Wednesday, August 24, 2011

The world according to the Class of 2015

Our son Jim is just starting college, so my wife and I listened with interest this morning to a radio story about how college freshmen view the world.

College freshmen, we learned, think "LBJ" is this guy --

-- not this guy

We learned that college freshmen would have never heard of a Commodore 64 and have never known a world without the Internet. We learned that Ferris Bueller is old enough to be a freshman's father.

I'd heard lists like this before, but I'd never paid much attention to where the annual list came from.

Then my son Joe sent me a link to the AP story about the list -- and it turns out the list comes from Beloit College, the very place where Jim is starting his college career. It's an increasingly small world.

Here's the link to the Beloit College Mindset List for the Class of 2015 -- and a few of the highlights:
  • The only significant labor disputes in their lifetimes have been in major league sports.
  • Music has always been available via free downloads.
  • Arnold Palmer has always been a drink.
  • Amazon has never been just a river in South America.

Thursday, August 11, 2011

I don't understand half of this -- but I'm pretty sure I agree with it anyway

From the webcomic xkcd, by Randall Munroe. (The link will take you to Mr. Munroe's site, where you can view the comment embedded in the original cartoon.)

Arguably related: Passwords obsolete? It's about time