> And this is exactly the solution. Instead of only paying certain teachers more, how about paying them all what they deserve and raising the standard of eduction in all subjects?
Because in the USA, voters value their own bank balances far more than they value an educated public.
> These people would not survive for 10 minutes where I've worked in the private sector. They would fucking die if they had a 30 minute lunch break and two 15s that were mandated by schedule. They would seriously break down in tears if they were evaluated on hard data instead of gut feeling about their success rates. "Oh wow, I only converted 8%? It really felt like 80%. Something must be wrong there with that data."
Whereas in the private sector it's the pucker of your lips that gets you ahead.
Keep fantasizing. Some of us have had a job or two, and seen for ourselves how things work.
> How can a nutbar statement, as clearly identified by I won't touch on the Fisher Price physics that you learn in your public education systems, and the silly notions of comets with frosty tails and labeling stars as a nuclear furnaces., be interesting?
I bet you don't even slow down when you drive past a train wreck.
> For the first time in my life, I'm seeing a crowd that doesn't wonder if Egyptian hieroglyphs, crop circles, and the Xbox 360 all have the same origin.
Heh, we merely signed the non-disclosure agreement.
> Methinks the parent got it right. Green house gases go up and temperature goes up, that's a correlation. The causation argument is something that can be debated by all..
But in that debate I'll listen to the scientists who actually know how gasses and thermodynamics work.
> It wouldn't be the first time the scientific community has been wrong. The obvious example here is when everyone was worried about the ice ages returning a few decades back.
Can you support that scenario? I've asked before, and all I got was a single contemporaneous mention in an article in Time magazine. Where are "all" the scientific papers?
I'm starting to think the claim is just a myth.
I do remember the widespread concern among scientists that an all-out nuclear exchange would cause a "nuclear winter" due to all the crap it would put into the atmosphere, and it appears to me that that was what prompted scientists to start considering the potential effects of pollution on climate, though admittedly that's just surmise on my part.
> This is what I'm talking about. This meme confuses people and the meaning and it becomes so embeded that it is impossible to eradicate.
It's not a meme, it's a word.
Do you object to the specialized meaning that physicists have for 'work'?
No matter what terminology you use, people aren't going to grok the results of science unless they get educated about it. I don't have the first clue about quantum electrodynamics, and changing their terminology isn't going to give me one. And if I decide to be a kook who rants against QED despite not understanding it, changing the terminology isn't going to make me quit being a k00k either.
> Sometimes I hear people say something like "the evolution of computers." Really, computers have sex?
Don't try to apply the biological concept of evolution to other fields. The word itself just refers to something unfolding over time. That general meaning has become more specific in various subfields, such as biology.
It's no different from 'multiplication' or 'growth' in that regard, which both mean something different in biology than they do in math or computer science.
> Once, one of my friends that are biologist (can't really remember who for it was long ago), said that evolution is not a good word to describe the phenomenon. 'Evolution' sounds like something is getting better
Only to the ill-informed.
'Evolution' is the word Romans used for unrolling a scroll as you read it. It doesn't mean "getting better" any more than 'unfolding' does.
> I am an astrophysicist, and I've heard stories of scientists being encouraged to avoid the term 'stellar evolution', which refers to the life cycle of stars, as this has attracted protests from religious fanatics in the USA. It seems any mention of the word 'evolution' in a scientific context is bound to attract unwanted attention.
In the field of computational intelligence, the word "evolution" is used without the slightest hesitation.
Religious fanatics are aware of it, but spend their time trying to deny that it really works, rather than protesting it.
> Is it really that hard to understand the difference between a democratic, sane, country such as Israel
Israel is an apartheid state that picks a fight with its neighbors every time things quieten down, and responds with vastly overproportionate force when they are provoked. (Look at how many Lebanese civilians died when a handful of Israeli soldiers were kidnapped last year.)
Israel will pop a nuke in a heartbeat if they think they are about to lose a war that will cost them their regional hegemony or apartheid lifestyle.
Most Americans are blind to Israel because they read about it in the Bible. They should pause and look at how the modern State of Israel actually behaves.
> TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- After 7 long years of arduous work, Iranian scientists here on Saturday introduced a herbal medicine which cures Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS).
One could ask what they've been smoking, but I think the press release gives it away.
Slashdot Mirror
> and to push his own (anti-Catholic biased) agenda
Maybe he and the Catholics should break away and create their own alternate-reality 'pedias, like certain right-wing nutcakes did.
> Wonder how many of them will turn out to be just some 24 year old from Kentucky.
Like this one?
> Yes, because literature is pointless. The people who wrote those novels should be ashamed at writing something with so little use in society.
Thank you, Plato. Now go get a life.
> And this is exactly the solution. Instead of only paying certain teachers more, how about paying them all what they deserve and raising the standard of eduction in all subjects?
Because in the USA, voters value their own bank balances far more than they value an educated public.
> These people would not survive for 10 minutes where I've worked in the private sector. They would fucking die if they had a 30 minute lunch break and two 15s that were mandated by schedule. They would seriously break down in tears if they were evaluated on hard data instead of gut feeling about their success rates. "Oh wow, I only converted 8%? It really felt like 80%. Something must be wrong there with that data."
Whereas in the private sector it's the pucker of your lips that gets you ahead.
Keep fantasizing. Some of us have had a job or two, and seen for ourselves how things work.
> The schools have been a void of academic activity for a generation
Wonder where I got my education then.
> > So throw your stones, call me an unenlighted bigot homophobe misanthrope...but these things are true.
When he puts it that way...
> How can a nutbar statement, as clearly identified by I won't touch on the Fisher Price physics that you learn in your public education systems, and the silly notions of comets with frosty tails and labeling stars as a nuclear furnaces., be interesting?
I bet you don't even slow down when you drive past a train wreck.
> For the first time in my life, I'm seeing a crowd that doesn't wonder if Egyptian hieroglyphs, crop circles, and the Xbox 360 all have the same origin.
Heh, we merely signed the non-disclosure agreement.
It amazes me how often business owners/managers have the arrogance to think they can stick something in an employee's face and order them to sign it.
> Methinks the parent got it right. Green house gases go up and temperature goes up, that's a correlation. The causation argument is something that can be debated by all..
But in that debate I'll listen to the scientists who actually know how gasses and thermodynamics work.
> It wouldn't be the first time the scientific community has been wrong. The obvious example here is when everyone was worried about the ice ages returning a few decades back.
Can you support that scenario? I've asked before, and all I got was a single contemporaneous mention in an article in Time magazine. Where are "all" the scientific papers?
I'm starting to think the claim is just a myth.
I do remember the widespread concern among scientists that an all-out nuclear exchange would cause a "nuclear winter" due to all the crap it would put into the atmosphere, and it appears to me that that was what prompted scientists to start considering the potential effects of pollution on climate, though admittedly that's just surmise on my part.
> It was somewhat discredited in the 60s and 70s (i.e., the urban legend about theaters flashing "Drink Coke" on movie screens)
It didn't work quite as expected... we got a generation of crackheads instead.
> This is what I'm talking about. This meme confuses people and the meaning and it becomes so embeded that it is impossible to eradicate.
It's not a meme, it's a word.
Do you object to the specialized meaning that physicists have for 'work'?
No matter what terminology you use, people aren't going to grok the results of science unless they get educated about it. I don't have the first clue about quantum electrodynamics, and changing their terminology isn't going to give me one. And if I decide to be a kook who rants against QED despite not understanding it, changing the terminology isn't going to make me quit being a k00k either.
> Sometimes I hear people say something like "the evolution of computers." Really, computers have sex?
Don't try to apply the biological concept of evolution to other fields. The word itself just refers to something unfolding over time. That general meaning has become more specific in various subfields, such as biology.
It's no different from 'multiplication' or 'growth' in that regard, which both mean something different in biology than they do in math or computer science.
I don't see the word 'nazi' anywhere.
> Once, one of my friends that are biologist (can't really remember who for it was long ago), said that evolution is not a good word to describe the phenomenon. 'Evolution' sounds like something is getting better
Only to the ill-informed.
'Evolution' is the word Romans used for unrolling a scroll as you read it. It doesn't mean "getting better" any more than 'unfolding' does.
> Because the public refuses to accept that our being here was just by chance
Evolution doesn't mean "just by chance". It means there's a mechanism for what we got.
> I am an astrophysicist, and I've heard stories of scientists being encouraged to avoid the term 'stellar evolution', which refers to the life cycle of stars, as this has attracted protests from religious fanatics in the USA. It seems any mention of the word 'evolution' in a scientific context is bound to attract unwanted attention.
In the field of computational intelligence, the word "evolution" is used without the slightest hesitation.
Religious fanatics are aware of it, but spend their time trying to deny that it really works, rather than protesting it.
RHEL on Precision workstations. I noticed them on the Dell site several weeks ago.
And we had a story a couple of months back about getting Linux on their "E" series systems (IIRC).
> The problem probably isn't with the time change. Airplanes use GMT so the local time doesn't matter.
Maybe they were using the time as the seed for their RNGs.
> I find it hard to believe that they would have lost all communication from a software glitch like this.
Didn't we have a story a couple of years ago saying that the entire system was designed to reboot during flight?
> Is it really that hard to understand the difference between a democratic, sane, country such as Israel
Israel is an apartheid state that picks a fight with its neighbors every time things quieten down, and responds with vastly overproportionate force when they are provoked. (Look at how many Lebanese civilians died when a handful of Israeli soldiers were kidnapped last year.)
Israel will pop a nuke in a heartbeat if they think they are about to lose a war that will cost them their regional hegemony or apartheid lifestyle.
Most Americans are blind to Israel because they read about it in the Bible. They should pause and look at how the modern State of Israel actually behaves.
> *SOMEONE* always fills a power vacuum.
Yep. And now the Neocons are whining because Iran is filling the power vacuum that we created by knocking off Iraq's government.
For some reason they think the cure is to knock off Iraq's government too.
> TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- After 7 long years of arduous work, Iranian scientists here on Saturday introduced a herbal medicine which cures Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS).
One could ask what they've been smoking, but I think the press release gives it away.