaps a slightly altered form of expression would allow for faster bone regeneration or a reduced chance of osteoporosis. The most relevant example I can think of is Sickle Cell Anemia. Having homozygosity for the mutation causing SCA leads to a multitude of complications and higher risk of death, but heterozygous humans have a significant increase in resistance to Malaria. Mutations are a blessing to some members of a species and a curse to others, but without them life as we know it would never have existed.

The title fits in nicely with the other slogans:

WAR IS PEACE

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

DRM IS OPEN

Stanford's enrollment was over 700 for fall quarter. Over 1500 students took the course during the entire year. A typical class has around 1650-1800 students for perspective.

http://www.stanforddaily.com/2012/10/04/cs106a-enrollment-re...

The main reason IE doesn't adopt webkit is that IE's current purpose is to provide stability and backwards compatibility to enterprise customers. A large portion of corporations have custom built webapps to provide basic services like HR, Payroll, etc. and they rely on IE to provide consistent behavior for these services.

Should they update their apps? Probably, but it costs money to build systems like that and most corporations don't want to drop money on something that already works perfectly fine.

Adopting webkit would completely disrupt all of these services, and Microsoft would basically destroy its customer base/relations.

Alternatively, Chrome is about pushing the boundaries of what's possible on the web. It's great for new companies, startups, and small developers, but as they move fast and implement new standards / functionality they also break stuff, and unlike Microsoft it doesn't really matter to the webkit dev team if a certain medium size corporation's old payroll app no longer works because of the latest chrome update.

Different browsers serve different purposes, and IE's is to provide stability. Hence they don't adopt webkit.

(I was an intern with IE this past summer and I asked the very same question minus the last part to my manager, and this was his response)

Yes it is, and you're absolutely right. Nobody is an expert straight out of school. But school lays the foundation for future learning, and if you look at the reviews posted, almost all the posts talk about how easy the class was. It didn't challenge the students. It didn't push them. It didn't teach them. If the foundation isn't solid, then how can you build anything on it?

I agree, with time the amount of content could drastically increase and Udacity could become a more interactive, education oriented version of Wikipedia. Which would be amazing. Imagine tutorials for everything you could ever dream of!

But I also think it lacks mechanisms comparable to those found in higher education when it comes to fostering students problem solving and critical thinking skills.

One of the biggest challenges when it comes to teaching is figuring out how to help a student solve a problem without giving them the answer outright. Having been a TA at Stanford for two years now, I can say that I have never helped two students work through the same problem in the exact same way.

I fear that with Udacity, users will often reach points where they are stuck, even after hours of trying, and instead of being taught, they will receive the answer.

I can see it already happening in the forums and wikis there. Students can't solve a problem, and they get a solution posted for them. The value of in person education comes from having someone poke you and prod you just enough so that you figure out the problem, but not so much that you can't honestly say the answer wasn't given to you.

If Udacity can figure out how to do that, then I believe that it would rival any higher education system.

Your analogy for the current argument is weak at best. A better one would be that:

I saw the first flight and then Wilbur and Orville went to my local railroad magnate and somehow convinced him to destroy half his trains and use their primitive plane for mass transport instead when I had already paid the train magnate most of my savings for a four year contract to haul my goods to a distant city. I'm already upset but I give the two people the benefit of the doubt and send my goods on their plane anyway because there's no alternative. It promptly crashes and burns and I lose all my money.

Are you arguing that Udacity in its current state will make you a world class computer scientist? Because that's what /I/ am arguing against. It is not currently anywhere near a replacement for the current higher education at Stanford. Look at the reviews above for evidence of this.

Edit: Sarcastic response to above commenter's statement about my imagination removed. Downvotes duly noted.

"Udacity won't turn you into a world class computer scientist, but it is a wonderful way to learn and improve."

Exactly, Udacity is essentially a more interactive version of w3schools and other tutorial websites. With a more expansive collection of areas of study.

The problem stems from this statement, the crux of this post: "Is Sebastian Thrun's Udacity the future of higher education?"

That's where the negativity comes in. As you said, Udacity won't make you a world class computer scientists, but that's what universities like Stanford, MIT, UW, Michigan, Caltech, CMU and other top CS schools are /supposed/ to do.

If you want to learn what AI is generally about, Udacity can help. But if you want to build a career out it, and become and actual expert, these sites fall flat on their faces. By embracing Udacity and Coursera as tools of higher education, Stanford and universities that follow suit are damaging the quality of the education they provide.

No.

The class Sebastian Thrun taught on AI, was a class devoid of all the qualities that made CS 221 one of the (formerly) greatest classes in not only the CS department, but all of Stanford. His AI class was dumbed down and slapped with a Stanford logo to make people think that they were performing at the same academic level as top notch university students when in fact he had simply lowered the level of achievement so that anyone could take the class. AI is hard. Machine learning is hard. Computer science is hard. Not everyone can do it, and no online course will change that fact.

Why can I say this? These are class reviews of CS 221 from Courserank before and after Sebastian Thrun made it his flagship for online teaching.

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BEFORE:

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Note: When taught by Andrew Ng the class received no ratings less than 4/5 stars

"4/5 Stars

Autumn 2006-2007

Andrew Ng

A+

0 of 0 people found this review helpful

Covers a broad spectrum of topics in AI. If you are interested in AI, but you aren't sure what area in AI you might want to take classes in or you don't know much about AI, this is a good class to take. After CS 221, you can go on to CS 229 (machine learning), CS 223B (computer vision), CS 224N (natural language processing), etc. This class is a lot of work, and most of it is valuable although not all of the programming assignments were that well designed when I took it."

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"5/5 Stars

Winter 2008-2009

Andrew Ng

A-

0 of 0 people found this review helpful

Good class. Andrew isn't the most exciting lecturer, but you'll learn a lot of different AI techniques, and the programming assignments are interesting. The problem sets and midterm are heavily algebra/proof-based, so be prepared. Work through the section problems and you should be fine with that.

Since all psets, assignments, and the final project can all be done with a team, make sure you have at least 2 other people you know you can work with, or else you'll get dragged down."

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"5/5 Stars

Winter 2008-2009

Andrew Ng

CR

0 of 0 people found this review helpful

I really enjoyed this class. Very interesting topics, long and involved problem sets, and not-so-difficult programming assignments. Except, of course, for the final project. GET A GROUP ... I had to drop down to CR/NC because my partners dropped the class, and so I spent most of dead and finals weeks working on this stupid robot dog.

That being said, I loved the class."

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"5/5 Stars

Autumn 2009-2010

Andrew Ng

A-

0 of 0 people found this review helpful

Terrific class with great lecture material and interesting videos. I think the Audi parallel parking itself by driving backwards at 40mph, braking, and sliding into the parking spot was what kept me going.

The problem sets make sure you really understand the material, and the programming assignments are a great way to learn Matlab. The project is HARD and time comsuming, so make sure you have time in your schedule near the end of the quarter!"

============================================================

AFTER:

============================================================

Note: Under Sebastian Thrun the class has received no rating higher than 3/5 stars, even more telling, look at the comments for Autumn 2011/12 when the online system that Udacity is based off of was rolled out for Stanford students.

"3/5 Stars

Winter 2010-2011

Sebastian B Thrun

A-

5 of 5 people found this review helpful

With Thrun class had a very different feel than it would have Ng. It skimped on the math/theory and focused on intuition and practice. I liked it less, but for people who are less interested in the math, it was an improvement."

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"3/5 Stars

Winter 2010-2011

Sebastian B Thrun

A-

5 of 5 people found this review helpful

If you can take this class with Andrew Ng I would recommend it. The version I took was pretty poorly taught. The lectures lacked both detail and clear explanations of the concepts. I feel like I came out of this class without having learned much of anything."

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"1/5 Stars

Autumn 2011-2012

Sebastian B Thrun

B

7 of 7 people found this review helpful

Hands down the worst class I have taken at Stanford. Terribly taught, unresponsive and incompetent TAs, mixed up deadlines. Avoid at all costs."

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"User had not rated this course at the time of reviewing

5 of 5 people found this review helpful

god awful. learned absolutely nothing."

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"User had not rated this course at the time of reviewing

7 of 7 people found this review helpful

As the quarter wore on it became painfully clear that the focus on students was minimal for this class. Lectures aligned poorly with homework material, coding assignments were rarely well designed, and grading procedures were at best illogical and at worst completely incomprehensible."

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"2/5 Stars

Autumn 2011-2012

Sebastian B Thrun

A-

4 of 4 people found this review helpful

This class was a waste of time. Seriously. The only beneficial part to me was the final project. Everything else was so frustratingly simplified and easy that I wanted to slap myself for taking this class.

Here's an actual problem from the midterm that demonstrates our professor's opinion of Stanford students:

For a coin X, we know P(heads) = 0.3 What is P(tails)?

And whenever there was anything REMOTELY difficult, the teachers would, without fail, give a hint...

Just skip to 229. It may be tougher, but this class is not worth it anymore."

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"User had not rated this course at the time of reviewing

6 of 6 people found this review helpful

Hands down the worst class I have ever taken in my life. This was a joke of a class, far too easy so the curve was mind boggling (the average on the midterm was around 97% because they gave the same test to us as they did to the online class).

Essentially, this class catered to its free online constituency that doesn't pay for tuition. Seriously, I am completely ashamed of this class, and it has no place in one of the best AI universities int he world. Only take it if u need it, otherwise go straight to 229 or something else much better."

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"User had not rated this course at the time of reviewing

4 of 4 people found this review helpful

This course is useless and you should probably take it only if you have to.

The class should be the Stanford class given to anyone for free, but it has became the class for anyone given at Stanford (where we have to pay for it).

The homeworks were really easy, the only difficulty was to understand what was expected with poor indications. The real lectures sometimes conflicted with the online videos, and in this case the teachers considered the online video as the reference. This means that going to the class every morning instead of looking at free online video gives you a disadvange in this class. (confirmed by the TAs and posted on the class forums).

In one sentence : if possible take the online free class instead of paying for it. It will even be better."

RELATED:

Jeff Atwood’s blog post “Please Don’t Learn to Code” (http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2012/05/please-dont-learn-t...).

Kurt Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron” from Welcome to the Monkey House

Edit: Fixed whitespace

TL;DR: Learn AI Hard. Thrun make class dumb. Now anybody learn AI.