They send your children to school because they are unwilling or unable to educate them themselves. If they could they would hire the best teachers they could for their children's education. If they had the money they send them to the best fee paying school they can afford. Most children are educated at public schools at the tax payers expense. Ergo, most parents have defaulted on their child's education.
My system would force parents to make choices about their child's education and give them the tools to make a difference.
The state sets the finishing line, the teacher is responsible for guiding his students there as quickly as possible.
You can believe in what you like, the rest of society will go on with exams at all levels.
I agree that exams are not the be all and end all, nor are they a perfect representation of ability. But they are what we have in education.
As for college, my feeling is at that level you should already be learning the subject on your own and the lectures are just there to confirm your own findings. In the US it seems, although I've only attended a few classes, college lectures are still trying to educate rather than review. It's almost like college is an extension of high school.
No more callous than holding back more gifted students so the lazy and incompetent do not feel bad!
But you are right it's callous, cold hard survival of the fittest. Those who do well will do better, those that need help will fall further behind unless that help can be provided, but it will not be provided at the expense of the gifted.
I'm proposing a fixed system that is harsh but has rewards for those who excel. It also gives a clear indication as to a persons academic ability. Also a person can opt out entirely, which is what I would have done.
If you want some system that makes everybody feel good about themselves then look elsewhere.
I'm aware a little of the Japanese HS education system. I'm not sure I want to prepare all students for university but rather have a firm way of measuring students academic ability.
I believe the suicide rate in Japan is high at all ages. I would guess due to the crowded nature of the society and the need to control emotions.
Make no mistake for the top level of students the pressure will be very apparent under my idea. But there will be no bar to retaking the test or taking the test early. The idea being that improvement through education is available to all no matter what.
We have always had broken parents, at all levels of society. It should not be up to the school to teach a student how to behave. If a student is not willing to conduct himself as the teacher requires then the student should be removed and another put in his place who does know how to behave.
Schools should be little more than a collection of class rooms where knowledge is imparted. The current idea of it being some sort of separate society is bullshit and costing the tax payer money that need not be spent.
A teacher should be 100% focused on getting his students to pass their exams as quickly as possible. Of course under my idea he is free to do as he chooses as long as people are willing to send their children to him. But the state will judge a student on his academic qualities alone.
A teachers job is not sell the value of an education, that is a parents job. Too bad if the parent weren't up to it.
If a child does not want to learn it's not the teachers job to convince him otherwise. Instead the teacher should cut him loose and accept another student who wishes to learn.
A teacher is there to impart knowledge of the subject. He's not some motivational speaker but rather an aid to study.
School should be focused on turning out students who can pass the prescribed exams not used as some form of entertainment or punishment.
Make no mistake what I want is radical, it's flushing the idea of equality away and letting merit stand on it's own. To the winners the spoils. It's a harsh system but not an unfair one.
Why waste a good teacher on middling students or on disruptive jerks? No give the best students the best teacher. By best I mean the most intelligent who want to be in class.
If her crack addled spawn can pass the tests then why complain?
What I want to do is to remove the notion of fairness but allow talent to be judged.
The current system tries to punish those who are more gifted or better tutored. My system will still maintain a base level of education, the 3 Rs, but allow for better students to progress and be recognized.
I also want to remove education from the tax burden, why should a childless couple have to pay for schools?
Sounds like a fair system. To the best students go the best teachers. You want the best teachers for your child make sure the child understands the score. No way should a good teacher be forced to teach students who do not want to study.
Only when a broken system fails is it fixed. We need a revolution in education not a band aid. The longer the current system limps along the more damage it is doing.
I'd like all school to become voluntary. A student has to decide to go to class and the teacher has to decide to accept the student.
Also anyone of any age can take the high school graduation exams. Offered yearly by the state. One day a year becomes high school exam date. Grading is not fixed but floats on a percentage, top 10% get A, next 20% B etc. You can retake your HS exams but the latest scores are binding and published publicly.
Teachers not schools become the driving force. They rent classrooms etc from the school and decide who they teach for how much. Who they teach is recorded and published.
Not all my ideas are fully formed on this, but I'm trying to come up with a self auditing system that allows good teachers to earn a good salary. Remove as much administration as possible. Allow for students to graduate when ready. The system should pose a very low tax burden but a very high burden on the parents.
What I don't want is a hand holding nanny system. If you are poor you'll probably get a poor education. If you don't study, you'll probably not get invited to the best teachers. BUT it allows you to re-sit your HS if later on you wish to do so. You do not have to attend any classes and yet can still pass the exams. The HS exam becomes a state wide way to set the bar on acceptable education standard.
It sounds like you have identified what is needed to be backed up, now plan how:-)
If there is enough space on the laptop a duplicate copy of the database is a good first step, then rsync that to head office. You should be checking how often the rsync images are updated and chasing tardy users. This stage can all be scripted, we had reps who would plug in the laptop in the evening and this would run during the night every night.
OK so now you have the data in house and secure.
The next stage is what to do when they need the backup?
In a different scenario we used to have VMWARE loaded and running. When a rep said they'd just borked their machine. We sent a new laptop installed and updated with their last backup. We allowed them read only access through PC-AnyWhere to the VMWARE image with their data pre-loaded. The laptop always went the fastest delivery mech and had pre-paid postage for the returning laptop.
The idea was to have the rep up and running ASAP. Another company used to have the dbs sync at night and if the laptop borked we just sent a preconfigured PC with no need to sync the data as that would happen when the rep signed on and dialed in.
I use Amazon S3 through Gorilla Disk. I also use it directly through Python and Ruby.
Amazon has it right in this instance. The cost is less and is dynamic.
I'm looking at starting a small app hosting company and S3 will definitely work better than Google, my costs grow with my business, no upfront expenses etc.
Having driven/ridden on the autobahn at speeds up to 165mph I can tell you the speed differential is not safe. Closing on a car with 80mph speed differential is crazy stupid, passing at that differential is asking for an early grave. Trying to judge if they've seen you are they going to stay in lane, reducing speed just in case. The only safe thing to do is roll off the throttle miles away and pass doing no more than 20mph more and then wind back on the throttle.
Now when the road is empty it's some of the best riding in Europe, hour after hour of very fast riding on immaculate road surfaces. Passing police bikes/cars and not having to worry. Stopping off in small villages for great food and beer. The only times have had anything remotely similar is riding through Nevada and Utah, but still you had to watch out for the revenue generators.
Drivers that vary greatly from the average speed of traffic do cause accidents. It's not a matter of who is causing the speed differential, it's the differential itself that is the problem.
Most of the items we agree on, but a couple of points.
The problem with Major having an affair was not so much that he had one, but that he showed such appalling taste in who to have one with. Short of the queen mum his choice was about the worst possible. No spin, save confessing to a whole list affairs, would have saved him from public contempt. In a way similar to Clinton a few years later.
The point on lack of leadership was the lack of commercial leadership. Political leadership very rarely requires the skills of state leadership. The reason for throwing in the pound and inflation was that no leader has spoken out against fiat currency, only by linking a currency to a scarce commodity can you judge it's performance. The current fiat system means that paper is valuable purely because everyone believes it to be so.
With 1st past the post the majority can be defeated by a minority. Each vote is not equal but derives some importance due to where it is cast. When two votes carry different weights democracy can never flourish. This is the biggest problem with the current system.
I care not that the queen has never used it or that it might be unenforceable, it is on the books and gives her a place above parliment in the running of the country.
The lords are I agree far more reasonable than the commons, but I wish to be ruled by my fellow citizen not a body of people who are un-accountable.
The civil service does not act impartially or indeed in the best interests of the public. It meddles where it should not. In this age of computers most civil servants should be replaced, and indeed in a commercial company would have been.
I am a UK citizen and I vote. Now I agree I should not be allowed to as I am no longer a resident and no longer goverend by it's laws. But while I can vote I will vote.
I do not however see not voting as a problem or a betrayal of hard won rights. I see it as a statement of defiance, the system is not going to change by voting why should I waste my time pretending otherwise.
I think it was Jefferson who said 'the tree of liberty needs a little blood of patriots and tyrants from time to time'. The tree in the UK has been dry an awful long time.
My own preference is instead of an election we have a lottery. My desire is to be led by a group of people that represents the society in which they were chosen. If it's good enough for the courts it's good enough for the legislature.
So 20+ years ago the UK public were shown just how inept and corrupt their ruling institutions really were and what happened? Has anything changed for the better? Yet the UK public continue to pat themselves on the back for a job well done! They deserve everything that is coming!
I actually like Major, apparently at his first meeting of his cabinet after the leadership battle his first words were 'Well, who would have believed it?'. Also when the IRA mortar bombed the cabinet office he apparently was very calm and collected and later downplayed his own calmness. He also tried to lessen some of Thatchers most damaging policies.
Not one of the politicians listed had led so much as a cake bake before they rose to PM. It showed in how they went about their job to begin with. You think any of them were fiscally sensible with your money? If so explain inflation as compared to the value of gold?
You listed some of the problems with the UK elections but the main one remains, 1st past the post. Until each and every vote counts they are all worthless, it's not a democracy or rule by consensus. Then you might question why the Queen has the power of veto? The Lords voting on legislation? The civil service delaying paperwork? The police proposing legislation?
I voted with my feet and left the UK. A revolution just replaces the current scum with a new layer.
I did not elect Bush, I'm a UK citizen not US. Although in truth I'd love to be a citizen of the world with no affiliations to any country.
Public opinion is formed by the media, very few people are able to think outside the left/right of politics or indeed the good/bad of morals. The tripe served up in the papers and by the TV news is directed at those who have a comprehension age of seven. You think advertisers spend all that money because it only has a minimal effect?
The Blair/Thatcher governments were not elected by a majority of the people. I think it was only 20% of eligible voters voted for Blair. Far from a majority.
Spitting image did far more to keep labor out than it ever did to bring down Thatcher. Thatcher never lost an election, she was removed by her own party. The question becomes was her removal the cause of the Tory election victory or would they have won anyway. Either way, it was ironic that she was deposed the same way she gained the job.
Been using them since way back. Upgraded when new models came out.
I like the fact they use little desktop coupled with my HHK it makes for a compact combo, I also shortened the cable so I could plug it into my HHK.
I tend to have a number of input devices, tablet, spinner, numeric key pad, 6dof ball, joystick and all these just plug in when I need them and get put in a drawer when I don't. The one thing I don't have is a mouse "I hate those meeces to pieces"
made great fun of some very dark topics. Pity the UK public were too stupid to see it as anything more than a comedy. I mean Thatcher, Major, Blair and Brown have never run anything more complex than a corner shop and then magically they can run the country? Next you'll be telling me voting makes a difference!
I did about ten years ago and have never regretted it. My younger brother is emigrating to Oz this coming Friday:-) I lived around Europe and eventually emigrated to California. I tried for the USSR but couldn't get a work permit.
The 1:1 effective exchange rate is great except I need to buy Sterling so the 1:2 rate applies:-(
The only things I miss in the UK are family, pubs and a decent curry. I travel back annually but ideally it should be twice as often.
The British public are completely to blame for the appalling condition the country is in. Leaving was made all the easier knowing that I'd be free of all the blind sheep bleating for even more state controls and handouts. How ironic, Blair gave them all what they wanted and now they bleat about the lack of freedom and choice.
California has it's problems, the main one is it being part of the US. But I have less taxation, more freedom and much better weather. Also, I feel a swing back to libertarian policies being close, the US public do not want what the democrats or republicans currently offer. Ron Paul in '08:-)
Slashdot Mirror
For most people :-
They send your children to school because they are unwilling or unable to educate them themselves. If they could they would hire the best teachers they could for their children's education. If they had the money they send them to the best fee paying school they can afford. Most children are educated at public schools at the tax payers expense. Ergo, most parents have defaulted on their child's education.
My system would force parents to make choices about their child's education and give them the tools to make a difference.
The state sets the finishing line, the teacher is responsible for guiding his students there as quickly as possible.
You can believe in what you like, the rest of society will go on with exams at all levels.
I agree that exams are not the be all and end all, nor are they a perfect representation of ability. But they are what we have in education.
As for college, my feeling is at that level you should already be learning the subject on your own and the lectures are just there to confirm your own findings. In the US it seems, although I've only attended a few classes, college lectures are still trying to educate rather than review. It's almost like college is an extension of high school.
No more callous than holding back more gifted students so the lazy and incompetent do not feel bad!
But you are right it's callous, cold hard survival of the fittest. Those who do well will do better, those that need help will fall further behind unless that help can be provided, but it will not be provided at the expense of the gifted.
I'm proposing a fixed system that is harsh but has rewards for those who excel. It also gives a clear indication as to a persons academic ability. Also a person can opt out entirely, which is what I would have done.
If you want some system that makes everybody feel good about themselves then look elsewhere.
I'm aware a little of the Japanese HS education system. I'm not sure I want to prepare all students for university but rather have a firm way of measuring students academic ability.
I believe the suicide rate in Japan is high at all ages. I would guess due to the crowded nature of the society and the need to control emotions.
Make no mistake for the top level of students the pressure will be very apparent under my idea. But there will be no bar to retaking the test or taking the test early. The idea being that improvement through education is available to all no matter what.
We have always had broken parents, at all levels of society. It should not be up to the school to teach a student how to behave. If a student is not willing to conduct himself as the teacher requires then the student should be removed and another put in his place who does know how to behave.
Schools should be little more than a collection of class rooms where knowledge is imparted. The current idea of it being some sort of separate society is bullshit and costing the tax payer money that need not be spent.
A teacher should be 100% focused on getting his students to pass their exams as quickly as possible. Of course under my idea he is free to do as he chooses as long as people are willing to send their children to him. But the state will judge a student on his academic qualities alone.
A teachers job is not sell the value of an education, that is a parents job. Too bad if the parent weren't up to it.
If a child does not want to learn it's not the teachers job to convince him otherwise. Instead the teacher should cut him loose and accept another student who wishes to learn.
A teacher is there to impart knowledge of the subject. He's not some motivational speaker but rather an aid to study.
School should be focused on turning out students who can pass the prescribed exams not used as some form of entertainment or punishment.
Make no mistake what I want is radical, it's flushing the idea of equality away and letting merit stand on it's own. To the winners the spoils. It's a harsh system but not an unfair one.
Why waste a good teacher on middling students or on disruptive jerks? No give the best students the best teacher. By best I mean the most intelligent who want to be in class.
If her crack addled spawn can pass the tests then why complain?
What I want to do is to remove the notion of fairness but allow talent to be judged.
The current system tries to punish those who are more gifted or better tutored. My system will still maintain a base level of education, the 3 Rs, but allow for better students to progress and be recognized.
I also want to remove education from the tax burden, why should a childless couple have to pay for schools?
Sounds like a fair system. To the best students go the best teachers. You want the best teachers for your child make sure the child understands the score. No way should a good teacher be forced to teach students who do not want to study.
I wish more teachers would do the same.
Only when a broken system fails is it fixed. We need a revolution in education not a band aid. The longer the current system limps along the more damage it is doing.
I'd like all school to become voluntary. A student has to decide to go to class and the teacher has to decide to accept the student.
Also anyone of any age can take the high school graduation exams. Offered yearly by the state. One day a year becomes high school exam date. Grading is not fixed but floats on a percentage, top 10% get A, next 20% B etc. You can retake your HS exams but the latest scores are binding and published publicly.
Teachers not schools become the driving force. They rent classrooms etc from the school and decide who they teach for how much. Who they teach is recorded and published.
Not all my ideas are fully formed on this, but I'm trying to come up with a self auditing system that allows good teachers to earn a good salary. Remove as much administration as possible. Allow for students to graduate when ready. The system should pose a very low tax burden but a very high burden on the parents.
What I don't want is a hand holding nanny system. If you are poor you'll probably get a poor education. If you don't study, you'll probably not get invited to the best teachers. BUT it allows you to re-sit your HS if later on you wish to do so. You do not have to attend any classes and yet can still pass the exams. The HS exam becomes a state wide way to set the bar on acceptable education standard.
It sounds like you have identified what is needed to be backed up, now plan how :-)
If there is enough space on the laptop a duplicate copy of the database is a good first step, then rsync that to head office. You should be checking how often the rsync images are updated and chasing tardy users. This stage can all be scripted, we had reps who would plug in the laptop in the evening and this would run during the night every night.
OK so now you have the data in house and secure.
The next stage is what to do when they need the backup?
In a different scenario we used to have VMWARE loaded and running. When a rep said they'd just borked their machine. We sent a new laptop installed and updated with their last backup. We allowed them read only access through PC-AnyWhere to the VMWARE image with their data pre-loaded. The laptop always went the fastest delivery mech and had pre-paid postage for the returning laptop.
The idea was to have the rep up and running ASAP. Another company used to have the dbs sync at night and if the laptop borked we just sent a preconfigured PC with no need to sync the data as that would happen when the rep signed on and dialed in.
I use Amazon S3 through Gorilla Disk. I also use it directly through Python and Ruby.
Amazon has it right in this instance. The cost is less and is dynamic.
I'm looking at starting a small app hosting company and S3 will definitely work better than Google, my costs grow with my business, no upfront expenses etc.
Bullshit
Having driven/ridden on the autobahn at speeds up to 165mph I can tell you the speed differential is not safe. Closing on a car with 80mph speed differential is crazy stupid, passing at that differential is asking for an early grave. Trying to judge if they've seen you are they going to stay in lane, reducing speed just in case. The only safe thing to do is roll off the throttle miles away and pass doing no more than 20mph more and then wind back on the throttle.
Now when the road is empty it's some of the best riding in Europe, hour after hour of very fast riding on immaculate road surfaces. Passing police bikes/cars and not having to worry. Stopping off in small villages for great food and beer. The only times have had anything remotely similar is riding through Nevada and Utah, but still you had to watch out for the revenue generators.
Really?
So a trace gas in the atmosphere is directly responsible for environmental damage?
You were right first time, that big yellow ball in the sky has a very marked impact on the environment.
Drivers that vary greatly from the average speed of traffic do cause accidents. It's not a matter of who is causing the speed differential, it's the differential itself that is the problem.
Of course you do,
now run along and make the tea.
Most of the items we agree on, but a couple of points.
The problem with Major having an affair was not so much that he had one, but that he showed such appalling taste in who to have one with. Short of the queen mum his choice was about the worst possible. No spin, save confessing to a whole list affairs, would have saved him from public contempt. In a way similar to Clinton a few years later.
The point on lack of leadership was the lack of commercial leadership. Political leadership very rarely requires the skills of state leadership. The reason for throwing in the pound and inflation was that no leader has spoken out against fiat currency, only by linking a currency to a scarce commodity can you judge it's performance. The current fiat system means that paper is valuable purely because everyone believes it to be so.
With 1st past the post the majority can be defeated by a minority. Each vote is not equal but derives some importance due to where it is cast. When two votes carry different weights democracy can never flourish. This is the biggest problem with the current system.
I care not that the queen has never used it or that it might be unenforceable, it is on the books and gives her a place above parliment in the running of the country.
The lords are I agree far more reasonable than the commons, but I wish to be ruled by my fellow citizen not a body of people who are un-accountable.
The civil service does not act impartially or indeed in the best interests of the public. It meddles where it should not. In this age of computers most civil servants should be replaced, and indeed in a commercial company would have been.
I am a UK citizen and I vote. Now I agree I should not be allowed to as I am no longer a resident and no longer goverend by it's laws. But while I can vote I will vote.
I do not however see not voting as a problem or a betrayal of hard won rights. I see it as a statement of defiance, the system is not going to change by voting why should I waste my time pretending otherwise.
I think it was Jefferson who said 'the tree of liberty needs a little blood of patriots and tyrants from time to time'. The tree in the UK has been dry an awful long time.
My own preference is instead of an election we have a lottery. My desire is to be led by a group of people that represents the society in which they were chosen. If it's good enough for the courts it's good enough for the legislature.
So 20+ years ago the UK public were shown just how inept and corrupt their ruling institutions really were and what happened? Has anything changed for the better? Yet the UK public continue to pat themselves on the back for a job well done! They deserve everything that is coming!
I actually like Major, apparently at his first meeting of his cabinet after the leadership battle his first words were 'Well, who would have believed it?'. Also when the IRA mortar bombed the cabinet office he apparently was very calm and collected and later downplayed his own calmness. He also tried to lessen some of Thatchers most damaging policies.
Not one of the politicians listed had led so much as a cake bake before they rose to PM. It showed in how they went about their job to begin with. You think any of them were fiscally sensible with your money? If so explain inflation as compared to the value of gold?
You listed some of the problems with the UK elections but the main one remains, 1st past the post. Until each and every vote counts they are all worthless, it's not a democracy or rule by consensus. Then you might question why the Queen has the power of veto? The Lords voting on legislation? The civil service delaying paperwork? The police proposing legislation?
I voted with my feet and left the UK. A revolution just replaces the current scum with a new layer.
I did not elect Bush, I'm a UK citizen not US. Although in truth I'd love to be a citizen of the world with no affiliations to any country.
Public opinion is formed by the media, very few people are able to think outside the left/right of politics or indeed the good/bad of morals. The tripe served up in the papers and by the TV news is directed at those who have a comprehension age of seven. You think advertisers spend all that money because it only has a minimal effect?
The Blair/Thatcher governments were not elected by a majority of the people. I think it was only 20% of eligible voters voted for Blair. Far from a majority.
Spitting image did far more to keep labor out than it ever did to bring down Thatcher. Thatcher never lost an election, she was removed by her own party. The question becomes was her removal the cause of the Tory election victory or would they have won anyway. Either way, it was ironic that she was deposed the same way she gained the job.
Bingo
Been using them since way back. Upgraded when new models came out.
I like the fact they use little desktop coupled with my HHK it makes for a compact combo, I also shortened the cable so I could plug it into my HHK.
I tend to have a number of input devices, tablet, spinner, numeric key pad, 6dof ball, joystick and all these just plug in when I need them and get put in a drawer when I don't. The one thing I don't have is a mouse "I hate those meeces to pieces"
Great series,
made great fun of some very dark topics. Pity the UK public were too stupid to see it as anything more than a comedy. I mean Thatcher, Major, Blair and Brown have never run anything more complex than a corner shop and then magically they can run the country? Next you'll be telling me voting makes a difference!
I prefer an apple a day
So leave.
:-) I lived around Europe and eventually emigrated to California. I tried for the USSR but couldn't get a work permit.
:-(
:-)
I did about ten years ago and have never regretted it. My younger brother is emigrating to Oz this coming Friday
The 1:1 effective exchange rate is great except I need to buy Sterling so the 1:2 rate applies
The only things I miss in the UK are family, pubs and a decent curry. I travel back annually but ideally it should be twice as often.
The British public are completely to blame for the appalling condition the country is in. Leaving was made all the easier knowing that I'd be free of all the blind sheep bleating for even more state controls and handouts. How ironic, Blair gave them all what they wanted and now they bleat about the lack of freedom and choice.
California has it's problems, the main one is it being part of the US. But I have less taxation, more freedom and much better weather. Also, I feel a swing back to libertarian policies being close, the US public do not want what the democrats or republicans currently offer. Ron Paul in '08
No wonder the face mask is tinted
No,
it'd be $11.42/gallon.