You're probably right that the youth culture of today deserves some of the blame. But what makes you think our society will learn the right lessons when the balance comes due as these idiots age? Remember, they'll become part of the political process themselves at that point. Do you honestly think they'll have the self-awareness to say "Gee, I wish I understood things better. Maybe we need to expect more from the next generation so that everything doesn't come crashing down around us?"
If the problem is with youth culture, then we should make it clear to our kids (and by "we" I mean all teachers and parents) what garbage that is and not coddle our kids any more. We should expect the best from them; it's the only way we're going to get it.
Why do you think the parents were pushing for tougher standards in the first place? Maybe because a child that can't spell "Mississippi" has no business getting an "A" in Spelling?
He says spelling is getting better, but grammar is getting worse. That would be perfectly consistent with using a spell checker and not realising that it's suggested a grammatically-incorrect but properly spelled word.
Its simply knot true that spellcheckers invite pore grammar. If watt ewe said where true, than weed see more examples of it, wouldn't ewe agree?
This goes back to a discussion the other day where someone said that modern-American public schools were exemplars of effective education. Granted that this study comes from Canada, but if that premise were true, we wouldn't see the kind of barely-literate papers TFA talks about.
What's the problem? I blame teachers' unions. When it's impossible to fire an idiot who has no business in the classroom, you end up with a generation of idiots. My 11-year old son has a better grasp of the subjective vs. the objective ("who" vs. "whom") than his English teacher; and at a social function a few years ago I had an English teacher tell me that "Speedily is not a word" (Firefox disagrees, as it did not put the little red spellcheck line underneath it). These two women are just two among countless examples of people with no clue on how language works, but are tasked with teaching the elements of language to children. If we had proper testing procedures for the teachers, and made it easy to fire them when they failed the challenge of passing along knowledge, we would have a much better crop of future citizens. (It should go without saying that pay increases for teachers would have to be tied to this scheme, to ensure that the best and the brightest are offered a monetary incentive to apply in the first in the place.)
AT&T is one of the oldest and most entrenched corporations in the country, if not the world (the British East India Company is older of course, but is a shadow of its former self). I doubt they don't know the right way to grease the right wheels.
Parents have plenty of rights [citation needed], but the right to destroy their kid's future by teaching them anti-science [citation needed] and borderline racist interpretations of history [citation needed] ought not be one. We have whole states here in the US that are filled with nincompoops [citation needed] because of homeschooling [citation needed]. Homeschooling begets more homeschooling [citation needed] in an endless cycle. When you try to push morals and religion into education [citation needed] you end up with none of the above [citation needed].
You're making that up. Or you're repeating things other people have made up. This is a myth that is constantly propagated on slashdot. It's one of those "everyone knows" memes that people just repeat to each other without any actual evidence because it meets their preconceived notions. The slashdotters who have children going through the school system almost invariably describe an incredibly competitive, stressful grind that is far more cutthroat than they remember from their own school days.
LMFAO! I have two kids in elementary school and there is no way their school experience is more competitive than mine was. Instead, it's all platitudes and pats-on-the-back for no good reason. They don't even have detention, they have something called a "green room" where the kids eat lunch instead of the cafeteria if they're bad.
Public schools are a joke; they have been for years and they've only gotten worse. The only reason I'm not home schooling is because my kids begged me to let them keep going to school with their friends. Given secondary considerations in our personal lives that are none of your business, I acquiesced on that. But not for much longer.
You bemoan a waste of the public treasury, so you could be either Republican or Libertarian. But you called out to your imaginary friend, so that narrows it: you're Republican.
Guess it's time to stop reading Atlas Shrugged, pretending that those above us in the hierarchy are looking out for us
Um, Atlas Shrugged is more about why it's so important to stand on your own two feet and not depend on others to protect you. But you would've missed that subtext in the Cliffs Notes version, I guess.
Humans nearly went extinct during the nuclear missile crysis [sic]
Nuclear war would not have wiped out humanity. It could've killed tens of millions of people immediately, and maybe hundreds of millions more after two years of poor crops and contaminated water, but large pockets would've survived pretty much unscathed. Most of South America, Africa, and Australasia (with the obvious exception of Australia itself on the coasts) would not have been hit at all, in all likelihood. And life would've been rough for those people for a few years, the earth has phenomenal ability to heal itself. Hell, people live in Hiroshima and have picnics at ground zero; I hardly doubt later nuclear weapons would've had longer-lasting effects than the first weak, but extremely dirty, bombs did.
The flood story is most likely a composite of semi-historical and mythological events surrounding the flooding of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. It may also be related to the flooding of the Persian Gulf at the end of the last glacial period, when trillions of gallons of sea water flooded into what was a very large (and possibly very fertile) valley. Since the destruction caused by this event, and the resulting 10,000 years of salt-water erosion, would've wiped out any sign of an ancient hunter-gatherer or subsistence civilization in what is now the Persian Gulf, it's impossible to prove. But it's still fun to speculate.
The reality though is that in the English language the words brother and sister have a specific meaning: persons who share at least 1 biological parent.
No, it means two individuals who share at least one parent, whether by birth, adoption, or marriage. For instance, of my four kids, two are step-kids and two are from my first marriage; but they all refer to each other as brothers and sisters. Besides, adopted and step-siblings are prevented from marrying just as biological siblings are in most common law jurisdictions.
Just because I associate with somebody for the purposes of earning wages does not mean I should be compelled to give them a proxy to my right of free speech.
So your boss isn't free to spend his money because you disagree with his views and somehow helped him earn that money? Yeah, you're definitely advocating freedom with that stance.
Are you kidding? Mussolini and his buddies defined fascism. Their party was the Fascist Party. They got the name from the fasces, bundled axes and sticks used in ancient Rome as a symbol of state power. To say that fascist Italy wasn't fascist is asinine.
Those corporate profits belong to the owners (shareholders) of the corporation, not the employees (except, obviously, in cases where the groups overlap). Don't like it? Go get a different job or start your own business. In either case, stop whining because your boss' political views don't mesh with your own.
Slashdot Mirror
You're probably right that the youth culture of today deserves some of the blame. But what makes you think our society will learn the right lessons when the balance comes due as these idiots age? Remember, they'll become part of the political process themselves at that point. Do you honestly think they'll have the self-awareness to say "Gee, I wish I understood things better. Maybe we need to expect more from the next generation so that everything doesn't come crashing down around us?"
If the problem is with youth culture, then we should make it clear to our kids (and by "we" I mean all teachers and parents) what garbage that is and not coddle our kids any more. We should expect the best from them; it's the only way we're going to get it.
Why do you think the parents were pushing for tougher standards in the first place? Maybe because a child that can't spell "Mississippi" has no business getting an "A" in Spelling?
He says spelling is getting better, but grammar is getting worse. That would be perfectly consistent with using a spell checker and not realising that it's suggested a grammatically-incorrect but properly spelled word.
Its simply knot true that spellcheckers invite pore grammar. If watt ewe said where true, than weed see more examples of it, wouldn't ewe agree?
Enthymemes are entirely appropriate in informal communication.
So, fuck you.
This goes back to a discussion the other day where someone said that modern-American public schools were exemplars of effective education. Granted that this study comes from Canada, but if that premise were true, we wouldn't see the kind of barely-literate papers TFA talks about.
What's the problem? I blame teachers' unions. When it's impossible to fire an idiot who has no business in the classroom, you end up with a generation of idiots. My 11-year old son has a better grasp of the subjective vs. the objective ("who" vs. "whom") than his English teacher; and at a social function a few years ago I had an English teacher tell me that "Speedily is not a word" (Firefox disagrees, as it did not put the little red spellcheck line underneath it). These two women are just two among countless examples of people with no clue on how language works, but are tasked with teaching the elements of language to children. If we had proper testing procedures for the teachers, and made it easy to fire them when they failed the challenge of passing along knowledge, we would have a much better crop of future citizens. (It should go without saying that pay increases for teachers would have to be tied to this scheme, to ensure that the best and the brightest are offered a monetary incentive to apply in the first in the place.)
I'll bet this particular Anonymous Coward is a vampire himself, trying to convince us all they don't exist.
I'm onto your schemes, bloodsucker!
AT&T is one of the oldest and most entrenched corporations in the country, if not the world (the British East India Company is older of course, but is a shadow of its former self). I doubt they don't know the right way to grease the right wheels.
Sounds like one more reason not to go to LA. Not that anyone needed any more.
Yeah, cause that worked out SOOOOO well for the last guy.
Parents have plenty of rights [citation needed], but the right to destroy their kid's future by teaching them anti-science [citation needed] and borderline racist interpretations of history [citation needed] ought not be one. We have whole states here in the US that are filled with nincompoops [citation needed] because of homeschooling [citation needed]. Homeschooling begets more homeschooling [citation needed] in an endless cycle. When you try to push morals and religion into education [citation needed] you end up with none of the above [citation needed].
Wikied that for you.
You're making that up. Or you're repeating things other people have made up. This is a myth that is constantly propagated on slashdot. It's one of those "everyone knows" memes that people just repeat to each other without any actual evidence because it meets their preconceived notions. The slashdotters who have children going through the school system almost invariably describe an incredibly competitive, stressful grind that is far more cutthroat than they remember from their own school days.
LMFAO! I have two kids in elementary school and there is no way their school experience is more competitive than mine was. Instead, it's all platitudes and pats-on-the-back for no good reason. They don't even have detention, they have something called a "green room" where the kids eat lunch instead of the cafeteria if they're bad.
Public schools are a joke; they have been for years and they've only gotten worse. The only reason I'm not home schooling is because my kids begged me to let them keep going to school with their friends. Given secondary considerations in our personal lives that are none of your business, I acquiesced on that. But not for much longer.
Given its name, I was expecting to find it had a compass in the stock and thing that tells time.
It is unwise to speak the Black Speech beyond the gates of Mordor. The Dark Lord may hear your cry...and answer.
You bemoan a waste of the public treasury, so you could be either Republican or Libertarian. But you called out to your imaginary friend, so that narrows it: you're Republican.
Guess it's time to stop reading Atlas Shrugged, pretending that those above us in the hierarchy are looking out for us
Um, Atlas Shrugged is more about why it's so important to stand on your own two feet and not depend on others to protect you. But you would've missed that subtext in the Cliffs Notes version, I guess.
[Bennett] know[s] enough to be dangerous, but not enough to be right.
In other words, he's a Slashdotter.
Yes, because there are no other species on the planet that grow to take over a local ecosystem.
Agent Smith wasn't a biologist or zoologist, I wouldn't take his word on the behavior of species.
Humans nearly went extinct during the nuclear missile crysis [sic]
Nuclear war would not have wiped out humanity. It could've killed tens of millions of people immediately, and maybe hundreds of millions more after two years of poor crops and contaminated water, but large pockets would've survived pretty much unscathed. Most of South America, Africa, and Australasia (with the obvious exception of Australia itself on the coasts) would not have been hit at all, in all likelihood. And life would've been rough for those people for a few years, the earth has phenomenal ability to heal itself. Hell, people live in Hiroshima and have picnics at ground zero; I hardly doubt later nuclear weapons would've had longer-lasting effects than the first weak, but extremely dirty, bombs did.
The flood story is most likely a composite of semi-historical and mythological events surrounding the flooding of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. It may also be related to the flooding of the Persian Gulf at the end of the last glacial period, when trillions of gallons of sea water flooded into what was a very large (and possibly very fertile) valley. Since the destruction caused by this event, and the resulting 10,000 years of salt-water erosion, would've wiped out any sign of an ancient hunter-gatherer or subsistence civilization in what is now the Persian Gulf, it's impossible to prove. But it's still fun to speculate.
The reality though is that in the English language the words brother and sister have a specific meaning: persons who share at least 1 biological parent.
No, it means two individuals who share at least one parent, whether by birth, adoption, or marriage. For instance, of my four kids, two are step-kids and two are from my first marriage; but they all refer to each other as brothers and sisters. Besides, adopted and step-siblings are prevented from marrying just as biological siblings are in most common law jurisdictions.
Just because I associate with somebody for the purposes of earning wages does not mean I should be compelled to give them a proxy to my right of free speech.
So your boss isn't free to spend his money because you disagree with his views and somehow helped him earn that money? Yeah, you're definitely advocating freedom with that stance.
Let me see if I understand you.
Nope, you don't.
Are you kidding? Mussolini and his buddies defined fascism. Their party was the Fascist Party. They got the name from the fasces, bundled axes and sticks used in ancient Rome as a symbol of state power. To say that fascist Italy wasn't fascist is asinine.
Those corporate profits belong to the owners (shareholders) of the corporation, not the employees (except, obviously, in cases where the groups overlap). Don't like it? Go get a different job or start your own business. In either case, stop whining because your boss' political views don't mesh with your own.
I wonder at times if what they really want is to effectively limit free speech to those persons who are sufficiently eloquent or well spoken
So now the grammar nazis are an actual political party???