Once you get to university level though it becomes much harder to compare because every university has thier own sylabus and thier own tests. So you don't know if students are getting good grades because of good teaching or because the test is too easy.
That's what the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education is for. Also courses are frequently accredited by professional organisations such as (for computing qualifications) the BCS.
To an extent though, this is where market forces rather than standardisation comes in. Potential students should be aware of the value of the education they will recieve, when choosing where to study. Employers should know the difference between a qualification from a crappy university versus one from a reputable university.
Powerpoints are a win-win for colleges though -- less skilled teachers can be employed at lower wages.
I don't know about where you live, but here in the UK schools, colleges and universities are measured on results. Whether it's by the authorities or by the markets, the institution will get punished for bad results.
So anything that reduces the quality of teaching is not "win-win".
(So why does this happen? Many reasons, including: a shortage of talented educators; universities' habit of having roles that are part-educator-part-researcher even when the individual is only interested in the research part)
I mean, how will the system react to motorcyclist merging into the middle of it to pass to the other side? What about a car trying to merge into the middle of it? Proper driving distance requires enough space for that to happen after all.
'Proper driving distance' would not be observed. That distance is intended for human beings to react to unpredictable behaviour from the car in front.
In this project, the cars are being driven by computers with much faster reactions than humans. And the car in front is controlled by the same computer. I was about to say that every car in the train would brake simultaneously - but on reflections, it's more likely that the back car would brake first.
I get the impression that the cars would be mere inches apart - certainly not space for a motorbike to sneak through. A gap would open during the car-leaving-the-train pattern; some solution is needed there.
That's not even getting into people who have malicious intent and try to make such a beast crash by, for example, running a specifically broken transmitter.
This is the most realistic objection so far. Pretty scary!
How would they expect this system to work at highway Merges ?
Don't. Stick to shuttling up and down a simple motorway.
Another fun thing is inclement weather and curves on the highway. My car can take curves at a much higher speed than a panel truck during high winds.
The train would obviously have to go at the lowest speed that's safe for all the vehicles in it. There's a few ways this could go:
I can imagine a situation where the trains go slower than you would probably choose to drive. I'd choose a 4 hour journey where I don't have to concentrate, over a 3.5 hour journey where I do.
I can also imagine a situation where the trains go a lot faster than you would probably choose to drive - because the software is considered a safer driver than a person; because you have a dedicated lane; whatever.
I can imagine certain classes of vehicle not being allowed into a train because they can't safely go at the required speed.
I don't think roads with any kind of sharp turns would be considered for this project. Even so, if high sided trucks are involved, then speeds would have to be reduced in extreme weather conditions.
Of course, everyone should reduce speed in extreme weather anyway. With a pro at the wheel, it's more likely to actually happen.
I imagine it would remain in an outer lane, so as not to interfere with
I'm not going to go through your post point by point, but I think this is worth pointing out:
The proposal is intended for European motorways (like freeways). Smooth, wide, well maintained, multi-lane roads that go from A to B with no stop signals.
You won't hit a pothole on these roads.
You won't find significant puddles (OK, you'll get surface water in extreme weather - in which case the whole train will need to slow down pre-emptively).
You won't hit ice, because it'll be properly gritted.
You won't get carjacked; the road bypasses populated areas.
More like "thanks for raising the bar and forcing us to improve".
This!
I remember in the days of Windows 3.1, it seemed like a big deal that you could change IP address on Linux without rebooting. Once a few thousand geeks realised there was nothing inherent about the PC platform that prevented things like this, and memory protection, pre-emptive multitasking etc., there was a strong market incentive for Windows to improve.
I don't think Windows would be as good as it is today if it weren't for competition from Linux. I'm sure MSIE would be far, far worse if it weren't for Firefox. (Yes, yes, OK, Opera. But for years Opera cost money.)
I was not mounting an attack on your religion, nor anyone else's.
Malc had constructed a strawman argument about atheism ("if we are as nature made us, how can we be responsible?"). I tried to point out that the same strawman can be applied to theism ("if we are as God made us, how can we be responsible?")
I have spent 36 years failing to grok religion (it fascinates me precisely for that reason) so there may well be something I've missed.
Where a high voltage appliance will be placed, a high voltage outlet is provided and plainly different from the lower voltage outlets. No significant thinking needed.
That's more than 'no thinking'. Actually my experience while in countries with a dual standard is usually more frustrating when wanting to plug in a low voltage appliance. "I'll just plug my laptop in here to charge... oh bollocks, it's the wrong shape socket."
You never, ever get that in the UK (unless you're in a very specialised environment such as a theatre with a 3-phase supply, or a high-spec server room).
But why the overhead of having two standards, when one size could fit all?
I bet you wouldn't countenance a third US standard, so you had one socket for low wattage devices like phone chargers, and another for things like hairdriers? So why does two make sense?
Full-on portable electric heaters are getting rarer now, since gas central heating is cheaper. But we used to have a 3 bar fire with a convection heater attached. So that's over 3KW, which would be 30amps on a US supply.
What's wrong with a system where you don't have to *think* about whether a given socket works with a given appliance?
Google wants to sell Javascript based apps. Google Docs. Wave. And in future, even more demanding stuff.
They needed browsers with faster JS and faster dynamic rendering. The market wasn't doing it for them. So they did it themselves.
It wouldn't surprise me if Wave wasn't the primary driver for Chrome. "Hey, we've got this cool app, but it's going to run like a dog on most people's browsers. How can we fix that?".
I've not had a BSOD since a year or so after windows XP's release. So something like 7years?
I get about four a week, so you'll excuse me if your good luck doesn't cheer me up.
Dell laptop, XP Pro, never installed a driver from a dodgy source, RAM passes all Dell diagnostic tests, Symantec AV since the machine was built, STOP message gives a different.DLL or.SYS name every time.
I have no idea how to remedy this. The best advice I've had is to try replacing drivers pretty much at random. Given that there's a 48hour MTBF, this would be a very long and frustrating experiment.
Nuts, isn't it? Roundabouts are so obviously the right solution to the problem. And when you think about it, the rules are no different than if it was an ordinary road: give way to traffic that's already on the road/roundabout you're joining.
I've been on a very few US roundabouts (or "rotaries"). One of them, noticably, neglected to have a marking to show you where to stop when giving way. D'oh!
Most British houses would have a circuit each for upstairs lighting, downstairs lighting, sockets, maybe more.
Since the 1970s at least, each of these would have their own fuse - to replace you would isolate the supply, undo some screws, and replace a piece of fuse wire (not even in a glass cartridge).
Almost everywhere nowadays has an RCD for each circuit. Mine trips every time a halogen light blows. Which is frequent.
The British plugs are too big, too cumbersome, too heavy duty for normal consumer electronics. It's like they were designed for air conditioners.
Kettles. What's the point in an electrical outlet, if you can't boil enough water for a pot of tea in a reasonable amount of time?
Americans seldom have electric kettles. Japanese 110V electric kettles take forever to boil, and hence have elaborate insulation and thermostatic controls for "always on" hot water.
You've spectacularly missed the point, then called it 'retarded'.
There's a consensus that prisons are a a useful tool that are worth having, and that's why pretty much the entire world has them.
What there's no consensus on is what they're for and what they should be like. That's why in some places prisons are filthy uncomfortable hellholes where prisoners are left to rot, and in other places prisons intended to be civilised institutions where prisoners are moulded back into worthwhile members of society.
By analogy - there's a bent nail hanging out of a shed. One person thinks it should be knocked back straight then driven into the wood. Another thinks it should be prised out and replaced by a screw. They can reach consensus that a claw hammer should be used - but they differ on what for.
Your view on the *purpose* of prison, influences your views on sentencing.
So just because *we* can't predict the outcome..with our current level of knowledge of theoretical quantum physics, it cannot be predicted at all? That's rich
It's more than that. Current, mature, well accepted theories state that you can't measure both the position and the velocity of an electron. Not because our tools aren't good enough but because it fundamentally doesn't have both at the same time.
Real tangible things rely on this behaviour. Such as your computer's CPU.
How can atheism NOT equal determinism? What enters into the equation to allow free will?
How is theism any different. Einstein said "God does not play dice". I think that's as valid a statement whether you think of God as a real entity or as an atheist's metaphor for nature.
You can argue for or against determinism, from both theist and atheist perspectives.
Quantum uncertainty says that God does play dice. Chaos theory says that even if God doesn't play dice, it's so difficult to determine the future given your observation of the present, He might as well be.
And it can be argued just the same that people predisposed to violence will be far more likely to do it again, "reformed" or not. What happens when they're in a situation when it's harder to control themselves (drunk, etc)? Just an example but it's appropriate here, and I know the obvious response is that they should know better, but really, if they couldn't control themselves once, would you honestly trust someone to compose themselves in the future, knowing that they're predisposed to doing it again?
If they repeat-offend, then by definition, they're not reformed. And some people will definitely do that. But that's quite different from the GP's post 'reformation is impossible'. If 1% of apparently reformed released prisoners go on to reoffend, is that a good reason to keep the other 99% in jail?
On getting drunk: if someone recognises that being drunk prevents them from controlling criminal urges, then part of their rehabilitation is to learn to avoid getting drunk. Just as recovering alcoholics learn to avoid social situations where they'll be tempted to drink.
Slashdot Mirror
Once you get to university level though it becomes much harder to compare because every university has thier own sylabus and thier own tests. So you don't know if students are getting good grades because of good teaching or because the test is too easy.
That's what the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education is for. Also courses are frequently accredited by professional organisations such as (for computing qualifications) the BCS.
To an extent though, this is where market forces rather than standardisation comes in. Potential students should be aware of the value of the education they will recieve, when choosing where to study. Employers should know the difference between a qualification from a crappy university versus one from a reputable university.
Being British, I have not heard of Glenn Beck.
Remember a few weeks ago there was all that outrage that the neocon Tory MEP Dan Hannan had been slagging off the NHS on American TV?
That was on the Glenn Beck show. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpda3l2ri0Y - guaranteed to raise your blood pressure.
Powerpoints are a win-win for colleges though -- less skilled teachers can be employed at lower wages.
I don't know about where you live, but here in the UK schools, colleges and universities are measured on results. Whether it's by the authorities or by the markets, the institution will get punished for bad results.
So anything that reduces the quality of teaching is not "win-win".
(So why does this happen? Many reasons, including: a shortage of talented educators; universities' habit of having roles that are part-educator-part-researcher even when the individual is only interested in the research part)
I mean, how will the system react to motorcyclist merging into the middle of it to pass to the other side? What about a car trying to merge into the middle of it? Proper driving distance requires enough space for that to happen after all.
'Proper driving distance' would not be observed. That distance is intended for human beings to react to unpredictable behaviour from the car in front.
In this project, the cars are being driven by computers with much faster reactions than humans. And the car in front is controlled by the same computer. I was about to say that every car in the train would brake simultaneously - but on reflections, it's more likely that the back car would brake first.
I get the impression that the cars would be mere inches apart - certainly not space for a motorbike to sneak through. A gap would open during the car-leaving-the-train pattern; some solution is needed there.
That's not even getting into people who have malicious intent and try to make such a beast crash by, for example, running a specifically broken transmitter.
This is the most realistic objection so far. Pretty scary!
How would they expect this system to work at highway Merges ?
Don't. Stick to shuttling up and down a simple motorway.
Another fun thing is inclement weather and curves on the highway. My car can take curves at a much higher speed than a panel truck during high winds.
The train would obviously have to go at the lowest speed that's safe for all the vehicles in it. There's a few ways this could go:
I can imagine a situation where the trains go slower than you would probably choose to drive. I'd choose a 4 hour journey where I don't have to concentrate, over a 3.5 hour journey where I do.
I can also imagine a situation where the trains go a lot faster than you would probably choose to drive - because the software is considered a safer driver than a person; because you have a dedicated lane; whatever.
I can imagine certain classes of vehicle not being allowed into a train because they can't safely go at the required speed.
I don't think roads with any kind of sharp turns would be considered for this project. Even so, if high sided trucks are involved, then speeds would have to be reduced in extreme weather conditions.
Of course, everyone should reduce speed in extreme weather anyway. With a pro at the wheel, it's more likely to actually happen.
I imagine it would remain in an outer lane, so as not to interfere with
I'm not going to go through your post point by point, but I think this is worth pointing out:
The proposal is intended for European motorways (like freeways). Smooth, wide, well maintained, multi-lane roads that go from A to B with no stop signals.
You won't hit a pothole on these roads.
You won't find significant puddles (OK, you'll get surface water in extreme weather - in which case the whole train will need to slow down pre-emptively).
You won't hit ice, because it'll be properly gritted.
You won't get carjacked; the road bypasses populated areas.
And so on.
1. Most of the Web needs JS now. Without it, you get a niche browser most people won't use.
2. An awful lot of FF is written in JS.
Hang on, did I say I wanted a Firefox upgrade? No, it just happens.
Set your auto-update preferences at:
Tools -> Options -> Advanced -> Update
More like "thanks for raising the bar and forcing us to improve".
This!
I remember in the days of Windows 3.1, it seemed like a big deal that you could change IP address on Linux without rebooting. Once a few thousand geeks realised there was nothing inherent about the PC platform that prevented things like this, and memory protection, pre-emptive multitasking etc., there was a strong market incentive for Windows to improve.
I don't think Windows would be as good as it is today if it weren't for competition from Linux. I'm sure MSIE would be far, far worse if it weren't for Firefox. (Yes, yes, OK, Opera. But for years Opera cost money.)
Which piece of bloat would you remove first?
Given that in the vast majority of cases, 3d is essentially a tacky gimmick with little real benefit, what on earth are they thinking?!
Where's your sense of fun? We get a couple of hours of entertainingly tacky gimmickry, and then once we've had our fun, things go back to normal.
I'm thinking back fondly to the time the cinema I worked at did had a midnight showing of Creature From The Black Lagoon in 3D.
Oh, I don't know about that.
Part of the 3D season is 'Flesh for Frankenstein'.
I was not mounting an attack on your religion, nor anyone else's.
Malc had constructed a strawman argument about atheism ("if we are as nature made us, how can we be responsible?"). I tried to point out that the same strawman can be applied to theism ("if we are as God made us, how can we be responsible?")
I have spent 36 years failing to grok religion (it fascinates me precisely for that reason) so there may well be something I've missed.
Where a high voltage appliance will be placed, a high voltage outlet is provided and plainly different from the lower voltage outlets. No significant thinking needed.
That's more than 'no thinking'. Actually my experience while in countries with a dual standard is usually more frustrating when wanting to plug in a low voltage appliance. "I'll just plug my laptop in here to charge... oh bollocks, it's the wrong shape socket."
You never, ever get that in the UK (unless you're in a very specialised environment such as a theatre with a 3-phase supply, or a high-spec server room).
But why the overhead of having two standards, when one size could fit all?
I bet you wouldn't countenance a third US standard, so you had one socket for low wattage devices like phone chargers, and another for things like hairdriers? So why does two make sense?
Full-on portable electric heaters are getting rarer now, since gas central heating is cheaper. But we used to have a 3 bar fire with a convection heater attached. So that's over 3KW, which would be 30amps on a US supply.
What's wrong with a system where you don't have to *think* about whether a given socket works with a given appliance?
Google wants to sell Javascript based apps. Google Docs. Wave. And in future, even more demanding stuff.
They needed browsers with faster JS and faster dynamic rendering. The market wasn't doing it for them. So they did it themselves.
It wouldn't surprise me if Wave wasn't the primary driver for Chrome. "Hey, we've got this cool app, but it's going to run like a dog on most people's browsers. How can we fix that?".
I've not had a BSOD since a year or so after windows XP's release. So something like 7years?
I get about four a week, so you'll excuse me if your good luck doesn't cheer me up.
Dell laptop, XP Pro, never installed a driver from a dodgy source, RAM passes all Dell diagnostic tests, Symantec AV since the machine was built, STOP message gives a different .DLL or .SYS name every time.
I have no idea how to remedy this. The best advice I've had is to try replacing drivers pretty much at random. Given that there's a 48hour MTBF, this would be a very long and frustrating experiment.
I think the point is that you don't have dual standards for high wattage appliances and "everything else".
So a standard UK socket will always have enough oomph to power a tumble drier, an electric oven, heaters etc.
Plus as someone else has obseved, Britons find it important to be able to boil a litre of water quickly.
Nuts, isn't it? Roundabouts are so obviously the right solution to the problem. And when you think about it, the rules are no different than if it was an ordinary road: give way to traffic that's already on the road/roundabout you're joining.
I've been on a very few US roundabouts (or "rotaries"). One of them, noticably, neglected to have a marking to show you where to stop when giving way. D'oh!
Most British houses would have a circuit each for upstairs lighting, downstairs lighting, sockets, maybe more.
Since the 1970s at least, each of these would have their own fuse - to replace you would isolate the supply, undo some screws, and replace a piece of fuse wire (not even in a glass cartridge).
Almost everywhere nowadays has an RCD for each circuit. Mine trips every time a halogen light blows. Which is frequent.
The British plugs are too big, too cumbersome, too heavy duty for normal consumer electronics. It's like they were designed for air conditioners.
Kettles. What's the point in an electrical outlet, if you can't boil enough water for a pot of tea in a reasonable amount of time?
Americans seldom have electric kettles.
Japanese 110V electric kettles take forever to boil, and hence have elaborate insulation and thermostatic controls for "always on" hot water.
You've spectacularly missed the point, then called it 'retarded'.
There's a consensus that prisons are a a useful tool that are worth having, and that's why pretty much the entire world has them.
What there's no consensus on is what they're for and what they should be like. That's why in some places prisons are filthy uncomfortable hellholes where prisoners are left to rot, and in other places prisons intended to be civilised institutions where prisoners are moulded back into worthwhile members of society.
By analogy - there's a bent nail hanging out of a shed. One person thinks it should be knocked back straight then driven into the wood. Another thinks it should be prised out and replaced by a screw. They can reach consensus that a claw hammer should be used - but they differ on what for.
Your view on the *purpose* of prison, influences your views on sentencing.
So just because *we* can't predict the outcome..with our current level of knowledge of theoretical quantum physics, it cannot be predicted at all? That's rich
It's more than that. Current, mature, well accepted theories state that you can't measure both the position and the velocity of an electron. Not because our tools aren't good enough but because it fundamentally doesn't have both at the same time.
Real tangible things rely on this behaviour. Such as your computer's CPU.
How can atheism NOT equal determinism? What enters into the equation to allow free will?
How is theism any different. Einstein said "God does not play dice". I think that's as valid a statement whether you think of God as a real entity or as an atheist's metaphor for nature.
You can argue for or against determinism, from both theist and atheist perspectives.
Quantum uncertainty says that God does play dice.
Chaos theory says that even if God doesn't play dice, it's so difficult to determine the future given your observation of the present, He might as well be.
And it can be argued just the same that people predisposed to violence will be far more likely to do it again, "reformed" or not. What happens when they're in a situation when it's harder to control themselves (drunk, etc)? Just an example but it's appropriate here, and I know the obvious response is that they should know better, but really, if they couldn't control themselves once, would you honestly trust someone to compose themselves in the future, knowing that they're predisposed to doing it again?
If they repeat-offend, then by definition, they're not reformed. And some people will definitely do that. But that's quite different from the GP's post 'reformation is impossible'. If 1% of apparently reformed released prisoners go on to reoffend, is that a good reason to keep the other 99% in jail?
On getting drunk: if someone recognises that being drunk prevents them from controlling criminal urges, then part of their rehabilitation is to learn to avoid getting drunk. Just as recovering alcoholics learn to avoid social situations where they'll be tempted to drink.