May you be cursed by having a kid like I was. Absolutely fearless and sneaky as heck. Somebody asked her a question, she turned her head to look at him and I was gone before she looked back. They found me going through the cafeteria line...
Making a unit such as this water resistant isn't difficult either. There are seperate pool alarms you can get as well, for families that have pools.
My mom told me that when I was little I'd encourage the dog to dig under the fence. Then I'd use the hole to get out of the fence, at which point the dog would start barking at me. She was perfectly willing to dig for me, but knew we weren't supposed to be out of the yard...;)
One of the ideas might be that you have a RFID detector of sufficient power at the exits, so when your pallet of Widget A hits the gate when it's supposed to be heading for storage area C you know something is up.
At $200+$10/month fee, it's definitely cellular in nature and only worth it for *expensive* items, or at least when you know you have a theft problem and catching a relatively few number of thieves would stop a lot of theft.
Like the appliances at job sites problem - Figure $400-800+ each per appliance, with a 'couple times a month' theft problem. 1 recovery would cover the $200 purchase cost plus several months of subscription service. Then there's the sheer satisfaction in catching the criminal who's been robbing you of your livelyhood.
I'm in North Dakota. It ain't much different, I assure you.
One of the first things I did was get a second heating source that doesn't require electricity to produce heat. It wouldn't take much of an ice storm to take out serious sections of the grid.
Besides, lack of heat, even in Canada, isn't normally going to kill you quickly. Most people have vehicles that can be used as a heat source. More clothing can be worn, etc...
seeing as how companies build for economy before they build for safety.
I'd argue that building for safety is right up there, perhaps before economy even.
It's just that the power company's idea of safety != producing, delivery 100% of the time.
Electricity itself is dangerous. So the power companies do all sorts of things like install breakers to shut off the power if a potentially dangerous situation is detected. First is protect human life*, second is the expensive equipment. A fuse is cheap, even if it costs $100 because it's designed for 18KV@1KA compared to a switching station transformer.
Anyways, on 'possibly lives from extended loss of power.'
Anybody dependant on electricity for life should already have backups as necessary. If you're dependant on electricity to power a charger for your artificial heart, dialysis machine, breathing assistance device**, or whatever, you should have a generator, battery backup, whatever's needed. I mean, the way power delivery goes, local events can take out power to a house/business fairly easily, and are fairly common.
I think one guy with a medical problem requiring frequent access to electricity had the house hookup, a backup generator, and a 12V adaptar for cars.
*If nothing else, dead people tend to be REALLY expensive. **Though I imagine simple pressurized O2 and an appropriately selected mechanical valve system should be able to eliminate the need for electricity for a good while.
TO be safe they have to (presumably) have a totally seperate downlink to get weather data directly into the military network - that has to be expensive!!
Expensive? Generally speaking the we have our own weather people and equipment. We'll often share data(two doppler radars are better than one), but half the data is coming from military equipment in the first place.
I don't think that he was looking for a 'huge firey explosion'. I figure he was after 'cut the wire of a major power distribution line causing a massive outage by itself'.
same deal as tossing a metallic rod across some terminals in a switching station.
Disrupting our power system physically is more difficult and would create more isolated outages than if you have access to the computer.
You'd have to choose your target carefully as the high voltage distribution lines tend to be redundant, and in many cases the equipment is designed to compensate automatically. Though the outage last time I was in Florida(switching station failed, caused two nuclear plants to shut down to preserve safety automatically, spreading the outages even further), shows that there's still a lot that can be done with purely physical methods - and the fences around switchyards are more to keep curious kids out of them than determined adults.
I had a paypal account for a time, but I closed it after learning that Ebay had purchased it, combined with some of the other stuff Ebay has been doing.
I refuse to do business with them.
Lots of people hate eBay and PayPal. Lots of alternatives exist but none I've seen are both easy to use and well advertised.
Heh, that's always been one of my pet peeves. A gallon of milk is fairly heavy, after all, but has a nice thick handle to hold onto. You put it into a plastic bag that, at that weight, pulls into the equivalent of a thin piece of string, and it's not comfortable.
Same deal with cases of soda with the handle section built in.
At least with my bank account, you'd likely be noticed same day unless you somehow manage to yank my login for it as well. And that would generate a call to my bank to restore access, and a visit to the local branch if that didn't work.
The technology will spread, especially if Pixar makes a habit of steady releases. Theaters will move along with the trend, as they've been loosing ground to home theater setups for years. They're even loosing some of the 'high-def' lead now with blueray.
As others have noted, if Pixar comes out with a 3D movie, it's rather trivial to also run off a 2D version for it, they're going to anyways for the home market.
Today they use polarization. The screen puts images up twice as often, but polarizes half one way and half rotated 90%. Then they give you polarized glasses that filter out the opposite slides for each eye by having opposing polarization.
Full color, but still takes a little getting used to.
From my understanding of the technology, just because a screen is outfitted to be able to play a 3D movie doesn't mean that it can't still play a 2D one. It's just that unless you have a lot of screens, any theater that's bothered to invest in the 3D ability will show the 3D version by default.
Personally, I object to having to buy the glasses every single time, even if I keep the old ones. Less waste people!
As for your problem, maybe you could try wearing the glasses? That should filter out one side of the 3D part, leaving you with a watchable movie. Then again, it's not like I thought to try it the last time I saw a 3D film.
Not for me, at least. I've got a 32" television that's 8 years old that I've had 0 problems with. I see it making another 2 years easily. I'm even getting a tuner box for it because I don't have cable.
I haven't replaced it yet largely because it's not worth the ~$800 to me to get a HD replacement for it of approximately the same size. It'd be a different story if it wasn't working well.
I got it on special for something like $200 years ago.
My parents moved, and I bought them a new TV as a housewarming present. Their old TV had been failing for years, but still worked, sortof. So they left it when they moved.
Right now I'm more likely to build or buy a DVR box than a BR player even if I DO get a HDTV.
I have a lot of respect for Heinlein. I think that his listing is a bit off for 'modern' society, but does have a core truth. For example, I won't include the butchering & building design, or pitching manure. Programming a computer in his list would translate to 'operate a computer' today.
Oh, and it made me think of another couple courses for the class - first aid & disaster preparness, survival.
Hmm...
Change a diaper/feed a baby, drive a car&at least one other vehicle type, survive a disaster without aid for at least 3 days, balance accounts, build a wall/shelter, perform first aid&CPR, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, operate a computer, read, cook a tasty meal, clean laundry, shoot a gun accurately/fight efficiently, die gallantly.
The poorer the neighborhood that you go to, the more likely that information is not passed on.
Well, it happens in rich neighborhoods as well, ones where they have a cook or just eat out most of the time because they have the money; the kid isn't guarenteed too though. And middle-class neighborhoods because both parents are working, so the kid doesn't learn.
Then again, mom worked; I ended up cooking many of the dinners from jr high on. I liked it because I got what I wanted. Mom & Dad appreciated coming home to dinner almost ready.
And while this knowledge seems basic, it's pretty empowering stuff. Just the ability to balance budgets and cook your own food will save you tons of money over your lifetime.
Indeed. One of my 'lifes observations' is that the difference between the rich and the poor often has less to do with income than spending habits. You can have a guy who made millions a year suddenly be poor due to mistakes, heck, I've read that winners of multi-million dollar lotteries are statistically likely to be broke within seven years! On the other end you could have somebody who only makes $20k a year save up enough to pay for college without taking a loan.
Maybe give the kids credits at the end of every week. They can use those to get out of certain non-critical tasks. So that they can see what difference planning a meal has over just tossing the credits away to the local fast food joint.
Interesting idea. Might make for an interesting, engaging course, what with having several wildly different subjects each week, a couple overarching ones, etc... Of course, I envision it being a course taught each year from jr high on. Perhaps one semester out of the two of a typical school year.
In the case of cooking and such, it could substitute for 'taste' type courses where you go through a bunch of classes to enable you to figure out what you like.
Only a writer or painter or other artist should hold a copyright
How would you handle group projects like a movie? I mean, at least with a band you generally have only a half dozen or so individuals and they generally hang together better than marriages. With a movie you have potentially hundreds of actors, musicians, makeup artists, scene designers, etc...
Corporate copyright makes sense in many cases.
only the INSANE copyright laws that are in effect now
Actually, I think that they're mostly OK, they simply need some modification. For example, limit corporate copyright length to ~20 years, extendable to 40 years with a multiple thousand dollar fee per 10 year increment.*
Stuff still held by the orginal creater, who's a person, can still be held for life, or the 20 year deal, which ever is longer. The 'longer' part is so somebody like Robert Jordan, who was seriously ill, can still write and have publishers pick him up with the confidence that they'll keep exclusivity long enough to profit. For things like bands, where they more or less 'share' a copyright, often in the form of a holding corporation where the band members hold the shares, I'm sure a law can be come up with to keep the copyright as long as any band members are alive and still hold their own shares, perhaps with a buyout clause**.
*Enough that even Disney will take a hard look at those 20 year old films and decide whether or not to renew. ** When one of the band members die, their shares in the corp is automatically bought out by the corp. Corp worth $1Mil, evenly split between 5 members and 1 dies? $200k from the corp to the estate, shares to the corp, the 4 surviving members are now 25% owners. Buyout could be done by 'current valuation' or predetermined.
We have only been federated about 100yrs, have never had a civil war, and had a 'white Australia' policy up until the 60's. Despite our apparent homogenous appearnce there are cutlural, legal and language differences between the states, admittedly they are hard to spot unless your an Aussie.
Well, by the sound of it you still don't have the variations we have. While it'd take a native to spot the difference between a Dakotan and a Nebraskan*, it's not so hard to tell between a New Yorker and a Texan. Or Californian for that matter.
Perhaps the hugest difference is between the 'ghetto' and suburbia/rural USA. 90% of our violent crime is in the ghettos. I shake my head and wonder what it'd take to clean them out, because no half-way measures have ever worked.
*Look to see who wears Red&White on the weekends and talks about the 'huskers'.;)
Re:"parks wherever the hell it wants"???
on
The DIY Tank
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· Score: 1
I think that they're smart enough to realize that a kid that can put together a fake tank could probably put together a real one.
Putting real armor on it would have probably raised the cost from $10k in parts to $100k or more. For example, you'd need a bigger engine to handle the higher weight.
What it shows is that he's capable of solving problems and thinking innovatively.
Home Ec - That sounds like it'd expand to 'home economics', which translates to something much different than 'cooking & cleaning'. There's all sorts of stuff that could go in there, many of which would be equally in home in my idea. Hmmm.. 'Life Skills'? Might be a good alternate.
I all ready knew a lot about cars, woodworking, and other things taught in shop.
Hmm... More stuff! Like basic car functionality, so graduates are more likely to know that something is up when they get a charge for blinker fluid. The idea that maintenance is required. Driver's Ed could be folded in, though depending, it might have enough material to be it's own course as it is now.
I can't cook well, but I can read a recipe now, and survive as a bachelor; saves on fast food garbage too. I also made a sweater that I never wore. I haven't used that skill at all, but think it is good to blanket teach as well.
See, it's practical.;) My mom taught me how to cook; but not many do, which explains it's need. As for the knitting, you've done more than me. I made a frog.
Also, some simple money management skills would go nice in your life skills class
Covered under 'practical budgeting'. But yeah, pointing out the wonders of compound interest, having a safety net over hitting a payday loan place up, the differences in payoffs between a 5 year loan at 5%(car?) and 21%(credit card). The reasons and terms for insurance.
It is true that if she trained them well, she would increase safety. Unfortunately, she is like most dog owners, so the dogs are not trained well.
It actually doesn't take much training to provide the safety increase I'm talking about. It's not like you need to put them through aggression/attack training such as for police dogs. Most dogs will perform sufficiently instinctivly. By well trained I was talking more about them knowing not to attack people under normal circumstances, especially family.
Besides, just like alarm system signs, the effect is mostly one of target selection; most criminals willing to perform home invasions will select ones without dogs. Alarm systems if the company is an effective one*.
*I've heard that some area's alarm companies are so lax that they don't worry about setting off alarms.
If the classes were a 1 hour session of someone saying "Hey kids, them thar internets can be dangerous. Don't go trusting people. Use common sense.", that would be fine.
Well, to be honest, as common sense isn't so common, I'd cover some specific issues, like how to recognize scams, internet predators, basic guidelines to protect your identity, and so on.
Of course, personally I'd fold it into my idea for a 'life studies' course - no it doesn't have much to do with biology. It's simply the best name I can think of at the moment.
Basically, it's a course designed to impart the skills generally necessary for a fulfilling life in a modern society. I started off with sex ed, gun safety, spread out to basic liability, contract and criminal law*. Not falling for scams, whether it be real world or internet. Practical budgeting, house purchase procedures, etc... In areas where it's necessary, how to properly do laundry, basic healthy cooking**. Basically, what stuff is good to know, doesn't take a whole semester or more dedicated to teaching it, and at least possibly isn't covered by existing courses, as I'm sure some rearranging could occur.
I mean, I don't know about you guys, but while my parents covered liability and such, I didn't get much of it in school, but I see examples all the time where it would have saved a lot of money, effort, and stress if they had known a bit of it. Sure, history and geography is all to the good, but I spent months memorizing maps - so I could pass quizzes that consisted of a map with the names removed and slots to put the missing names cities, rivers and lakes in. I guarantee that I performed a brain dump after each quiz. I know where Baghdad, Tikrit, and the Tigris river is on the map more because I'm in the USAF and have to worry about it. I didn't care in High School, I knew how to read a map and index even back then.
And that's just ONE example of courses that I feel were more or less wasted time when I was young. Especially given the easy reference and research source today - the internet. History courses are good, though I think there should be less emphasis(at least compared to my time) on names and exact dates.
*Possibly involving carefully selected TV court cases off of shows like Judge Judy. **Preferably tasty, because that's the best way to get people to eat it.
US home soil is as secure as Canada's, Australia's and New Zealand's; and each spend far far less on defence. However, it's not because of any military deterrence.
Arguably part of this is that due to friendship and partnership with the USA anybody looking to invade them would have to deal with the US military as well.
Put an army into Canada and it wouldn't be long until they ran into a US army heading towards them.
Same with Australia, NZ, etc... Though our navy would be the first there.
Of course, I view international politics much like relations in a primitive tribe.
Maybe the reason none show any interest is that it'd be the equivalent to looking to mug mike tyson when there's an 80 year old granny a hundred miles closer?
Part of the reason nobody looks to invade us is that we would be able to resist it so successfully.
Though I'll note that this doesn't mean that I don't think that our foreign relations/actions could use a healthy dose of honor and respect.
Re:"parks wherever the hell it wants"???
on
The DIY Tank
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· Score: 1
Otherwise, what's the point?
It won him a job in a field he enjoys?
FTA: After listing it on his resume Foster was recruited by armored vehicle maker Force Protection Inc. for a summer co-op job that he starts this month.
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May you be cursed by having a kid like I was. Absolutely fearless and sneaky as heck. Somebody asked her a question, she turned her head to look at him and I was gone before she looked back. They found me going through the cafeteria line...
Making a unit such as this water resistant isn't difficult either. There are seperate pool alarms you can get as well, for families that have pools.
my little cousin...
;)
Not necessarily a bad thing...
My mom told me that when I was little I'd encourage the dog to dig under the fence. Then I'd use the hole to get out of the fence, at which point the dog would start barking at me. She was perfectly willing to dig for me, but knew we weren't supposed to be out of the yard...
One of the ideas might be that you have a RFID detector of sufficient power at the exits, so when your pallet of Widget A hits the gate when it's supposed to be heading for storage area C you know something is up.
At $200+$10/month fee, it's definitely cellular in nature and only worth it for *expensive* items, or at least when you know you have a theft problem and catching a relatively few number of thieves would stop a lot of theft.
Like the appliances at job sites problem - Figure $400-800+ each per appliance, with a 'couple times a month' theft problem. 1 recovery would cover the $200 purchase cost plus several months of subscription service. Then there's the sheer satisfaction in catching the criminal who's been robbing you of your livelyhood.
I'm in North Dakota. It ain't much different, I assure you.
One of the first things I did was get a second heating source that doesn't require electricity to produce heat. It wouldn't take much of an ice storm to take out serious sections of the grid.
Besides, lack of heat, even in Canada, isn't normally going to kill you quickly. Most people have vehicles that can be used as a heat source. More clothing can be worn, etc...
seeing as how companies build for economy before they build for safety.
I'd argue that building for safety is right up there, perhaps before economy even.
It's just that the power company's idea of safety != producing, delivery 100% of the time.
Electricity itself is dangerous. So the power companies do all sorts of things like install breakers to shut off the power if a potentially dangerous situation is detected. First is protect human life*, second is the expensive equipment. A fuse is cheap, even if it costs $100 because it's designed for 18KV@1KA compared to a switching station transformer.
Anyways, on 'possibly lives from extended loss of power.'
Anybody dependant on electricity for life should already have backups as necessary. If you're dependant on electricity to power a charger for your artificial heart, dialysis machine, breathing assistance device**, or whatever, you should have a generator, battery backup, whatever's needed. I mean, the way power delivery goes, local events can take out power to a house/business fairly easily, and are fairly common.
I think one guy with a medical problem requiring frequent access to electricity had the house hookup, a backup generator, and a 12V adaptar for cars.
*If nothing else, dead people tend to be REALLY expensive.
**Though I imagine simple pressurized O2 and an appropriately selected mechanical valve system should be able to eliminate the need for electricity for a good while.
TO be safe they have to (presumably) have a totally seperate downlink to get weather data directly into the military network - that has to be expensive!!
Expensive? Generally speaking the we have our own weather people and equipment. We'll often share data(two doppler radars are better than one), but half the data is coming from military equipment in the first place.
I don't think that he was looking for a 'huge firey explosion'. I figure he was after 'cut the wire of a major power distribution line causing a massive outage by itself'.
same deal as tossing a metallic rod across some terminals in a switching station.
Disrupting our power system physically is more difficult and would create more isolated outages than if you have access to the computer.
You'd have to choose your target carefully as the high voltage distribution lines tend to be redundant, and in many cases the equipment is designed to compensate automatically. Though the outage last time I was in Florida(switching station failed, caused two nuclear plants to shut down to preserve safety automatically, spreading the outages even further), shows that there's still a lot that can be done with purely physical methods - and the fences around switchyards are more to keep curious kids out of them than determined adults.
I had a paypal account for a time, but I closed it after learning that Ebay had purchased it, combined with some of the other stuff Ebay has been doing.
I refuse to do business with them.
Lots of people hate eBay and PayPal. Lots of alternatives exist but none I've seen are both easy to use and well advertised.
Agreed.
Heh, that's always been one of my pet peeves. A gallon of milk is fairly heavy, after all, but has a nice thick handle to hold onto. You put it into a plastic bag that, at that weight, pulls into the equivalent of a thin piece of string, and it's not comfortable.
Same deal with cases of soda with the handle section built in.
Of course, I do have some reusable bags now.
At least with my bank account, you'd likely be noticed same day unless you somehow manage to yank my login for it as well. And that would generate a call to my bank to restore access, and a visit to the local branch if that didn't work.
The technology will spread, especially if Pixar makes a habit of steady releases. Theaters will move along with the trend, as they've been loosing ground to home theater setups for years. They're even loosing some of the 'high-def' lead now with blueray.
As others have noted, if Pixar comes out with a 3D movie, it's rather trivial to also run off a 2D version for it, they're going to anyways for the home market.
Today they use polarization. The screen puts images up twice as often, but polarizes half one way and half rotated 90%. Then they give you polarized glasses that filter out the opposite slides for each eye by having opposing polarization.
Full color, but still takes a little getting used to.
From my understanding of the technology, just because a screen is outfitted to be able to play a 3D movie doesn't mean that it can't still play a 2D one. It's just that unless you have a lot of screens, any theater that's bothered to invest in the 3D ability will show the 3D version by default.
Personally, I object to having to buy the glasses every single time, even if I keep the old ones. Less waste people!
As for your problem, maybe you could try wearing the glasses? That should filter out one side of the 3D part, leaving you with a watchable movie. Then again, it's not like I thought to try it the last time I saw a 3D film.
Not for me, at least. I've got a 32" television that's 8 years old that I've had 0 problems with. I see it making another 2 years easily. I'm even getting a tuner box for it because I don't have cable.
I haven't replaced it yet largely because it's not worth the ~$800 to me to get a HD replacement for it of approximately the same size. It'd be a different story if it wasn't working well.
I got it on special for something like $200 years ago.
My parents moved, and I bought them a new TV as a housewarming present. Their old TV had been failing for years, but still worked, sortof. So they left it when they moved.
Right now I'm more likely to build or buy a DVR box than a BR player even if I DO get a HDTV.
I have a lot of respect for Heinlein. I think that his listing is a bit off for 'modern' society, but does have a core truth. For example, I won't include the butchering & building design, or pitching manure. Programming a computer in his list would translate to 'operate a computer' today.
Oh, and it made me think of another couple courses for the class - first aid & disaster preparness, survival.
Hmm...
Change a diaper/feed a baby, drive a car&at least one other vehicle type, survive a disaster without aid for at least 3 days, balance accounts, build a wall/shelter, perform first aid&CPR, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, operate a computer, read, cook a tasty meal, clean laundry, shoot a gun accurately/fight efficiently, die gallantly.
The poorer the neighborhood that you go to, the more likely that information is not passed on.
Well, it happens in rich neighborhoods as well, ones where they have a cook or just eat out most of the time because they have the money; the kid isn't guarenteed too though. And middle-class neighborhoods because both parents are working, so the kid doesn't learn.
Then again, mom worked; I ended up cooking many of the dinners from jr high on. I liked it because I got what I wanted. Mom & Dad appreciated coming home to dinner almost ready.
And while this knowledge seems basic, it's pretty empowering stuff. Just the ability to balance budgets and cook your own food will save you tons of money over your lifetime.
Indeed. One of my 'lifes observations' is that the difference between the rich and the poor often has less to do with income than spending habits. You can have a guy who made millions a year suddenly be poor due to mistakes, heck, I've read that winners of multi-million dollar lotteries are statistically likely to be broke within seven years! On the other end you could have somebody who only makes $20k a year save up enough to pay for college without taking a loan.
Maybe give the kids credits at the end of every week. They can use those to get out of certain non-critical tasks. So that they can see what difference planning a meal has over just tossing the credits away to the local fast food joint.
Interesting idea. Might make for an interesting, engaging course, what with having several wildly different subjects each week, a couple overarching ones, etc... Of course, I envision it being a course taught each year from jr high on. Perhaps one semester out of the two of a typical school year.
In the case of cooking and such, it could substitute for 'taste' type courses where you go through a bunch of classes to enable you to figure out what you like.
Only a writer or painter or other artist should hold a copyright
How would you handle group projects like a movie? I mean, at least with a band you generally have only a half dozen or so individuals and they generally hang together better than marriages. With a movie you have potentially hundreds of actors, musicians, makeup artists, scene designers, etc...
Corporate copyright makes sense in many cases.
only the INSANE copyright laws that are in effect now
Actually, I think that they're mostly OK, they simply need some modification. For example, limit corporate copyright length to ~20 years, extendable to 40 years with a multiple thousand dollar fee per 10 year increment.*
Stuff still held by the orginal creater, who's a person, can still be held for life, or the 20 year deal, which ever is longer. The 'longer' part is so somebody like Robert Jordan, who was seriously ill, can still write and have publishers pick him up with the confidence that they'll keep exclusivity long enough to profit. For things like bands, where they more or less 'share' a copyright, often in the form of a holding corporation where the band members hold the shares, I'm sure a law can be come up with to keep the copyright as long as any band members are alive and still hold their own shares, perhaps with a buyout clause**.
*Enough that even Disney will take a hard look at those 20 year old films and decide whether or not to renew.
** When one of the band members die, their shares in the corp is automatically bought out by the corp. Corp worth $1Mil, evenly split between 5 members and 1 dies? $200k from the corp to the estate, shares to the corp, the 4 surviving members are now 25% owners. Buyout could be done by 'current valuation' or predetermined.
We have only been federated about 100yrs, have never had a civil war, and had a 'white Australia' policy up until the 60's. Despite our apparent homogenous appearnce there are cutlural, legal and language differences between the states, admittedly they are hard to spot unless your an Aussie.
;)
Well, by the sound of it you still don't have the variations we have. While it'd take a native to spot the difference between a Dakotan and a Nebraskan*, it's not so hard to tell between a New Yorker and a Texan. Or Californian for that matter.
Perhaps the hugest difference is between the 'ghetto' and suburbia/rural USA. 90% of our violent crime is in the ghettos. I shake my head and wonder what it'd take to clean them out, because no half-way measures have ever worked.
*Look to see who wears Red&White on the weekends and talks about the 'huskers'.
I think that they're smart enough to realize that a kid that can put together a fake tank could probably put together a real one.
Putting real armor on it would have probably raised the cost from $10k in parts to $100k or more. For example, you'd need a bigger engine to handle the higher weight.
What it shows is that he's capable of solving problems and thinking innovatively.
Home Ec - That sounds like it'd expand to 'home economics', which translates to something much different than 'cooking & cleaning'. There's all sorts of stuff that could go in there, many of which would be equally in home in my idea. Hmmm.. 'Life Skills'? Might be a good alternate.
;) My mom taught me how to cook; but not many do, which explains it's need. As for the knitting, you've done more than me. I made a frog.
I all ready knew a lot about cars, woodworking, and other things taught in shop.
Hmm... More stuff! Like basic car functionality, so graduates are more likely to know that something is up when they get a charge for blinker fluid. The idea that maintenance is required. Driver's Ed could be folded in, though depending, it might have enough material to be it's own course as it is now.
I can't cook well, but I can read a recipe now, and survive as a bachelor; saves on fast food garbage too. I also made a sweater that I never wore. I haven't used that skill at all, but think it is good to blanket teach as well.
See, it's practical.
Also, some simple money management skills would go nice in your life skills class
Covered under 'practical budgeting'. But yeah, pointing out the wonders of compound interest, having a safety net over hitting a payday loan place up, the differences in payoffs between a 5 year loan at 5%(car?) and 21%(credit card). The reasons and terms for insurance.
It is true that if she trained them well, she would increase safety. Unfortunately, she is like most dog owners, so the dogs are not trained well.
It actually doesn't take much training to provide the safety increase I'm talking about. It's not like you need to put them through aggression/attack training such as for police dogs. Most dogs will perform sufficiently instinctivly. By well trained I was talking more about them knowing not to attack people under normal circumstances, especially family.
Besides, just like alarm system signs, the effect is mostly one of target selection; most criminals willing to perform home invasions will select ones without dogs. Alarm systems if the company is an effective one*.
*I've heard that some area's alarm companies are so lax that they don't worry about setting off alarms.
If the classes were a 1 hour session of someone saying "Hey kids, them thar internets can be dangerous. Don't go trusting people. Use common sense.", that would be fine.
Well, to be honest, as common sense isn't so common, I'd cover some specific issues, like how to recognize scams, internet predators, basic guidelines to protect your identity, and so on.
Of course, personally I'd fold it into my idea for a 'life studies' course - no it doesn't have much to do with biology. It's simply the best name I can think of at the moment.
Basically, it's a course designed to impart the skills generally necessary for a fulfilling life in a modern society. I started off with sex ed, gun safety, spread out to basic liability, contract and criminal law*. Not falling for scams, whether it be real world or internet. Practical budgeting, house purchase procedures, etc... In areas where it's necessary, how to properly do laundry, basic healthy cooking**. Basically, what stuff is good to know, doesn't take a whole semester or more dedicated to teaching it, and at least possibly isn't covered by existing courses, as I'm sure some rearranging could occur.
I mean, I don't know about you guys, but while my parents covered liability and such, I didn't get much of it in school, but I see examples all the time where it would have saved a lot of money, effort, and stress if they had known a bit of it. Sure, history and geography is all to the good, but I spent months memorizing maps - so I could pass quizzes that consisted of a map with the names removed and slots to put the missing names cities, rivers and lakes in. I guarantee that I performed a brain dump after each quiz. I know where Baghdad, Tikrit, and the Tigris river is on the map more because I'm in the USAF and have to worry about it. I didn't care in High School, I knew how to read a map and index even back then.
And that's just ONE example of courses that I feel were more or less wasted time when I was young. Especially given the easy reference and research source today - the internet. History courses are good, though I think there should be less emphasis(at least compared to my time) on names and exact dates.
*Possibly involving carefully selected TV court cases off of shows like Judge Judy.
**Preferably tasty, because that's the best way to get people to eat it.
US home soil is as secure as Canada's, Australia's and New Zealand's; and each spend far far less on defence. However, it's not because of any military deterrence.
Arguably part of this is that due to friendship and partnership with the USA anybody looking to invade them would have to deal with the US military as well.
Put an army into Canada and it wouldn't be long until they ran into a US army heading towards them.
Same with Australia, NZ, etc... Though our navy would be the first there.
Of course, I view international politics much like relations in a primitive tribe.
Maybe the reason none show any interest is that it'd be the equivalent to looking to mug mike tyson when there's an 80 year old granny a hundred miles closer?
Part of the reason nobody looks to invade us is that we would be able to resist it so successfully.
Though I'll note that this doesn't mean that I don't think that our foreign relations/actions could use a healthy dose of honor and respect.
Otherwise, what's the point?
It won him a job in a field he enjoys?
FTA: After listing it on his resume Foster was recruited by armored vehicle maker Force Protection Inc. for a summer co-op job that he starts this month.