And the rail-ties also were generally made of that same material too.
On the other hand, rails themselves and the train wheels that rolled over them were made of steel. A combination that could set of a significant shower of sparks should a train be forced to reduce speed rather fast - like for example should the locomotive crew notice an obstacle ahead.
So, the whole thing sounds more like a backup plan to me - get the train to crash OR burn.
Had they called their current console "Wi" instead of "Wii" they could have just tacked that single 'i' for the 2.0 version instead of adding an entire '2' and thus rising the length of the console's name to 4 characters. Just think of the money they could have saved in marketing by saving all that ink, commercial time, reusing old characters and such. Not to mention all that accumulated saving down the road with Wii3 (Wiii) and Wii4 (WiW).
They must be kicking themselves in the ass right now for being so shortsighted.
It appears to me that we are talking about two different things.
It seems to me that you are talking about how much simpler it would be if the texts were digitized and properly classified according to importance, and then electronically distributed - saving time, money etc.
I on the other hand am talking about the fact that regardless of the method and form of delivery texts will be poorly written, ripe with unnecessary material unrelated to the course but still a part of the general field of study (thus valid, but unnecessary information, just taking up valuable study time and diverting focus from important parts of the course) - as long as the teacher is just there to "read off" his/her lecture and pick up a paycheck.
Teaching is a vocation. Not a meal-ticket while you wait to "make it big" with that book you're writing, research you are doing or 'till something better comes along. Frankly, if THEY are not going to give their "best", I can't see how they can ask for even "passable" from their students.
If they're gonna do a half-assed job, then just give the kids the material to read along with the questions you will be giving them on the exam and let them get their education the hard way - through work experience. At least that way they will pick up rather quickly that they carry the value of their education in their heads and not on their diploma which is just a piece of paper.
when you confuse hyperbole and reality, you are no longer commenting intelligently, you are merely broadcasting your ignorance
...when you go and put your cart in front of your horse? Or when you jump the gun?
Could it perchance be that you have failed to hold your horses, and that by bootstrapping your own argument in anticipation of hatched chickens you are actually tilting at windmills and thus producing a tempest in a teapot?
But you know, if I got email-walled and if the professor was honest enough to say "these are amusing little side exhibits that won't be on the test" the kid can just file the emails and poke at them one boring day.
Plus, in a grade-based "education" you know that the "kid" is just gonna drop those "amusing little side exhibits" and never look at them.
And why would a lazy teacher give you ANY kind of heads up? Like I said above, they are just there to pick up an easy paycheck for as little work as possible.
I don't necessarily agree that the lecture is merely a supplement to the reading, though. It has always been my experience that the lectures cover the material that the professor considers important, so except for the occasional prof who uses the test from the textbook (rare these days, since it is assumed that those tests are easily available and are often used as study aids), listening and absorbing the lecture is usually all you need to make a good grade in the class.
Indeed.
Cause, if all you need is the text and the teacher is just there to explain to those who can't pick up from it - what is the point of the teacher? You could just as well ask around campus. Or google it.
And since there would be no difference to just buying a book at the bookstore - what is the point of the University? It's not like the teachers somehow increase the quality of the knowledge, right? You can just buy the book and carry it around with you when you need it - convert it to a PDF and stick it on your phone.
And the best part is, everyone would save years of time and thousands of dollars cause there would be no need for need for grading. No need to even check if you have your copy of the book with you. You know... like the "honor system".
Frankly, the whole question bank thing just makes any argument that's remotely pro-cheating moot to me. So you're willing to memorize hundreds of questions & answers that may not be on the exam, but you're not willing to learn the material?
That is because exams are not graded with 1 and 0. When you make the students believe that it is all about their grade, and then you give them the opportunity to cheat undetected (you can't really prove that the student didn't know the answer to the question) by using lists of questions for which you know that they are public knowledge among students...
Well, all you are doing is penalizing the student who actually study only from the material given to them. In fact, it borders on ridicule. "Ha-HA! You studied for your _below_average grade which will now jeopardize your scholarship/job placement/career, where those who just memorized the answers got _above_average grades and will be far more successful than you from now on plus they get to have a more socially rich life as they didn't waste their time studying."
But it sure beats getting off their your ass and making up a new and unique test each term, right?
When you get paper-walled with unnecessary material which is marginally relevant to the subject of the course at best, and then you are not even tested in that - that very much IS something to blame the teacher for. Also, lousy text-books where you can tell that the material has been patched together from several other books, often changing nomenclature mid-paragraph or referencing non-existent material. Then, there are badly designed tests where the time allotted simply doesn't suffice for the complexity or volume of the test.
Also, the fact that "they'd find a 100% cheating rate" indicates that the teacher really doesn't give a fuck. Just like in the examples I mentioned above. He/she is simply there to get payed for as little work as possible. If that means condoning cheating - no skin off his/her back.
"Western" values... Completely imagined by "Western Civilizations". Very similar in their credibility and originality to "World Series" sports competitions and "Miss Universe" beauty pageants.
Human-centered philosophy that rejected the supernatural can be found as early as 1000 BCE in the Lokayata system of Indian philosophy. Also in the sixth-century BCE, Gautama Buddha expressed, in Pali literature, a skeptical attitude toward the supernatural:[13]
Since neither soul nor aught belonging to soul can really and truly exist, the view which holds that this I who am 'world,' who am 'soul,' shall hereafter live permanent, persisting, unchanging, yea abide eternally: is not this utterly and entirely a foolish doctrine?
In China, Huangdi is regarded as the humanistic primogenitor. Sage kings such as Yao and Shun are humanistic figures as recorded. King Wu of Zhou has the famous saying: "Human is the ling (spirit, soul, god, or leader) in the world (among all)". Among them, Duke of Zhou, respected as an initial founder of Rujia (Confucianism), is especially prominent and pioneering in humanistic thought. His words were recorded in the Book of History as follows (translated into English):
What the people desire, Heaven certainly comply.
Heaven (God) is not believable. Our Tao (doctrine) is moral (from former sage kings and to be continued forward).
In the sixth century BCE, Taoist teacher Laozi held natural humanistic philosophy. Confucius also taught secular ethics. The silver rule of Confucianism from Analects XV.24, is an example of ethical philosophy based on human values rather than the supernatural. Humanistic thought is also contained in other Confucian classics, e.g., as recorded in Zuo Zhuan, Ji Liang says: "People is the zhu (master, lord, dominance, owner or origin) of gods. So, to sage kings, people first, gods second"; Neishi Guo says: "Gods, clever, righteous and wholehearted, comply with human.
Civilizations that have 8000 years or so of culture "under their belt" tend to come up with important philosophical ideas earlier than their "younger neighbors".
The 'models' that the Renaissance painters painted would all be obese by today's standards. Back then your next meal was not as guaranteed as it is today. ( i don't know this for a fact. Any time travelers are welcome to correct me)
Being skinny is not always a survival characteristic.
She would be considered a lard-ass by today's standards. FFS just compare the supposed ideal versions of women. For men, and for women.
It's as if some higher power is deliberately trying to raise male and female humans with completely opposite ideal expectations. In order to reduce birth rate or something?
The question is what would be the long-term effect of poisoning the trees and the rest of the ecosystem (bugs, birds, etc. etc.) with large doses of heavy metals - i.e. gold.
Also to be considered is the question of natural lightning rods that can actually start burning once the lightning strikes them.
And then there is the question of the effect of the UV light (needed to activate the bio-luminescence) on everything in the area, plus what actually happens to the chlorophyll when it is induced to glow. Wild guess here, but something tells me that either gold or chlorophyll will be spent in the reaction. So, this would produce either very expensive or very dead trees in the long run. Or both.
Oh... wait. It's an inhabitat.com story? Also posted by samzenpus?
No question is necessary or valid. Utterly irrelevant story. Pure daydreaming. Might as well discuss the practical application of time-travel and faster than light starships in the world today. It. Will. Never. Happen.
You do realize that those magical "taxable commercial expenses" are easily reduced to nothing or even shown as debt by little creative accounting? And that everyone does that?
In fact... the more benefits you give to your employees, the more wiggle room you have to get creative. Why doesn't everyone do that then? Because you must give money and power away NOW in order to be able to take back more LATER.
You know... The same reason most employers will settle for second or third best employees at the fraction of what the first class educated and experienced employee might cost them.
Also, "stories" by samzenpus are actually random copy/pastes from digg done by a bot. It is an experiment into mob sourcing. Nobody checks validity of those stories before they are posted.
Currently, no Canadian Province has implemented either Castle Doctrine or Stand Your Ground.[35] Under the criminal code of Canada, a very limited version of Castle Doctrine exists that requires the victim to retreat if retreating is possible.
Sadly, I spent all my mod-points earlier today on utterly irrelevant posts.
It has NOTHING to do with 3D as in stereoscopy (read: Avatar and similar 3D movies) it is instead just yet another control system for 3D games (as in Duke Nukem 3D). Like the parent said - it's a Wii remote. Again.
Slashdot Mirror
Mine is the same as yours only mine goes up to 11.
Better a live fool 100 times than a dead fool once.
There IS though, such a thing as being too cautious.
And the rail-ties also were generally made of that same material too.
On the other hand, rails themselves and the train wheels that rolled over them were made of steel.
A combination that could set of a significant shower of sparks should a train be forced to reduce speed rather fast - like for example should the locomotive crew notice an obstacle ahead.
So, the whole thing sounds more like a backup plan to me - get the train to crash OR burn.
The idiots the poster is referring to should be pre-empted and reminded that they are idiots.
That used to be call flamebaiting. Boy, how times change.
Had they called their current console "Wi" instead of "Wii" they could have just tacked that single 'i' for the 2.0 version instead of adding an entire '2' and thus rising the length of the console's name to 4 characters.
Just think of the money they could have saved in marketing by saving all that ink, commercial time, reusing old characters and such.
Not to mention all that accumulated saving down the road with Wii3 (Wiii) and Wii4 (WiW).
They must be kicking themselves in the ass right now for being so shortsighted.
It appears to me that we are talking about two different things.
It seems to me that you are talking about how much simpler it would be if the texts were digitized and properly classified according to importance, and then electronically distributed - saving time, money etc.
I on the other hand am talking about the fact that regardless of the method and form of delivery texts will be poorly written, ripe with unnecessary material unrelated to the course but still a part of the general field of study (thus valid, but unnecessary information, just taking up valuable study time and diverting focus from important parts of the course) - as long as the teacher is just there to "read off" his/her lecture and pick up a paycheck.
Teaching is a vocation.
Not a meal-ticket while you wait to "make it big" with that book you're writing, research you are doing or 'till something better comes along.
Frankly, if THEY are not going to give their "best", I can't see how they can ask for even "passable" from their students.
If they're gonna do a half-assed job, then just give the kids the material to read along with the questions you will be giving them on the exam and let them get their education the hard way - through work experience.
At least that way they will pick up rather quickly that they carry the value of their education in their heads and not on their diploma which is just a piece of paper.
What would happen if someone tweeted a "joke" about a bomb threat in the EU or the USA?
The woman is a "human rights activist" who was "detained in the past for several other 'crimes,' including criticising China's Communist Party".
Clearly, in order to make an accurate comaprison, you would have to replace "someone" in your argument with say... Julian Assange.
when you confuse hyperbole and reality, you are no longer commenting intelligently, you are merely broadcasting your ignorance
...when you go and put your cart in front of your horse?
Or when you jump the gun?
Could it perchance be that you have failed to hold your horses, and that by bootstrapping your own argument in anticipation of hatched chickens you are actually tilting at windmills and thus producing a tempest in a teapot?
But you know, if I got email-walled and if the professor was honest enough to say "these are amusing little side exhibits that won't be on the test" the kid can just file the emails and poke at them one boring day.
Plus, in a grade-based "education" you know that the "kid" is just gonna drop those "amusing little side exhibits" and never look at them.
And why would a lazy teacher give you ANY kind of heads up?
Like I said above, they are just there to pick up an easy paycheck for as little work as possible.
I don't necessarily agree that the lecture is merely a supplement to the reading, though. It has always been my experience that the lectures cover the material that the professor considers important, so except for the occasional prof who uses the test from the textbook (rare these days, since it is assumed that those tests are easily available and are often used as study aids), listening and absorbing the lecture is usually all you need to make a good grade in the class.
Indeed.
Cause, if all you need is the text and the teacher is just there to explain to those who can't pick up from it - what is the point of the teacher?
You could just as well ask around campus. Or google it.
And since there would be no difference to just buying a book at the bookstore - what is the point of the University? It's not like the teachers somehow increase the quality of the knowledge, right?
You can just buy the book and carry it around with you when you need it - convert it to a PDF and stick it on your phone.
And the best part is, everyone would save years of time and thousands of dollars cause there would be no need for need for grading.
No need to even check if you have your copy of the book with you. You know... like the "honor system".
Frankly, the whole question bank thing just makes any argument that's remotely pro-cheating moot to me. So you're willing to memorize hundreds of questions & answers that may not be on the exam, but you're not willing to learn the material?
That is because exams are not graded with 1 and 0.
When you make the students believe that it is all about their grade, and then you give them the opportunity to cheat undetected (you can't really prove that the student didn't know the answer to the question) by using lists of questions for which you know that they are public knowledge among students...
Well, all you are doing is penalizing the student who actually study only from the material given to them.
In fact, it borders on ridicule.
"Ha-HA! You studied for your _below_average grade which will now jeopardize your scholarship/job placement/career, where those who just memorized the answers got _above_average grades and will be far more successful than you from now on plus they get to have a more socially rich life as they didn't waste their time studying."
But it sure beats getting off their your ass and making up a new and unique test each term, right?
When you get paper-walled with unnecessary material which is marginally relevant to the subject of the course at best, and then you are not even tested in that - that very much IS something to blame the teacher for.
Also, lousy text-books where you can tell that the material has been patched together from several other books, often changing nomenclature mid-paragraph or referencing non-existent material.
Then, there are badly designed tests where the time allotted simply doesn't suffice for the complexity or volume of the test.
Also, the fact that "they'd find a 100% cheating rate" indicates that the teacher really doesn't give a fuck. Just like in the examples I mentioned above.
He/she is simply there to get payed for as little work as possible. If that means condoning cheating - no skin off his/her back.
...BHLFY.
They say the same about us!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sbxw3ukUTH8
Get off my lawn. And turn that music down.
"Western" values... Completely imagined by "Western Civilizations".
Very similar in their credibility and originality to "World Series" sports competitions and "Miss Universe" beauty pageants.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanism#Asia
Asia
Human-centered philosophy that rejected the supernatural can be found as early as 1000 BCE in the Lokayata system of Indian philosophy. Also in the sixth-century BCE, Gautama Buddha expressed, in Pali literature, a skeptical attitude toward the supernatural:[13]
Since neither soul nor aught belonging to soul can really and truly exist, the view which holds that this I who am 'world,' who am 'soul,' shall hereafter live permanent, persisting, unchanging, yea abide eternally: is not this utterly and entirely a foolish doctrine?
In China, Huangdi is regarded as the humanistic primogenitor. Sage kings such as Yao and Shun are humanistic figures as recorded. King Wu of Zhou has the famous saying: "Human is the ling (spirit, soul, god, or leader) in the world (among all)". Among them, Duke of Zhou, respected as an initial founder of Rujia (Confucianism), is especially prominent and pioneering in humanistic thought. His words were recorded in the Book of History as follows (translated into English):
What the people desire, Heaven certainly comply.
Heaven (God) is not believable. Our Tao (doctrine) is moral (from former sage kings and to be continued forward).
In the sixth century BCE, Taoist teacher Laozi held natural humanistic philosophy. Confucius also taught secular ethics. The silver rule of Confucianism from Analects XV.24, is an example of ethical philosophy based on human values rather than the supernatural. Humanistic thought is also contained in other Confucian classics, e.g., as recorded in Zuo Zhuan, Ji Liang says: "People is the zhu (master, lord, dominance, owner or origin) of gods. So, to sage kings, people first, gods second"; Neishi Guo says: "Gods, clever, righteous and wholehearted, comply with human.
Civilizations that have 8000 years or so of culture "under their belt" tend to come up with important philosophical ideas earlier than their "younger neighbors".
I mean... I'd somehow understand if it was "I'm Jack the Ripper". But Spartacus?
What would have happened had they referred to... say... "A Tale of Two Cities"? Or "Les Misérables"?
Would The Internet collapse or just the Twitter?
The 'models' that the Renaissance painters painted would all be obese by today's standards. Back then your next meal was not as guaranteed as it is today. ( i don't know this for a fact. Any time travelers are welcome to correct me)
Being skinny is not always a survival characteristic.
She would be considered a lard-ass by today's standards.
FFS just compare the supposed ideal versions of women. For men, and for women.
It's as if some higher power is deliberately trying to raise male and female humans with completely opposite ideal expectations.
In order to reduce birth rate or something?
The question is what would be the long-term effect of poisoning the trees and the rest of the ecosystem (bugs, birds, etc. etc.) with large doses of heavy metals - i.e. gold.
Also to be considered is the question of natural lightning rods that can actually start burning once the lightning strikes them.
And then there is the question of the effect of the UV light (needed to activate the bio-luminescence) on everything in the area, plus what actually happens to the chlorophyll when it is induced to glow.
Wild guess here, but something tells me that either gold or chlorophyll will be spent in the reaction.
So, this would produce either very expensive or very dead trees in the long run. Or both.
Oh... wait. It's an inhabitat.com story? Also posted by samzenpus?
No question is necessary or valid. Utterly irrelevant story. Pure daydreaming.
Might as well discuss the practical application of time-travel and faster than light starships in the world today.
It.
Will.
Never.
Happen.
You do realize that those magical "taxable commercial expenses" are easily reduced to nothing or even shown as debt by little creative accounting?
And that everyone does that?
In fact... the more benefits you give to your employees, the more wiggle room you have to get creative.
Why doesn't everyone do that then? Because you must give money and power away NOW in order to be able to take back more LATER.
You know...
The same reason most employers will settle for second or third best employees at the fraction of what the first class educated and experienced employee might cost them.
If you gonna cite, then cite right.
Also, "stories" by samzenpus are actually random copy/pastes from digg done by a bot.
It is an experiment into mob sourcing.
Nobody checks validity of those stories before they are posted.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_doctrine#In_other_countries
Currently, no Canadian Province has implemented either Castle Doctrine or Stand Your Ground.[35] Under the criminal code of Canada, a very limited version of Castle Doctrine exists that requires the victim to retreat if retreating is possible.
Also, it varies from state to state even in United States.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Doctrine_in_the_United_States#State-by-state_positions
What was the state motto of New Hampshire again? Taking it a bit too literally?
And you... kept it on?
You, you... PERVERT!
Clearly this is can be work of only ONE criminal mastermind. Lex Luthor.
Sadly, I spent all my mod-points earlier today on utterly irrelevant posts.
It has NOTHING to do with 3D as in stereoscopy (read: Avatar and similar 3D movies) it is instead just yet another control system for 3D games (as in Duke Nukem 3D).
Like the parent said - it's a Wii remote. Again.