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Vintage threads from the first ten years

Warning: rant ahead

11/9/1999 6:26 PM
Mark Hammer	Warning: rant ahead "I don't think my kids would be able to do their school projects without the Internet - they've never cultivated the ability to use a library to any reasonable extent." One dad to another: there IS a cure. It's called a 1200 baud modem, and a third rate ISP. Seriously. If one wants to encourage reading, one needs to confine the usefulness of the net to text only. We use a 14.4 at home, and I adamantly refuse to get a faster one or a faster ISP (typical transfer rates are well below 2kbd). In fact, I think I'd like to downgrade to 2400, if I could find one. This doesn't prohibit irritatingly extensive use of the net by my 13 year old, but it DOES force some priorities to be set, and makes paper more of a convenience by comparison. I am no Luddite, though. While the net provides a tremendous resource for those who are already familiar with what exists in paper form, it is an appallingly poor place to start out, and there lies the critical distinction. I will note that the widespread availability of electronic resources that assist me as a professional has simultaneously tended to undermine the quality of papers I receive from students at the post-secondary level. My students think that because "it's on the net" that all information is equal; it's not (as people who tried in vain to build a Bosstone from the original posted schematic can attest!!). It's almost analogous to the recommendation to start learning guitar with an acoustic before one moves to distorted electric: the fuzz box may create the illusion of skill, but it only becomes skill in the hands of those who can use it to season what they already know how to do. Honestly, the only thing more disillusioning than seeing what kind of tripe aspiring managers will fall for, is seeing what kind of tripe aspiring educators (and school board officials) will fall for when it comes to the net. Hammer's law: The easier and cheaper it is to disseminate information, the less discriminating individuals will be about what they consider to BE informative. (To whit, grown men devoting untold amounts of time discussing fuzz boxes!!

11/9/1999 6:26 PM

Mark Hammer

Warning: rant ahead

"I don't think my kids would be able to do their school projects without the Internet - they've never cultivated the ability to use a library to any reasonable extent."

One dad to another: there IS a cure. It's called a 1200 baud modem, and a third rate ISP. Seriously. If one wants to encourage reading, one needs to confine the usefulness of the net to text only. We use a 14.4 at home, and I adamantly refuse to get a faster one or a faster ISP (typical transfer rates are well below 2kbd). In fact, I think I'd like to downgrade to 2400, if I could find one. This doesn't prohibit irritatingly extensive use of the net by my 13 year old, but it DOES force some priorities to be set, and makes paper more of a convenience by comparison.

I am no Luddite, though. While the net provides a tremendous resource for those who are already familiar with what exists in paper form, it is an appallingly poor place to *start out*, and there lies the critical distinction. I will note that the widespread availability of electronic resources that assist me as a professional has simultaneously tended to undermine the quality of papers I receive from students at the post-secondary level. My students think that because "it's on the net" that all information is equal; it's not (as people who tried in vain to build a Bosstone from the original posted schematic can attest!!). It's almost analogous to the recommendation to start learning guitar with an acoustic before one moves to distorted electric: the fuzz box may create the *illusion* of skill, but it only becomes skill in the hands of those who can use it to season what they already know how to do.

Honestly, the only thing more disillusioning than seeing what kind of tripe aspiring managers will fall for, is seeing what kind of tripe aspiring educators (and school board officials) will fall for when it comes to the net.

Hammer's law: The easier and cheaper it is to disseminate information, the less discriminating individuals will be about what they consider to BE informative. (To whit, grown men devoting untold amounts of time discussing fuzz boxes!! :-)

11/9/1999 7:29 PM
Jay Doyle	Well coming from the other side I have to say that there would be no way that I would be building effects if it weren't for the Internet. I have to agree with the availability of useless information on the web, most of which amounts to educational red herrings. I started working on computers back when the Apple II came out when I was 10 or so, and from then I never left my interest in computers behind. But until I started to read up about how to improve a TS5 that I was given, I thought that the web was great for wasting your time but not much else. I can honestly say that everything I have learned about effects came off of the Internet from all of you. So please do not discount the web for educational purposes, especially on this topic (DIY FX). For example, Aron, do you think you would have come up with the Shaka Bradda III (incredible pedal BTW) with snail mail and without the ease and speed of the Internet? If you say yes then you are a patient, patient man, more so than I am. And to address the trouble of children doing research on the internet and not in a library; I suggest asking your children's teachers to do what my teachers at Wake Forest University did; to not allow internet references. I imagine you could find an Internet reference to prove any point no matter how wrong. It's all in using a balance of resources and attempting to gain and utilize all useful information. Just my experience, Jay Doyle

11/9/1999 7:29 PM

Jay Doyle

Well coming from the other side I have to say that there would be no way that I would be building effects if it weren't for the Internet. I have to agree with the availability of useless information on the web, most of which amounts to educational red herrings. I started working on computers back when the Apple II came out when I was 10 or so, and from then I never left my interest in computers behind. But until I started to read up about how to improve a TS5 that I was given, I thought that the web was great for wasting your time but not much else. I can honestly say that everything I have learned about effects came off of the Internet from all of you. So please do not discount the web for educational purposes, especially on this topic (DIY FX). For example, Aron, do you think you would have come up with the Shaka Bradda III (incredible pedal BTW) with snail mail and without the ease and speed of the Internet? If you say yes then you are a patient, patient man, more so than I am.

And to address the trouble of children doing research on the internet and not in a library; I suggest asking your children's teachers to do what my teachers at Wake Forest University did; to not allow internet references. I imagine you could find an Internet reference to prove any point no matter how wrong.

It's all in using a balance of resources and attempting to gain and utilize all useful information.

Just my experience,

Jay Doyle

11/9/1999 9:11 PM

R.G.

quote:
"So please do not discount the web for educational purposes"

No, I'm not discounting it, just concerned that people who don't have a lot of experience or don't think through things too deeply will think that's all there is. It's not, not by a long shot. The instant gratfication of having a search engine turn up 50 articles on any subject is very seductive. And hooking kids on learning in any form is a very good practice.

However, the tendency is to believe that any tool that is easy to use is the only tool. That was my point - the web is a great .... well... net for finding ideas and a glossy, quick overview. However, nets by their nature are not deep - the good stuff, the complexity and details are usually buried. I worry that by making the gloss and surface finish too easy, we mislead people about what is lurking under the surface.

I really probably don't need to worry. The small fraction of people who want to dig deeper will, and the majority that won't will hold the positions they've always held.

11/10/1999 11:59 AM
GFR	In fact the Internet made it much easier for me to read, if I want. I can buy books that I would not be able to get otherwise, at lower prices than at local bookstores. I have to read in English (that is not my main language), but anyway I prefer it because most translations of technical stuff really suck.

11/10/1999 10:22 PM
fet	Bosstone I thought my electronic ineptitude spoiled the Bosstone I tried to build a year ago! Thanks, Mr. Hammer.

11/10/1999 10:27 PM
Mark Hammer	I was in the same boat, until I asked RG about it last year. He checked it over, blushed (Texas style), and informed me that the second transistor is PNP, not NPN.

11/10/1999 10:54 PM
R.G.	Yeah, blushed big time. That two-NPN schematic was sent to me as a netlist in about 93, never saw the device. The fellow who sent it apparently didn't notice that the second device was PNP. I unwittingly propagated the error to the then-email-only schematics club, and it went from there to Jamie's schematic archive, thence to DMZ and the circuits archive, and from then on there was no stopping it.

11/10/1999 10:54 PM

R.G.

Yeah, blushed big time.

That two-NPN schematic was sent to me as a netlist in about 93, never saw the device. The fellow who sent it apparently didn't notice that the second device was PNP.

I unwittingly propagated the error to the then-email-only schematics club, and it went from there to Jamie's schematic archive, thence to DMZ and the circuits archive, and from then on there was no stopping it.

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