A literacy test would also be useful. But not a poll tax.
I hate to burst your bubble, but I run across people with the nutty idea of keeping certain undesirable U.S. citizens from voting a lot. Wake up, Sherlock, illiterate people have just as much right to choose who represents them as literate people do.
It sure would be personally convenient for me if the country was run by people who catered to people just like me. Unfortuantely, I don't get that luxury, and neither do you. The purpose of government is to represent all of the people: black, red, yellow and white; male and female; smart and stupid; rich and poor; everyone.
So we can't try to make it where only CS majors or anime fans can vote. Aww. I would like to limit it to HS grads or GEDs though. I'd also like to limit it to those that have atleast paid their taxes. Heck, we could be really evil. Let's require people to fill out the long census form before voting.
The simple fact is that more than half the population feels the election was stolen - an investigation is needed, even if it wasn't - to restore faith in the system.
Um, I consider myself neutral for the most part. I've picked each of the winning Presidents since the first Bush. What is there to get upset about knowing that Bush was going to be re-elected? I didn't even bother voting for that round. I didn't vote in the Bush/Gore because I really was neutral though slightly favored Bush because of the Liberman as Gore's running mate. The platform that I'd really like to have won was Ross Perot's or the libertain group. I'm against the concept of the Green Party. The Greens seem to be more of a religion than a party. Was 2000 or 2004 stolen? Nope. Why? Because every freaking one of our elections is run like that. What you think that either side has ever played fair when given a chance? Limited dirty tricks have always been there. It's politics what did you expect? If you really want to send a message, vote independent reguardless of the candiate in the next election.
This last point is the scariest of all. Suppose we developed a way to give people an extra 10 years of life, but it cost a million dollar per person. We simply couldn't afford to provide it for everyone. What do we do? The American solution is to offer the procedure to anyone who can pay for it.
Um, for only 10 years, I'd say let's keep the US method of only those that can pay for it. If your life extension was able to give 100-200 years with most of that time me looking/feeling like a 24-35 year old, then I'd say let's be socialist about it. The thing is most folks believe that you can add 10 years to your life by the proper life style. (And that isn't that expensive.) We are just too lazy to live our lifes like that. Personally, I rather life my life how I'd like it rather than living a very spartan lifestyle and added a few additional years on at the end. You have to consider what its worth. Say the tech was there to "keep you live" every year for only 1-5 million dollars though you'd be absolutly bed riden for the entire time. Do you think that the rich would really spend their money on that kinda of life extension? We want to be able to pay and have a another 20-30 years of active life. I'd predict that we figure out how to fast grow clones and transfer brains/memories before we figure out how to raise the average lifespan by 20-30 years.
Similarly, one has to wonder at "education" systems that spend more time worrying about whether 7-year-olds can pass formal examinations than worrying about 7-year-olds learning to interact with other 7-year-olds, make friends, and play together. And yet, this is exactly where we're headed
Um, I think that there is a bit too much focus placed on socializing among your own age group. I've interacted better with folks +/- 2 years of my age the best during school. After HS, I've never interacted with people of just my age group. I'm rarely in a situation where everyone is within +/- 5 years of my age. I think focusing on passing formal standards should be the focus rather than on having kids try to interact with others their own age.
I think he could have benifited from a few hours of TV per day, with an audio tape loop in the background repeating "None of this is real... None of this is real..."
I feel the same about attending church. I was forced to go through that ritual growing up, and my wife is forcing my kids through it as well. (My kids seem to be adapting to it more than I ever did.) Though, I had that mental refine of "that's not real." going on in the back of my head. Maybe that's why they don't want kids exposed to TV or electronics with tons of ads and what not. They want to easily mold those minds into something of their own. I understand it though I don't have to like it. We use it in the military, school, and church, and most families use various forms of conditioning before their kids get to school. So I can't really complain, though I've never liked being conditioned.
I've seen this problem first-hand in my stepson. He grew up absolutely addicted to video games and he constantly throws himself into the video game world. He has difficulty in coping with the real world. Until we started getting him some help, he was even uncomfortable paying for something at a store counter.
That's just what we need, an example of a single personal experience blaming video games for the lacks of their child. I was addicted to video games and TV in junior high and highschool too. I had no problems talking with classmates at school or making new friengs in college. My fast food job was difficult, but that was mainly seeing people my parents age working for dollar or to more than min. wage doing exactly what I was doing. That blew my mind and focused me on finishing college. Finished college, and then was lucky to get a job that paid $3-4 more than min. wage. I recommend college and studying some major field classes that you find interesting. You will met 5-7 new friends with similiar interests as yours. I met people in college that actually knew what anime was and had seen the same series that I had. It helps as an ice breaker. I don't go to church, my wife does and drags our kids along. I'm finding out church is more than half socialization and meeting people. My only problem is that the common element in that I don't follow with.
At some point, things need to be reduced and removed to make room. What screws that up is the general inability of most people to make real sacrifices... it's one thing to say you put your child first, but it's quite another to actually do it when you're down to your last few dollars. Even though this level of desperation is rarely an issue for most parents, there are innumerable little ways that parents deprive their children in ways mom and dad might not even notice: you can't afford the $4 bag of cookies your child wants, but you buy an $18 bottle of wine later in the same trip. Could you have perhaps gotten a $12 bottle of wine instead, and used the savings to buy cookies? Of course. The child sees and understands this, even if you don't, and by adolescence there's a massive buildup of frustration from it.
You obviously don't have kids. My girl is in girl scouts. I have to buy about $100+ of cookies when that happens. For school they are selling cookie dough, we spent $98 on that. My boy is starting boy scouts and will be selling popcorn. I have less than $3 in checking and $0 in my pocket for lunch till I get paid. I'm thrilled when I can spend $50 on an item, much less $250+. I'm just thankful the kids also want a Wii otherwise I wouldn't be getting one. I know that I'm not the best parent, but at least I can play video games with my kids. I spend more time playing video games with my kids and being around them than my dad spent around me.
Basically, the standard of living for most of modern western society is now so high that most of us are living like (or better than) the aristrocracy of the not very distant past.
Sir, I'd much rather be poor and have the option to be lazy around the house rather than living like a peasant or serf at any tech level. I'm waiting to read a post about outlawing personal vehicles. I'm sure someone around here thinks that all we really need are bikes, mass transit and walking.
I never expected to live in a world where librarians and encyclopedists are the guardians of civil liberties.
Just wait for the mysterious cutting of library grants and then selective library closings. Then removal certain materials to get more money. That would be the sneaky way for them to go about it. Just wait for the day wikipedia isn't just banned from China. I'd expect sooner or later it'd be banned in the US, Britian, Germany, or maybe even France for not censoring what those countries would like. Sooner or later wikipedia will have to go underground or actually be shut down by first world governments. We pick on China because they are an easy target. The US has been acting like we want to go more police state and Britian seems have been in love with the concept of Big Brother since reading about it and are bound and determined to slowly build it. Sooner or later we'll need to "do something." Securing private copies or sources of information should be one of the first things.
And you want kids to make this decision at K2? Are you NUTS? Most kids are uncomfortable making the decision between vo-tech and college-prep when they enter high school, and that's after the system has already purposefully forced them to make long-term decisions for themselves.
There's a reason kids are told what to do, with the simple reason "Its for your own good"...because it IS for their own good. By the time kids are capable of making decisions, basic schooling has given them the knowledge and cultural literacy to take things into context and ATTEMPT to make the right decision.
I'm thinking low skill needed buy annoying jobs. Something as an alt punishment.
Once you reach high school, you have enough experience making choices for yourself. Um you've never been allowed to make a real decision for yourself until you near 18. Of course, kids aren't making good decisions, we don't allow them to make any real choices that affect their life.
$11 an hour for a college-educated person? It seems to me that you have some personal animosity towards the people you encountered in high school that hated school. I wonder if you are aware that education is not compulsory after age 16, and that to graduate most districts require very little math. What evidence do you have that people don't already understand that education has value and adds to your income? And what $11/hour worker is going to inspire someone to like science? Please tell me you're just trolling me.
Um, I have a BS in CS with a Math Minor. I've estimated what I make per hour. I make about $12 per hour with benefits. Why the hell should teachers make more than me? Yes, I have a very real hate towards those that didn't like going to school. I had nothing against the people that were quiet or slept during the class. Those were the good ones. I hated those that talked and disrupted class those are the people that slowed down class for the rest of us. I'd much rather that they were sent to min. wage job than alternative learning classes. When I discovered what ALC was I was livid. Why? Because is was a class where no one was allowed to talk, assignments were handed out and once finished turned in for more work. Teachers didn't really teach those classes they were glorified baby sitters, but the smart kids could go through far more work and material in that envirnment without the other students bothering them. I have a hint for you; my teachers really didn't inspire me to like science. I liked science on my own. The more that I found out the less science works make. You think that I'm trolling because I want only those that want to learn in school, and the rest in low wage positions as fast as possible. You then think that I'm nuts for wanting teachers to make lower wages. Teaching shouldn't be a high income profession, but it should be a high status one. PHds grads don't generally make alot of money, but they do have alot of status. There is a difference. I liked school and would love to go back, but I'll admit nothing useful was being done for most people.
The concepts of rate of change is a fundamental one to how everything works. Once someone has calculus, all of that algebra stuff makes sense. Once you have taught people basic calculus, teaching many other fields becomes vastly easier. Economics, chemistry, aspects of biology. Economics specifically, if the American public had a better grasp of economics, maybe it would be harder for politicians to swindle us so often.
Um, what chemistry and biology classesd did calculus help you out? I know that there were some cal based economics classes, but I think that the basics would make sense without it. I guess that you had a poor Algebra teacher if it didn't make sense until after you'd taken cal. I understood algebra and cal while taking them, but bogged down in Cal II. I understood that it would make aspects off physics easier, but nothing in chemistry or biology looked directly relateable out of Cal I. I'm thinking of just teaching book keeping and balancing check books as being the first thing that your average student needs to know about math. Forecasting and saving a percentage and using compound interest to save for retirement should be the basic math skill that elementary students are taught. I found vectors useful and made physics very easy once mastered. I had physics and pre-cal in HS and really only had the bare knowledge of them then. It wasn't until physics I & II and Cal that vectors started to make sense. Have I ever used a vector outside of an educational environment? Nope.
What it taught you is what you put into it. I personally have gained much from my general education requirements, but that is because I spent time thinking over the implications of what my professors taught me.
Taking history gave me both pride and cynicism about my country.
I guess that I picked up the cynicism in junior high some where. I observed the same about education for education's sake. That's why I think that our whole system is messed up. Our system needs to "weed out" those that don't want to attend and find them low wage manual labor or fast food service jobs ASAP in their life. Citizens should be able to start earning a living wage at 12-14 in low education required jobs/careers. An important part of the system though is letting people back in and giving people a taste of 6 months to 2 years of doing the same thing for a given wage and paying rent & utilities & taxes. I think that those that didn't want to learn, but had to spend 4-6 months at a low education type job would switch tracks and try to improve themselves. Plus it would make an excellent threat for teachers to displine students by just refusing to teach a disruptive student and for them to be sent to the low skilled jobs.
If you think learning is a waste of time, odds are you won't be learning much, and indeed, you will be wasting your time. For the record though, I do believe that high school is mostly a waste of time anyway, with a few exceptions thanks to exceptionally good teachers!
I think that "education" for education's sake is a waste of time usually except for some history classes. I think history is more about applied morals and where they get people though. We tidy up history and teach our side was right and the other side was wrong/evil until you hit "higher" education. We don't teach our students to think or be active members of a democracy. We teach them to accept what the teacher tells them and then don't ask inconvient questions. I viewed all the years of English classes as a waste of time. Why? Didn't they teach me English to begin with? Why don't they have a Reading or Lit class where you have 40-60 books a month to read over night and discuss topics or events during class. I see education as a waste of effort because of how the resources and time of students is applied rather than just bad teachers. As an aside, I think that PHd Chemistry, Biology, Physics grads should farm out tests/experiments to younger/less skilled classes so that their tests would be applied
Then again, staring at this box has taught me one extremely valuable lesson - people will say anything, even if it is meaningless, in order to get a first post (and the inevitable mod points following it).
Life is all about mod points and meta moding. Physical life is more about moding with social points though.
Indeed, the first time I truly wanted to leave my state came when I 'dated' a girl online. . . and it's thanks to internet research that I ended up here at Boston U. Naturally curious person enabled by the net, or innocent Southern boy corrupted by the tubes'o'satan?
You weren't corrupted by the net; you were tempted by the age old passion of physical time with the oppsite sex!
The problem with all of Wikipedia's critics is that they view it as potentially replacing traditional reference material, when really it mainly just replaces a bunch of even less reliable material. As an additional benefit, its open model even leads most people to be more careful and skeptical of what they read there, which they might not be with other sources. Wikipedia is a net win for propagation of accurate information.
Now, if we could just have Wikipedia have a science peer-review section so that the whole process of submitting an acdemic article and having it reviewed could go through a wiki process, then we'd be set.
I was struck by the high cost of these laptops quoted in the article... $1400 and $1200.
Since I can buy a very capable laptop for about $500 these days (in fact, I have bought a few for my daughters in college), why are the schools paying so much?
I've stated 80-90% of educational money is wasted. There is 2/3 of the waste right there. I'd rather buy 3 laptops for $500 rather than one for $1500.
The fact is there isn't much incentive for good people and good performance in teaching. Positions are hard to fill and teachers can't expect to make more than a blue coller salary. The standard political approach to this is always to act like accountability is the answer. All carrot and no stick for teachers. In your job do you do good work just to keep from getting fired? Teachers need to be paid for performance and they need to have a lot more opportunity to make a real salary.
I'm kinda of the opposite in opinion. I believe most teachers need to have their salary cut to 1/2 to 2/3. Why do I believe it cutting a college educated person's income down? I believe that they earn too much as it is. Teaching should be a $20-25K per year profession. I don't believe it is on the teachers or parents to get the students to learn more/better. I think that our education system is messed up that it doesn't show the benefits of education at an earily age and doesn't give an earily work path. We need a low tech/shit job/manual labor education path for those students that don't like/hate "education" and they can get out of school and start working for McDonalds or some Gas Station as soon as possible. They should be taught just enough math skills to properly run a cah register and credit card machines, but not enough to hangle accounting or managing a business. If they want to own or run the whole business they'll have to know that they need some more bookkeeping education and have access to it. Our earily education can remain mostly as it is, but gear the students to have basic literacy and math/house hold accounting skills before finding them long term full life labor jobs. Those that remain in the school and farther their education should have many more doors opened to them and will automatically shut doors to those that haven't passed anything other than basic education. I believe getting rid of those students that don't want to learn or actively don't want to be there should be the primary purpose for early education so that later eduation can transform our little drones into either little leaders or high end specialists. Students/Citizens need to learn that educational tool knowledge has value or adds to your income. It would be a bonus if we could get them to like science, but I wouldn't hold my breath for that.
5. The students are aware of this B*llsh1t, are forced to go and have no respect (plenty of contempt) for the school (understandable) and treat the equipment like everything else What can we expect from the people running our schools? Certainly not reason. And what is it we expect laptops to do at the schools under these conditions?
Hey I made it through college and it only reenforced my belief that 99% of educational tax money is wasted on education for education's sake. We have a fetish for education that is wasting massive time and tax resources. Why not just extend highschool by 2 years so that all HS grads would have a general ed. 2 year degree instead of just a HS dimploma? Time and Money is wasted in education how so? I spent K-12 from 8 am to 3:30 pm and then 4 years of college. I viewed "education" as a cross between work and blow off time. Why blow off time? 80% of I'd never need and have had this program forced on me from a young age forward! I don't know about you, but I only barely got to chose what classes to take in junior high and let more leeway in highschool. You'd think college would have been better. Well, it was for general ed. You took 1 major class and almost all the rest was general ed repeat of HS material stuff. I know that I look back and was happy that I was housed, feed, and had nothing else other than "get educated" to do, but still 60-70% of college classes seemed a total waste of my personal time and only useful to keep educators employeed and keep me tied up for 4 years in college. I've later come to the opinion that HS is mainly to keep 15-18 years tied up in "education" rather than out in the work place. There is a part of me that thinks that we need to completely revisit the idea of child labor and give students/kids a choice at K-2 to either go through the normal school course or go through a child labor course that keeps them busy, gives them employable skills, teaches them the min to pass as a productive citizen, and to pound it into their heads that if future options for advancement will be cut off through that route. We know enough about employee health and safety to atleast find proper work for school age kids. Our "modern" thoughts on child labor and child education should be revised.
Require calculus from all students to get out of high school. Require REAL reading. A book in 2 months? Laughable. A book in 3 weeks.
Heck, I like Math as much as the next guy, minored in it at college, but I think we teach too much math as it is. I'd rather have household accounting and 2-3 accounting/saving classes rather than any math classes over Alegbra I. I liked math, but other than a handful of things, I've not had to use it since college math classes. We really should work on trying to teach "tools" and "how they are used" more than "classes." Calculus is overkill. You only need Calculus for physics and most people don't really need it to get by in their life. I'd like to get rid of the concept of "higher" education and change things to where its all just "education" and we are expected just to attend a class day of "personal education" for the rest of our lives for various different reasons. 1/2 of college is general education requirements that folks seem to think will give you an expanded view point by showing up and passing all of them. What did it teach me? "Education" in most forms is a waste of money and effort and that the way it is designed is to waste as much as your personal time and effort for the longest period possible before declaring you "educated" and ready to wreak havoc in your chosen craft. I think you are bit off on the book in 3 weeks though. It should be a book every other night if it is readable fiction. Textbooks aren't designed for you to read them and understand the material quickly.
It sounds like the vast majority of problems that this program is encountering could be solved by a halfway competent network administrator applying some basic restrictions. (Hey....I'm a halfway competent network administrator...where do I send my resume? ^_^)
So are you willing to work for $25-$30K?
Re:How about some more *durable* flash drives?
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16GB Flash USB Dongle
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Speaking of carrying the flash drive on your keychain, how about we see some more DURABALE flash drives for your keychain?
I have a Dell USB key chain 256 MB and a Lexar Jump USB Key Drive 512 MB. They've both been dropped, washed, and dryed repeatedly. I have a 250 GB external HD that I use for mass storage and moving things from my work computer to my home computer. I can tell you I wouldn't want to run any HD through a washer and then a dryer. I would really like.5 TB or so USB flash drives for $50-$100 too.;) We could buy 5 of them and that should solve most home users backup problems.
I do know of a guy who was fired at some company (not nameing names) and was left to finish his shift. He wasn't escorted out or monitored and decided to place clear scotch tape over a few dozen opticle sensors on the production line after his shift. This was on friday and it took three weeks to get the production line going again. Every section was registering an obstruction when there wasn't, the computer was replaced two times and you couldn't see the tape on the sensor heads. Eventualy someoen decided to replace everthing on the control and safety circuits and found the causes later. I don't know how much it ended up costing them.
This is exactly why ex-employees are escorted out or not permitted back into the building.
Now they've been doing nothing new, with the exception of several scandals involving their former CEO, Dave Edmonson. I'd imaging their long term strategory at this point is simply circling the drain long enough for some conglomerate to buy their name at a firesale price for use in some branding strategy
It's been awhile since I've been in a Radio shack, but I think some one should buy the company or turn it around. Radioshack has tons of stores that are individually pretty well run. I'm not thrilled with their website, but for quick some purchases RadioShack used to rock. Of course, we always got that off the wall electronic toy at Radio Shack and not any of their radio or computer equipment.
When my co-workers were sacked by email I breathed a sigh of relief when I didn't get one. The next morning my swipe key wouldn't get me in the door. The guy I asked to reactivate my swipe key at lunch time was the one that let me know that I had lost my job.
This is similiar to how I got laid off from a temp job once. The individual that trained me showed up at the door when I usually got to work, and just asked for the key and said that they'd given my job to him. I thought that was a kinda odd way to do things since I was employed through a temp agency and usually the temp agency is notified and you are told by the temp agency that the contract on your position ended or something similiar. I can understand not letting former employees back in just to prevent them from taking disgruntled action. What I consider scary is that this came through e-mail. What if some worm, virus, or black hat hacker just sent out a similiar form letter from within other companies e-mail system? I'm not worried about legit firings; I'm worried out easily this could be hacked, abused, or accidently fire the wrong people. (With some managers that I know, they'd send some by the to, others by cc, and some by bcc and you'd have to read their mind to determine who the e-mail was really meant for. If I got a generic form firing letter by e-mail and it was by cc or bcc, I wouldn't consider that it was meant for me. Of course I'm the computer guy so if I need to turn off/disable an account it makes since to notify me. The problem is what if Joe MacRich CEO of FooFortune sent out a group e-mail of this to nearly random people all throughout his company. Would you take it as instructions to fire certain below you, or that yourself were personally fired by the CEO? I guess that's one way for the upper management to pick who gets fired, have the computer department print out slips of paper with every employee's name and employee number on it and have the board members play party games until the raw number of employees names were picked.
Can't we get people to try more compact cars to go with their compact bulbs, or at least straighten out the details on our energy generation story?
Nope, it's too expensive. It cost me about $200 or so buying the CF lightbulbs. It took forever before I had that much in spare cash to replace them. I'd love to be able to afford a new car. I'm lucky if my next car is newer than 6 years old. I can't afford a "new" car though. I know what I'd like, but I have to live within my means. I really think that the environmental energy efficient people need to think of much more in the line of these CF than things that would require entire new houses. I know how I'd like to build my super energy efficient house, but I won't be able to afford it for 20-30 years. By that time, I'll have my existing house paid for, and I might just decide to be lazy and keep it rather than build a better home.
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A literacy test would also be useful. But not a poll tax.
I hate to burst your bubble, but I run across people with the nutty idea of keeping certain undesirable U.S. citizens from voting a lot. Wake up, Sherlock, illiterate people have just as much right to choose who represents them as literate people do.
It sure would be personally convenient for me if the country was run by people who catered to people just like me. Unfortuantely, I don't get that luxury, and neither do you. The purpose of government is to represent all of the people: black, red, yellow and white; male and female; smart and stupid; rich and poor; everyone.
So we can't try to make it where only CS majors or anime fans can vote. Aww. I would like to limit it to HS grads or GEDs though. I'd also like to limit it to those that have atleast paid their taxes. Heck, we could be really evil. Let's require people to fill out the long census form before voting.
The simple fact is that more than half the population feels the election was stolen - an investigation is needed, even if it wasn't - to restore faith in the system.
Um, I consider myself neutral for the most part. I've picked each of the winning Presidents since the first Bush. What is there to get upset about knowing that Bush was going to be re-elected? I didn't even bother voting for that round. I didn't vote in the Bush/Gore because I really was neutral though slightly favored Bush because of the Liberman as Gore's running mate. The platform that I'd really like to have won was Ross Perot's or the libertain group. I'm against the concept of the Green Party. The Greens seem to be more of a religion than a party. Was 2000 or 2004 stolen? Nope. Why? Because every freaking one of our elections is run like that. What you think that either side has ever played fair when given a chance? Limited dirty tricks have always been there. It's politics what did you expect? If you really want to send a message, vote independent reguardless of the candiate in the next election.
This last point is the scariest of all. Suppose we developed a way to give people an extra 10 years of life, but it cost a million dollar per person. We simply couldn't afford to provide it for everyone. What do we do? The American solution is to offer the procedure to anyone who can pay for it.
Um, for only 10 years, I'd say let's keep the US method of only those that can pay for it. If your life extension was able to give 100-200 years with most of that time me looking/feeling like a 24-35 year old, then I'd say let's be socialist about it. The thing is most folks believe that you can add 10 years to your life by the proper life style. (And that isn't that expensive.) We are just too lazy to live our lifes like that. Personally, I rather life my life how I'd like it rather than living a very spartan lifestyle and added a few additional years on at the end. You have to consider what its worth. Say the tech was there to "keep you live" every year for only 1-5 million dollars though you'd be absolutly bed riden for the entire time. Do you think that the rich would really spend their money on that kinda of life extension? We want to be able to pay and have a another 20-30 years of active life. I'd predict that we figure out how to fast grow clones and transfer brains/memories before we figure out how to raise the average lifespan by 20-30 years.
Similarly, one has to wonder at "education" systems that spend more time worrying about whether 7-year-olds can pass formal examinations than worrying about 7-year-olds learning to interact with other 7-year-olds, make friends, and play together. And yet, this is exactly where we're headed
Um, I think that there is a bit too much focus placed on socializing among your own age group. I've interacted better with folks +/- 2 years of my age the best during school. After HS, I've never interacted with people of just my age group. I'm rarely in a situation where everyone is within +/- 5 years of my age. I think focusing on passing formal standards should be the focus rather than on having kids try to interact with others their own age.
I think he could have benifited from a few hours of TV per day, with an audio tape loop in the background repeating "None of this is real... None of this is real..."
I feel the same about attending church. I was forced to go through that ritual growing up, and my wife is forcing my kids through it as well. (My kids seem to be adapting to it more than I ever did.) Though, I had that mental refine of "that's not real." going on in the back of my head. Maybe that's why they don't want kids exposed to TV or electronics with tons of ads and what not. They want to easily mold those minds into something of their own. I understand it though I don't have to like it. We use it in the military, school, and church, and most families use various forms of conditioning before their kids get to school. So I can't really complain, though I've never liked being conditioned.
I've seen this problem first-hand in my stepson. He grew up absolutely addicted to video games and he constantly throws himself into the video game world. He has difficulty in coping with the real world. Until we started getting him some help, he was even uncomfortable paying for something at a store counter.
That's just what we need, an example of a single personal experience blaming video games for the lacks of their child. I was addicted to video games and TV in junior high and highschool too. I had no problems talking with classmates at school or making new friengs in college. My fast food job was difficult, but that was mainly seeing people my parents age working for dollar or to more than min. wage doing exactly what I was doing. That blew my mind and focused me on finishing college. Finished college, and then was lucky to get a job that paid $3-4 more than min. wage. I recommend college and studying some major field classes that you find interesting. You will met 5-7 new friends with similiar interests as yours. I met people in college that actually knew what anime was and had seen the same series that I had. It helps as an ice breaker. I don't go to church, my wife does and drags our kids along. I'm finding out church is more than half socialization and meeting people. My only problem is that the common element in that I don't follow with.
At some point, things need to be reduced and removed to make room. What screws that up is the general inability of most people to make real sacrifices... it's one thing to say you put your child first, but it's quite another to actually do it when you're down to your last few dollars. Even though this level of desperation is rarely an issue for most parents, there are innumerable little ways that parents deprive their children in ways mom and dad might not even notice: you can't afford the $4 bag of cookies your child wants, but you buy an $18 bottle of wine later in the same trip. Could you have perhaps gotten a $12 bottle of wine instead, and used the savings to buy cookies? Of course. The child sees and understands this, even if you don't, and by adolescence there's a massive buildup of frustration from it.
You obviously don't have kids. My girl is in girl scouts. I have to buy about $100+ of cookies when that happens. For school they are selling cookie dough, we spent $98 on that. My boy is starting boy scouts and will be selling popcorn. I have less than $3 in checking and $0 in my pocket for lunch till I get paid. I'm thrilled when I can spend $50 on an item, much less $250+. I'm just thankful the kids also want a Wii otherwise I wouldn't be getting one. I know that I'm not the best parent, but at least I can play video games with my kids. I spend more time playing video games with my kids and being around them than my dad spent around me.
Basically, the standard of living for most of modern western society is now so high that most of us are living like (or better than) the aristrocracy of the not very distant past.
Sir, I'd much rather be poor and have the option to be lazy around the house rather than living like a peasant or serf at any tech level. I'm waiting to read a post about outlawing personal vehicles. I'm sure someone around here thinks that all we really need are bikes, mass transit and walking.
I never expected to live in a world where librarians and encyclopedists are the guardians of civil liberties.
Just wait for the mysterious cutting of library grants and then selective library closings. Then removal certain materials to get more money. That would be the sneaky way for them to go about it. Just wait for the day wikipedia isn't just banned from China. I'd expect sooner or later it'd be banned in the US, Britian, Germany, or maybe even France for not censoring what those countries would like. Sooner or later wikipedia will have to go underground or actually be shut down by first world governments. We pick on China because they are an easy target. The US has been acting like we want to go more police state and Britian seems have been in love with the concept of Big Brother since reading about it and are bound and determined to slowly build it. Sooner or later we'll need to "do something." Securing private copies or sources of information should be one of the first things.
And you want kids to make this decision at K2? Are you NUTS? Most kids are uncomfortable making the decision between vo-tech and college-prep when they enter high school, and that's after the system has already purposefully forced them to make long-term decisions for themselves.
There's a reason kids are told what to do, with the simple reason "Its for your own good"...because it IS for their own good. By the time kids are capable of making decisions, basic schooling has given them the knowledge and cultural literacy to take things into context and ATTEMPT to make the right decision.
I'm thinking low skill needed buy annoying jobs. Something as an alt punishment.
Once you reach high school, you have enough experience making choices for yourself.
Um you've never been allowed to make a real decision for yourself until you near 18. Of course, kids aren't making good decisions, we don't allow them to make any real choices that affect their life.
$11 an hour for a college-educated person? It seems to me that you have some personal animosity towards the people you encountered in high school that hated school. I wonder if you are aware that education is not compulsory after age 16, and that to graduate most districts require very little math. What evidence do you have that people don't already understand that education has value and adds to your income? And what $11/hour worker is going to inspire someone to like science? Please tell me you're just trolling me.
Um, I have a BS in CS with a Math Minor. I've estimated what I make per hour. I make about $12 per hour with benefits. Why the hell should teachers make more than me? Yes, I have a very real hate towards those that didn't like going to school. I had nothing against the people that were quiet or slept during the class. Those were the good ones. I hated those that talked and disrupted class those are the people that slowed down class for the rest of us. I'd much rather that they were sent to min. wage job than alternative learning classes. When I discovered what ALC was I was livid. Why? Because is was a class where no one was allowed to talk, assignments were handed out and once finished turned in for more work. Teachers didn't really teach those classes they were glorified baby sitters, but the smart kids could go through far more work and material in that envirnment without the other students bothering them. I have a hint for you; my teachers really didn't inspire me to like science. I liked science on my own. The more that I found out the less science works make. You think that I'm trolling because I want only those that want to learn in school, and the rest in low wage positions as fast as possible. You then think that I'm nuts for wanting teachers to make lower wages. Teaching shouldn't be a high income profession, but it should be a high status one. PHds grads don't generally make alot of money, but they do have alot of status. There is a difference. I liked school and would love to go back, but I'll admit nothing useful was being done for most people.
The concepts of rate of change is a fundamental one to how everything works. Once someone has calculus, all of that algebra stuff makes sense. Once you have taught people basic calculus, teaching many other fields becomes vastly easier. Economics, chemistry, aspects of biology. Economics specifically, if the American public had a better grasp of economics, maybe it would be harder for politicians to swindle us so often.
Um, what chemistry and biology classesd did calculus help you out? I know that there were some cal based economics classes, but I think that the basics would make sense without it. I guess that you had a poor Algebra teacher if it didn't make sense until after you'd taken cal. I understood algebra and cal while taking them, but bogged down in Cal II. I understood that it would make aspects off physics easier, but nothing in chemistry or biology looked directly relateable out of Cal I. I'm thinking of just teaching book keeping and balancing check books as being the first thing that your average student needs to know about math. Forecasting and saving a percentage and using compound interest to save for retirement should be the basic math skill that elementary students are taught. I found vectors useful and made physics very easy once mastered. I had physics and pre-cal in HS and really only had the bare knowledge of them then. It wasn't until physics I & II and Cal that vectors started to make sense. Have I ever used a vector outside of an educational environment? Nope.
What it taught you is what you put into it. I personally have gained much from my general education requirements, but that is because I spent time thinking over the implications of what my professors taught me.
Taking history gave me both pride and cynicism about my country.
I guess that I picked up the cynicism in junior high some where. I observed the same about education for education's sake. That's why I think that our whole system is messed up. Our system needs to "weed out" those that don't want to attend and find them low wage manual labor or fast food service jobs ASAP in their life. Citizens should be able to start earning a living wage at 12-14 in low education required jobs/careers. An important part of the system though is letting people back in and giving people a taste of 6 months to 2 years of doing the same thing for a given wage and paying rent & utilities & taxes. I think that those that didn't want to learn, but had to spend 4-6 months at a low education type job would switch tracks and try to improve themselves. Plus it would make an excellent threat for teachers to displine students by just refusing to teach a disruptive student and for them to be sent to the low skilled jobs.
If you think learning is a waste of time, odds are you won't be learning much, and indeed, you will be wasting your time.
For the record though, I do believe that high school is mostly a waste of time anyway, with a few exceptions thanks to exceptionally good teachers!
I think that "education" for education's sake is a waste of time usually except for some history classes. I think history is more about applied morals and where they get people though. We tidy up history and teach our side was right and the other side was wrong/evil until you hit "higher" education. We don't teach our students to think or be active members of a democracy. We teach them to accept what the teacher tells them and then don't ask inconvient questions. I viewed all the years of English classes as a waste of time. Why? Didn't they teach me English to begin with? Why don't they have a Reading or Lit class where you have 40-60 books a month to read over night and discuss topics or events during class. I see education as a waste of effort because of how the resources and time of students is applied rather than just bad teachers. As an aside, I think that PHd Chemistry, Biology, Physics grads should farm out tests/experiments to younger/less skilled classes so that their tests would be applied
Then again, staring at this box has taught me one extremely valuable lesson - people will say anything, even if it is meaningless, in order to get a first post (and the inevitable mod points following it).
Life is all about mod points and meta moding. Physical life is more about moding with social points though.
Indeed, the first time I truly wanted to leave my state came when I 'dated' a girl online. . . and it's thanks to internet research that I ended up here at Boston U. Naturally curious person enabled by the net, or innocent Southern boy corrupted by the tubes'o'satan?
You weren't corrupted by the net; you were tempted by the age old passion of physical time with the oppsite sex!
The problem with all of Wikipedia's critics is that they view it as potentially replacing traditional reference material, when really it mainly just replaces a bunch of even less reliable material. As an additional benefit, its open model even leads most people to be more careful and skeptical of what they read there, which they might not be with other sources. Wikipedia is a net win for propagation of accurate information.
Now, if we could just have Wikipedia have a science peer-review section so that the whole process of submitting an acdemic article and having it reviewed could go through a wiki process, then we'd be set.
I was struck by the high cost of these laptops quoted in the article... $1400 and $1200.
Since I can buy a very capable laptop for about $500 these days (in fact, I have bought a few for my daughters in college), why are the schools paying so much?
I've stated 80-90% of educational money is wasted. There is 2/3 of the waste right there. I'd rather buy 3 laptops for $500 rather than one for $1500.
The fact is there isn't much incentive for good people and good performance in teaching. Positions are hard to fill and teachers can't expect to make more than a blue coller salary. The standard political approach to this is always to act like accountability is the answer. All carrot and no stick for teachers. In your job do you do good work just to keep from getting fired? Teachers need to be paid for performance and they need to have a lot more opportunity to make a real salary.
I'm kinda of the opposite in opinion. I believe most teachers need to have their salary cut to 1/2 to 2/3. Why do I believe it cutting a college educated person's income down? I believe that they earn too much as it is. Teaching should be a $20-25K per year profession. I don't believe it is on the teachers or parents to get the students to learn more/better. I think that our education system is messed up that it doesn't show the benefits of education at an earily age and doesn't give an earily work path. We need a low tech/shit job/manual labor education path for those students that don't like/hate "education" and they can get out of school and start working for McDonalds or some Gas Station as soon as possible. They should be taught just enough math skills to properly run a cah register and credit card machines, but not enough to hangle accounting or managing a business. If they want to own or run the whole business they'll have to know that they need some more bookkeeping education and have access to it. Our earily education can remain mostly as it is, but gear the students to have basic literacy and math/house hold accounting skills before finding them long term full life labor jobs. Those that remain in the school and farther their education should have many more doors opened to them and will automatically shut doors to those that haven't passed anything other than basic education. I believe getting rid of those students that don't want to learn or actively don't want to be there should be the primary purpose for early education so that later eduation can transform our little drones into either little leaders or high end specialists. Students/Citizens need to learn that educational tool knowledge has value or adds to your income. It would be a bonus if we could get them to like science, but I wouldn't hold my breath for that.
5. The students are aware of this B*llsh1t, are forced to go and have no respect (plenty of contempt) for the school (understandable) and treat the equipment like everything else
What can we expect from the people running our schools? Certainly not reason. And what is it we expect laptops to do at the schools under these conditions?
Hey I made it through college and it only reenforced my belief that 99% of educational tax money is wasted on education for education's sake. We have a fetish for education that is wasting massive time and tax resources. Why not just extend highschool by 2 years so that all HS grads would have a general ed. 2 year degree instead of just a HS dimploma? Time and Money is wasted in education how so? I spent K-12 from 8 am to 3:30 pm and then 4 years of college. I viewed "education" as a cross between work and blow off time. Why blow off time? 80% of I'd never need and have had this program forced on me from a young age forward! I don't know about you, but I only barely got to chose what classes to take in junior high and let more leeway in highschool. You'd think college would have been better. Well, it was for general ed. You took 1 major class and almost all the rest was general ed repeat of HS material stuff. I know that I look back and was happy that I was housed, feed, and had nothing else other than "get educated" to do, but still 60-70% of college classes seemed a total waste of my personal time and only useful to keep educators employeed and keep me tied up for 4 years in college. I've later come to the opinion that HS is mainly to keep 15-18 years tied up in "education" rather than out in the work place. There is a part of me that thinks that we need to completely revisit the idea of child labor and give students/kids a choice at K-2 to either go through the normal school course or go through a child labor course that keeps them busy, gives them employable skills, teaches them the min to pass as a productive citizen, and to pound it into their heads that if future options for advancement will be cut off through that route. We know enough about employee health and safety to atleast find proper work for school age kids. Our "modern" thoughts on child labor and child education should be revised.
Require calculus from all students to get out of high school. Require REAL reading. A book in 2 months? Laughable. A book in 3 weeks.
Heck, I like Math as much as the next guy, minored in it at college, but I think we teach too much math as it is. I'd rather have household accounting and 2-3 accounting/saving classes rather than any math classes over Alegbra I. I liked math, but other than a handful of things, I've not had to use it since college math classes. We really should work on trying to teach "tools" and "how they are used" more than "classes." Calculus is overkill. You only need Calculus for physics and most people don't really need it to get by in their life. I'd like to get rid of the concept of "higher" education and change things to where its all just "education" and we are expected just to attend a class day of "personal education" for the rest of our lives for various different reasons. 1/2 of college is general education requirements that folks seem to think will give you an expanded view point by showing up and passing all of them. What did it teach me? "Education" in most forms is a waste of money and effort and that the way it is designed is to waste as much as your personal time and effort for the longest period possible before declaring you "educated" and ready to wreak havoc in your chosen craft. I think you are bit off on the book in 3 weeks though. It should be a book every other night if it is readable fiction. Textbooks aren't designed for you to read them and understand the material quickly.
It sounds like the vast majority of problems that this program is encountering could be solved by a halfway competent network administrator applying some basic restrictions.
(Hey....I'm a halfway competent network administrator...where do I send my resume? ^_^)
So are you willing to work for $25-$30K?
Speaking of carrying the flash drive on your keychain, how about we see some more DURABALE flash drives for your keychain?
.5 TB or so USB flash drives for $50-$100 too. ;) We could buy 5 of them and that should solve most home users backup problems.
I have a Dell USB key chain 256 MB and a Lexar Jump USB Key Drive 512 MB. They've both been dropped, washed, and dryed repeatedly. I have a 250 GB external HD that I use for mass storage and moving things from my work computer to my home computer. I can tell you I wouldn't want to run any HD through a washer and then a dryer. I would really like
I do know of a guy who was fired at some company (not nameing names) and was left to finish his shift. He wasn't escorted out or monitored and decided to place clear scotch tape over a few dozen opticle sensors on the production line after his shift. This was on friday and it took three weeks to get the production line going again. Every section was registering an obstruction when there wasn't, the computer was replaced two times and you couldn't see the tape on the sensor heads. Eventualy someoen decided to replace everthing on the control and safety circuits and found the causes later. I don't know how much it ended up costing them.
This is exactly why ex-employees are escorted out or not permitted back into the building.
Now they've been doing nothing new, with the exception of several scandals involving their former CEO, Dave Edmonson. I'd imaging their long term strategory at this point is simply circling the drain long enough for some conglomerate to buy their name at a firesale price for use in some branding strategy
It's been awhile since I've been in a Radio shack, but I think some one should buy the company or turn it around. Radioshack has tons of stores that are individually pretty well run. I'm not thrilled with their website, but for quick some purchases RadioShack used to rock. Of course, we always got that off the wall electronic toy at Radio Shack and not any of their radio or computer equipment.
When my co-workers were sacked by email I breathed a sigh of relief when I didn't get one. The next morning my swipe key wouldn't get me in the door. The guy I asked to reactivate my swipe key at lunch time was the one that let me know that I had lost my job.
This is similiar to how I got laid off from a temp job once. The individual that trained me showed up at the door when I usually got to work, and just asked for the key and said that they'd given my job to him. I thought that was a kinda odd way to do things since I was employed through a temp agency and usually the temp agency is notified and you are told by the temp agency that the contract on your position ended or something similiar. I can understand not letting former employees back in just to prevent them from taking disgruntled action. What I consider scary is that this came through e-mail. What if some worm, virus, or black hat hacker just sent out a similiar form letter from within other companies e-mail system? I'm not worried about legit firings; I'm worried out easily this could be hacked, abused, or accidently fire the wrong people. (With some managers that I know, they'd send some by the to, others by cc, and some by bcc and you'd have to read their mind to determine who the e-mail was really meant for. If I got a generic form firing letter by e-mail and it was by cc or bcc, I wouldn't consider that it was meant for me. Of course I'm the computer guy so if I need to turn off/disable an account it makes since to notify me. The problem is what if Joe MacRich CEO of FooFortune sent out a group e-mail of this to nearly random people all throughout his company. Would you take it as instructions to fire certain below you, or that yourself were personally fired by the CEO? I guess that's one way for the upper management to pick who gets fired, have the computer department print out slips of paper with every employee's name and employee number on it and have the board members play party games until the raw number of employees names were picked.
Can't we get people to try more compact cars to go with their compact bulbs, or at least straighten out the details on our energy generation story?
Nope, it's too expensive. It cost me about $200 or so buying the CF lightbulbs. It took forever before I had that much in spare cash to replace them. I'd love to be able to afford a new car. I'm lucky if my next car is newer than 6 years old. I can't afford a "new" car though. I know what I'd like, but I have to live within my means. I really think that the environmental energy efficient people need to think of much more in the line of these CF than things that would require entire new houses. I know how I'd like to build my super energy efficient house, but I won't be able to afford it for 20-30 years. By that time, I'll have my existing house paid for, and I might just decide to be lazy and keep it rather than build a better home.