Just picking nits here... But it makes no sense to compare nuclear to hydrogen power. Hydrogen would be an energy storage medium (like a battery). The method of splitting the water is exactly what we're talking about. Nuclear? Solar? Coal? Oil? It doesn't decrease the amount of energy needed to "create" that pure hydrogen - if anything the inefficiencies will increase it. Currently most "low cost" schemes to generate hydrogen do not involve extracting it from water, but extracting it from some form of hydrocarbon. Hydrogen is great, but like batteries it has its pros and cons.
...As opposed to the land area lost to coal mining? Damages to shorelines due to oil spills? Entire regions of the world subjected to wars by foreign powers over their energy resources? You're comparing occasional unplanned disasters due to accidents in first-generation technology to continued and systematic disasters to support coal and oil based energy production.
That bulb is also quite dim (runs at a much cooler temperature), draws less power (4 watts), and is very very rarely turned off. Drive a modern 100 watt incandescent off of a low voltage power source, never, turn it off, sit back and be amazed at it's longevity.
My objection (and I am not parent poster, obviously) is that I'm still paying the full price of the bulb. Rebates aren't magically printed money, and that $60 cost has to come from *somewhere*. Ultimately it comes right out of our power bills or tax dollars. Subsidies hide the true costs of something and ultimately just serve to benefit one company or another while reducing the variety in the market ecosystem - look at oil, corn, or any number of other subsidized industries as an example. It also only propagates our short-sighted obsession with up front costs. CFLs are subsidized here - but I'd still buy them if they weren't because I understand the differences in power consumption.
If only the teacher was there to grade it... In my own experience, most teachers at those grades *loved* when their students were able to point out mistakes or other correct answers and then justify their results. Typically when we had a test, we would go back over them after they were graded. We'd find out what the correct answers were, how to get there, and in some cases (usually math-related) there would be an opportunity to make up credit. For me this was a very effective way to learn and further understand the material.
A major problem with standardized testing is there is no feedback like this. Most teachers *hate* it. There is simply "take the test so we can find out what you know." The result? Teachers can not as effectively teach you the material and instead have to adjust their curriculum to teach you the test.
Oh there's plenty of debate... I remember taking some of these sorts of tests in school and coming across questions where they want the "most correct" of several quite correct answers. All it does is increase the stress on the test taker and all it actually tests is how accurately the test taker can anticipate the psyche of the test maker. If there is a multiple choice question where only one choice is allowed, there damn well better be just one absolutely correct answer. Luckily with computer based testing, it's easier to to do things like "choose all correct answers" or "rate these from most to least testable."
All of the answers depend on the test takers experience and that's why it's a bad question. Look at it another way:
- If I were into sewing or stitching or had any interest in materials science, I'd say the pedals and I'd be right (to be honest, from where I sit this is the most testable answer).
- If I were big on instruments and music (or if I were big into bird watching), I'd say the bird song question and I'd be right.
- In elementary school, we had done a "name this substance" science project where there would be some common kitchen ingredients and we needed to figure out what was what without tasting. If we'd done a project like that recently in class, I'd say the sweetness test and I'd be right.
- If I were a bug collector or interested in insects (as many kids are), I'd say the bees and I'd be right.
This is why this is a bad question, and if it were in the practice test, exactly why it was rejected. The disconcerting thing is why a question like this was ever considered in the first place. The only thing in this question that is not easily testable is which answer is "most correct."
This is a very good point. The folks generating standardized tests do collect statistics on who gets what questions wrong. Ever wonder why every standardized test collects your ethnic background as well? If a population is more likely to get a question wrong, they can reject it and find out why people would get it wrong, using that feedback to improve the test.
Four is still just a survey of the preference of the bees... Just like two and three would be preferences of the people. How can you objectively measure bee preference for one aspect of the flower? Sure it's testable, but isolating what exactly the bees are attracted to is non-trivial and lowers the testability of that statement. Maybe they preferred the smell, the lighting, the lack of aphids, or any number of factors. Hell, as I see it the best answer is one - because you can objectively measure hardness of materials through several readily available scientific means and thereby determine which rose has softer pedals, and of course since you're comparing two it makes the comparison that much easier. Then again, depending on my mood and what I most recently read, I could push for any answer as the "best one."
Or you could accept that the "most correct answer" all depends on the background of the test taker for a question where the answers are shades of correctness and not absolute right and wrong. This is exactly why "most correct" does not work for multiple choice questions and why you see statistically significant variances in answers for different populations of people in these sorts of questions (educational, ethnic, and income backgrounds).
And I'm betting that despite the suspension you probably heard a "yeah, we're just doing this because it's policy" from at least one person involved in the process...
Teachers in public schools in general really are quite good. There are not many professions where you have that many people do that much work for relatively meager pay simply because they're passionate about it.
The issue people have with public schools is that everybody wants them to be a silver bullet for educating (and raising) our youth. There are an awful lot of people out there who feel that schools (public or private) should teach their kids the most of what they should know. There is little consideration for what the kids do *outside* of that six hour school day. Fundamentally this is where the problem lies: You don't have bad public schools, you have bad communities.
Ah yes, education from the parents. See, in the US, raising your kids is somebody else's problem. Just like anything else that might go wrong - always somebody else's problem. Spiritual babysitting from church, educational babysitting from school. This gives parents freedom from having to raise their kids. And, just like you've read on TV, we're all about our freedoms!
Which may work in Romania... In the United States we are taught to viciously attack any ideologies that in any way differ from our own. Remember, pride is to stand firm to your beliefs even when somebody has demonstrated them to be wrong. After all, only the weak question what they feel in their gut when presented with evidence to the contrary.
And again... EVs are not a grand solution for everybody. In any discussion about them, there's always a big portion of people who say "but what about *my* needs?" Well, you can (very easily) have your needs fulfilled by somebody else. Nobody is telling you to buy an EV.
Aside from Cash for Clunkers cars, that's not entirely true. A new car purchased doesn't mean your old car is crushed into a cube and dumped into a landfill. Look at it this way: You replace your midsize sedan with a midsize hybrid. Your old car is bought by somebody else used, whose old car is likely bought used by somebody else. The vehicles that are junked are in general quire a bit older and typically beyond economically feasible repair. Those junked cars also aren't languishing in a landfill, they are salvaged for scrap, metals recycled, etc.
You can argue that cars in general are not "green," and sure that has some merit. But cars are a fact of life right now. Old cars wear out and new cars need to be purchased.
The content *is* open sourced and freely available. With a library card and a ton of time, you could become a subject matter expert in any number of fields for the past century. The problem is that *most* humans are not very good at working in a vacuum like that and generally need the guidance of a real live person. It is also very important to have the infrastructure in place to apply what you've studied. Probably not so much for mathematics and history - but in my experience at college I got far more out of applying the coursework in the associated labs (specifically thinking physics and than I would have from simply memorizing the coursework.
I'm not saying the current methods are the best way to go about it - it really would be interesting to have a publicly accredited "demonstrate your knowledge for a degree" exam, but it's not a universal solution. The challenges in most schools these days is precisely that they try to apply a one-size-fits all approach to education which simply isn't the case. Software based learning is an excellent tool, but there really is no silver bullet here.
Slashdot Mirror
Just picking nits here... But it makes no sense to compare nuclear to hydrogen power. Hydrogen would be an energy storage medium (like a battery). The method of splitting the water is exactly what we're talking about. Nuclear? Solar? Coal? Oil? It doesn't decrease the amount of energy needed to "create" that pure hydrogen - if anything the inefficiencies will increase it. Currently most "low cost" schemes to generate hydrogen do not involve extracting it from water, but extracting it from some form of hydrocarbon. Hydrogen is great, but like batteries it has its pros and cons.
...As opposed to the land area lost to coal mining? Damages to shorelines due to oil spills? Entire regions of the world subjected to wars by foreign powers over their energy resources? You're comparing occasional unplanned disasters due to accidents in first-generation technology to continued and systematic disasters to support coal and oil based energy production.
That bulb is also quite dim (runs at a much cooler temperature), draws less power (4 watts), and is very very rarely turned off. Drive a modern 100 watt incandescent off of a low voltage power source, never, turn it off, sit back and be amazed at it's longevity.
My objection (and I am not parent poster, obviously) is that I'm still paying the full price of the bulb. Rebates aren't magically printed money, and that $60 cost has to come from *somewhere*. Ultimately it comes right out of our power bills or tax dollars. Subsidies hide the true costs of something and ultimately just serve to benefit one company or another while reducing the variety in the market ecosystem - look at oil, corn, or any number of other subsidized industries as an example. It also only propagates our short-sighted obsession with up front costs. CFLs are subsidized here - but I'd still buy them if they weren't because I understand the differences in power consumption.
If only the teacher was there to grade it... In my own experience, most teachers at those grades *loved* when their students were able to point out mistakes or other correct answers and then justify their results. Typically when we had a test, we would go back over them after they were graded. We'd find out what the correct answers were, how to get there, and in some cases (usually math-related) there would be an opportunity to make up credit. For me this was a very effective way to learn and further understand the material.
A major problem with standardized testing is there is no feedback like this. Most teachers *hate* it. There is simply "take the test so we can find out what you know." The result? Teachers can not as effectively teach you the material and instead have to adjust their curriculum to teach you the test.
Five baguettes is more than ten slices of wonderbread.
Five quarters is more than ten dimes
Five good questions is more than ten bad ones.
Oh there's plenty of debate... I remember taking some of these sorts of tests in school and coming across questions where they want the "most correct" of several quite correct answers. All it does is increase the stress on the test taker and all it actually tests is how accurately the test taker can anticipate the psyche of the test maker. If there is a multiple choice question where only one choice is allowed, there damn well better be just one absolutely correct answer. Luckily with computer based testing, it's easier to to do things like "choose all correct answers" or "rate these from most to least testable."
All of the answers depend on the test takers experience and that's why it's a bad question. Look at it another way:
- If I were into sewing or stitching or had any interest in materials science, I'd say the pedals and I'd be right (to be honest, from where I sit this is the most testable answer).
- If I were big on instruments and music (or if I were big into bird watching), I'd say the bird song question and I'd be right.
- In elementary school, we had done a "name this substance" science project where there would be some common kitchen ingredients and we needed to figure out what was what without tasting. If we'd done a project like that recently in class, I'd say the sweetness test and I'd be right.
- If I were a bug collector or interested in insects (as many kids are), I'd say the bees and I'd be right.
This is why this is a bad question, and if it were in the practice test, exactly why it was rejected. The disconcerting thing is why a question like this was ever considered in the first place. The only thing in this question that is not easily testable is which answer is "most correct."
This is a very good point. The folks generating standardized tests do collect statistics on who gets what questions wrong. Ever wonder why every standardized test collects your ethnic background as well? If a population is more likely to get a question wrong, they can reject it and find out why people would get it wrong, using that feedback to improve the test.
Four is still just a survey of the preference of the bees... Just like two and three would be preferences of the people. How can you objectively measure bee preference for one aspect of the flower? Sure it's testable, but isolating what exactly the bees are attracted to is non-trivial and lowers the testability of that statement. Maybe they preferred the smell, the lighting, the lack of aphids, or any number of factors. Hell, as I see it the best answer is one - because you can objectively measure hardness of materials through several readily available scientific means and thereby determine which rose has softer pedals, and of course since you're comparing two it makes the comparison that much easier. Then again, depending on my mood and what I most recently read, I could push for any answer as the "best one."
Or you could accept that the "most correct answer" all depends on the background of the test taker for a question where the answers are shades of correctness and not absolute right and wrong. This is exactly why "most correct" does not work for multiple choice questions and why you see statistically significant variances in answers for different populations of people in these sorts of questions (educational, ethnic, and income backgrounds).
Mock them relentlessly. Next question?
And I'm betting that despite the suspension you probably heard a "yeah, we're just doing this because it's policy" from at least one person involved in the process...
Teachers in public schools in general really are quite good. There are not many professions where you have that many people do that much work for relatively meager pay simply because they're passionate about it.
The issue people have with public schools is that everybody wants them to be a silver bullet for educating (and raising) our youth. There are an awful lot of people out there who feel that schools (public or private) should teach their kids the most of what they should know. There is little consideration for what the kids do *outside* of that six hour school day. Fundamentally this is where the problem lies: You don't have bad public schools, you have bad communities.
- Potty training: check
- Encouraging appropriate social interaction: check
- Teaching to fetch the newspaper: check
I really don't see the difference...
Probably should have reworded: "Expensive, high-tech system mandated to overcome floor mat design flaw" just to highlight the ridiculousness...
While I don't disagree with what you say, I find the best defense against a group like that is to strike back using subtle mockery and cutting wit!
This is why I only ever build my roads out of yellow bricks.
Ah yes, education from the parents. See, in the US, raising your kids is somebody else's problem. Just like anything else that might go wrong - always somebody else's problem. Spiritual babysitting from church, educational babysitting from school. This gives parents freedom from having to raise their kids. And, just like you've read on TV, we're all about our freedoms!
Which may work in Romania... In the United States we are taught to viciously attack any ideologies that in any way differ from our own. Remember, pride is to stand firm to your beliefs even when somebody has demonstrated them to be wrong. After all, only the weak question what they feel in their gut when presented with evidence to the contrary.
And again... EVs are not a grand solution for everybody. In any discussion about them, there's always a big portion of people who say "but what about *my* needs?" Well, you can (very easily) have your needs fulfilled by somebody else. Nobody is telling you to buy an EV.
Aside from Cash for Clunkers cars, that's not entirely true. A new car purchased doesn't mean your old car is crushed into a cube and dumped into a landfill. Look at it this way: You replace your midsize sedan with a midsize hybrid. Your old car is bought by somebody else used, whose old car is likely bought used by somebody else. The vehicles that are junked are in general quire a bit older and typically beyond economically feasible repair. Those junked cars also aren't languishing in a landfill, they are salvaged for scrap, metals recycled, etc.
You can argue that cars in general are not "green," and sure that has some merit. But cars are a fact of life right now. Old cars wear out and new cars need to be purchased.
Thanks, I knew I could count on /. to fix my incorrect Guide quotes!
It's true. Everybody is out to get you.
The content *is* open sourced and freely available. With a library card and a ton of time, you could become a subject matter expert in any number of fields for the past century. The problem is that *most* humans are not very good at working in a vacuum like that and generally need the guidance of a real live person. It is also very important to have the infrastructure in place to apply what you've studied. Probably not so much for mathematics and history - but in my experience at college I got far more out of applying the coursework in the associated labs (specifically thinking physics and than I would have from simply memorizing the coursework.
I'm not saying the current methods are the best way to go about it - it really would be interesting to have a publicly accredited "demonstrate your knowledge for a degree" exam, but it's not a universal solution. The challenges in most schools these days is precisely that they try to apply a one-size-fits all approach to education which simply isn't the case. Software based learning is an excellent tool, but there really is no silver bullet here.
Technically that's two questions...
Technically speaking, space would suck up the building.