[lohi]

"I'm not sure holding back the progress of an entire society just to not disadvantage a subset of it is as reasonable as you seem to think."

I think that's a hard argument to make when Encarta 95 was more advanced than this. I'm all for making information public, but a video of the presentation that's not searchable, can't skip from slide to slide, doesn't show the presenter, doesn't have an index, can't click on links etc. isn't exactly the future. And with all the information available these days the standard should really be higher.

[naasking]

> I'm all for making information public, but a video of the presentation that's not searchable, can't skip from slide to slide, doesn't show the presenter, doesn't have an index, can't click on links etc. isn't exactly the future.

Are you so sure that the learning style you seem to prefer is really ideal for all people? Because you sound really sure, but I'm not sure how that could be.

[lohi]

I have no idea what you are talking about. Exposing the data, that is already there, is what gives people the choice how to learn. If you just have a blob of video there's no practical way to e.g. search for something.

[naasking]

You can't search lectures you attend in person either, yet that format has endured for quite some time. This video format provides a certain kind of structure that may be suited to some, but not to others. For those others there are alternatives.

[lohi]

"You can't search lectures you attend in person either, yet that format has endured for quite some time."

There weren't really an alternative, so whether the format has endured or not isn't really relevant. Many other schools are doing this differently. At this point your statement about "holding back the progress of an entire society" seems rather hollow. I can't convince you data exposing data is more useful, but I also shouldn't have to. It's one of the fundamentals of computer systems if not the Internet.