[...] so we had to upgrade [...] so we had to upgrade [...] but still - we had to upgrade [...] Now here's something new that we'll have to upgrade to.
You know, you can still buy all those things (though, calculator watches are admittedly harder to find now than pocket watches). You don't have to buy any of it if you don't want. Though, I might recommend one with a camera. If you place it right, and it can record video, you could use it as a security camera to catch those darn kids, should they get on your lawn.
You don't even have to get that far, you just have to minimally comprehend the bit that the blurb quotes from the article [...]
Very true. I should remark, however, that this is the first time I've ever seen someone on/. say that RTFA was excessive and instead I should RTF Blurb.
Everyone in the comboxes of the second article points out this error. From TFA:
Natural gas and oil production is the second-biggest source of U.S. greenhouse gases, the government said, emboldening environmentalists who say tighter measures are needed to curb the emissions from hydraulic fracturing.
One day I might. Right now, however, I'm not tenured. Truth be told, policies mostly change because the stodgy old folks retire out. Then we younger folks get to be stodgy in their place.
... perhaps you need to re-evaluate your need for a handwritten final.
As I said in the post, departmental requirement. I encourage them to practice handwriting when they take notes because I want them to have every advantage they can to do well. If it were up to me, as it is in non-entry level courses, I'd have them write essays and turn them in electronically. Essays are far better at teaching the kinds of skills I want them to have. The only thing to recommend a timed final exam is the practical realities of teaching at a state university, where class sizes can number in the hundreds.
You're wasting time teaching a dead language.
In truth, most of my work involves dead languages. So I guess I'm just a sucker for lost causes.
It SHOULD emulate and resemble printed text [...]
The odd thing about this comment is that printed text was designed to resemble formal bookhands developed prior to the invention of the press. Talk about a dead language. As opposed to things like chancery hands, book hands prioritized consistency. This produces visually pleasing text, but it isn't best for those tasks to which you point. I'll readily grant that cursive as it has been taught over the past century is very inefficient and should be abandoned. But it's hardly the only chancery hand.
The assumption is that they lacked instruction rather than that their skills had deteriorated.
Ah. I see what you're getting at. And if all I had to go by was the handwriting of students, you'd be quite right. In at least some cases, you likely are. Here's the thing though: I write in print on the board because my colleagues and I have been informed by students that they cannot read cursive. In so many words, students have told me that they were never taught. I, like many who've posted here, actually do not care for cursive as it was taught fifty years ago. It's slow and even slower when you try to make it legible. Nevertheless, that they cannot even read it is troubling.
Some even look down on certain accents.
This is especially true. I've known very intelligent people in the academic world who've been treated ill because of their accents. For better or worse, at a young age I "learned to talk like the man on the six o'clock news" and it has served me. It's a horrible thing though, because it makes it harder to go home.
Why thank you. People like me love people like you too.
... only I used a cassette recorder.
I know others who did and still do this. I was never a fan personally. There's always a risk of zoning out since you know you can go listen again later, which means you've wasted the hour or so in lecture. But, to each his own. I recommend note-taking, and certainly not just the handwriting aspects of it, because its a useful skill whether in lecture, when reading, or when writing.
For the record, I actually mean it too when I say to each his own. I suggest handwritten notes; I do not require it. My students are welcome to bring their laptops and I know by allowing this half of the class will be tooling about on Facebook. They're doing themselves a disservice but they're adults and have to find their own way. The only time I come down on students for fooling about with their gadgets is when they're doing something that is distracting to other students. For much the same reason, I only require attendance in accordance with departmental requirements.
That's an assumption on your part, and a bad one at that.
Their classmates who have this skill have an advantage over them. How is it a bad assumption that their lack of instruction was a disservice? One might say that their time was betting spent learning something else, something more relevant to the modern age. Unfortunately, this often isn't the case. Primary and secondary schools receive instructions that computers ought to be a bigger part of the curriculum and the only practical consequence of this instruction seems to be that my freshmen cite Wikipedia and I still find myself having to explain what file types are. Such instruction only goes so far when the teachers themselves mostly think of computers as a messaging system.
The essays are timed and you expect good penmanship??
No. I said it's sad that their penmanship is an inhibition. I should much sooner they be able to write quickly and efficiently enough to get their ideas on paper. My penmanship sucks on a timed exam and, with a nod to the poster above, I'm quite familiar with a pen and ink well. Only in a few cases is the penmanship so bad that its a problem such that 'it doesn't meet my expectations.' Those instances are where I walk about the office, hand a test to colleagues, and have them hand the test back to me declaring that they, too, can't read the response. I don't require that they be able to write in Spencerian. I do wish that their primary and secondary school teachers had not allowed the ability to write words on paper to become an inhibition.
Thanks to people like you!
Did you miss the part where I said written exams were a departmental requirement? It has nothing to do with me. I suggest they take the opportunity in their notes to practice penmanship so they won't be struggling to write on the day of the exam. I teach other classes that aren't freshman general requirements courses and these do not require the written exams. In these classes, I only require typed assignments, chiefly essays.
Handwriting is still a practical and useful skill in this age, and it has little to do with me or my carefully watched lawn. I'm from a poorer area of the country, where so many are raised to believe education a means of meeting employment requirements. This mentality also makes its way, unfortunately, into the universities. What it often misses is that there is more to being free and finding success than having a degree. Students who speak and write like people do where I'm from will, unfortunately, be looked down upon when they go out into the real world. This is a disadvantage and it is a disservice to them if they're not at least made aware of it.
Woosh to you, ma'am
Um, yeah. I got it. People don't typically change their sigs just for one article though. So his generally amusing sig became particularly amusing in this c
I can speak from experience as one who teaches on the university level: an increasing number of students already cannot write by hand. When they ask me at the beginning of the semester whether they can use laptops to take notes, I allow them with a caution. Since departmental standards require that they complete a written final, I encourage them to use note-taking as an opportunity to practice penmanship (more importantly it also helps them to learn how to think and summarize rather than attempting to take down a transcript of a lecture they won't read later). For so many, the only time they write is when they sit down for a final in which case, being out of practice, the speed of writing inhibits them from being able to write a complete essay response. After two hours, many turn in 3-4 pages (in a half letter sized blue book) of either illegible scrawl or blocky letters that clearly attempt to replicate print. That they did not receive instruction earlier in life on quick, efficient, and legible handwriting was a disservice to them.
You're quite right that we're moving away from handwriting, but we're not there yet. It remains a useful skill and offers a slight but real advantage over the run-of-the-mill, utilitarian job training one often receives in schools today.
Incidentally, I think the batteries must be dead in your vibrating keyboard. I read your sig and the spelling is a mess.
For the record, it wasn't the submitter. He simply quoted the first paragraph of TFA. The whole thing gushes like that. My only surprise is that one doesn't find the phrases, "revolutionary", "iconoclastic", or "paradigm shift".
"We want to know explicitly how the rifle is to be used, ensuring that we are shown in a positive light... Such as the 'good guys' using the rifle,"
Bushmaster's parent company, Cerberus Capital, has decided to divest itself of Bushmaster and the other arms companies under the Freedom Group umbrella. This was ostensibly done in response to the Newtown shooting, i.e. on account the illegal actions undertaken by a deranged boy, and not even one of their customers, with the use of one of their products. Certain segments of the public blame the company itself.
Imagine for a moment that the same company had knowingly allowed its products to be used in video games for nefarious purposes. Imagine the game was like Carmageddon from the nineties and you could get extra points for shooting hookers. Or, more likely, you could use the gun when acting as terrorists in some C-Strike like bombing scenario. And then that same gun with the same brand was used in real life to do harm to innocents. What would the repercussions be then? Some will say that the requirement the gun only be used by the 'good guys' is PR or propaganda, and they're partly right. But there's another side to this. A company who can be blamed for the misuse of its products has to try all the harder to defend itself and its image from association with that misuse.
Once upon a time, before about two and a half centuries ago in point of fact, renewable resources did provide all of our energy needs. They kept our shelters warm enough to fight off hypothermia--our most important need. They allowed us to grow our food with the aid of solar powered animals--our third most important need. And with that food we had strength and energy enough to do what was necessary to secure clean water sources and/or make alcohol--our second most important need. So if survival of the species is what is meant by "needs" here, then experience would show that the answer is yes. Certainly, the renewable resources still retained scarcity enough to justify killing one another, as though we needed an excuse, but that has and always will remain true even when we are awash in cheap energy, massive industrial capacity, and so much food that price supports are used to ensure farmers have enough money to eat. But our species needs for survival were met by renewable resources.
But if "needs" is expanded to include everything we now do with the large quantities of cheap solar energy stored in fossil fuels, then the answer is no. We once had solar powered vehicles and farm equipment: i.e. horses, mules, asses, camels, and oxen. But since we want to go further in a day than those solar powered vehicles can take us--and most of us in the developed world, myself included, often need to do so in economies structured as ours--then we now seem to need non-renewable resources.
This is question begging. It will of necessity prompt debate, and that fruitless, so long as the key terms remain undefined. To define these key terms, however, may be the more uncomfortable problem. If, on the other hand, you tell me what "needs" means, then most else is simple calculation.
This was an interesting observation, thank you. I have long been concerned about this observation of Orwell:
And though I have no doubt exceptions can be brought forward, I think the following rule would be found generally true: that ages in which the dominant weapon is expensive or difficult to make will tend to be ages of despotism, whereas when the dominant weapon is cheap and simple, the common people have a chance. Thus, for example, tanks, battleships and bombing planes are inherently tyrannical weapons, while rifles, muskets, long-bows and hand-grenades are inherently democratic weapons. A complex weapon makes the strong stronger, while a simple weapon--so long as there is no answer to it--gives claws to the weak.
This is from an article he wrote about the atom bomb. When I look at the rising expense and sophistication of modern militaries, and at the neo-colonialism my own dear patria and its allies seem willing to engage in, the future looks quite dark. But the cheapness and effectiveness of modern small arms and guerrilla tactics may be just coming into its own.
There is a scenario where the new possibilities for independence may not lie with people but with large organizations like governments. What makes it possible for asymmetrical warfare to be successful on the part of the weaker defender is that he is able to inflict asymmetical costs on the attacker. Drones may be changing that. If drones do not also find their way into private hands, like small arms, or if they don't turn out to be easily hackable, then future wars will rarely involve liabilities like tanks. In several countries the U.S. in involved in, this is already the case.
Yeah. I'm Greek Orthodox and you know what? That doesn't offend me at all. The Hagia Sophia and all the churches and mosques inspired by it are largely beautiful buildings. There's no reason they shouldn't inspire buildings for "the good guys" and "the bad guys" in fantasy settings. There are far worse things that could be done the Hagia Sophia.
Ah, I see you missed the greatest gift of the prequels. The prequels are really one giant koan. Yoda's wisdom shows through them, for those who have eyes to see and hearts to break.
Seeing the horrors of Yoda bouncing about with a lightsaber like an overcaffeinated chipmunk, you're to realize the futility of taking delight in copywritten fantasy worlds. By experiencing the acting prowess not of Shaw, Jones and Prowse but of Christiansen, you're to understand that it is your attachment to Star Wars that produces your disappointment, your pain.
Unlearn what you have learned. Adventure, excitement, characters you care about and can grow attached to: a jedi craves not these things. If you can find peace and joy in the new Star Wars films, then you can find it anywhere in life. Confront your expectations. Lower them. Then, only then, a jedi will you be.
Slashdot Mirror
You know, you can still buy all those things (though, calculator watches are admittedly harder to find now than pocket watches). You don't have to buy any of it if you don't want. Though, I might recommend one with a camera. If you place it right, and it can record video, you could use it as a security camera to catch those darn kids, should they get on your lawn.
Very true. I should remark, however, that this is the first time I've ever seen someone on /. say that RTFA was excessive and instead I should RTF Blurb.
[Emphasis mine]
One day I might. Right now, however, I'm not tenured. Truth be told, policies mostly change because the stodgy old folks retire out. Then we younger folks get to be stodgy in their place.
As I said in the post, departmental requirement. I encourage them to practice handwriting when they take notes because I want them to have every advantage they can to do well. If it were up to me, as it is in non-entry level courses, I'd have them write essays and turn them in electronically. Essays are far better at teaching the kinds of skills I want them to have. The only thing to recommend a timed final exam is the practical realities of teaching at a state university, where class sizes can number in the hundreds.
In truth, most of my work involves dead languages. So I guess I'm just a sucker for lost causes.
The odd thing about this comment is that printed text was designed to resemble formal bookhands developed prior to the invention of the press. Talk about a dead language. As opposed to things like chancery hands, book hands prioritized consistency. This produces visually pleasing text, but it isn't best for those tasks to which you point. I'll readily grant that cursive as it has been taught over the past century is very inefficient and should be abandoned. But it's hardly the only chancery hand.
The assumption is that they lacked instruction rather than that their skills had deteriorated.
Ah. I see what you're getting at. And if all I had to go by was the handwriting of students, you'd be quite right. In at least some cases, you likely are. Here's the thing though: I write in print on the board because my colleagues and I have been informed by students that they cannot read cursive. In so many words, students have told me that they were never taught. I, like many who've posted here, actually do not care for cursive as it was taught fifty years ago. It's slow and even slower when you try to make it legible. Nevertheless, that they cannot even read it is troubling.
Some even look down on certain accents.
This is especially true. I've known very intelligent people in the academic world who've been treated ill because of their accents. For better or worse, at a young age I "learned to talk like the man on the six o'clock news" and it has served me. It's a horrible thing though, because it makes it harder to go home.
I love people like you...
Why thank you. People like me love people like you too.
I know others who did and still do this. I was never a fan personally. There's always a risk of zoning out since you know you can go listen again later, which means you've wasted the hour or so in lecture. But, to each his own. I recommend note-taking, and certainly not just the handwriting aspects of it, because its a useful skill whether in lecture, when reading, or when writing.
For the record, I actually mean it too when I say to each his own. I suggest handwritten notes; I do not require it. My students are welcome to bring their laptops and I know by allowing this half of the class will be tooling about on Facebook. They're doing themselves a disservice but they're adults and have to find their own way. The only time I come down on students for fooling about with their gadgets is when they're doing something that is distracting to other students. For much the same reason, I only require attendance in accordance with departmental requirements.
That's an assumption on your part, and a bad one at that.
Their classmates who have this skill have an advantage over them. How is it a bad assumption that their lack of instruction was a disservice? One might say that their time was betting spent learning something else, something more relevant to the modern age. Unfortunately, this often isn't the case. Primary and secondary schools receive instructions that computers ought to be a bigger part of the curriculum and the only practical consequence of this instruction seems to be that my freshmen cite Wikipedia and I still find myself having to explain what file types are. Such instruction only goes so far when the teachers themselves mostly think of computers as a messaging system.
The essays are timed and you expect good penmanship??
No. I said it's sad that their penmanship is an inhibition. I should much sooner they be able to write quickly and efficiently enough to get their ideas on paper. My penmanship sucks on a timed exam and, with a nod to the poster above, I'm quite familiar with a pen and ink well. Only in a few cases is the penmanship so bad that its a problem such that 'it doesn't meet my expectations.' Those instances are where I walk about the office, hand a test to colleagues, and have them hand the test back to me declaring that they, too, can't read the response. I don't require that they be able to write in Spencerian. I do wish that their primary and secondary school teachers had not allowed the ability to write words on paper to become an inhibition.
Thanks to people like you!
Did you miss the part where I said written exams were a departmental requirement? It has nothing to do with me. I suggest they take the opportunity in their notes to practice penmanship so they won't be struggling to write on the day of the exam. I teach other classes that aren't freshman general requirements courses and these do not require the written exams. In these classes, I only require typed assignments, chiefly essays.
Handwriting is still a practical and useful skill in this age, and it has little to do with me or my carefully watched lawn. I'm from a poorer area of the country, where so many are raised to believe education a means of meeting employment requirements. This mentality also makes its way, unfortunately, into the universities. What it often misses is that there is more to being free and finding success than having a degree. Students who speak and write like people do where I'm from will, unfortunately, be looked down upon when they go out into the real world. This is a disadvantage and it is a disservice to them if they're not at least made aware of it.
Woosh to you, ma'am
Um, yeah. I got it. People don't typically change their sigs just for one article though. So his generally amusing sig became particularly amusing in this c
I can speak from experience as one who teaches on the university level: an increasing number of students already cannot write by hand. When they ask me at the beginning of the semester whether they can use laptops to take notes, I allow them with a caution. Since departmental standards require that they complete a written final, I encourage them to use note-taking as an opportunity to practice penmanship (more importantly it also helps them to learn how to think and summarize rather than attempting to take down a transcript of a lecture they won't read later). For so many, the only time they write is when they sit down for a final in which case, being out of practice, the speed of writing inhibits them from being able to write a complete essay response. After two hours, many turn in 3-4 pages (in a half letter sized blue book) of either illegible scrawl or blocky letters that clearly attempt to replicate print. That they did not receive instruction earlier in life on quick, efficient, and legible handwriting was a disservice to them.
You're quite right that we're moving away from handwriting, but we're not there yet. It remains a useful skill and offers a slight but real advantage over the run-of-the-mill, utilitarian job training one often receives in schools today.
Incidentally, I think the batteries must be dead in your vibrating keyboard. I read your sig and the spelling is a mess.
For the record, it wasn't the submitter. He simply quoted the first paragraph of TFA. The whole thing gushes like that. My only surprise is that one doesn't find the phrases, "revolutionary", "iconoclastic", or "paradigm shift".
Only if ideas can be patented, in which case, yeah, we might expect science to grind to a halt.
Because that's the language in which John McCain and his ilk speak.
Indeed. Iran is the only remaining user of F-14's today. It's probable most of their F-14's are no longer operational though, as they date from the days of the Shah. The fact that most of their foreign fighters are so old is what is propelling domestic fighter development, including rather more probable looking fighters based on reverse engineered technology.
If, therefore, they do claim ownership, the parents should bring a case against the school system for violation of child labor laws.
Might not be such a good idea. Whatever did the enlisted soldiers do to deserve having such an AC in their unit?
Bushmaster's parent company, Cerberus Capital, has decided to divest itself of Bushmaster and the other arms companies under the Freedom Group umbrella. This was ostensibly done in response to the Newtown shooting, i.e. on account the illegal actions undertaken by a deranged boy, and not even one of their customers, with the use of one of their products. Certain segments of the public blame the company itself.
Imagine for a moment that the same company had knowingly allowed its products to be used in video games for nefarious purposes. Imagine the game was like Carmageddon from the nineties and you could get extra points for shooting hookers. Or, more likely, you could use the gun when acting as terrorists in some C-Strike like bombing scenario. And then that same gun with the same brand was used in real life to do harm to innocents. What would the repercussions be then? Some will say that the requirement the gun only be used by the 'good guys' is PR or propaganda, and they're partly right. But there's another side to this. A company who can be blamed for the misuse of its products has to try all the harder to defend itself and its image from association with that misuse.
Once upon a time, before about two and a half centuries ago in point of fact, renewable resources did provide all of our energy needs. They kept our shelters warm enough to fight off hypothermia--our most important need. They allowed us to grow our food with the aid of solar powered animals--our third most important need. And with that food we had strength and energy enough to do what was necessary to secure clean water sources and/or make alcohol--our second most important need. So if survival of the species is what is meant by "needs" here, then experience would show that the answer is yes. Certainly, the renewable resources still retained scarcity enough to justify killing one another, as though we needed an excuse, but that has and always will remain true even when we are awash in cheap energy, massive industrial capacity, and so much food that price supports are used to ensure farmers have enough money to eat. But our species needs for survival were met by renewable resources.
But if "needs" is expanded to include everything we now do with the large quantities of cheap solar energy stored in fossil fuels, then the answer is no. We once had solar powered vehicles and farm equipment: i.e. horses, mules, asses, camels, and oxen. But since we want to go further in a day than those solar powered vehicles can take us--and most of us in the developed world, myself included, often need to do so in economies structured as ours--then we now seem to need non-renewable resources.
This is question begging. It will of necessity prompt debate, and that fruitless, so long as the key terms remain undefined. To define these key terms, however, may be the more uncomfortable problem. If, on the other hand, you tell me what "needs" means, then most else is simple calculation.
This was an interesting observation, thank you. I have long been concerned about this observation of Orwell:
This is from an article he wrote about the atom bomb. When I look at the rising expense and sophistication of modern militaries, and at the neo-colonialism my own dear patria and its allies seem willing to engage in, the future looks quite dark. But the cheapness and effectiveness of modern small arms and guerrilla tactics may be just coming into its own.
There is a scenario where the new possibilities for independence may not lie with people but with large organizations like governments. What makes it possible for asymmetrical warfare to be successful on the part of the weaker defender is that he is able to inflict asymmetical costs on the attacker. Drones may be changing that. If drones do not also find their way into private hands, like small arms, or if they don't turn out to be easily hackable, then future wars will rarely involve liabilities like tanks. In several countries the U.S. in involved in, this is already the case.
Yeah. I'm Greek Orthodox and you know what? That doesn't offend me at all. The Hagia Sophia and all the churches and mosques inspired by it are largely beautiful buildings. There's no reason they shouldn't inspire buildings for "the good guys" and "the bad guys" in fantasy settings. There are far worse things that could be done the Hagia Sophia.
Ah, I see you missed the greatest gift of the prequels. The prequels are really one giant koan. Yoda's wisdom shows through them, for those who have eyes to see and hearts to break.
Seeing the horrors of Yoda bouncing about with a lightsaber like an overcaffeinated chipmunk, you're to realize the futility of taking delight in copywritten fantasy worlds. By experiencing the acting prowess not of Shaw, Jones and Prowse but of Christiansen, you're to understand that it is your attachment to Star Wars that produces your disappointment, your pain.
Unlearn what you have learned. Adventure, excitement, characters you care about and can grow attached to: a jedi craves not these things. If you can find peace and joy in the new Star Wars films, then you can find it anywhere in life. Confront your expectations. Lower them. Then, only then, a jedi will you be.
True enough. But, then, we have no taste. (citation needed?)
And have the new series of Star Wars movies cancelled after Episode VII?
Exactly. But the new Trek movie wasn't made for us Trek fans.
Why is this modded "Troll"? It might not be an uncontroversial statement but it's hardly a troll.