Re:Great, it's like driving a bomb
on
Air-Powered Cars
·
· Score: 1
No it'd be like a grenade. Pressure vessels do not die in such a controlled fashion. If the high-pressure air tank was to rupture, it would completely come apart. The escaping air would continue to increase the size of the hole until the tankw as completely torn into pieces. That's the way containers of compressed gas fail.
Liquids under pressure are different; they're not compressible. Liquids under pressure are much safer, from a container failure standpoint, than compressed gasses.
A few weeks ago I posted a message elaborating my belief that computers have no place in the classroom.
In that, one of my reasons was that on-line research was useless. Information on line that a researcher would really want was not there. Only an "abstract and an order form," I said.
Sadly, this is one more case where I'm right. On-line research, as promising as it might seem, doesn't work. I really liked Eric's Treasure Troves. I also like books. I don't like on-line resources getting the shaft so we have to buy a book.
Not to mention the fact that these niche books cost a fortune, and many students that need the resources can't afford them. There's no economies of scale on publishing runs that are only a few hundred copies.
I guess I'm turning into a curmudgeon, but as long as publishing houses are around, I don't see much changing.
Jeff
Re:6. People like gasoline-powered cars
on
Air-Powered Cars
·
· Score: 1
A lot of this is due to the lack of alternative fuel infrastructure. Alternative fuels are logical for organizations that have a private fuel depot, and do not depend on the public infrastructure to feed their fleet. For instance, Georgia Tech has a few LP-powered trucks in its maintenance fleet.
For the rest of us, the plusses of alternative fuels are not nearly enough to outweigh the significant disadvantage of fuel availability. Can't just pull off and stick a nozzle in the filler neck if your car runs on LP or some other alternative fuel.
Electric cars have their own problems: recharge time. Cars are "meant" to be ready to go in a moment's notice; the multi-hour downtime for recharging is unacceptable to most.
The guys weren't talking about thermodynamic efficiency; they were talking emitted combustion products. I was saying that in a properly tuned internal combustion engine, there's really very little excuse for incomplete combustion.
I've heard that C-135's (the military transport version of the Boeing 707) used a water mist injection system to cool the incoming air via water vaporization. This would give a slight, but important, boost to engine power output.
Jeff
Great, it's like driving a bomb
on
Air-Powered Cars
·
· Score: 1
Ok, so this "zero emissions vehicle" gets in a wreck. What happens?
I for one, don't want to be anywhere near it. Why? Ever read the label on a spray can? What does it say? "Do not puncture or incinerate."
I can't wait for this grenade-mobile to hit (ahem) the road.
If you are getting incomplete combustion products in your IC engine, you've got it tuned improperly, and it's running rich.
Maximum power per unit fuel is logically achieved when the temperature difference, pre-burn versus post-burn is the greatest. This happens about when there is only enough fuel to completely use up the oxygen in the combustion chamber. More fuel tends to cool the resulting combustion gases, and less means that it can't get as hot as it would otherwise.
Combustion does occur rapidly, but in modern fuel injected engines it should occur completely.
Compare this to an airplane engine, or any multicylinder engine with a carbureter or throttle body injection. Fuel is atomized in the throat of induction system, where its proper mixing and intake into the cylinders is left to chance. Many times one cylinder will run significantly richer or leaner than it should due to inefficiencies in the induction system. On fuel injected engines the mixture can be tuned on a per-cylinder basis to get ideal mixtures everywhere.
IC engines can be very clean from a combustion products point of view. Modern engines are, for sure!
I've got GnuCash, and unless it was added in
the latest release (this past week), it only
READS.QIF files, not write them. I've also
noticed another glaring deficiency: It seems
to have no ability to print reports. Or
customize reports.
I will admit that I've not looked at it
much more closely than installing what was
last month the latest version and then importing
my personal checkbook register into it from
a QIF file, but those things were not obvious.
The only thing keeping me from going to a Linux-only home environment is Quicken. As a church treasurer, I need to be platform independent, and Quicken is about as good as they come for that (Windows is available, and it comes pre-installed on new Macintoshes). If I ever decided to resign the job, I need to be able to hand off the data; Quicken lets me do that in a way that doesn't limit the options of future treasurers.
Yep. The NIKE series of anti-aircraft missles
were usually nuclear-tipped. Remember, these
were built at the dawn, pre-dawn really, of the
solid state age, and guidance systems were
in their infancy.
Even smaller nulcear weapons were developed!
A few weeks ago I was doing an on-line search
for information on the Nike-X system, and
the Sprint missle in particular. I found,
in addition to what I was looking for, notes
on nuclear MORTAR SHELLS! Imagine a ten-pound
shell with the power of Timothy McViegh's bomb!
NO ONE but myself has the right to tell me what I
can/cannot do with my body, especially not an aging male politician
Okay:
you are for prostitution because, "it's my body?"
you're for legal drugs because, "it's my body?"
speeding is okay because, "it's my body?"
In any case, there are many laws out there that tell you what you can't do with "your body." This Roe v. Wade "right to privacy" is a fiction and you know it. Read the cited document (hint: US Constitution), it's not there
Furthermore, why should I pay to allow you unlimited fornication with no consequences?
Finally, I see that you, like the original poster, are totally blind to the differences between a convicted criminal and an unborn baby; that's very sad.
If you can't tell the difference between convicted murderers or traitors, and an unborn baby, perhaps you shouldn't be voting anyway.
Jeff
Re:People need the government's help here
on
Anonymity
·
· Score: 1
I know what they are. That wasn't the point.
It's really easy: if these things come to light,
prosecute. If the "victim" comes forward and is alive, then the case is dismissed. My point is that we have mechanisms in place already!
Jeff
Re:People need the government's help here
on
Anonymity
·
· Score: 1
Anne Marie wrote:
There, two men are being prosecuted for obscenity because they've used
computers to create realistic snuff films portraying fabricated and fictitious violence
Ah, so in Canada they have 3D rendering software that's so good that it can make people and scenes indisinguishable from the real things. Wow! I can't wait to see Toy Story 3!
If, on the other hand, you only mean to imply that computers were used as video production systems-- editors and video recorders, than what is your point in including "used computers?" A Macintosh with iMovie or a couple of BVU-850's or VO-5850's (yeah, those are very old 3/4" VTRs, but I've been out of the biz for a while!)-- they accomplish the same thing. I don't see the connection of computers to video in this case.
If on the other hand you mean only to speak of the content of their production, well that's different. One poster already said that perhaps these guys should cite the rest of the movie industry as doing similar things. Certianly Quinten Taratino could find himself on similar legal grounds if he went to Canada. I'm sure that Pulp Fiction got a much larger audience than anything these two guys could muster.
She then goes on to say:
Without government intervention to declare these films false and criminal, people
might think them real and might act upon the impulses generated by viewing them.
Here we go again. Big momma Washington is going to tuck us in and make it all better.
First of all, of course these films are "false!" Just about everything you see in any movie is "false." Do you think that the stunts performed in Mission: Impossible 2 were "true?" If real people really did the things portrayed in movies today, they'd die. No government told me this. I don't need a social worker to remind me that it's "only make-believe." To single out one movie, even one of such infinitely bad taste, is a bit of a straw man, isn't it?
How can a photograph be criminal? A photograph? A photograph might be classified in order to guard national security, but I find it difficult to imagine how a simple photograph, no matter what its content, could in itself be criminal. Has it been doctored and is, therefore, libelous or slander?
Secondly, we already have a system in place to handle people that "act upon the impulses generated by viewing" this movie. It's called the criminal justice system. People that do bad things go to jail. Or worse. No new laws or systems are required to handle this new situation.
Again, she continues:
It's the same with anonymous speech.
Oh, wow. You're now saying that producing anonymous speech is equivalent to producing make-believe snuff films? Now that really is bizarre. I really am not sure what to say.
But it's a natural part of human nature to assess anonymous speech with some value
when ranking memes.
Uh, isn't that the "consider the source" idea? Reading something posted anonymously causes me to read more critically. Why were they posting anonymously? Could they get in trouble for speaking thusly? Is what they are writing only to insult or inflame? Do they merely want to praise the virtues of warm breakfast food?:)
Thank you for putting it right out in the open: the purpose of women is to make babies, and we should be grateful for that opportunity?
A fellow poster has already come to my defense,
but I'll bite. Did you not notice that I said married teenage women? Is not childbearing the exclusive domain of the woman? I don't know about you, but my parents and my wife's parents are starting to wonder where the grandkids are (hey, we ARE trying:) Society kinda puts pressure on newly married people to make babies. In that age of hit-or-miss birth control (rhythm method anyone?) I'm sure that it didn't take long after the wedding night for the midwife to pay her first visit! See, nothing nefarious in my comment, but a keen understanding of young people!
The purpose of women is twofold: one, to bring honor and glory to their maker; two, to be a companion. The union of man and woman is the only part of creation that wasn't good: it was very good. Women act as a compliment to men. Individually they are incomplete, as are men. To say any different is to go against nature and common sense.
Finally, to answer your question, yes, you should be grateful for the blessing that is childbearing. I will admit that since the fall, childbirth has been problematic:) , but overall I know of no mother that would want it any other way. I know of very few fathers that would not, if you caught them privately, admit a little jealousy.
You continue:
It is now the role of the state to provide education to minors (read Brown v. Board of Education), so there is no longer any need to hold them in thrall of their parents. And it
is precisely that state education (in the form of library access) that is the subject of this article on slashdot. Your words have meaning, so think carefully about what sort
of world you'd have us live in. One of habitual rape and unanswered pleas for help? Or one for emancipation. Our country has had many great moments of emancipation
(13th amendment, 19th amendment, etc.) It is now time for another.
I'm sorry that you see human government as the answer to all people's problems. Haven't we seen enough failures in human government to know that it can't and won't fix everything? When was the last time you read Brave New World by Aldus Huxley? Is that the kind of world you'd want to live in? That seems to be what you're saying. I'm sorry, life is not about carnal pleasure without consequences. Yeah, sex is fun. I admit it. Sex is not, however, the pinnacle of existance.
Ya know what's funny? Sex is another one of those things that is a reflection of our relationship with God. Did you know that? Our relationship with God is reflected in the marriage relationship, and sex is an integral part of that. Our relationship with God is supposed to be so close as to be similar to that with a spouse! I should also probably mention that God is a jealous husband, and demands fidelity in his bride.:)
You tell me that my words have meaning, but from my perspective you don't seem to have thought your own position through to its logical end. What group of people could better care for a child than its own parents? Who knows it better? Do you really think that a government agency would do a better job?
Government has, in the past century, done no less than everything in its power to destroy families. Can you not see the results around you? Government can't, can't, give a child a moral foundation. Not this government anyway. Morality can't be instilled in a child via an act of congress. It's not implanted by executive order. It's not fostered through judicial ruling. Morality is learned through the careful, loving instruction of parents.
And morality must be taught. I'm sure you know, if you deal with kids at all, that they don't have to be taught how to be bad. Evil comes naturally to them. They are by their very nature selfish. Kids must be taught correct behavior, and it can't be done by a government program. It's done on a one-on-one basis, parent and child.
Your supposed savior, on the other hand, does everything it can to ensure parental failure. Corporal punishment can land a parent in jail if a teacher or other offical has an political axe to grind. Parents send their children to schools, much of the time out of neccessity, where they have no control over disagreeable cirricula. (Many of my friends have turned to home schooling or are tightening their belts and sending to private schools.) The single best defense a father can have for his family is unceasingly villified in the media and by government officials. And heaven forbid that a parent doesn't tow the "party line" like the sadly misled parents that followed David Koresh (I've yet to see solid evidence of what Reno claimed to happen, please show me wrong!).
The one best guide for parents is laughed at as outdated and outmoded in this "modern" age. Let me tell you a secret. It doesn't matter how many cars you own, how many degrees are on your wall, how many programming languages you know. You're the same kind of person that lived four thousand years ago. People just haven't changed.
The more I think about this, the more I think our difference in opinion stems from a difference in references. I recognize God's influence on the world, and its need for his saving grace. You, I fear, don't. Without that common reference, I see that you are trying to fill that God-shaped-void that each of us is born with with government.
Didn't mean to preach, but without acknowledging where I'm coming from it's hard to respond.
There is an interesting argument to be made on this point: the thirteenth amendment to the Constitution
prohibits slavery within the borders of the US. But can't this sort of rigorous parental control be understood as a
form of slavery? Girls who have the biological power to get pregnant are denied the right to an abortion without
their parents' approval in many states; they are so much chattel to be disposed of by their fathers.
How immature and selfish of you to even say such things! Parents are legally responsible for their children, no matter what their physical development. If a child breaks something, the parent is legally obligated to pay. If the child steals something, the parent can be held responsible.
Look, you and your "no-questions-asked-teenage-abortion-rights" ilk have it all backwards, I think. Actually, the problem goes way farther than that.
Used to be that girls could get married before the age of fifteen. That's right, even the Virgin Mary was probably no older than 14. It was societal convention. In that pre-industrialized world, the education afforded boys by the time they were fifteen was sufficient to make it "out there" and support a family of their own. They didn't need their parents to support them; they could actually do it themselves with what little they knew.
Boys used to either start their own farm on a parcel given to them by their parents or began a trade practice of their own as a journeyman. Apprenticeship would have been over by the time the boy entered his middle-teen years.
More importantly, boys were considered "men" legally by their middle teen years. The Jewish Bar-Mitzvah is a party that celebrates the "coming of age" of a boy. After his Bar-Mitzvah, a Jewish boy is, in the eyes of the Jewish community, a man, and he's only 13 years old. The Jewish Bat-Mitzvah is the girls' "coming of age" celebration.
Today, I think that even the brightest bulb would be hard pressed to make it with such a meager launching pad. Kids, therefore, stay at home longer today than at any other time in the past.
They're expected to increase their education through advanced schooling, and their parents are expected to care for them for an extended period of time (legally, to their eightteenth birthday). They stay in their parents care longer, and their parents are morally and, more importantly in this context, legally responsible for them longer than at any other time in the past. We extend childhood more than any other society ever has!
Premarital sex (fornication?) wasn't as much as a problem then; kids could get married much younger. Teenage pregnancy was expected of married teenage women.
As long as parents are legally responsible for their children, their wishes and desires carry more weight than the child themselves, as long as the wishes and desires are legal.
How about this: We don't let kids vote. We don't let them legally smoke or drink. They can't enter into legally binding contracts. They can't sign waivers. They are barely allowed to drive cars. They can't buy firearms. Why do you think all this is? Could it be that we as a society think that children aren't yet able to properly conduct themselves in an increasingly complex and demanding world?
If you really want kids to be liberated from their parents as pre-adolescents, the answer is easy: return to a pre-industrial agrarian society where the education collected by a thirteen year old is adequate to get along in life. That's all you need to do.
Which of you, if elected, intend to pardon
Dr. Wen Ho Lee to make partial reparations
to a man that was shown to have done nothing
wrong but forced to plead guilty to a felony
just so he could get out of jail.
We all know that Lee was a martyr that
the administration sent up as a scapegoat and
diversion, like Kosovo and the aspirin factory
in the Sudan. Like the Chinese Embassy.
Waco. The list goes on. Which candidate
is going to stand up for what's right and give
Dr. Lee his life back?
The first computer my immediate family had access to was a Sinclair ZX-81 that I purchased mail-order using money that I earned selling vegetables on the side of the road. $150 for the pre-assembled computer (didn't want to solder it myself; I was only going into the sixth grade) and a 16K ram expansion pack.
My parents had not even considered buying one; we were one of the hard luck cases that didn't have the money.
Where did I learn about this thing? At school?
No! It was in a magazine! My grandpa subscribed to Popular Science, Popular Mechanics and National Geographic. He was a member of both the Aircraft Onwers and Pilots Association and the Experimental Aircraft Association and received both of their magazines. I read them voraciously. In Popular Science, I remember a two-page spread in bright yellow. It was the ad for the ZX-81: $99 assembled for a real computer! I had to have one. With a little help, I did!
When my dad saw what we could do with that, we saved up and he bought a VIC-20.
That was when computers were expensive. Today, people are throwing out perfectly good, and usable, 486 and Pentium class machines. Check your newspaper, they're all over the place.
I think you'll find your the exception. And
as an exceptional student, you'd have found the
way to accomplish your goals with or without the
assistance of the school.
I didn't learn BASIC from a school. My school
didn't help me write a 6502 assmebler for my VIC-20 in BASIC when I was in the eighth grade. I even bought the book I used to learn 6502 machine code (Machine Code for the Commodore 64 by Jim Butterworth).
What I think should be would not "cripple driven students." In fact, you should know better than to make such a statement. Driven students do not succumb to adversity. They overcome it. A lack of computers at school would be no hinderance to the truly driven student. I don't think anything would be.
Furthermore, what household today doesn't have a computer? Cripes, my grandparents have one. In today's climate, even pleading poverty doesn't hold a lot of water. Look in the classifieds; tons of less-than-cutting-edge-but-perfectly-usable machines available for a song. Some people would give one to you just to be rid of it! Ya don't need USB, FireWire or 24-bit 3D-accelerated color to learn how to use a computer!
Actually, I spend a lot of my computer time at school looking at Slashdot:-)
Well, the height of computers when I was in
school was a room of IBM XTs, PCjrs and some Leading Edge 286's. Our fastest networking was done by the track team:)
Slashdot Mirror
Liquids under pressure are different; they're not compressible. Liquids under pressure are much safer, from a container failure standpoint, than compressed gasses.
Jeff
In that, one of my reasons was that on-line research was useless. Information on line that a researcher would really want was not there. Only an "abstract and an order form," I said.
Sadly, this is one more case where I'm right. On-line research, as promising as it might seem, doesn't work. I really liked Eric's Treasure Troves. I also like books. I don't like on-line resources getting the shaft so we have to buy a book.
Not to mention the fact that these niche books cost a fortune, and many students that need the resources can't afford them. There's no economies of scale on publishing runs that are only a few hundred copies.
I guess I'm turning into a curmudgeon, but as long as publishing houses are around, I don't see much changing.
Jeff
For the rest of us, the plusses of alternative fuels are not nearly enough to outweigh the significant disadvantage of fuel availability. Can't just pull off and stick a nozzle in the filler neck if your car runs on LP or some other alternative fuel.
Electric cars have their own problems: recharge time. Cars are "meant" to be ready to go in a moment's notice; the multi-hour downtime for recharging is unacceptable to most.
Jeff
Jeff
Jeff
I for one, don't want to be anywhere near it. Why? Ever read the label on a spray can? What does it say? "Do not puncture or incinerate." I can't wait for this grenade-mobile to hit (ahem) the road.
Jeff
Maximum power per unit fuel is logically achieved when the temperature difference, pre-burn versus post-burn is the greatest. This happens about when there is only enough fuel to completely use up the oxygen in the combustion chamber. More fuel tends to cool the resulting combustion gases, and less means that it can't get as hot as it would otherwise.
Combustion does occur rapidly, but in modern fuel injected engines it should occur completely.
Compare this to an airplane engine, or any multicylinder engine with a carbureter or throttle body injection. Fuel is atomized in the throat of induction system, where its proper mixing and intake into the cylinders is left to chance. Many times one cylinder will run significantly richer or leaner than it should due to inefficiencies in the induction system. On fuel injected engines the mixture can be tuned on a per-cylinder basis to get ideal mixtures everywhere.
IC engines can be very clean from a combustion products point of view. Modern engines are, for sure!
Jeff
I will admit that I've not looked at it much more closely than installing what was last month the latest version and then importing my personal checkbook register into it from a QIF file, but those things were not obvious.
Jeff
Jeff
Even smaller nulcear weapons were developed! A few weeks ago I was doing an on-line search for information on the Nike-X system, and the Sprint missle in particular. I found, in addition to what I was looking for, notes on nuclear MORTAR SHELLS! Imagine a ten-pound shell with the power of Timothy McViegh's bomb!
Jeff
Jeff
Jeff
Jeff
Jeff
Furthermore, why should I pay to allow you unlimited fornication with no consequences?
Finally, I see that you, like the original poster, are totally blind to the differences between a convicted criminal and an unborn baby; that's very sad.
Jeff
Jeff
Jeff
It's really easy: if these things come to light, prosecute. If the "victim" comes forward and is alive, then the case is dismissed. My point is that we have mechanisms in place already!
Jeff
If, on the other hand, you only mean to imply that computers were used as video production systems-- editors and video recorders, than what is your point in including "used computers?" A Macintosh with iMovie or a couple of BVU-850's or VO-5850's (yeah, those are very old 3/4" VTRs, but I've been out of the biz for a while!)-- they accomplish the same thing. I don't see the connection of computers to video in this case.
If on the other hand you mean only to speak of the content of their production, well that's different. One poster already said that perhaps these guys should cite the rest of the movie industry as doing similar things. Certianly Quinten Taratino could find himself on similar legal grounds if he went to Canada. I'm sure that Pulp Fiction got a much larger audience than anything these two guys could muster.
She then goes on to say:
Here we go again. Big momma Washington is going to tuck us in and make it all better.First of all, of course these films are "false!" Just about everything you see in any movie is "false." Do you think that the stunts performed in Mission: Impossible 2 were "true?" If real people really did the things portrayed in movies today, they'd die. No government told me this. I don't need a social worker to remind me that it's "only make-believe." To single out one movie, even one of such infinitely bad taste, is a bit of a straw man, isn't it?
How can a photograph be criminal? A photograph? A photograph might be classified in order to guard national security, but I find it difficult to imagine how a simple photograph, no matter what its content, could in itself be criminal. Has it been doctored and is, therefore, libelous or slander?
Secondly, we already have a system in place to handle people that "act upon the impulses generated by viewing" this movie. It's called the criminal justice system. People that do bad things go to jail. Or worse. No new laws or systems are required to handle this new situation.
Again, she continues:
Oh, wow. You're now saying that producing anonymous speech is equivalent to producing make-believe snuff films? Now that really is bizarre. I really am not sure what to say. Uh, isn't that the "consider the source" idea? Reading something posted anonymously causes me to read more critically. Why were they posting anonymously? Could they get in trouble for speaking thusly? Is what they are writing only to insult or inflame? Do they merely want to praise the virtues of warm breakfast food?Jeff
Jeff
Jeff
Jeff
The purpose of women is twofold: one, to bring honor and glory to their maker; two, to be a companion. The union of man and woman is the only part of creation that wasn't good: it was very good. Women act as a compliment to men. Individually they are incomplete, as are men. To say any different is to go against nature and common sense.
Finally, to answer your question, yes, you should be grateful for the blessing that is childbearing. I will admit that since the fall, childbirth has been problematic :) , but overall I know of no mother that would want it any other way. I know of very few fathers that would not, if you caught them privately, admit a little jealousy.
You continue:
I'm sorry that you see human government as the answer to all people's problems. Haven't we seen enough failures in human government to know that it can't and won't fix everything? When was the last time you read Brave New World by Aldus Huxley? Is that the kind of world you'd want to live in? That seems to be what you're saying. I'm sorry, life is not about carnal pleasure without consequences. Yeah, sex is fun. I admit it. Sex is not, however, the pinnacle of existance.Ya know what's funny? Sex is another one of those things that is a reflection of our relationship with God. Did you know that? Our relationship with God is reflected in the marriage relationship, and sex is an integral part of that. Our relationship with God is supposed to be so close as to be similar to that with a spouse! I should also probably mention that God is a jealous husband, and demands fidelity in his bride. :)
You tell me that my words have meaning, but from my perspective you don't seem to have thought your own position through to its logical end. What group of people could better care for a child than its own parents? Who knows it better? Do you really think that a government agency would do a better job?
Government has, in the past century, done no less than everything in its power to destroy families. Can you not see the results around you? Government can't, can't, give a child a moral foundation. Not this government anyway. Morality can't be instilled in a child via an act of congress. It's not implanted by executive order. It's not fostered through judicial ruling. Morality is learned through the careful, loving instruction of parents.
And morality must be taught. I'm sure you know, if you deal with kids at all, that they don't have to be taught how to be bad. Evil comes naturally to them. They are by their very nature selfish. Kids must be taught correct behavior, and it can't be done by a government program. It's done on a one-on-one basis, parent and child.
Your supposed savior, on the other hand, does everything it can to ensure parental failure. Corporal punishment can land a parent in jail if a teacher or other offical has an political axe to grind. Parents send their children to schools, much of the time out of neccessity, where they have no control over disagreeable cirricula. (Many of my friends have turned to home schooling or are tightening their belts and sending to private schools.) The single best defense a father can have for his family is unceasingly villified in the media and by government officials. And heaven forbid that a parent doesn't tow the "party line" like the sadly misled parents that followed David Koresh (I've yet to see solid evidence of what Reno claimed to happen, please show me wrong!). The one best guide for parents is laughed at as outdated and outmoded in this "modern" age. Let me tell you a secret. It doesn't matter how many cars you own, how many degrees are on your wall, how many programming languages you know. You're the same kind of person that lived four thousand years ago. People just haven't changed.
The more I think about this, the more I think our difference in opinion stems from a difference in references. I recognize God's influence on the world, and its need for his saving grace. You, I fear, don't. Without that common reference, I see that you are trying to fill that God-shaped-void that each of us is born with with government.
Didn't mean to preach, but without acknowledging where I'm coming from it's hard to respond.
Jeff
Jeff
Look, you and your "no-questions-asked-teenage-abortion-rights" ilk have it all backwards, I think. Actually, the problem goes way farther than that.
Used to be that girls could get married before the age of fifteen. That's right, even the Virgin Mary was probably no older than 14. It was societal convention. In that pre-industrialized world, the education afforded boys by the time they were fifteen was sufficient to make it "out there" and support a family of their own. They didn't need their parents to support them; they could actually do it themselves with what little they knew.
Boys used to either start their own farm on a parcel given to them by their parents or began a trade practice of their own as a journeyman. Apprenticeship would have been over by the time the boy entered his middle-teen years.
More importantly, boys were considered "men" legally by their middle teen years. The Jewish Bar-Mitzvah is a party that celebrates the "coming of age" of a boy. After his Bar-Mitzvah, a Jewish boy is, in the eyes of the Jewish community, a man, and he's only 13 years old. The Jewish Bat-Mitzvah is the girls' "coming of age" celebration.
Today, I think that even the brightest bulb would be hard pressed to make it with such a meager launching pad. Kids, therefore, stay at home longer today than at any other time in the past. They're expected to increase their education through advanced schooling, and their parents are expected to care for them for an extended period of time (legally, to their eightteenth birthday). They stay in their parents care longer, and their parents are morally and, more importantly in this context, legally responsible for them longer than at any other time in the past. We extend childhood more than any other society ever has!
Premarital sex (fornication?) wasn't as much as a problem then; kids could get married much younger. Teenage pregnancy was expected of married teenage women.
As long as parents are legally responsible for their children, their wishes and desires carry more weight than the child themselves, as long as the wishes and desires are legal.
How about this: We don't let kids vote. We don't let them legally smoke or drink. They can't enter into legally binding contracts. They can't sign waivers. They are barely allowed to drive cars. They can't buy firearms. Why do you think all this is? Could it be that we as a society think that children aren't yet able to properly conduct themselves in an increasingly complex and demanding world?
If you really want kids to be liberated from their parents as pre-adolescents, the answer is easy: return to a pre-industrial agrarian society where the education collected by a thirteen year old is adequate to get along in life. That's all you need to do.
Jeff
Jeff
We all know that Lee was a martyr that the administration sent up as a scapegoat and diversion, like Kosovo and the aspirin factory in the Sudan. Like the Chinese Embassy. Waco. The list goes on. Which candidate is going to stand up for what's right and give Dr. Lee his life back?
Jeff
Jeff
My parents had not even considered buying one; we were one of the hard luck cases that didn't have the money.
Where did I learn about this thing? At school? No! It was in a magazine! My grandpa subscribed to Popular Science, Popular Mechanics and National Geographic. He was a member of both the Aircraft Onwers and Pilots Association and the Experimental Aircraft Association and received both of their magazines. I read them voraciously. In Popular Science, I remember a two-page spread in bright yellow. It was the ad for the ZX-81: $99 assembled for a real computer! I had to have one. With a little help, I did!
When my dad saw what we could do with that, we saved up and he bought a VIC-20.
That was when computers were expensive. Today, people are throwing out perfectly good, and usable, 486 and Pentium class machines. Check your newspaper, they're all over the place.
Jeff
Jeff
Jeff
Jeff
I think you'll find your the exception. And as an exceptional student, you'd have found the way to accomplish your goals with or without the assistance of the school.
I didn't learn BASIC from a school. My school didn't help me write a 6502 assmebler for my VIC-20 in BASIC when I was in the eighth grade. I even bought the book I used to learn 6502 machine code (Machine Code for the Commodore 64 by Jim Butterworth).
What I think should be would not "cripple driven students." In fact, you should know better than to make such a statement. Driven students do not succumb to adversity. They overcome it. A lack of computers at school would be no hinderance to the truly driven student. I don't think anything would be.
Furthermore, what household today doesn't have a computer? Cripes, my grandparents have one. In today's climate, even pleading poverty doesn't hold a lot of water. Look in the classifieds; tons of less-than-cutting-edge-but-perfectly-usable machines available for a song. Some people would give one to you just to be rid of it! Ya don't need USB, FireWire or 24-bit 3D-accelerated color to learn how to use a computer!
Jeff
Jeff
Jeff