If the average kid understood sine by the time they left high school, we would have made many leaps forward.
Believe it or not, things like a^2-b^2=(a+b)(a-b) are by no means simple. Sure, the average 6th grader could perform a repetoire of such operations mechanistically. If you want students to *REALLY* understand the implications of that statement and how that statement (and those implications) tie together with other concepts in mathematics (like the properties of integers, you need a student who is a little further along in their intellectual development.
While I agree with many of your individual points, I disagree with your premise. At age 14, most students' brains are just beginning to open up in such a way that they can think abstractly.
For instance, I was weening my students off of mixed numbers (a DREADFUL concept) and getting them used to writing improper fractions instead (like 41/14). About 10-15% of my students were cool with that. The rest had a very predictable (and valid question): "But what *IS* 41/14?" My answer was equality predictable: "It's 41/14".
It was very important to them to assign a concrete numerical value to these things, and their brains start getting hung up if they can't do that. Once our brains get used to working abstractly, we can work with 41/14 or (x^2-4)/(x+2) without having to give those fractions concrete values.
By the end of the year, they are JUST STARTING to get ahold of the [awesomely beautiful] relationship between a function and its graph.
Of course, this is a bell curve kind of thing. There will be students who are in front of the other students. I think a previous poster's assessment is accurate that out of a class of about 350ish middle school students, around 30ish will be ready for prime time, full force algebra... and their ability should be assessed and met. However, most kids JUST aren't ready in middle school.
To push the point a little further, I don't believe that the average (say) 10 year old could understand Calculus no matter how much time you had with him/her. They may be able to do things mechanistically, but their brains just aren't there *yet*.
I agree. I had a student who was terribly dyslexic and took a REALLY REALLY long time to add, subtract, etc accurately. However, when we covered more abstract concepts like graphing, she was the very first in the class to get it. I even took a couple of days to teach the class an enrichment unit on group theory, showing them the Dihedral-8 group. She was also the very first to understand that and really came up with some neat insights.
I recommended her for Honors Geometry next year. I think she's going to clean up at proofs.
That said, learning mathematics involves a steady progression from simple operations to multi-step operations and from the concrete to the abstract. *Most* people, like me, progress nicely and evening along that path. The ideal in teaching is to teach to most people while simultaneously catching the people who don't "fit" the mold.
She was convinced that math was difficult and "other", something to be crammed before tests... but nothing she would ever understand. And understanding should be the goal of instruction in any subject (says a future teacher, with her fingers crossed).
I spend a significant amount of my time convincing students that they have the ability to do math. Too many freak out and shut down because they are convinced they can't do it.
"Blame it on the other guy" sounds snappy and dismissive, but actually it misrepresents the situation.
I am resposible, at the beginning of the year, for assessing student proficiency and providing remedies for those students who seem to struggle with basics. Coming new into a distict, however, makes that assessment more difficult, because I don't even know where to begin looking for student proficiency with past material. I continue to be responsible, through the year, for doing whatever somersaults I need to do to make sure that all of my students are acheiving.
So there is certainly no buck passing here...
That said, three practical facts apply which impact what I am able to do in the year: 1. I am a finite man with a finite amount of time. 2. My average Algebra I class size is 30, and I have 45 minute periods. 3. I inherent the best and the worst teachings that my students had before me.
Thus, it is not "passing the buck" to prescribe curriculum changes in the grades after mine. The proficiency that my students have 1st day of school will impact the whole year.
One of my biggest problems teaching algebra is that my students were never given a firm foundation in basics throughout middle school. The philosophy described by the article is accurate as to what I am seeing in middle school math education, but results in a bunch of students who can only solve linear equations in a "trained monkey" kind of way. They have no real cognition as to what their actions mean (ie. When you add to both sides of an equation, you aren't REALLY changing it.) I was halfway through last year (my first year in a new district) before I realized that most of my [otherwise intelligent] students really didn't understand basic concepts like substitution, the difference between an expression and an equation, why you do things to both sides of an equation, etc etc etc.
Let me tell you how much of a nightmare solving solutions were.
I also think that algebra is pushed on students before they are cognitively ready. The average middle school student should go as far as evaluating expressions, variable substitutions, (MAYBE) 1 step equations and (MOST importantly) reading an expression (ie. 3x + 4 means three times x plus 4). The rest of their time should be spent brushing up and applying their ARITHMETIC skills, such as working with/reducing fractions. Give me a class of students who know how to substitute and know their arithmetic, and I'll give you a class of all stars.
In this upcoming year, I'm dedicating the first 2-3 weeks to an intensive review of arithmetic and bare bones algebra. Hopefully that will smooth things over as we go on.
I really like the suggestion of merging science with math. I would love to see those two subjects team taught over a double period.
What the last guy said. When I got engaged, my girlfriend and I spent some time talking about what kind of ring to get. We didn't obsess over it, but it was up for some pretty honest discussion.
I am a very practical person who sees such things as being symbols pointing to something much greater. Whenever I see those "A diamond is forever" commercials, I think "So 6 months' salary saved towards a house!"
A tatoo on your ass, now THAT lasts forever!:-)
As it turned out, she felt the same way, so we took a route that was appropriate.
I think it is helpful to just establish what her hopes are related to this(real hopes, not what she thinks she should say) and what your real reservations are...then explore options that make both of you honestly happy. If this is an important issue to both of you, then compromising becomes a lose-lose situation and will pop up to bite one of you two later. Indeed, compromise is only acceptable if one of you turns out not to care all *that* much about the issue....a helpful tip to remember.
My girlfriend and I once fought about an issue for 18 months before finding a win-win solution.....mainly because if one of us compromised it would have haunted us later.
As far as win-win possibilities go, antique jewelry is a wonderful way to go. All of the jewelry will have a history and story related to it, and may cost less than "new" jewelry.
Also perhaps visiting a jeweler to discuss other gemstones would be helpful. My mother (a collector) showed me "Mystic Pink Topaz" the other day. It's an absolutely beautiful rose colored gem that seems to yank the light right out of the air and sparkle with blues, greens, purples, etc.
Good luck with the ring, the relationship, etc etc etc.
Social Behavior - you have teachers acting irresponsibly and unethically. Frankly, teachers should know better, and they ought to conduct themselves in such a way that demonstrates responsible and ethical behavior to their students. Inform building principals of this behavior(and its implications) under the context of "not wanting to get anyone in trouble....yet." Building principals usually get twitchy when unethical behavior and whittling school resources are mentioned at the same time. If the behavior continues, get someone in a little bit of trouble.
Technological - this is probably the easiest front to handle, since it is your training. IMO, the best option for you is a filtered http-only proxy (for now). Add the "starting points" of these p2p programs to the filter's block list (to stop tunneling...just in case:-) ). Because there is a legitimate concern for filters blocking sites of educational value, make an easy procedure/form for getting a site unblocked. You can actually leverage this to your advantage in a lot of areas, because these naughty behaviors flourish when no one is looking. By having a form that a teacher has to fill out to have a blocked site unblocked, it forces these people to record their intentions to paper. I doubt any teacher would be so bold as to request to have a warez site unblocked, but the presense of a form also raises the potential of having "no" as an answer. I doubt anyone would be so bold to push it farther than that...if so, then you district has worse problems than low bandwidth.
Also do some research into e-rate, which offers schools fractional or full T-1 at reduced rates. It is (or at least was) a federal program, and it required applicants to filter sites. It may provide justification for installing filters in the first place. Also research state grants for technology funding that require filters (just in case you aren't already using them). Talk to your colleagues in other area districts, or other districts in the state. Visits to larger districts should be fruitful. Many independent schools also have a strong tech program, and have jumped all of these hurdles already. Most educational IT people are happy to meet with colleagues, share ideas and complain about annoyances. Running a tech program at a school has a number of unique challenges, that frankly NO ONE has fixed yet.
Legal - Your district is in a potential legal quagmire without a well-written acceptable use policy that defined acceptable behavior for users (students and faculty) and defined enforcement powers of administration (educational and network). Do some research into legal cases that went poorly from organizations without a policy. The 1993-1998 era should be full of them. Talk to the superintendent, district legal person, school board, etc to get the district moving on an acceptable use policy. Have sample policies from other schools. Many schools post them on their web site, so a purusal of the k12.us domain should be fruitful. You don't want the administration to stumble off to "fix" this problem without your guidance, so be prepared to focus knee-jerk reactions to well-thought-out and constructive responses. In the face of a lawsuit, most supers are content to have a friggin policy written and be done with it.
While I certainly have gargantuanly huge issues with the television news media, this is one case where I have to come to their defence. The footage that you saw of all of the students at Columbine was provided by the school. A single camera taped the procedings and the news media got copies.
Rabin was the Prime Minister of Israel in the early 90s and made many serious moves toward creating peace in the middle east. He was so serious that he was eventually assassinated by an Israeli extremist. His death de-railed the peace process. Whether or not it is finally getting back on track....we'll never know.
I think that is the part that freaks me out most of the movie. What would cause a young, strong, able bodied man to stand in the corner like a child while his companion is killed.
Burkittsville, like any place has quite a few local legends, though most seem related to the Civil War. However, everything about the Blair Witch Project is fiction. There wasn't even a township of Blair.
The directors should receive major kudos for the job they did.
The iMac runs the G3, which is the decendent of the 603. If I remember correctly, the 603 chip was designed as a "consumer level" chip, and therefore isn't designed to do anything much beyond single-processor stuff.
I didn't bother reading the report (Postscript..no printer happy...too lazy to use a reader), but I would suspect that the 604 would yield much better results. The 604 was made to be a more versitile "industrial" strength processor and therefore includes many features that are absent on the 603. The G4, which is supposed to ship before too long, is a decendent of the 604, and likewise may yield better results than the G3.
Then again, I could be on crack and be completely wrong....since I didn't read the report. So if I am wrong, please correct me kindly:-)
I don't think you're taking Dr. Anderson's comments properly.
Dr. Anderson caught some people cheating. The majority of those people were running Linux/Unix computers.
This is a fact. You may not like that fact, but it is a fact nevertheless. Dr. Anderson wasn't launching an attack on anyone -- he was simply stating a fact: Most of the cheaters are coming from Linux/Unix circles.
The only way one could find that **fact** offensive is if s/he believed that Dr. Anderson was lying...but since we have very little evidence to support that notion (and indeed, a great deal of evidence to the contrary), it had best be discarded right here and right now.
Next, Dr. Anderson offers a brief explanation for that fact, as scientists tend to do. His explaination: It must be the hacker mentality amongst that camp.
NOTE: Dr. Anderson did not say that all Linux/Unix users were dishonest....he did not make any blanket statements that all Linux/Unix users were causing any problems.
He simply observed that most of the cheating is coming from some (NOT ALL) Linux/Unix users because most of the people who use that platform like to explore code, discover how programs work, etc etc etc. In other words, he's saying Linux/Unix users are hackers of some sort (a pretty well-founded statement, if you properly interpret the word 'hacker')...and really, it would take a hacker-type to figure out how to fool their computers. Indeed, if you interpret the term hacker properly (as Dr. Anderson most likely does, given his background in Computer Science), then really Dr. Anderson is paying a complement to the Linux/Unix community, saying that the community has a large concentration of individuals who have the know-how to do such a thing.
So, a more realistic "real world" interpretation of Dr. Anderson's comments would be:
"I'm late to class because I got mugged in a seedy part of town by some African-Americans [NOTE: Statement of fact]. They probably mugged me because they needed my money [NOTE: Observation based on the fact that most people living in a seedy part of town probably don't have a lot of money]."
There's nothing too inflamatory about that...and chances are that if someone did take offense those statements, most of us would roll our eyes and say "whatever."
So, if you're offended by Dr. Anderson's comments, get over it. He doesn't have a vendetta against you. He's not thinking that you're cheating. He's not making any derogatory statements about the Linux/Unix community. Chances are that many of the people on the SETI@Home team are a part of the Linux/Unix community (someone had to code that app, and it did come out first). Stop trying to be a martyr.
He's simply saying that most of the cheaters are running Linux/Unix (a factual statement) and then says that it's probably because (in essence) most Linux/Unix users have the skills necessary to do such a thing.
Perhaps a more appropriate response to Dr. Anderson's comments would be tracking down those people who are cheating and giving them a heavy handed smack down (verbally, of course). Imagine how much it would suck if we missed a block containing a stray extraterrestial transmission, because some dorkface downloaded the block, dumped it and sent a "done" message back to the server.
I'm not sure if the NSA has the gargantuan amounts of processing power that some people seem to think they do.
However, given that the NSA has a track record for being ahead of the academic field of cryptography (ie. they discovered linear(??) cryptanalysis many years before the academic world did)...it would not be entirely unreasonable to claim that they developed a machine similar to Deep Crack before EFF did.
Now, if I remember correctly, Deep Crack is optimized for DES, which in itself is optimized for hardware. I'm not sure how applicable this technology would be to other algorithms, but that's a side issue.
While some of the paranoia about the NSA is certainly unwarrented (NSA != God), it's not unreasonable to believe that they are a few steps ahead of the rest of the world in cryptography.
Don't get too carried away. Some of those are subsets or supersets of other groups. I know committed Christians who are hard-core scientists, just as I know atheists, deists, etc who are hard-core scientists as well. If by saying scientists, you mean people who believe that the ultimate hope of humanity lies in scientific understanding, I would say that that would fall under the category of Secular Humanism, which likewise, would probably fall under the category of some form of atheism, deism or agnosticism.
Maxism probably is the same way as well, being a superset or subset of something else.
Don't get too carried away. Some of those are subsets or supersets of other groups. I know committed Christians who are hard-core scientists, just as I know atheists, deists, etc who are hard-core scientists as well. If by saying scientists, you mean people who believe that the ultimate hope of humanity lies in scientific understanding, I would say that that would fall under the category of Secular Humanism, which likewise, would probably fall under the category of some form of atheism, deism or agnosticism.
I do want to point something out. First, a few disclaimers: 1. I'm extraordinarily undecided on the abortion issue. 2. Hence, I'm not advocating any stance - we just aren't going to go there 3. As a Christian, I have serious issues with some of the tactics used by many of the more visible anti-abortion demonstrators. Not only are several of their more peaceful tactics insufficiently redemptive, but their more violent tactics are absolutely unacceptable.
With that said, it seems that you have a few misconceptions about the mindset of many people who adhere to the pro-life (or as you put it, anti-choice) view. Pro-lifers don't necessarily want to force their view on other people. They don't think, "Hey, I want to make these other people believe exactly what I do."....or at least, you don't have to think that to adhere to the pro-life view.
At the crux of this debate is this question: When does a mass of undifferentiated cells become a human being? People who uphold the pro-life view believe, for whatever reason, that it happens at conception. Therefore, as soon as that sperm and egg unite, you have a person. The logical conclusion of this belief is that abortion essentially amounts to murder. Thus, pro-lifers believe that since abortion is murder, and murder is wrong, they have a moral obligation to do what they can to stop it.
So, it's not necessarily about going on a power trip and imposing your views on other. It can also be about simply being true to one's own morality... believing that a fetus is a human being, and thus acting on that belief to try to preserve human life. It is essentially no different than trying to stop someone who believes that black people really aren't human beings.
Now, you can disagree with the first belief (that a human being is made at conception), and that's your right (really, no single belief on that subject is really more or less arbitrary than another). But understand that whatever a person's views are on that, the consequences with regard to abortion are unavoidable. Thus, we ought to understand that any one person's actions with regard to this subject is most likely a result of the moral obligation they feel as a result of that first belief, and not necessarily a desire to impose one's will on others.
Now, this DOES NOT excuse the actions of those who perpetuate violence, hostility, anger and general nastiness towards people in the pro-choice camp... nor does it excuse similar actions, the other way. However, it does help us to understand people better, and see them more as human beings, and not inhumane monsters. And once we do that, we can stop name calling and labelling, and start dealing with the difficult, heart wrenching questions that riddle every side of this topic, and find CONSTRUCTIVE ways of act out our moral impulses.
We humans are far too ready to name call and far too hesistant to dialogue, share and search together.
Once again, I just want to point out that I AM NOT ADVOCATING THE PRO-LIFE VIEW...I have just as many problems with pro-life as pro-choice...I'm simply pointing out the thought processes that many pro-lifers go through, in an effort that a pro-choicers will read it, think, "Well, I could see how someone could think that" and arrive at the better understanding of another human being.
But do not forget that logic is a human creation, designed by people trying to understand the world around us. Appropriately, it is subject to all appropriate pitfalls (problems with infinity, timelessness, etc).
Apple sues other companies that try to clone or duplicate their work, but somehow it's allright when they steal?
Apple had nothing to do with VGS, outside of blessing it as a major boost for the Mac platform. VGS was created by Connectix, a completely different company.
Never forget that, in the end, a computer is just a dumb piece of plastic, and while snuggling with it may keep you warm at night, somehow, it's just not the same:-)
Keep an open mind......as long as the source is released, time will tell whether or not the code is secure. Whether it is or not though, this is a large accomplishment, and she should be allowed that accomplishment. Loosen up a little bit...it's almost like some people don't want her (and people like her) to succeed. If she tries selling anything, then it's time to pull out the criticism, esp. if the algorithm hasn't been published. But right now, she just wrote it an entered it into the contest. Go easy on her for a little while.
To address your points:
1. RSA is a very slow cipher. It would probably take 30 minutes to encrypt an e-mail with RSA. Most encryption packages that use RSA end up encrypting the actual message data with a conventional cipher and a randomly generated key, and then use RSA to encrypt just the key. So, the statement in the news article is accurate, though the reporter probably didn't have the background to put that statement in its proper context.
2. Don't forget the math underpinnings of cryptography. It is very posssible to make proofs about the mathematics of an encryption algorithm... especially proofs about how secure an algorithm is IN COMPARISON to other algorithms. Chances are, she proved that a mathematical attack on her algorithm is as difficult as a mathematical attack on RSA (which is factoring the modulus). Of course, the question remains (as with every algorithm including RSA) as to whether or not there is an easier mathematical attack that the author has not yet considered...and only time will tell that for this (and all other) algorithms
3. The article mentioned her as being ill. Maybe she couldn't interview.
Can someone explain the "young=smart" thing?
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Why Work Sucks
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You do raise some good points, and it could be that merely keeping up-to-date will make us less replacable than we may otherwise be, but I still have some reservations.
It's not necessarily that young = smart, but one has to admit that an 8-year-old will tend to acquire technical know-how faster than a 30-year-old. Young people just learn faster than older people do.
Well, as time goes on, you will have young people learning more and more advanced technology and a rate much faster than their older counterparts....if for no other reason than the older counterparts tend to have more home responsibilities and cannot devote every waking moment to computers. So, in 10 years, younger people will be entering the work force who could very well have a greater proficiency with a technology than their older counterparts, simply because they grew up with it and had more time to devote to it.
But I don't think it even has to be an issue of highly skilled young people entering the job market. I think that mere market saturation (ultimately because of the personal computer), without regard to proficiency, is enough to make techie people replacable.
Sure, 55-year-old Gill has been a good worker,and he's a smart guy, but we could pull a 23-year-old techno-saavy person off the street (will soon be possible, if not already possible), pay them half of Gill's salary and train them. Sure, experience is important, but not as important to every company as the bottom line.
Let me send out a disclaimer here: The following post contains vast generalizations, and there certainly are expections. I know this. But nevertheless, I think that what I'm about to say also has a great deal of validity.
While the book Katz reviews may or may not be an accurate summary of the corporate situation today, it does paint a picture of what could be before long, especially as we 20-somethings become 40-somethings.
When the computer was a new toy, 'techie' people were very special, because it took lots of ingenuity and know-how to make computers go. As a result, technie people were courted, schmoozed, and treated very well, because they were special. You couldn't just pull any guy off of the street to do a techie job.
Then the personal computer happened. With the advent of the personal computer, literally anyone with some spare time and determination could become a 'techie type.' This is a wonderful, empowering thing. The largest reason why I'm proficient with computers is that I was raised with a computer in my house.
But there is one side effect to this - because of the personal computer, more and more techie people are entering the job market, and this trend can only continue and increase. Indeed, by the time I'm 40, I fully expect hordes of young punks to enter the job market knowing more about computers than I will ever know (and that's with me keeping up to date).
And as more and more techno-minded people go out into the workforce, they'll become more and more replacable. Already, to some degree, you can pull someone [young] off of the street and give them a techie job. That saturation of techie people can only increase, and as they become more and more replacable, they'll have to endure harder and harder working conditions, and be treated less and less like people and more and more like cogs. Inevitably, people in techie position will suffer all of the worst parts of capitalism that 'replacable' factory workers have endured for years.
Call me a pinko commie, but under capitalism, as soon as someone is regarded as replacable, they repeatedly get bent over, because they are replacable. Sure, there are good companies that treat people well and don't exploit them, but there are also lots of bad ones.
I'm not so sure if such is the situation now, especially in light of the insanely high demand for techie people in the work force. However, I do see a situation like this evolving in no more than 20 years...maybe even 10. As future generations become more techno-saavy and enter the job market, technical positions will become more exploited and less secure.
Then again, I could be completely on crack, but I don't think so.
Troy
PS. Any typos are really artistic alternate representations of words and sentances.:-)
Slashdot Mirror
If the average kid understood sine by the time they left high school, we would have made many leaps forward.
Believe it or not, things like
a^2-b^2=(a+b)(a-b) are by no means simple. Sure, the average 6th grader could perform a repetoire of such operations mechanistically. If you want students to *REALLY* understand the implications of that statement and how that statement (and those implications) tie together with other concepts in mathematics (like the properties of integers, you need a student who is a little further along in their intellectual development.
While I agree with many of your individual points, I disagree with your premise. At age 14, most students' brains are just beginning to open up in such a way that they can think abstractly.
For instance, I was weening my students off of mixed numbers (a DREADFUL concept) and getting them used to writing improper fractions instead (like 41/14). About 10-15% of my students were cool with that. The rest had a very predictable (and valid question): "But what *IS* 41/14?" My answer was equality predictable: "It's 41/14".
It was very important to them to assign a concrete numerical value to these things, and their brains start getting hung up if they can't do that. Once our brains get used to working abstractly, we can work with 41/14 or (x^2-4)/(x+2) without having to give those fractions concrete values.
By the end of the year, they are JUST STARTING to get ahold of the [awesomely beautiful] relationship between a function and its graph.
Of course, this is a bell curve kind of thing. There will be students who are in front of the other students. I think a previous poster's assessment is accurate that out of a class of about 350ish middle school students, around 30ish will be ready for prime time, full force algebra... and their ability should be assessed and met. However, most kids JUST aren't ready in middle school.
To push the point a little further, I don't believe that the average (say) 10 year old could understand Calculus no matter how much time you had with him/her. They may be able to do things mechanistically, but their brains just aren't there *yet*.
I agree. I had a student who was terribly dyslexic and took a REALLY REALLY long time to add, subtract, etc accurately. However, when we covered more abstract concepts like graphing, she was the very first in the class to get it. I even took a couple of days to teach the class an enrichment unit on group theory, showing them the Dihedral-8 group. She was also the very first to understand that and really came up with some neat insights.
I recommended her for Honors Geometry next year. I think she's going to clean up at proofs.
That said, learning mathematics involves a steady progression from simple operations to multi-step operations and from the concrete to the abstract. *Most* people, like me, progress nicely and evening along that path. The ideal in teaching is to teach to most people while simultaneously catching the people who don't "fit" the mold.
"Blame it on the other guy" sounds snappy and dismissive, but actually it misrepresents the situation.
I am resposible, at the beginning of the year, for assessing student proficiency and providing remedies for those students who seem to struggle with basics. Coming new into a distict, however, makes that assessment more difficult, because I don't even know where to begin looking for student proficiency with past material. I continue to be responsible, through the year, for doing whatever somersaults I need to do to make sure that all of my students are acheiving.
So there is certainly no buck passing here...
That said, three practical facts apply which impact what I am able to do in the year:
1. I am a finite man with a finite amount of time.
2. My average Algebra I class size is 30, and I have 45 minute periods.
3. I inherent the best and the worst teachings that my students had before me.
Thus, it is not "passing the buck" to prescribe curriculum changes in the grades after mine. The proficiency that my students have 1st day of school will impact the whole year.
One of my biggest problems teaching algebra is that my students were never given a firm foundation in basics throughout middle school. The philosophy described by the article is accurate as to what I am seeing in middle school math education, but results in a bunch of students who can only solve linear equations in a "trained monkey" kind of way. They have no real cognition as to what their actions mean (ie. When you add to both sides of an equation, you aren't REALLY changing it.) I was halfway through last year (my first year in a new district) before I realized that most of my [otherwise intelligent] students really didn't understand basic concepts like substitution, the difference between an expression and an equation, why you do things to both sides of an equation, etc etc etc.
Let me tell you how much of a nightmare solving solutions were.
I also think that algebra is pushed on students before they are cognitively ready. The average middle school student should go as far as evaluating expressions, variable substitutions, (MAYBE) 1 step equations and (MOST importantly) reading an expression (ie. 3x + 4 means three times x plus 4). The rest of their time should be spent brushing up and applying their ARITHMETIC skills, such as working with/reducing fractions. Give me a class of students who know how to substitute and know their arithmetic, and I'll give you a class of all stars.
In this upcoming year, I'm dedicating the first 2-3 weeks to an intensive review of arithmetic and bare bones algebra. Hopefully that will smooth things over as we go on.
I really like the suggestion of merging science with math. I would love to see those two subjects team taught over a double period.
Yikes.....
That's what I get for trying to insert a witty reamark after writing the entire message.
Just for the record, we skipped the tatoo route
Still shaking head in disbelief,
Troy
What the last guy said. When I got engaged, my girlfriend and I spent some time talking about what kind of ring to get. We didn't obsess over it, but it was up for some pretty honest discussion.
:-)
I am a very practical person who sees such things as being symbols pointing to something much greater. Whenever I see those "A diamond is forever" commercials, I think "So 6 months' salary saved towards a house!"
A tatoo on your ass, now THAT lasts forever!
As it turned out, she felt the same way, so we took a route that was appropriate.
I think it is helpful to just establish what her hopes are related to this(real hopes, not what she thinks she should say) and what your real reservations are...then explore options that make both of you honestly happy. If this is an important issue to both of you, then compromising becomes a lose-lose situation and will pop up to bite one of you two later. Indeed, compromise is only acceptable if one of you turns out not to care all *that* much about the issue....a helpful tip to remember.
My girlfriend and I once fought about an issue for 18 months before finding a win-win solution.....mainly because if one of us compromised it would have haunted us later.
As far as win-win possibilities go, antique jewelry is a wonderful way to go. All of the jewelry will have a history and story related to it, and may cost less than "new" jewelry.
Also perhaps visiting a jeweler to discuss other gemstones would be helpful. My mother (a collector) showed me "Mystic Pink Topaz" the other day. It's an absolutely beautiful rose colored gem that seems to yank the light right out of the air and sparkle with blues, greens, purples, etc.
Good luck with the ring, the relationship, etc etc etc.
You have a problem on a couple of fronts.
:-) ). Because there is a legitimate concern for filters blocking sites of educational value, make an easy procedure/form for getting a site unblocked. You can actually leverage this to your advantage in a lot of areas, because these naughty behaviors flourish when no one is looking. By having a form that a teacher has to fill out to have a blocked site unblocked, it forces these people to record their intentions to paper. I doubt any teacher would be so bold as to request to have a warez site unblocked, but the presense of a form also raises the potential of having "no" as an answer. I doubt anyone would be so bold to push it farther than that...if so, then you district has worse problems than low bandwidth.
Social Behavior - you have teachers acting irresponsibly and unethically. Frankly, teachers should know better, and they ought to conduct themselves in such a way that demonstrates responsible and ethical behavior to their students. Inform building principals of this behavior(and its implications) under the context of "not wanting to get anyone in trouble....yet." Building principals usually get twitchy when unethical behavior and whittling school resources are mentioned at the same time. If the behavior continues, get someone in a little bit of trouble.
Technological - this is probably the easiest front to handle, since it is your training. IMO, the best option for you is a filtered http-only proxy (for now). Add the "starting points" of these p2p programs to the filter's block list (to stop tunneling...just in case
Also do some research into e-rate, which offers schools fractional or full T-1 at reduced rates. It is (or at least was) a federal program, and it required applicants to filter sites. It may provide justification for installing filters in the first place. Also research state grants for technology funding that require filters (just in case you aren't already using them). Talk to your colleagues in other area districts, or other districts in the state. Visits to larger districts should be fruitful. Many independent schools also have a strong tech program, and have jumped all of these hurdles already. Most educational IT people are happy to meet with colleagues, share ideas and complain about annoyances. Running a tech program at a school has a number of unique challenges, that frankly NO ONE has fixed yet.
Legal - Your district is in a potential legal quagmire without a well-written acceptable use policy that defined acceptable behavior for users (students and faculty) and defined enforcement powers of administration (educational and network). Do some research into legal cases that went poorly from organizations without a policy. The 1993-1998 era should be full of them. Talk to the superintendent, district legal person, school board, etc to get the district moving on an acceptable use policy. Have sample policies from other schools. Many schools post them on their web site, so a purusal of the k12.us domain should be fruitful. You don't want the administration to stumble off to "fix" this problem without your guidance, so be prepared to focus knee-jerk reactions to well-thought-out and constructive responses. In the face of a lawsuit, most supers are content to have a friggin policy written and be done with it.
Hopefully this helps!
-Troy
While I certainly have gargantuanly huge issues with the television news media, this is one case where I have to come to their defence. The footage that you saw of all of the students at Columbine was provided by the school. A single camera taped the procedings and the news media got copies.
;-)
At least, that's what CNN said
Rabin was the Prime Minister of Israel in the early 90s and made many serious moves toward creating peace in the middle east. He was so serious that he was eventually assassinated by an Israeli extremist. His death de-railed the peace process. Whether or not it is finally getting back on track....we'll never know.
I think that is the part that freaks me out most of the movie. What would cause a young, strong, able bodied man to stand in the corner like a child while his companion is killed.
All of the answers are pretty disturbing.
Burkittsville, like any place has quite a few local legends, though most seem related to the Civil War. However, everything about the Blair Witch Project is fiction. There wasn't even a township of Blair.
The directors should receive major kudos for the job they did.
The iMac runs the G3, which is the decendent of the 603. If I remember correctly, the 603 chip was designed as a "consumer level" chip, and therefore isn't designed to do anything much beyond single-processor stuff.
:-)
I didn't bother reading the report (Postscript..no printer happy...too lazy to use a reader), but I would suspect that the 604 would yield much better results. The 604 was made to be a more versitile "industrial" strength processor and therefore includes many features that are absent on the 603. The G4, which is supposed to ship before too long, is a decendent of the 604, and likewise may yield better results than the G3.
Then again, I could be on crack and be completely wrong....since I didn't read the report. So if I am wrong, please correct me kindly
I don't think you're taking Dr. Anderson's comments properly.
Dr. Anderson caught some people cheating. The majority of those people were running Linux/Unix computers.
This is a fact. You may not like that fact, but it is a fact nevertheless. Dr. Anderson wasn't launching an attack on anyone -- he was simply stating a fact: Most of the cheaters are coming from Linux/Unix circles.
The only way one could find that **fact** offensive is if s/he believed that Dr. Anderson was lying...but since we have very little evidence to support that notion (and indeed, a great deal of evidence to the contrary), it had best be discarded right here and right now.
Next, Dr. Anderson offers a brief explanation for that fact, as scientists tend to do. His explaination: It must be the hacker mentality amongst that camp.
NOTE: Dr. Anderson did not say that all Linux/Unix users were dishonest....he did not make any blanket statements that all Linux/Unix users were causing any problems.
He simply observed that most of the cheating is coming from some (NOT ALL) Linux/Unix users because most of the people who use that platform like to explore code, discover how programs work, etc etc etc. In other words, he's saying Linux/Unix users are hackers of some sort (a pretty well-founded statement, if you properly interpret the word 'hacker')...and really, it would take a hacker-type to figure out how to fool their computers. Indeed, if you interpret the term hacker properly (as Dr. Anderson most likely does, given his background in Computer Science), then really Dr. Anderson is paying a complement to the Linux/Unix community, saying that the community has a large concentration of individuals who have the know-how to do such a thing.
So, a more realistic "real world" interpretation of Dr. Anderson's comments would be:
"I'm late to class because I got mugged in a seedy part of town by some African-Americans [NOTE: Statement of fact]. They probably mugged me because they needed my money [NOTE: Observation based on the fact that most people living in a seedy part of town probably don't have a lot of money]."
There's nothing too inflamatory about that...and chances are that if someone did take offense those statements, most of us would roll our eyes and say "whatever."
So, if you're offended by Dr. Anderson's comments, get over it. He doesn't have a vendetta against you. He's not thinking that you're cheating. He's not making any derogatory statements about the Linux/Unix community. Chances are that many of the people on the SETI@Home team are a part of the Linux/Unix community (someone had to code that app, and it did come out first). Stop trying to be a martyr.
He's simply saying that most of the cheaters are running Linux/Unix (a factual statement) and then says that it's probably because (in essence) most Linux/Unix users have the skills necessary to do such a thing.
Perhaps a more appropriate response to Dr. Anderson's comments would be tracking down those people who are cheating and giving them a heavy handed smack down (verbally, of course). Imagine how much it would suck if we missed a block containing a stray extraterrestial transmission, because some dorkface downloaded the block, dumped it and sent a "done" message back to the server.
I'm not sure if the NSA has the gargantuan amounts of processing power that some people seem to think they do.
However, given that the NSA has a track record for being ahead of the academic field of cryptography (ie. they discovered linear(??) cryptanalysis many years before the academic world did)...it would not be entirely unreasonable to claim that they developed a machine similar to Deep Crack before EFF did.
Now, if I remember correctly, Deep Crack is optimized for DES, which in itself is optimized for hardware. I'm not sure how applicable this technology would be to other algorithms, but that's a side issue.
While some of the paranoia about the NSA is certainly unwarrented (NSA != God), it's not unreasonable to believe that they are a few steps ahead of the rest of the world in cryptography.
Don't get too carried away. Some of those are subsets or supersets of other groups. I know committed Christians who are hard-core scientists, just as I know atheists, deists, etc who are hard-core scientists as well. If by saying scientists, you mean people who believe that the ultimate hope of humanity lies in scientific understanding, I would say that that would fall under the category of Secular Humanism, which likewise, would probably fall under the category of some form of atheism, deism or agnosticism.
Maxism probably is the same way as well, being a superset or subset of something else.
Just a thought
-T
Don't get too carried away. Some of those are subsets or supersets of other groups. I know committed Christians who are hard-core scientists, just as I know atheists, deists, etc who are hard-core scientists as well. If by saying scientists, you mean people who believe that the ultimate hope of humanity lies in scientific understanding, I would say that that would fall under the category of Secular Humanism, which likewise, would probably fall under the category of some form of atheism, deism or agnosticism.
Maxism probably falls under the same category.
Just a thought
-T
I do want to point something out. First, a few disclaimers:
1. I'm extraordinarily undecided on the abortion issue.
2. Hence, I'm not advocating any stance - we just aren't going to go there
3. As a Christian, I have serious issues with some of the tactics used by many of the more visible anti-abortion demonstrators. Not only are several of their more peaceful tactics insufficiently redemptive, but their more violent tactics are absolutely unacceptable.
With that said, it seems that you have a few misconceptions about the mindset of many people who adhere to the pro-life (or as you put it, anti-choice) view. Pro-lifers don't necessarily want to force their view on other people. They don't think, "Hey, I want to make these other people believe exactly what I do."....or at least, you don't have to think that to adhere to the pro-life view.
At the crux of this debate is this question: When does a mass of undifferentiated cells become a human being? People who uphold the pro-life view believe, for whatever reason, that it happens at conception. Therefore, as soon as that sperm and egg unite, you have a person. The logical conclusion of this belief is that abortion essentially amounts to murder. Thus, pro-lifers believe that since abortion is murder, and murder is wrong, they have a moral obligation to do what they can to stop it.
So, it's not necessarily about going on a power trip and imposing your views on other. It can also be about simply being true to one's own morality... believing that a fetus is a human being, and thus acting on that belief to try to preserve human life. It is essentially no different than trying to stop someone who believes that black people really aren't human beings.
Now, you can disagree with the first belief (that a human being is made at conception), and that's your right (really, no single belief on that subject is really more or less arbitrary than another). But understand that whatever a person's views are on that, the consequences with regard to abortion are unavoidable. Thus, we ought to understand that any one person's actions with regard to this subject is most likely a result of the moral obligation they feel as a result of that first belief, and not necessarily a desire to impose one's will on others.
Now, this DOES NOT excuse the actions of those who perpetuate violence, hostility, anger and general nastiness towards people in the pro-choice camp... nor does it excuse similar actions, the other way. However, it does help us to understand people better, and see them more as human beings, and not inhumane monsters. And once we do that, we can stop name calling and labelling, and start dealing with the difficult, heart wrenching questions that riddle every side of this topic, and find CONSTRUCTIVE ways of act out our moral impulses.
We humans are far too ready to name call and far too hesistant to dialogue, share and search together.
Once again, I just want to point out that I AM NOT ADVOCATING THE PRO-LIFE VIEW...I have just as many problems with pro-life as pro-choice...I'm simply pointing out the thought processes that many pro-lifers go through, in an effort that a pro-choicers will read it, think, "Well, I could see how someone could think that" and arrive at the better understanding of another human being.
But do not forget that logic is a human creation, designed by people trying to understand the world around us. Appropriately, it is subject to all appropriate pitfalls (problems with infinity, timelessness, etc).
Apple sues other companies that try to clone or duplicate their work, but somehow it's allright when they steal?
Apple had nothing to do with VGS, outside of blessing it as a major boost for the Mac platform. VGS was created by Connectix, a completely different company.
Never forget that, in the end, a computer is just a dumb piece of plastic, and while snuggling with it may keep you warm at night, somehow, it's just not the same :-)
Keep an open mind......as long as the source is released, time will tell whether or not the code is secure. Whether it is or not though, this is a large accomplishment, and she should be allowed that accomplishment. Loosen up a little bit...it's almost like some people don't want her (and people like her) to succeed. If she tries selling anything, then it's time to pull out the criticism, esp. if the algorithm hasn't been published. But right now, she just wrote it an entered it into the contest. Go easy on her for a little while.
To address your points:
1. RSA is a very slow cipher. It would probably take 30 minutes to encrypt an e-mail with RSA. Most encryption packages that use RSA end up encrypting the actual message data with a conventional cipher and a randomly generated key, and then use RSA to encrypt just the key. So, the statement in the news article is accurate, though the reporter probably didn't have the background to put that statement in its proper context.
2. Don't forget the math underpinnings of cryptography. It is very posssible to make proofs about the mathematics of an encryption algorithm... especially proofs about how secure an algorithm is IN COMPARISON to other algorithms. Chances are, she proved that a mathematical attack on her algorithm is as difficult as a mathematical attack on RSA (which is factoring the modulus). Of course, the question remains (as with every algorithm including RSA) as to whether or not there is an easier mathematical attack that the author has not yet considered...and only time will tell that for this (and all other) algorithms
3. The article mentioned her as being ill. Maybe she couldn't interview.
You do raise some good points, and it could be that merely keeping up-to-date will make us less replacable than we may otherwise be, but I still have some reservations.
:-)
It's not necessarily that young = smart, but one has to admit that an 8-year-old will tend to acquire technical know-how faster than a 30-year-old. Young people just learn faster than older people do.
Well, as time goes on, you will have young people learning more and more advanced technology and a rate much faster than their older counterparts....if for no other reason than the older counterparts tend to have more home responsibilities and cannot devote every waking moment to computers. So, in 10 years, younger people will be entering the work force who could very well have a greater proficiency with a technology than their older counterparts, simply because they grew up with it and had more time to devote to it.
But I don't think it even has to be an issue of highly skilled young people entering the job market. I think that mere market saturation (ultimately because of the personal computer), without regard to proficiency, is enough to make techie people replacable.
Sure, 55-year-old Gill has been a good worker,and he's a smart guy, but we could pull a 23-year-old techno-saavy person off the street (will soon be possible, if not already possible), pay them half of Gill's salary and train them. Sure, experience is important, but not as important to every company as the bottom line.
Just some thoughts
Troy
Let me send out a disclaimer here: The following post contains vast generalizations, and there certainly are expections. I know this. But nevertheless, I think that what I'm about to say also has a great deal of validity.
:-)
While the book Katz reviews may or may not be an accurate summary of the corporate situation today, it does paint a picture of what could be before long, especially as we 20-somethings become 40-somethings.
When the computer was a new toy, 'techie' people were very special, because it took lots of ingenuity and know-how to make computers go. As a result, technie people were courted, schmoozed, and treated very well, because they were special. You couldn't just pull any guy off of the street to do a techie job.
Then the personal computer happened. With the advent of the personal computer, literally anyone with some spare time and determination could become a 'techie type.' This is a wonderful, empowering thing. The largest reason why I'm proficient with computers is that I was raised with a computer in my house.
But there is one side effect to this - because of the personal computer, more and more techie people are entering the job market, and this trend can only continue and increase. Indeed, by the time I'm 40, I fully expect hordes of young punks to enter the job market knowing more about computers than I will ever know (and that's with me keeping up to date).
And as more and more techno-minded people go out into the workforce, they'll become more and more replacable. Already, to some degree, you can pull someone [young] off of the street and give them a techie job. That saturation of techie people can only increase, and as they become more and more replacable, they'll have to endure harder and harder working conditions, and be treated less and less like people and more and more like cogs. Inevitably, people in techie position will suffer all of the worst parts of capitalism that 'replacable' factory workers have endured for years.
Call me a pinko commie, but under capitalism, as soon as someone is regarded as replacable, they repeatedly get bent over, because they are replacable. Sure, there are good companies that treat people well and don't exploit them, but there are also lots of bad ones.
I'm not so sure if such is the situation now, especially in light of the insanely high demand for techie people in the work force. However, I do see a situation like this evolving in no more than 20 years...maybe even 10. As future generations become more techno-saavy and enter the job market, technical positions will become more exploited and less secure.
Then again, I could be completely on crack, but I don't think so.
Troy
PS. Any typos are really artistic alternate representations of words and sentances.