"What's your thoughts on how to encourage socializing in a completely online forum? Many people perceive going to college to be, in part, to find friends and people of similar interest as well as to find professional contacts."
As one half of a parental team that successfully home educated three kids through high school, I think I can tackle this one.
Throughout our experience with our children we were often upbraided with the mantra, 'but what about socialization?' The fear being that our kids were somehow isolated from contact with their peers. What we found was that this perceived fear was a red herring and indicated that the questioner didn't like the fact that we were trying something different (that's gotta be bad, nobody else is doin' it). The reality of the situation was that socialization was minimized within the academic setting (to the benefit of actual learning) and took place outside of those academic boundaries quite nicely.
We involved ourselves with other families that were educating their own children and lasting friendships were forged. Even if we hadn't made an effort to cultivate outside activities, there was daily interaction with neighborhood kids and the other kids at church.
The bottom line is that ample opportunities exist for socialization outside of the classroom or lecture hall. Those that look to the collegiate life to supply them with socialization are often wasting their time and their/our money. If a person can't make friends now, going to college won't make them any more socially adept than going directly into the work force.
"Unlike a whopping 30 years worth of video game data, research spanning THOUSANDS of years show that more organized mass killings have resulted from RELIGION than FROM ANY OTHER CAUSE!
While it is true that many instances of religiously motivated atrocities have taken place, they do not match the toll by totally irreligious movements.
"Also, there have been tests to show that the use of Ecstacy as a recreational drug causes long term memory loss and sleep disorders (although the use of it as a recreational drug has only been around for about 20 or so years (in large numbers)) yet somehow they can determine that people can get Alztimers from it."
So, are you a violent video gamer that eats Tofu and uses Ecstasy recreationally?
20 years is plenty long enough to determine a link between usage and long-term memory loss. You didn't provide a link so I can't tell if your reference to Alzheimers is actually mentioned in the study or an inference on your part based on the words 'memory loss'.
"How can you say that this statement has no merit? You post didn't contradict the statement, it confirmed it. The whole point of the original statement was that the only way kids get money is from their parents, which is exactly the same thing you said."
You misunderstood. These kids didn't have wads of cash because their parents were buckling to some advertiser's pitch. They were given money on a regular basis (and often lots of it) just because. These kids always had money.
Consider this true example. A kid in the youth group wanted a particular baseball glove. You don't get many baseball glove commercials on television, so it really wasn't a matter of advertising pressure, but that's not the kicker here. He took his dad to a sports store where the glove was priced at $80 US. His dad suggested they look at a discount store and wrote the model number down and off they went. Found the same glove (same model #, same packaging, same everything) for $50 US. The boy wouldn't hear of it. He had to have the one for $80 and, after a lengthy discussion about handling money, they went back to the sports store and bought the one for $80. Had that been my son, the discussion in the discount store would have gone like this...
"Dad! I want the one for $80."
"Son, if your heart is set on the $80 glove I don't want to disappoint you. Go earn the money and buy it yourself."
End of discussion.
My son would have stopped there or lost additional priveleges.
This is a pattern that kids pick up on really fast and worked just as well on visitors as our own kids. No matter how they behaved around their parents.
'The concern arises precisely because it leads to children pestering their parents to buy them . The advertising agencies even have a term for it - "pester power". '
My kids all learned that "pester power" was powerless in our household. If I were pestered about something the answer was almost surely to be a resounding NO. The only reason I qualified that is that they on occasion 'pestered' me for something when the opposite was really what they were after. Kids are smart that way. They figure out pretty fast if the parents are making an effort to train them, or if they have the ability to train mom and/or dad. This is precisely why I said parents must exercise responsibility in this area.
I didn't mean to imply that parents shouldn't give their children money. Far from it. They need to learn how to handle finances. But be creative in how you give it to them. We didn't do allowances. The world doesn't give you money because you exist. They didn't get money for doing their assigned chores. The world doesn't give you money for working in your yard or cleaning your own house. The kids could offer to do one of my chores though. If I thought they could do the job, we'd negotiate a price and go from there.
Don't get me wrong, there were times when we'd give them money for incidental items or bought them things if they asked politely and it was a reasonable request, so we weren't ogres. Try telling that to the parents who chastise you for such draconian practices. The pressure doesn't just come from the kids.
I thought the targeted audience for this book was the non-geek population of parents, teachers, school administrators, etc. Isn't distibuting only through ThinkGeek counterproductive to that goal? Rather like an 'exotic dancers wanted' ad in a periodical published by and for Catholic nuns. Although any takers would certainly give new meaning to the term, 'out of habit.'
It takes a certain amount of slime to market to people under age 13 anyway - since they don't have any money, you have to brainwash them to pester their parents.
As someone who has worked extensively with young people I can tell you that statement has no merit. I can't tell you how often I've been amazed to find myself among a group of adolescents with more cash in their pockets than I had in my checking account (unless it was right after payday and just prior to paying the bills). There were very few exceptions, even among those considered to be from 'low-income' families.
Unfortunately many parents today think that, since their time is used to generate money, that throwing money at their children is an acceptable substitute for spending time with them. Go hang out at a mall and watch all the pre-pubescent girls spend wads of cash on little doohickeys to stick in their hair and young boys swapping $5 US bills for arcade tokens like they were pitching pennies in a fountain -- all this with nary a parent in sight. (Yeah I'm sure that sounds sexist, but just go watch and see if it isn't accurate. You do see girls in the arcade, but often they're only watching, and I have yet to see a boy plop down good money for a handfull of multi-hued butterflies to put in his hair though.)
Don't blame the marketeers entirely. If parents exercised some responsibility in this area the justification for targeting penniless waifs would dry up and blow away.
"My response was that these symptoms were still awfully vague...."
I'm sure the Pinkertons found Jon just as intractible as he found them. This list is a vast improvement over the previous one and is not one that they arbitrarily drew up but drew upon expert advice (Well, educated advice anyway. If there are any experts in this area they seem few and far between and their voices are surely lost in the cacaphony of pop-psychology snakeoil pitches).
Do the items need to draw out specific methodologies for torturing animals? Wouldn't you find it the least bit disturbing that a child (or anyone) has a detailed plan for committing specific acts of violence? If that's too vague perhaps you'd be the sort of parent that watches television while the kids make pipe bombs in their bedrooms.
This argument draws attention away from the real problems of the program in the same way the "I Ratted on a Bully" T-Shirt furor did.
I can see the appeal of this program. When I was in school, you didn't tell on the guys that beat the living tar out of you. Why? Because the principal would bring you in to ID the thugs and you'd get pounded again - off the school grounds. But I can also see the pitfalls in a system that allows students to be stigmatized without an opportunity to refute anonymous charges. We should be able to confront our accusers, but until the systems - court, school or otherwise - can protect the accusers from retribution that system remains equally flawed.
"Before I was exposed to "REAL Asian food" I loved Chinese food, but now it literally makes me sick EXCEPT for most Dim Sum -- that's gotta be my third favorite. With a real Dim Sum place, you'll see probably about 1/5 dishes going around that make even my wife shudder."
Two friends and I went to a Vietnamese place a few years ago. There were one or two items on the menu I recognized and I have to confess I went with a safe bet. One of the guys asked what they recommended and was brought what appeared to be a bowl of translucent worms that smelled like a combination of an open sewer and Vicks VapoRub! He didn't finish it.
pretty slick guys. you ought to try partnering with some of these photo processing companies to have film processing automagically uploaded to your account.
Or, conversely, they could partner with processing companies to turn your now altered snapshots into prints. I ran across Shutterfly, where you can upload digital pics and have prints mailed to multiple addresses with captioning printed on the back.
I'd have to agree. 'ChickClicker' sounds like a guy in search of porn. "Hey, click on that blonde chick!"
For those who bristle at the term 'chick' maybe we could find a more palatable substitute to describe their Femographic group. Something that captures the essence of the Estrogender. Something that sets the Ovarianation apart from the rest of the netizens. But why? Why make the distinction just because marketing types like to divvy us up into demographic groups?
Having worked with kids I have seen this repeated often. The most amazing thing to me was that children would be removed from a home where the parents were trying to do the very best for their kids, while kids being tortured or repeatedly raped were either left in the home or returned within a very short period.
"I know the cigarette burns all over the baby's back look bad, but I just left the room for a minute and she rolled on top of the ashtray." Which might explain the fresh ones.....
If this had been available when I was in school I would have at least had a clean T-shirt after getting my nose bloodied. Or I could have used the free shirt to keep my others from being soiled....
"Pardon me while I slip into my 'I Ratted out a Bully' T-shirt before you start punching."
You know those things are going to have a logo at minimum. When the sociopaths get hassled the kids with the shirts might as well wear targets.
carlos
Re:you make the same mistake!
on
The Mind of God
·
· Score: 1
"In order to believe in anything (even live Ceolocanths) I must be given proof that such a thing exists.
Do you really mean 'proof', or would 'evidence' be more accurate? Proof is sometimes difficult to come by. That's why I used the word 'probably' when making the statement regarding the existence of living ceolacanths. I am not aware of any observable, living ceolacanths, only the evidence of recently deceased examples and that from third party observations.
""You can't believe [the world is round] because there's no proof of [a flat earth]!"
I think you meant "of a round earth". But anyway, in this case, it is indeed not logical to believe in a round earth until such time as evidence that the earth is round is found. (I would note that such evidence was known to the ancient greeks, BTW)."
No, I meant it the way it appears. It just doesn't work as well as an opposite and should have been worded differently. The attempt was to show that the example given didn't work. Should have stopped with the coelacanth.
I'm sure you must have meant that, "...such evidence was known to the ancient geeks, BTW)."
I knew that! -- Ed Grimley
Re:you make the same mistake!
on
The Mind of God
·
· Score: 1
"You can't believe [coelacanths are not still living] because there's no proof of [living coelacanths]!"
Proof read twice and still missed it!
"Sorry, boss. I've cut this board three times and it's still too short!"
Re:you make the same mistake!
on
The Mind of God
·
· Score: 1
"Let P = Existance of unicorns.
'You can't believe [unicorns don't exist] because there's no proof of [unicorns existing]!'
The rest is left to the reader."
Not so many years ago this might have read,
"You can't believe [coelacanths are still living] because there's no proof of [living coelacanths]!"
But then one is caught off the coast of Madagascar, later one turns up in nets off the coast of Japan and recently a fresh one was spotted in a South American fish market. Travel back in time a bit more and we might have read,
"You can't believe [the world is round] because there's no proof of [a flat earth]!"
This is not intended to be an apologetic for the existence of unicorns (although if new types of fossils are being found on occasion that possibility can not emphatically be ruled out). The purpose is to point out that the insertion of a variable which is commonly held to be true does not necessarily make your counterpoint a true statement.
In fact, the statement that something is not possible [cold fusion, anti-gravity] or does not exist [unicorns, God] requires absolute knowledge which would make one at least a unicorn or, more probably, God. We can state with confidence that living coelacanths probably do exist without absolute knowledge because the proof lies within the scope of our finite set of known things.
Oh, I forgot to mention that when I moved here a little over three years ago I was working with a consultant that oversold me to the client. The guy doing the interview kept asking me about things that I'd never been exposed to. I told him I'd be happy to learn 'X', but that I didn't have any experience in that arena. Seems the guy had taken all that the consultant said as gospel when a quick read of my resume would have shown that those things weren't even listed.
Here in the Phoenix area I've only interviewed with one company directly. All other contacts have come through staffing firms. I may have done myself some harm by asking for permanent placement this last time around instead of accepting shorter term assignments as a consultant. I ended up being unemployed for 9 months and wound up in a temp assignment on a contract that's been extended twice.
I'm told I produced more work in my first two months here than the last two guys did in five years. Could it be that companies are tired of paying for incompetence and having to go through the process of documenting failures so that they can let someone go without fear of reprisal? There seems to be more short term assignments available than permanent jobs.
Another problem I had was that my skillset is fairly narrow (Unix Sysadm, Informix development primarily). I have years of experience, but it has all been with smaller companies who didn't run 24/7 and didn't want to shell out the cash for nicer toys, etc.
Slashdot Mirror
As one half of a parental team that successfully home educated three kids through high school, I think I can tackle this one.
Throughout our experience with our children we were often upbraided with the mantra, 'but what about socialization?' The fear being that our kids were somehow isolated from contact with their peers. What we found was that this perceived fear was a red herring and indicated that the questioner didn't like the fact that we were trying something different (that's gotta be bad, nobody else is doin' it). The reality of the situation was that socialization was minimized within the academic setting (to the benefit of actual learning) and took place outside of those academic boundaries quite nicely.
We involved ourselves with other families that were educating their own children and lasting friendships were forged. Even if we hadn't made an effort to cultivate outside activities, there was daily interaction with neighborhood kids and the other kids at church.
The bottom line is that ample opportunities exist for socialization outside of the classroom or lecture hall. Those that look to the collegiate life to supply them with socialization are often wasting their time and their/our money. If a person can't make friends now, going to college won't make them any more socially adept than going directly into the work force.
carlos
So that's my problem! I'm 44! Who are you?
carlos
carlos
While it is true that many instances of religiously motivated atrocities have taken place, they do not match the toll by totally irreligious movements.
The Chinese cultural revolution
Pol Pot
Russian Revolution
Just to name a few.
carlos
So, are you a violent video gamer that eats Tofu and uses Ecstasy recreationally?
20 years is plenty long enough to determine a link between usage and long-term memory loss. You didn't provide a link so I can't tell if your reference to Alzheimers is actually mentioned in the study or an inference on your part based on the words 'memory loss'.
carlos
You misunderstood. These kids didn't have wads of cash because their parents were buckling to some advertiser's pitch. They were given money on a regular basis (and often lots of it) just because. These kids always had money.
Consider this true example. A kid in the youth group wanted a particular baseball glove. You don't get many baseball glove commercials on television, so it really wasn't a matter of advertising pressure, but that's not the kicker here. He took his dad to a sports store where the glove was priced at $80 US. His dad suggested they look at a discount store and wrote the model number down and off they went. Found the same glove (same model #, same packaging, same everything) for $50 US. The boy wouldn't hear of it. He had to have the one for $80 and, after a lengthy discussion about handling money, they went back to the sports store and bought the one for $80. Had that been my son, the discussion in the discount store would have gone like this...
"Dad! I want the one for $80."
"Son, if your heart is set on the $80 glove I don't want to disappoint you. Go earn the money and buy it yourself."
End of discussion.
My son would have stopped there or lost additional priveleges.
This is a pattern that kids pick up on really fast and worked just as well on visitors as our own kids. No matter how they behaved around their parents.
carlos
My kids all learned that "pester power" was powerless in our household. If I were pestered about something the answer was almost surely to be a resounding NO. The only reason I qualified that is that they on occasion 'pestered' me for something when the opposite was really what they were after. Kids are smart that way. They figure out pretty fast if the parents are making an effort to train them, or if they have the ability to train mom and/or dad. This is precisely why I said parents must exercise responsibility in this area.
I didn't mean to imply that parents shouldn't give their children money. Far from it. They need to learn how to handle finances. But be creative in how you give it to them. We didn't do allowances. The world doesn't give you money because you exist. They didn't get money for doing their assigned chores. The world doesn't give you money for working in your yard or cleaning your own house. The kids could offer to do one of my chores though. If I thought they could do the job, we'd negotiate a price and go from there.
Don't get me wrong, there were times when we'd give them money for incidental items or bought them things if they asked politely and it was a reasonable request, so we weren't ogres. Try telling that to the parents who chastise you for such draconian practices. The pressure doesn't just come from the kids.
carlos
carlos
I followed the link and she looks like a fish!
As someone who has worked extensively with young people I can tell you that statement has no merit. I can't tell you how often I've been amazed to find myself among a group of adolescents with more cash in their pockets than I had in my checking account (unless it was right after payday and just prior to paying the bills). There were very few exceptions, even among those considered to be from 'low-income' families.
Unfortunately many parents today think that, since their time is used to generate money, that throwing money at their children is an acceptable substitute for spending time with them. Go hang out at a mall and watch all the pre-pubescent girls spend wads of cash on little doohickeys to stick in their hair and young boys swapping $5 US bills for arcade tokens like they were pitching pennies in a fountain -- all this with nary a parent in sight. (Yeah I'm sure that sounds sexist, but just go watch and see if it isn't accurate. You do see girls in the arcade, but often they're only watching, and I have yet to see a boy plop down good money for a handfull of multi-hued butterflies to put in his hair though.)
Don't blame the marketeers entirely. If parents exercised some responsibility in this area the justification for targeting penniless waifs would dry up and blow away.
carlos
"My response was that these symptoms were still awfully vague...."
I'm sure the Pinkertons found Jon just as intractible as he found them. This list is a vast improvement over the previous one and is not one that they arbitrarily drew up but drew upon expert advice (Well, educated advice anyway. If there are any experts in this area they seem few and far between and their voices are surely lost in the cacaphony of pop-psychology snakeoil pitches).
Do the items need to draw out specific methodologies for torturing animals? Wouldn't you find it the least bit disturbing that a child (or anyone) has a detailed plan for committing specific acts of violence? If that's too vague perhaps you'd be the sort of parent that watches television while the kids make pipe bombs in their bedrooms.
This argument draws attention away from the real problems of the program in the same way the "I Ratted on a Bully" T-Shirt furor did.
I can see the appeal of this program. When I was in school, you didn't tell on the guys that beat the living tar out of you. Why? Because the principal would bring you in to ID the thugs and you'd get pounded again - off the school grounds. But I can also see the pitfalls in a system that allows students to be stigmatized without an opportunity to refute anonymous charges. We should be able to confront our accusers, but until the systems - court, school or otherwise - can protect the accusers from retribution that system remains equally flawed.
carlos
Two friends and I went to a Vietnamese place a few years ago. There were one or two items on the menu I recognized and I have to confess I went with a safe bet. One of the guys asked what they recommended and was brought what appeared to be a bowl of translucent worms that smelled like a combination of an open sewer and Vicks VapoRub! He didn't finish it.
carlos
Or, conversely, they could partner with processing companies to turn your now altered snapshots into prints. I ran across Shutterfly, where you can upload digital pics and have prints mailed to multiple addresses with captioning printed on the back.
carlos
They represent 60% of the population."
Are you sure? Statistically, I should have at least one date a week. It must have something to do with "lies, damn lies and statistics".
So, do you mean that if you quit tellin' all them lies your statistics would be better?
carlos
I'd have to agree. 'ChickClicker' sounds like a guy in search of porn. "Hey, click on that blonde chick!"
For those who bristle at the term 'chick' maybe we could find a more palatable substitute to describe their Femographic group. Something that captures the essence of the Estrogender. Something that sets the Ovarianation apart from the rest of the netizens. But why? Why make the distinction just because marketing types like to divvy us up into demographic groups?
carlos
"I know the cigarette burns all over the baby's back look bad, but I just left the room for a minute and she rolled on top of the ashtray." Which might explain the fresh ones.....
"Pardon me while I slip into my 'I Ratted out a Bully' T-shirt before you start punching."
You know those things are going to have a logo at minimum. When the sociopaths get hassled the kids with the shirts might as well wear targets.
carlos
Do you really mean 'proof', or would 'evidence' be more accurate? Proof is sometimes difficult to come by. That's why I used the word 'probably' when making the statement regarding the existence of living ceolacanths. I am not aware of any observable, living ceolacanths, only the evidence of recently deceased examples and that from third party observations.
""You can't believe [the world is round] because there's no proof of [a flat earth]!"
I think you meant "of a round earth". But anyway, in this case, it is indeed not logical to believe in a round earth until such time as evidence that the earth is round is found. (I would note that such evidence was known to the ancient greeks, BTW)."
No, I meant it the way it appears. It just doesn't work as well as an opposite and should have been worded differently. The attempt was to show that the example given didn't work. Should have stopped with the coelacanth.
I'm sure you must have meant that, "...such evidence was known to the ancient geeks, BTW)."
I knew that! -- Ed Grimley
Proof read twice and still missed it!
"Sorry, boss. I've cut this board three times and it's still too short!"
'You can't believe [unicorns don't exist] because there's no proof of [unicorns existing]!'
The rest is left to the reader."
Not so many years ago this might have read,
"You can't believe [coelacanths are still living] because there's no proof of [living coelacanths]!"
But then one is caught off the coast of Madagascar, later one turns up in nets off the coast of Japan and recently a fresh one was spotted in a South American fish market. Travel back in time a bit more and we might have read,
"You can't believe [the world is round] because there's no proof of [a flat earth]!"
This is not intended to be an apologetic for the existence of unicorns (although if new types of fossils are being found on occasion that possibility can not emphatically be ruled out). The purpose is to point out that the insertion of a variable which is commonly held to be true does not necessarily make your counterpoint a true statement.
In fact, the statement that something is not possible [cold fusion, anti-gravity] or does not exist [unicorns, God] requires absolute knowledge which would make one at least a unicorn or, more probably, God. We can state with confidence that living coelacanths probably do exist without absolute knowledge because the proof lies within the scope of our finite set of known things.
carlos
I believe judges are not supposed to comment publicly on cases that are currently before them.
carlos
Hasn't 3Com fallen on some hard times in the last few months? I know it doesn't necessarily follow that the business strategy mentioned is to blame.
carlos
My favorite part of the article was that quote.
carlos
Oh, I forgot to mention that when I moved here a little over three years ago I was working with a consultant that oversold me to the client. The guy doing the interview kept asking me about things that I'd never been exposed to. I told him I'd be happy to learn 'X', but that I didn't have any experience in that arena. Seems the guy had taken all that the consultant said as gospel when a quick read of my resume would have shown that those things weren't even listed.
I'm told I produced more work in my first two months here than the last two guys did in five years. Could it be that companies are tired of paying for incompetence and having to go through the process of documenting failures so that they can let someone go without fear of reprisal? There seems to be more short term assignments available than permanent jobs.
Another problem I had was that my skillset is fairly narrow (Unix Sysadm, Informix development primarily). I have years of experience, but it has all been with smaller companies who didn't run 24/7 and didn't want to shell out the cash for nicer toys, etc.
carlos