Of course their grades should be their concern. And my grades shouldn't be their concern. Sure, if just one person moves from a B to an A there isn't much effect, and no, I'm not a statistician. The fact remains that, in a given classroom of 30 people, there isn't a reason to force a curve on the grades. That's forcing a standard model on a system that doesn't necessarily follow that model- you have a group of 30 people who may or may not make up a statistically "average" group of people.
I'll link to the wiki article that does a better job of explaining the shortcomings-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grading_on_a_curve
From the article:
"Conversely, if all students perform poorly relative to a larger population, even the highest graded students may be failing to meet standards. Thus, curved grading makes it difficult to compare groups of students to one another."
So while curved grading might be very appropriate for grading *all* of the tests given in a standardized test across a whole state, saying that each and every single classroom should be graded on the bell curve will result in uneven comparison across classes."
Another example: in my entry level engineering class from way back, there were about 50-60 students. Had they been graded on a curve, rather than on absolute performance, then a large number would have made it through. Since you weren't in my freshman engineering class, I'll just let you know that most of the people in that class were not cut out for an engineering major;)
The bell curve doesn't necessarily represent a class full of students. Perhaps over a whole country, but almost certainly not in just one classroom. Why should the grades compare students to an arbitrary number of kids that happened to get in the same room? There are tons of other influences to the performance of the class. As an example, in one of my high school math classes I had a friend I was very competitive with. Because of this, I tried much harder in the class as a fun challenge between friends. If this means that both my friend and I get better grades, a bell curve would necessitate that other students were actually penalized by my extra efforts.
Honestly, I would guess that the bell curve wouldn't start accurately describing students until you were at a state sized number of students- certainly not a classroom full and certainly not a single highschool full.
A slightly easier to remember version of that train of thought is to use a whole sentence- 'baconisgood' or 'ihaveacalculator' is made up of words in the dictionary, but the sentence structure won't be very easy to guess. Add capitals and punctuation to suit.
Does anybody else remember that game Psi-Ops (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psi_Ops) back on the original Xbox? It was one of my favorite games, of all time, for not much more than the engine they used to implement the telekinesis. What's all this "stand still while using the force" bullcrap from TFU? In Psi-Ops, if I wanted to levitate a box while standing on it and surf it around the level, I could. In that game, I could run, use TK, and fire my gun *all at the same time*. This was back on the original Xbox, too! If I remember right, they used the depth of pull of the left trigger to determine the height of the lifted object, instead of hijacking both thumbsticks. Man, that was a fun game. If there was any one game I wanted a sequel for and never got, it would be Psi Ops.
But who decides who is guilty? If the government is in charge of punishment, surely they would need to know who to punish, which would mean that they'd need to understand the crimes. If the government doesn't understand business or oil spills, how are they supposed to figure out who to blame? The local BP owner down the street shouldn't be punished, but who gets to draw the line here?
What about the real narcissists who have this? They would just re-watch their day-to-day activities, thus filling up more space. Then they'd go back and watch the vids of themselves watching vids, and so on and so forth...
So if there is a short demo that costs zero dollars, and a long demo that costs 15 dollars, and a full game that costs 60 dollars... where do the consumers get screwed exactly? Everyone acts like they're being forced to buy the $15 version.
Similarly, Apple has an iPhone, an iPad, and a desktop. Some people want more, some want less. I personally won't buy many $15 mini-games but who knows, some might.
It's similar to the ZOMG reactions people have about on-the-disc DLC. It's not like you're FORCED to pay more for the full game; it's up to you to decide what a "full" game means. To me, Bioshock 2 is a full game as-bought. The DLC they can charge extra for, I don't care- it's not like they're taking away something by having ANOTHER option to buy. If a car company develops two cars at about the same time, nobody would be pissed if they bought one car and found out later that oh noez the 4WD version was developed at the same time and then claim they want both cars.
That's not how it works. Simply saying "current kills, not voltage" is often quoted, but misleading. If I stick my finger in my car's cigarette lighter (12 volts, capable of pushing hundreds of amps) nothing will happen. That's because no current flows. The voltage is the "pressure" of the electricity. If a supply has sufficient current to maintain 24 kilovolts across the resistance of your body, you will very likely die.
To use the water analogy, voltage is pressure and current is the amount that flows. Typically it's easier to think about constant-voltage systems, which is what your house AC is (yeah it's a sinusoid but it's a constant sinusoid).
This is like a constant-water-pressure system, like the faucets in your house. Turn on a hose at low pressure, and I don't care how big it is it won't kill you- imagine a MASSIVE hole in a dam or something, underwater, with water juuuuuuust barely coming out. TONS of flow (i.e. current/amperage) but zero danger since there isn't enough force to push the water through your body. Now imagine a small diameter pipe firing water out of it- like a pressure washer. Very little flow, but enough pressure (i.e. voltage) to push the water through your skin.
In short, current and voltage are related by resistance. Since you can't change the resistance of your body, for a given voltage (say 24 kV) a given amount of current will flow. End of story- there's no way to increase the current without changing either the voltage or the resistance of your body.
I'd love to have a tank of hydrogen leaking slowly in a garage for a while. Just leave my good old hydrogen powered convertible in the garage all winter to whip it out again in the summer when it warms up a bit. Now I don't know the leakage rates here, but as it's been said, it's awfully hard to contain those tiny molecules of hydrogen. After 6 months of sitting in a closed garage, am I even gonna be able to drive the thing to get it refilled? It's not like I can just add some fuel stabilizer and call it a day.
Not to mention what happens with a room slowly filling with an explosive gas.
I've added a couple small things in some of my programs. I needed to save some random filetype that ONLY that program would need- so they're now.bkm files, which happen to be my initials:)
So I gotta ask, how would you tell if your webcam is being monitored? This being slashdot I know it's like asking a mechanic how he knows if a car's engine is working, but forgive me I'm a mechanical guy.
It is creepy... sometimes my webcam light is just on. I figured it was some bug, but I pointed it at the ceiling anyways. Is there a way to tell if some random guy was pokin' around at stuff?
And no, nobody has been using my computer lately.
Or true... I typically cannot sleep 8 hours a day for a long period of time and function. I need my Saturdays- left on a truly free schedule I will sleep for 12 hors a day. Inconvenient, but it's sorta what I end up doing. I also will shift my cycle about an hour a day, eventually settling on a 4am-4pm schedule. I don't enjoy that, mind you- but it's what ends up happening. With stuff to regulate me, like classes, etc. that will sorta work out, but I'm tired a lot. Very annoying- lookup DSPS, delayed sleep phase syndrome, and if you need to, hypersomnia, the aforementioned need for more than 8-9 hours of sleep a night.
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No, it depends on how fast he was rolling. I think.
Of course their grades should be their concern. And my grades shouldn't be their concern. Sure, if just one person moves from a B to an A there isn't much effect, and no, I'm not a statistician. The fact remains that, in a given classroom of 30 people, there isn't a reason to force a curve on the grades. That's forcing a standard model on a system that doesn't necessarily follow that model- you have a group of 30 people who may or may not make up a statistically "average" group of people. I'll link to the wiki article that does a better job of explaining the shortcomings- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grading_on_a_curve From the article: "Conversely, if all students perform poorly relative to a larger population, even the highest graded students may be failing to meet standards. Thus, curved grading makes it difficult to compare groups of students to one another." So while curved grading might be very appropriate for grading *all* of the tests given in a standardized test across a whole state, saying that each and every single classroom should be graded on the bell curve will result in uneven comparison across classes." Another example: in my entry level engineering class from way back, there were about 50-60 students. Had they been graded on a curve, rather than on absolute performance, then a large number would have made it through. Since you weren't in my freshman engineering class, I'll just let you know that most of the people in that class were not cut out for an engineering major ;)
The bell curve doesn't necessarily represent a class full of students. Perhaps over a whole country, but almost certainly not in just one classroom. Why should the grades compare students to an arbitrary number of kids that happened to get in the same room? There are tons of other influences to the performance of the class. As an example, in one of my high school math classes I had a friend I was very competitive with. Because of this, I tried much harder in the class as a fun challenge between friends. If this means that both my friend and I get better grades, a bell curve would necessitate that other students were actually penalized by my extra efforts. Honestly, I would guess that the bell curve wouldn't start accurately describing students until you were at a state sized number of students- certainly not a classroom full and certainly not a single highschool full.
A slightly easier to remember version of that train of thought is to use a whole sentence- 'baconisgood' or 'ihaveacalculator' is made up of words in the dictionary, but the sentence structure won't be very easy to guess. Add capitals and punctuation to suit.
Might wanna reread the comment you quoted there...
Yeah, they just test it on animals first 'cause they hate kittens.
Does anybody else remember that game Psi-Ops (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psi_Ops) back on the original Xbox? It was one of my favorite games, of all time, for not much more than the engine they used to implement the telekinesis. What's all this "stand still while using the force" bullcrap from TFU? In Psi-Ops, if I wanted to levitate a box while standing on it and surf it around the level, I could. In that game, I could run, use TK, and fire my gun *all at the same time*. This was back on the original Xbox, too! If I remember right, they used the depth of pull of the left trigger to determine the height of the lifted object, instead of hijacking both thumbsticks. Man, that was a fun game. If there was any one game I wanted a sequel for and never got, it would be Psi Ops.
I believe that was the joke ;)
But who decides who is guilty? If the government is in charge of punishment, surely they would need to know who to punish, which would mean that they'd need to understand the crimes. If the government doesn't understand business or oil spills, how are they supposed to figure out who to blame? The local BP owner down the street shouldn't be punished, but who gets to draw the line here?
What about the real narcissists who have this? They would just re-watch their day-to-day activities, thus filling up more space. Then they'd go back and watch the vids of themselves watching vids, and so on and so forth...
Once you run out of prefixes, just start using two. Example: milliyoctonewtons.
4. explain your, for one, acceptance of the new yoctonewtonian overlords.
So if there is a short demo that costs zero dollars, and a long demo that costs 15 dollars, and a full game that costs 60 dollars... where do the consumers get screwed exactly? Everyone acts like they're being forced to buy the $15 version. Similarly, Apple has an iPhone, an iPad, and a desktop. Some people want more, some want less. I personally won't buy many $15 mini-games but who knows, some might. It's similar to the ZOMG reactions people have about on-the-disc DLC. It's not like you're FORCED to pay more for the full game; it's up to you to decide what a "full" game means. To me, Bioshock 2 is a full game as-bought. The DLC they can charge extra for, I don't care- it's not like they're taking away something by having ANOTHER option to buy. If a car company develops two cars at about the same time, nobody would be pissed if they bought one car and found out later that oh noez the 4WD version was developed at the same time and then claim they want both cars.
That's not how it works. Simply saying "current kills, not voltage" is often quoted, but misleading. If I stick my finger in my car's cigarette lighter (12 volts, capable of pushing hundreds of amps) nothing will happen. That's because no current flows. The voltage is the "pressure" of the electricity. If a supply has sufficient current to maintain 24 kilovolts across the resistance of your body, you will very likely die. To use the water analogy, voltage is pressure and current is the amount that flows. Typically it's easier to think about constant-voltage systems, which is what your house AC is (yeah it's a sinusoid but it's a constant sinusoid). This is like a constant-water-pressure system, like the faucets in your house. Turn on a hose at low pressure, and I don't care how big it is it won't kill you- imagine a MASSIVE hole in a dam or something, underwater, with water juuuuuuust barely coming out. TONS of flow (i.e. current/amperage) but zero danger since there isn't enough force to push the water through your body. Now imagine a small diameter pipe firing water out of it- like a pressure washer. Very little flow, but enough pressure (i.e. voltage) to push the water through your skin. In short, current and voltage are related by resistance. Since you can't change the resistance of your body, for a given voltage (say 24 kV) a given amount of current will flow. End of story- there's no way to increase the current without changing either the voltage or the resistance of your body.
I can has newsletter?
I'd love to have a tank of hydrogen leaking slowly in a garage for a while. Just leave my good old hydrogen powered convertible in the garage all winter to whip it out again in the summer when it warms up a bit. Now I don't know the leakage rates here, but as it's been said, it's awfully hard to contain those tiny molecules of hydrogen. After 6 months of sitting in a closed garage, am I even gonna be able to drive the thing to get it refilled? It's not like I can just add some fuel stabilizer and call it a day. Not to mention what happens with a room slowly filling with an explosive gas.
I've added a couple small things in some of my programs. I needed to save some random filetype that ONLY that program would need- so they're now .bkm files, which happen to be my initials :)
So I gotta ask, how would you tell if your webcam is being monitored? This being slashdot I know it's like asking a mechanic how he knows if a car's engine is working, but forgive me I'm a mechanical guy. It is creepy... sometimes my webcam light is just on. I figured it was some bug, but I pointed it at the ceiling anyways. Is there a way to tell if some random guy was pokin' around at stuff? And no, nobody has been using my computer lately.
Or true... I typically cannot sleep 8 hours a day for a long period of time and function. I need my Saturdays- left on a truly free schedule I will sleep for 12 hors a day. Inconvenient, but it's sorta what I end up doing. I also will shift my cycle about an hour a day, eventually settling on a 4am-4pm schedule. I don't enjoy that, mind you- but it's what ends up happening. With stuff to regulate me, like classes, etc. that will sorta work out, but I'm tired a lot. Very annoying- lookup DSPS, delayed sleep phase syndrome, and if you need to, hypersomnia, the aforementioned need for more than 8-9 hours of sleep a night.