One thing I don't think this study takes into account is that modern teaching and living methods emphasize knowing what you need to know (or where to look it up) when you need to know it (the "just-in-time" school of thought). And the way we're trained now gives us the ability to learn and/or relearn something that we need to know more or less at lightspeed.
Case in point, I can't recite all those French verbs the way I used to, but I can now tell you far more than I ever expected to know about inputs, outputs, interrupt requests, software configuration, and file management...and I'm just beginning. Guess all those French verbs went to/dev/null. And isn't that the way it's supposed to work?
I'm at the dual booting stage of this process now. It's going rather slowly, as this exasperated Linux newbie struggling up what seems to be an enormous learning curve (the best aerobic exercise) has found out. Now if I could get my Linux to talk to my modem, and/or vice versa, I'd be a happy Interrobang. Then I could go and download WordPerfect for Linux (I'm an old, old WP goob -- 12 years now!), use Netscape for the Weeb and The GIMP for imagecrunching...wait a minute...the only thing that'll be different from my current Win setup is The GIMP instead of Photoshop.
Hmm... Maybe that's why I don't get BSOD'ed as often as many of my cohorts. Even in MS I keep the B-- I mean MS to a minimum. And, yeah, I'm SO off that fabled Upgrade Train it just isn't even funny...at least not to MS...they'd hate me if they knew about me!
On the other hand, brute forcing one's head to learn reams of technical knowledge at lightspeed is also fun, and should not be discounted.
Interrobang, speculating at ways in which talking OSes could get one in terrible trouble with ignorant cops.
The only "free" market Lord Conrad Black and his like-minded cohort (murder?) of cronies is interested in is a "free" market where they (and people just like them) have the freedom to do exactly what they want at everyone else's expense. (They sure don't want a "free market" because they think it'll be good for the commonweal.) They want, say, for example, the freedom to own 56% of Canada's total media and the freedom to get more, more, more; the freedom to drive smaller, independent papers (as in St. Catherines, Ontario) into the ground simply because they're eating up Black market share; and the freedom to basically run roughshod over anyone who doesn't happen to agree with them, anyone who doesn't kowtow to them, or anyone who doesn't make a billion $$ a year (hostile takeovers, anyone?), because no one can stand up to them in terms of clout, influence, or straight monetary magnetism.
While I'm not the world's biggest copyright/patent-it-forever fan in the world (limited terms are good things), I can definitely see a use for IP laws...especially in light of arguments like that one. Specifically, IP laws basically exist from keeping people like that from taking your ideas away from you, exploiting them for profit, and then turning around and saying smugly that you have no right to complain after they've invoked the Golden Rule on you--that is to say, "He who has the gold makes the rules." Basically, IP functions here as a way of levelling the playing field slightly. As Harlan Ellison once said, "Equal time does not consist of your having access to the major networks and your opponent having a soapbox on the corner."
As much as patents and copyrights might be a bad thing (not always; artists deserve to eat too), attitudes like that are tantamount to their stealing our soapbox.
Also, can you imagine what a boon for the Post it would be if suddenly copyright and IP were just thrown out? They'd no longer have to pay for reprint rights, wire service fees, photo fees, and all that good stuff... Conrad must beat off thinking about it...
So, don't agree with these people for the wrong reasons. Think about it. We're already getting screwed badly enough by Ld. Black and his Stepford friends. We here on/. don't need to help them out.
This has been a public service announcement from the Unfriends of Conrad Black Foundation. Have a nice day.
Jello Biafra mentions the incident on _If Evolution is Outlawed, Only Outlaws Will Evolve_, his last (that I know of) spoken word album to date. I think his comment was, "Let's hear it for pranks!" So maybe you did hear it, rather than just read about it in Adbusters.
How could anyone forget that voice and things like "Wayne Kirkland rules...me! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!"?
Well, now you don't have to "imagine a Beowulf cluster of" anything -- you c'n DIY and see for yourself. Almost like this...
Heald thu nu, hruse, nu haeleth ne mostan
eorla aehte! Hwaet, hyt aer on the
gode begeaton. Guth-death fornam,
feorh-bealo frecne, fyra gehwylcne,
leoda minra.
Hey, it works just fine in Canada! 32 million people, about a zillion ha of uninhabited land, four and a half time zones (half an hour later in da Rock, doncha know, bye)--and cheap Chinese pencils!!--and our recent election still came off without a hitch!...that is, unless you're one of those full of CRAP types...*
*Uh, that's "Canadian Reform Alliance Party," and don't you forget it!
Actually, what went through my mind first when I read, "Other technology firms will be able to join the alliance for $5,000 a year" was, "Gee, it's just like a fraternity. How nice it must be to pay to have friends."
The second thing that went through my head was, "Guess this is a big boys' club only. $5000 a year to join isn't much if your total assets (or asses) are zillion$, but it effectively puts most small businesses out of the running...and they're probably the ones who need something like this organization the most...if something like this is truly needed."
I don't in principle think it's necessarily a Bad Thing[TM], but even a kitchen implement in the wrong hands...
Simple. In a world where even those households where both parties involved are employed often must work collectively 70+ hours a week (under non-Mike Harris labour laws, that's 1.75 full-time jobs; thanks to Mike Harris, here, it's just 1.2) just to make ends meet, it's really hard to have one or other party stay home to raise the children.
While I'm all for parental responsibility, I'm also all for eligibility for parenthood being determined in some other way than "whether or not they can afford it"--which might leave childbearing to be the sole province of predominantly white, upper-middle-class and higher types, and would certainly put single mothers of any description out of the running (78 cents on the dollar, remember)...
The socioinformatic ramifications of this kind of action are quite disturbing. Imagine this sort of thing taken the other way...dictatorial regimes refusing to let anyone from outside nations access anything but shiny, happy government propaganda; entire nations being blocked from seeing certain information because it's "not useful to them," or "they don't need to know." The problem is, who decides? Who gets to censor the Net based on regional ghettoization? Based on some of the more paranoid scenaria I can think of in my cute little delusion, I can hear the howls of outrage now. (How dare X nation block YCorp's e-commerce site! and so on.)
Call me an extremist, call me a conspiracy theorist, call me a crank...
...but don't call me collect, unless you're "Knute" Kennedy from Cleveland.
You know, come to dwell on it, that's an excellent idea for a group supposedly "scraping for funding." They could hire some of the local high school students to lead the tours or something, and charge enough to keep themselves going in perpetuity. People'd pay, too.
I mean two wings! canvas covering! wooden framed! no supercharger! compared with an aluminium monoquoce monoplane with a four valves per cylinder supercharged pressurized plane of the 40s.
Hmmm, I wonder if anyone ever told Geoff DeHavilland he was behind the times with the Mosquito (aka The Flying Sofa, because it was made of wood & canvas by furniture crafters) during WWII. And I wonder if anyone from 418 Squadron (or any of the other Mosquito squadrons) ever realized it, either. Anything I've ever read about it praises the plane for its adaptability (everything from "night intruder" to "light bomber"), handling, and general airworthiness, although one author does relate that the Mosquito did have an occasional tendency to come unglued. (Ooops... Well, on the other hand, so do we all...)
Interrobang, callously disregarding Karma as usual
Yes, and they told you at least one right in the article.
On dit que... "If you want to watch a high definition TV program on an analog TV set, the signal will be downgraded so it's not HDTV-quality anymore." Fine. Good. Wonderful. I'm not such a quality snob that I have to have digital quality for everything...hooking up a VCR to my (then much cheaper to buy) non-HD tv will still record me any such things that I want to watch, I figure -- unless I'm really misreading something and/or my technical knowledge is more than seriously deficient...possible...
Then again, I dropped out of tv watching years ago, on the grounds that I have better things to do with my life...but I'm reading (and posting to)/....hmm...
Just incidentally, does anyone else think that this HDtv switchover is at least partially-to-mostly a huge corporate cash grab? As in, "Oh, we're changing the format, so you have to (or at least should), hint hint, go out and buy a new, (artificially) expensive tv that can handle the format!"
Wow, that's SO Libertarian of you, Mr. Maynard. Remember, I'm Canadian. We don't put a whole lot of stock (not Stock -- but we didn't put a lot in him, either) in opinions like that when it comes to publick policy. And you know what? I like paying taxes. I like schools, hospitals, good roads, and all the other things that a government tax-funded pool 'o' funds can pay for much more efficiently than can individuals, municipalities, or other small societal units. So go be paranoid. I love my OHIP.
the world is only a limited number of steps away from UN domination
Woah, woah, woah, there, pardner! I reckon you have the wrong letter in there. Shouldn't it read, "the world is only a limited number of steps away from US domination"? From my perspective, anyway, untainted by rumours of Zurich Gnomes, the ZOG, and other Z-things (including Zundel), the UN is pretty ineffectual and hardly does anything -- at least not compared to the US Government, which has its tentacles in too many international pies to count; various and sundry US-based/spawned trans- or multinational corporations, and "organizations" like ICANN. Based on that evidence, I'd say the latter version of that first statement is closer to some version of Reality[TM] than the former.
As to the original poster's question about places where you might want to live, I'd suggest Canada (of course) -- can UNESCO surveys really be that wrong? -- and Iceland, which, going by recent developments in R&D, "green" technology, and business over there, is going to be kicking our collective North American @$$es around the block in a few years.
Note on the former: Don't plan on going to either of those places if you don't like the cold and/or don't like paying taxes. My suggestion on the former, though, is to wear layers (it's -23 C outside my window this afternoon), and my suggestion on the latter is that generally you get what you pay for...particularly in places like Canada and Iceland.
No, I never have. What would I need a car for? I don't drive & have no license, and live in a city with some of the best public transit in North America!
The above is a great idea...except for one thing. Private, "charter," for-profit schools are certainly not going to help educate the disenfranchised, especially not online. Contrary to popular belief (and you can see a little evidence for it in the C-Net article where they mention the number of people with whom the child is interacting online), online education is often more capital-intensive, and expensive than classroom education.
Online education is definitely more labour-intensive for the teachers and the institutions, and has much higher maintenance costs than many people suspect. That's why, in a recent Chronicle of Higher Education Live Colloquy, Dr. David Noble suggested that most online education is really only for the rich, at least at this point.
In any case, charter schools are just a bad idea whose time has come. They take money and authority away from the state, whose job it is to provide education and some sort of societal standard...which is why Canadian universities don't have entrance exams. Canadian schools are strictly enforced by a centralized, federal government, so school in one place is much like school in any other. Don't you wish you could say the same thing about US schools?
(Thank you Tank Girl...) Well, the "heighth of Nadsat fashion" online right now may not be text, but text isn't all that bad.
After all, most books intended for adult readers (something a lot of our more illiterate/.er friends may not know about -- nudge nudge) -- including the excellent Social Life of Information (thank you JonKatz for having a modicum of taste) -- are still...
I noticed this problem too, most recently when I tried to get an ISP here in Toronto *without* a credit card. I can't imagine what kind of a market it is where businesses can actually say NO to potential customers who want to give them cash in hand...and yet, I kept hearing, "We don't accept payment except by credit card," and I kept saying, "I don't have a credit card. Can I just come to your office and give you cash up front?"
I finally found an ISP that would let me pay cash. They got bought out, and now the new provider is losing 1/2 my e-mail messages, and I can't log on from home for shxt.
The first question that occurs to me is, "Just who do they think they are?" I don't like to see people put the kibosh on Fair Use rights (or even my ability to grab something off the tube so I can watch it when I am home, or something).
I guess it all comes back to corporate control...I always knew there was more to HDTV than met the eye, and I wondered why, ever since I heard about it, alarm bells were going off in my head. Now I know.
Depends on what you mean by "real data." A lot of people -- particularly the "hard science" types -- don't consider the results that come out of "soft" or "social" science methodologies like ethnographies, "barefoot epidemiologies," interviews, and surveys to be "real data," but sometimes these methods do work, particularly when applied with some kind of rigour and a strict weather eye towards methodology and validity.
There are some areas where qualitative methods give better results, simply because quantitative measures just don't fit. So don't dismiss something like this out of hand, at least until you know relatively for sure that the researcher screwed up. (It's likely, but do we really know?)
That's exactly the point of what Kris Felscher said originally...most of the people in high public office have huge bankrolls from one source or another (whether personal, corporate, bribery or some or all of the above) just to get them there, that "Joe Schmoe" and "Jane Average" aren't getting elected. They can't afford it.
What it seems like should happen to me is a bipartite election-campaign reform. Higher salaries for cost-of-living to those who need it, and an end to private-donor contributions to individual parties or candidates. Maybe if private donors really want to make campaign contributions, they should all put money into a huge common "slush fund" from which every ratified party draws.
Then again, I'm too po' to ever be elected and actually try any of these ideas out in the Real World[TM].
What you need to do is make friends with a bunch of Canadians -- did you realize that a majority of us live within 150km of the Canada-US border? -- and have us set up a chain of LP stations for you. Last I heard, LP stations were easier to get (I seem to remember a bill going through here that made it much easier not too long ago...), and if you factor in the exchange, cheaper for US interests. We'll call 'em Radio Free US.
The problem is, from what do WE need to be freed?;)
Interrobang
Or, as the erstwhile Mr. Tesla used to say, "This is Trent Radio, coming at you at 20 watts on the horizontal and 20 watts on the vertical, or 1/3 of the lightbulb over your head." (Some radio stations are dimmer bulbs than even Congressthings.)
You'd also have to overhaul all gas stations to handle a gas instead of a liquid as their main product. Yes, they handle propane already, but you'd have to tear up and replace the gas pumps and main storage tank.
Isn't that a little tautological? We can't do X because X contradicts what we do?
Logistics aside, though, if it were done, not much would change...you guys'd still all go to the "gas station" to fuel up...
Interrobang,
Laughing all the way...
Re: Where's your code-tweakin' mentality?
on
The Encryption Wars
·
· Score: 2
On the other hand, maybe this particular plan isn't terribly practical, but with a little tweaking, maybe it could work, somewhere, somehow.
/hypothesis mode/ Suppose someone put a plan something like this to work in India, where government initiatives, particularly in states like Andhra Pradesh, are already providing the fibre cable (and want to wire ALL the villages in the next 10 years or so), and where there is massive unemployment coupled with enough resources to create a huge "make-work" project along these lines...not to mention all those hungry IT professionals coming out of Hyderabad with the ink on their diplomae barely dry...
Suddenly, if you add "junked" computers, Linux and/or your-free-OS-here, an NGO or two and maybe the Indian Post Office (once they get off strike) or some similar large organizational structure, and free software, you have the infrastructure, the personnel, and the means to implement just such a programme./hypothesis mode off/
Considering that my current company does educational development work (and is especially interested in the digital divide) in India and South Asia, I've forwarded that section on to the boss. You'd be surprised what someone's hare-brained idea can do -- even seventeen incarnations later.
Slashdot Mirror
One thing I don't think this study takes into account is that modern teaching and living methods emphasize knowing what you need to know (or where to look it up) when you need to know it (the "just-in-time" school of thought). And the way we're trained now gives us the ability to learn and/or relearn something that we need to know more or less at lightspeed.
/dev/null. And isn't that the way it's supposed to work?
Case in point, I can't recite all those French verbs the way I used to, but I can now tell you far more than I ever expected to know about inputs, outputs, interrupt requests, software configuration, and file management...and I'm just beginning. Guess all those French verbs went to
Sigh... No gov't job for me, I guess...
I'm at the dual booting stage of this process now. It's going rather slowly, as this exasperated Linux newbie struggling up what seems to be an enormous learning curve (the best aerobic exercise) has found out. Now if I could get my Linux to talk to my modem, and/or vice versa, I'd be a happy Interrobang. Then I could go and download WordPerfect for Linux (I'm an old, old WP goob -- 12 years now!), use Netscape for the Weeb and The GIMP for imagecrunching...wait a minute...the only thing that'll be different from my current Win setup is The GIMP instead of Photoshop.
Hmm... Maybe that's why I don't get BSOD'ed as often as many of my cohorts. Even in MS I keep the B-- I mean MS to a minimum. And, yeah, I'm SO off that fabled Upgrade Train it just isn't even funny...at least not to MS...they'd hate me if they knew about me!
On the other hand, brute forcing one's head to learn reams of technical knowledge at lightspeed is also fun, and should not be discounted.
Interrobang, speculating at ways in which talking OSes could get one in terrible trouble with ignorant cops.
The only "free" market Lord Conrad Black and his like-minded cohort (murder?) of cronies is interested in is a "free" market where they (and people just like them) have the freedom to do exactly what they want at everyone else's expense. (They sure don't want a "free market" because they think it'll be good for the commonweal.) They want, say, for example, the freedom to own 56% of Canada's total media and the freedom to get more, more, more; the freedom to drive smaller, independent papers (as in St. Catherines, Ontario) into the ground simply because they're eating up Black market share; and the freedom to basically run roughshod over anyone who doesn't happen to agree with them, anyone who doesn't kowtow to them, or anyone who doesn't make a billion $$ a year (hostile takeovers, anyone?), because no one can stand up to them in terms of clout, influence, or straight monetary magnetism.
/. don't need to help them out.
While I'm not the world's biggest copyright/patent-it-forever fan in the world (limited terms are good things), I can definitely see a use for IP laws...especially in light of arguments like that one. Specifically, IP laws basically exist from keeping people like that from taking your ideas away from you, exploiting them for profit, and then turning around and saying smugly that you have no right to complain after they've invoked the Golden Rule on you--that is to say, "He who has the gold makes the rules." Basically, IP functions here as a way of levelling the playing field slightly. As Harlan Ellison once said, "Equal time does not consist of your having access to the major networks and your opponent having a soapbox on the corner."
As much as patents and copyrights might be a bad thing (not always; artists deserve to eat too), attitudes like that are tantamount to their stealing our soapbox.
Also, can you imagine what a boon for the Post it would be if suddenly copyright and IP were just thrown out? They'd no longer have to pay for reprint rights, wire service fees, photo fees, and all that good stuff... Conrad must beat off thinking about it...
So, don't agree with these people for the wrong reasons. Think about it. We're already getting screwed badly enough by Ld. Black and his Stepford friends. We here on
This has been a public service announcement from the Unfriends of Conrad Black Foundation. Have a nice day.
Jello Biafra mentions the incident on _If Evolution is Outlawed, Only Outlaws Will Evolve_, his last (that I know of) spoken word album to date. I think his comment was, "Let's hear it for pranks!" So maybe you did hear it, rather than just read about it in Adbusters.
How could anyone forget that voice and things like "Wayne Kirkland rules...me! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!"?
Well, now you don't have to "imagine a Beowulf cluster of" anything -- you c'n DIY and see for yourself. Almost like this...
Heald thu nu, hruse, nu haeleth ne mostan
eorla aehte! Hwaet, hyt aer on the
gode begeaton. Guth-death fornam,
feorh-bealo frecne, fyra gehwylcne,
leoda minra.
Now you all know what that is, right?
Say it with the Interrobang...
A cluster of Beowulf !!
Yes, folks, if even I can, even you can.
Interrogiggle
Hey, it works just fine in Canada! 32 million people, about a zillion ha of uninhabited land, four and a half time zones (half an hour later in da Rock, doncha know, bye)--and cheap Chinese pencils!!--and our recent election still came off without a hitch! ...that is, unless you're one of those full of CRAP types...*
*Uh, that's "Canadian Reform Alliance Party," and don't you forget it!
I'll send $5 too, but only in CDN$... ;)
Actually, what went through my mind first when I read, "Other technology firms will be able to join the alliance for $5,000 a year" was, "Gee, it's just like a fraternity. How nice it must be to pay to have friends."
The second thing that went through my head was, "Guess this is a big boys' club only. $5000 a year to join isn't much if your total assets (or asses) are zillion$, but it effectively puts most small businesses out of the running...and they're probably the ones who need something like this organization the most...if something like this is truly needed."
I don't in principle think it's necessarily a Bad Thing[TM], but even a kitchen implement in the wrong hands...
?!
Simple. In a world where even those households where both parties involved are employed often must work collectively 70+ hours a week (under non-Mike Harris labour laws, that's 1.75 full-time jobs; thanks to Mike Harris, here, it's just 1.2) just to make ends meet, it's really hard to have one or other party stay home to raise the children.
While I'm all for parental responsibility, I'm also all for eligibility for parenthood being determined in some other way than "whether or not they can afford it"--which might leave childbearing to be the sole province of predominantly white, upper-middle-class and higher types, and would certainly put single mothers of any description out of the running (78 cents on the dollar, remember)...
Interrobang
The socioinformatic ramifications of this kind of action are quite disturbing. Imagine this sort of thing taken the other way...dictatorial regimes refusing to let anyone from outside nations access anything but shiny, happy government propaganda; entire nations being blocked from seeing certain information because it's "not useful to them," or "they don't need to know." The problem is, who decides? Who gets to censor the Net based on regional ghettoization? Based on some of the more paranoid scenaria I can think of in my cute little delusion, I can hear the howls of outrage now. (How dare X nation block YCorp's e-commerce site! and so on.)
...but don't call me collect, unless you're "Knute" Kennedy from Cleveland.
Call me an extremist, call me a conspiracy theorist, call me a crank...
Interrobang
You know, come to dwell on it, that's an excellent idea for a group supposedly "scraping for funding." They could hire some of the local high school students to lead the tours or something, and charge enough to keep themselves going in perpetuity. People'd pay, too.
I mean two wings! canvas covering! wooden framed! no supercharger! compared with an aluminium monoquoce monoplane with a four valves per cylinder supercharged pressurized plane of the 40s.
Hmmm, I wonder if anyone ever told Geoff DeHavilland he was behind the times with the Mosquito (aka The Flying Sofa, because it was made of wood & canvas by furniture crafters) during WWII. And I wonder if anyone from 418 Squadron (or any of the other Mosquito squadrons) ever realized it, either. Anything I've ever read about it praises the plane for its adaptability (everything from "night intruder" to "light bomber"), handling, and general airworthiness, although one author does relate that the Mosquito did have an occasional tendency to come unglued. (Ooops... Well, on the other hand, so do we all...)
Interrobang, callously disregarding Karma as usual
Yes, and they told you at least one right in the article.
/....hmm...
On dit que... "If you want to watch a high definition TV program on an analog TV set, the signal will be downgraded so it's not HDTV-quality anymore." Fine. Good. Wonderful. I'm not such a quality snob that I have to have digital quality for everything...hooking up a VCR to my (then much cheaper to buy) non-HD tv will still record me any such things that I want to watch, I figure -- unless I'm really misreading something and/or my technical knowledge is more than seriously deficient...possible...
Then again, I dropped out of tv watching years ago, on the grounds that I have better things to do with my life...but I'm reading (and posting to)
Just incidentally, does anyone else think that this HDtv switchover is at least partially-to-mostly a huge corporate cash grab? As in, "Oh, we're changing the format, so you have to (or at least should), hint hint, go out and buy a new, (artificially) expensive tv that can handle the format!"
Yes, I refuse to capitalize "tv." Deal with it.
The power to tax is the power to destroy.
Wow, that's SO Libertarian of you, Mr. Maynard. Remember, I'm Canadian. We don't put a whole lot of stock (not Stock -- but we didn't put a lot in him, either) in opinions like that when it comes to publick policy. And you know what? I like paying taxes. I like schools, hospitals, good roads, and all the other things that a government tax-funded pool 'o' funds can pay for much more efficiently than can individuals, municipalities, or other small societal units. So go be paranoid. I love my OHIP.
Interrobang
the world is only a limited number of steps away from UN domination
Woah, woah, woah, there, pardner! I reckon you have the wrong letter in there. Shouldn't it read, "the world is only a limited number of steps away from US domination"? From my perspective, anyway, untainted by rumours of Zurich Gnomes, the ZOG, and other Z-things (including Zundel), the UN is pretty ineffectual and hardly does anything -- at least not compared to the US Government, which has its tentacles in too many international pies to count; various and sundry US-based/spawned trans- or multinational corporations, and "organizations" like ICANN. Based on that evidence, I'd say the latter version of that first statement is closer to some version of Reality[TM] than the former.
As to the original poster's question about places where you might want to live, I'd suggest Canada (of course) -- can UNESCO surveys really be that wrong? -- and Iceland, which, going by recent developments in R&D, "green" technology, and business over there, is going to be kicking our collective North American @$$es around the block in a few years.
Note on the former: Don't plan on going to either of those places if you don't like the cold and/or don't like paying taxes. My suggestion on the former, though, is to wear layers (it's -23 C outside my window this afternoon), and my suggestion on the latter is that generally you get what you pay for...particularly in places like Canada and Iceland.
No, I never have. What would I need a car for? I don't drive & have no license, and live in a city with some of the best public transit in North America!
Interrobang, better late than never.
The above is a great idea...except for one thing. Private, "charter," for-profit schools are certainly not going to help educate the disenfranchised, especially not online. Contrary to popular belief (and you can see a little evidence for it in the C-Net article where they mention the number of people with whom the child is interacting online), online education is often more capital-intensive, and expensive than classroom education.
l ;
h tml ;
c elearning.pdf (you will need a PDF reader for this one!);
Online education is definitely more labour-intensive for the teachers and the institutions, and has much higher maintenance costs than many people suspect. That's why, in a recent Chronicle of Higher Education Live Colloquy, Dr. David Noble suggested that most online education is really only for the rich, at least at this point.
For more information, see Hara & Kling on student frustration with technology
http://www.slis.indiana.edu/CSI/wp00-01.html
and LaRose, Gregg, & Eastin on "low-tech high-tech"
http://www.ascusc.org/jcmc/vol4/issue2/larose.htm
Mason on online education at http://www-iet.open.ac.uk/pp/r.d.mason/GlobalEdu.
Morgan on online learning economics at http://multimedia.marshall.edu/onlinecosts/distan
and Noble's famous and justifiably critical "Digital Diploma Mills" series -- One--The Automation of Higher Education, Two--The Coming Battle Over Online Instruction, Three--The Bloom Is Off The Rose, and Four--Rehearsal For the Revolution.
In any case, charter schools are just a bad idea whose time has come. They take money and authority away from the state, whose job it is to provide education and some sort of societal standard...which is why Canadian universities don't have entrance exams. Canadian schools are strictly enforced by a centralized, federal government, so school in one place is much like school in any other. Don't you wish you could say the same thing about US schools?
(Thank you Tank Girl...) Well, the "heighth of Nadsat fashion" online right now may not be text, but text isn't all that bad.
/.er friends may not know about -- nudge nudge) -- including the excellent Social Life of Information (thank you JonKatz for having a modicum of taste) -- are still...
...wait for it...
...text-only interfaces...
After all, most books intended for adult readers (something a lot of our more illiterate
A Snickering Interrobang
I noticed this problem too, most recently when I tried to get an ISP here in Toronto *without* a credit card. I can't imagine what kind of a market it is where businesses can actually say NO to potential customers who want to give them cash in hand...and yet, I kept hearing, "We don't accept payment except by credit card," and I kept saying, "I don't have a credit card. Can I just come to your office and give you cash up front?"
I finally found an ISP that would let me pay cash. They got bought out, and now the new provider is losing 1/2 my e-mail messages, and I can't log on from home for shxt.
Any suggestions, Slashdots & Slashdaughters?
The first question that occurs to me is, "Just who do they think they are?" I don't like to see people put the kibosh on Fair Use rights (or even my ability to grab something off the tube so I can watch it when I am home, or something).
I guess it all comes back to corporate control...I always knew there was more to HDTV than met the eye, and I wondered why, ever since I heard about it, alarm bells were going off in my head. Now I know.
Am I ahead of the Weltanschauung, or what?
Interrobang
Unless you have my degree, in which case it's:
...which is always a useful skill to have, even if it does annoy the hell out of everyone else...
"What do they really mean when they say
Why does it work?
How does it work?
How much will it cost?
When will this work?"
Tee hee...
Interrobang,
MA, LPW ('Applied Rhetoric')
Depends on what you mean by "real data." A lot of people -- particularly the "hard science" types -- don't consider the results that come out of "soft" or "social" science methodologies like ethnographies, "barefoot epidemiologies," interviews, and surveys to be "real data," but sometimes these methods do work, particularly when applied with some kind of rigour and a strict weather eye towards methodology and validity.
There are some areas where qualitative methods give better results, simply because quantitative measures just don't fit. So don't dismiss something like this out of hand, at least until you know relatively for sure that the researcher screwed up. (It's likely, but do we really know?)
Interrobang,
MA, LPW ('Applied Rhetoric')
That's exactly the point of what Kris Felscher said originally...most of the people in high public office have huge bankrolls from one source or another (whether personal, corporate, bribery or some or all of the above) just to get them there, that "Joe Schmoe" and "Jane Average" aren't getting elected. They can't afford it.
What it seems like should happen to me is a bipartite election-campaign reform. Higher salaries for cost-of-living to those who need it, and an end to private-donor contributions to individual parties or candidates. Maybe if private donors really want to make campaign contributions, they should all put money into a huge common "slush fund" from which every ratified party draws.
Then again, I'm too po' to ever be elected and actually try any of these ideas out in the Real World[TM].
Interrobang
What you need to do is make friends with a bunch of Canadians -- did you realize that a majority of us live within 150km of the Canada-US border? -- and have us set up a chain of LP stations for you. Last I heard, LP stations were easier to get (I seem to remember a bill going through here that made it much easier not too long ago...), and if you factor in the exchange, cheaper for US interests. We'll call 'em Radio Free US.
;)
The problem is, from what do WE need to be freed?
Interrobang
Or, as the erstwhile Mr. Tesla used to say, "This is Trent Radio, coming at you at 20 watts on the horizontal and 20 watts on the vertical, or 1/3 of the lightbulb over your head." (Some radio stations are dimmer bulbs than even Congressthings.)
You'd also have to overhaul all gas stations to handle a gas instead of a liquid as their main product. Yes, they handle propane already, but you'd have to tear up and replace the gas pumps and main storage tank.
Isn't that a little tautological? We can't do X because X contradicts what we do?
Logistics aside, though, if it were done, not much would change...you guys'd still all go to the "gas station" to fuel up...
Interrobang,
Laughing all the way...
On the other hand, maybe this particular plan isn't terribly practical, but with a little tweaking, maybe it could work, somewhere, somehow.
/hypothesis mode/ Suppose someone put a plan something like this to work in India, where government initiatives, particularly in states like Andhra Pradesh, are already providing the fibre cable (and want to wire ALL the villages in the next 10 years or so), and where there is massive unemployment coupled with enough resources to create a huge "make-work" project along these lines...not to mention all those hungry IT professionals coming out of Hyderabad with the ink on their diplomae barely dry...
/or your-free-OS-here, an NGO or two and maybe the Indian Post Office (once they get off strike) or some similar large organizational structure, and free software, you have the infrastructure, the personnel, and the means to implement just such a programme. /hypothesis mode off/
Suddenly, if you add "junked" computers, Linux and
Considering that my current company does educational development work (and is especially interested in the digital divide) in India and South Asia, I've forwarded that section on to the boss. You'd be surprised what someone's hare-brained idea can do -- even seventeen incarnations later.
Interrobang, the former Mrs. Tesla