It's dumb to talk about "adding more requirements" to a high school education in America. Requirements for what? Graduation? If you tell a student that he can't graduate high school without learning advanced mathematics that he'll never use in his daily life, you'll just end up with fewer high school graduates, not more educated ones.
K-12 education is compulsory in most states. Until the 12th grade, a low-achieving kid has been forced to be in school. Now you're saying you're going to force him to learn, too? I don't think so. Once that student turns 18, legally there is not a damn thing you can do to keep him in the classroom.
One side effect of all the emphasis on college education these days is that the message to high school students is that a high school diploma is meaningless and only a college degree gives you any advantage in the workforce. So if you're a student who isn't planning to go to college, why would you bother with a high school diploma? It's worthless, right? Especially if the required coursework includes college preparatory classes like Algebra 2 -- a kid who is not college-bound but is held back at age 18 when all of his friends are graduating is going to walk away, and in his mind it will just be good riddance to high school.
On the other hand, for college-bound students, Algebra II is a requirement anyway. It's a requirement because it's a prerequisite for other college courses. Every kid knows this, and the ones who want to get into those courses as soon as possible start signing up for the prerequisites in high school. If they don't do well at them in high school, they can usually re-take them at the college level (and they will, if they want to advance). It's all built into the education system; we don't need any artificial "requirements" at the high school level.
And consider this: In the State of California at least, you do not need a high school diploma to enter the community college program. Let me repeat: There is no prerequisite to enrolling in a community college program other than that you be 18 years of age. So let's say you're a college-bound high school senior who has not yet passed the Algebra II requirement. Are you going to hang around high school for another year, re-taking Algebra II when you've passed all of your other classes? Of course not. You'd enroll in community college and re-take Algebra II while you continue your education, not waste time hanging around an education system that's basically designed to babysit teenagers.
If our math courses usually went up to Trig, did our Algebra course likely cover most of this 'algebra II'?
Yes. At my school the class was just called Advanced Algebra. Typically it introduces concepts like solving systems of equations, more complex graphing topics such as graphing ellipses, matrices, maybe conic sections... stuff like that. It's normally a prerequisite for Trigonometry classes.
Agreed. I didn't even realize it wasn't required to begin with -- I though Algebra III and/or Pre-Calc were the optional bits.
There seems to be some confusion of terms here, as my high school did not have any Algebra III class, and if you took the Algebra II/Trigonometry series, that was "Pre-Calculus"; there was no other required class before you could go directly into Calculus. Even at my local community college, Pre-Calculus is a refresher class for people who don't feel confident enough about the core algebra/trig concepts to move on to Calculus (perhaps because they're adults and it's been a while since they had math in school).
That said, I'm in full support of requiring Algebra II in high school. I think continuously pushing students is a great learning technique
I'm not sure I agree. In my experience, the kids who succeed in higher math in high school were the ones who were challenged by earlier classes but rewarded for their successes, which inspired them to keep going on to still more challenging classes. If you go around "pushing" students, pretty soon you'll find you're dragging them instead. Resentment sets in, then defiance, and you've pretty much switched off any part of their brains that enjoyed the process of education.
I have not taken a GCSE Maths test, so I can't really speak to what might actually be on that test. But my impression is that second-year Algebra in the U.S. is a little more in-depth than what is required by the GCSE, as the course is generally taught as a precursor to Calculus. This is one reason why it is not required -- if you have no intention to go on to an education that requires the use of calculus, why should you suffer through the precursors to calculus (which also include a full course on Trigonometry)?
Also, don't sound too smug about the British education system... apparently you don't actually have to know any maths to pass the GCSE Maths test with flying colors.
That would be the street price. The sub would transport high purity (>90%) coke, by the time it gets to the consumer it's usually around 10-15%.
However the authorities always grossly over-estimate the value of a haul. Looks good for their totals, and helps prosecutors secure higher sentences.
I agree with your first point, so in this case it seems like your second point isn't true.
We agree it wouldn't make any sense to smuggle low-purity cocaine using so costly and risky a method. That's going to be nine tons of nearly pure coke.
But by my math, $250 million divided by nine tons comes out to a little less than $31 a gram, or $93 for an eight ball. Of pure cocaine? I don't think so. They could easily step on this shipment five times, still have the best stuff around, and make considerably more than $250 million.
If anything, it sounds like law enforcement is throwing out a number that downplays the amount of money involved in the drug trade.
the US Government in general avoids foreign-built computers out of a strange fear that there might be keyloggoers or similar installed on them at the factory: an idea that many/.ers once dismissed as crazy paranoia, back when Thinkpad shifted to Lenovo.
Thinkpads were being built by Lenovo long before they carried Lenovo's branding on them.
Several of my old philosophy professors discussed never, ever, being accepted for jury duty, for instance. Philosophy is another academic field that teaches critical thought, and independent analysis.
There is some of this, but I suspect being dismissed from a jury is seldom as clear-cut as all that. For example, the last time I was actually sitting in a jury box during the selection process (meaning, if attorneys had no further objections, I would be actually be on the jury for that trial), the district attorney thanked me for my service and dismissed me, without asking me a single question. All she knew about me was that I had no conflicts (I didn't know anyone involved in the case), my occupation (I believe I said "freelance writer"), my age, my race, my gender, and my marital status.
Now, your philosophy professors might assume that it was my profession, which one might assume requires critical thinking, was what turned them off. I doubt that, and your philosophy professors sound like they have a little bit of that academic arrogance themselves. For one thing, a "freelance writer" could be a travel writer, or someone who writes car manuals -- hardly occupations that encourage second-guessing. Rather, my assumption is that it was the last four qualities that excluded me: age, race, gender, and marital status.
Why? Because it was a rape case. A woman was allegedly raped at a local bar. Furthermore, the woman was an admitted part-time prostitute. I strongly suspect that "mid-30s single white professional male" does not read "sympathetic juror" for either side of such a case. People in my age group hang out at bars -- maybe I even hang out at the very bar in question (I have in fact been there, but not regularly). People in my economic class might not be sympathetic to people in lower economic classes. White folks like me might be generally prejudicial toward minorities (and both the accused and the victim might have been minorities). Men of my age and marital status might have different ideas about women than married men do, they're probably more likely than married men to pick up women at bars for sex, and they might also visit prostitutes. That might mean we're misogynists, or it might make us unduly sympathetic to hookers. Why bother to ask? Dismiss me and pick a different juror from the pool.
So you see, the jury selection process is quite complex, and while it certainly isn't perfect, and I'm unlikely to find "people just like me" sitting on my own jury should I ever go to trial, I think for the most part it works pretty well, or as well as can be expected.
All it needs to do is attach itself to Gnome's or KDE's startup folder or.bashrc or.login.
Indeed. From what I've read, Bagle might run under Wine, but only when you run it. Unlike on Windows, it doesn't have any way to make it auto-start after a reboot. To expect a Windows virus to know how to rewrite a.bashrc or.login file on some random version of Linux, which might be running Gnome or might be running KDE, etc., sounds pretty far-fetched.
Kind of sad, though. I mean, are you absolutely certain that you will never stand trial before a jury, for anything? And if not, who would you like to be on that jury?
Me, I honestly don't have a problem with sitting on a jury. Some people treat it like they're being drafted to Vietnam. It's not like that at all (and it happens to me every single year, so I know). It's a pain in the ass, but it's actually pretty interesting, and in the end it's seldom much of a drain on your time. Especially a criminal jury; criminal trials are usually short, and often last just a day or two. You're much more likely to get called for a strong-arm robbery or a drug sales charge than for a murder. (Civil trials, on the other hand, are a totally different matter, and can last months -- I dread the times I'm called for those.)
So to my previous point, fuck's sake -- these people who are on trial for these criminal charges, they're people just like you. A lot of them are scumbag criminals, but some of them didn't even do what they're charged with. This is the essence of our jury system: It's not some elitist racket designed to let people like you dodge being on jury duty. Rather, it's designed so that people like you will sit on juries so that people like you don't go to prison for breaking laws they never broke.
The U.S. has the highest incarceration rate in the world, a massive problem with violent crime, is one of only a handful of developed nations that executes its own citizens, and has a racist prison-industrial complex. Are you seriously suggesting that our legal system is "pretty good"?
None of this has anything to do with the jury system. Jurors are not entitled to decide matters of law. They can only find a defendant guilty or not guilty based on the instructions they are given, which are based on the law as currently written. Only legislators can change the laws, and thus, the instructions juries are given. The "jurors' biases and ignorance," as the GP describes, play no part in any of the social issues you describe.
We need to realize that it's not practical to keep people in the dark and start designing trials to counter this.
Either that, or we need to keep doing what we do now: Expect jurors to act like adults, respect the rule of law, and obey the instructions of the judge. And if they don't, they're dismissed, fined, and the defendant is potentially entitled to a new trial because his defense was poisoned by a misbehaving juror.
So once again, design a new form of trial where jurors' biases and ignorance (which are, of course, society's biases and ignorance) get addressed.
In all the times I've been called as a juror (and it happens every year without fail), I've found the current legal system is actually pretty good at this. Do you have experience otherwise?
Same here. In the City of San Francisco, cell phones and other mobile devices are allowed in the jury assembly room, and they even provide free WiFi, but everything must be switched off once you're inside the courtroom.
But in real life, all you have to say to be disqualified from a juror role is that you can't stand any type of criminality and that any criminal should be sentenced to death even if he is only suspected of a crime.
When's the last time you sat on a jury? I once saw a guy try to pull the old "I hate all niggers" routine, which is only slightly more obvious than what you suggest. The judge asked him whether he wouldn't be able to put aside his preconceptions and evaluate the case fairly. He said no he would not. The judge reminded him of his obligations as a juror. He persisted with his tactic -- which, no doubt, the judge had seen a hundred times before. The judge ended up holding him in contempt of court.
First question to ask yourself is: What does your wife want to do with her Windows laptop?
Does she carry it around a lot? Take it to the gym in her purse? Look for models with smaller screens that are lightweight.
How much does she use it while she's on the go? If the answer is "a lot," then maybe you want to look for models with features designed to wring the most life out of the battery, which includes LED backlit screens and solid-state drives.
Does she like to play CDs and DVDs on her computer? Make sure it's got an optical drive, then (which can increase size and weight).
What applications does she use? Do they use a lot of RAM? Does she keep all her data on her laptop hard drive? Make sure she has enough RAM and storage (or make sure it's upgradeable).
Does she pretty much leave it sitting at home all day like a desktop? Maybe she wants a model with a bigger screen, and maybe battery life isn't important.
Does she do a lot of gaming? Look at models marketed to that audience.
There are a bunch more factors you can consider (for example, maybe you're not planning to give Sony any more money). But until we know what your wife wants a Windows laptop for, it's pretty difficult to point you in any specific direction.
BTW, you might want to make sure she's comfortable with Windows 7, too. If all she wants is Windows XP, you might skip the stores and start looking other places (eBay, Craigslist).
It's a dead end because you've inextricably tied yourself to one, and only one vendor. And recognizing this trap for what it is goes a long way in my evaluation of a candidate.
Why? Most people take jobs to make money. If someone got hired at a place that was using Microsoft tools, and now they'd like a shot at a position you're looking to fill, how does that experience make them a less attractive candidate? How were they "trapped"? Most in-the-trenches coders don't get to make the big purchasing decisions; they work with what they're given. I'd be more impressed with someone who can be flexible, adaptable, and inventive than someone who stormed off a job because the boss wanted to use.Net.
This guy says he spends "about half his time" trying to recruit hotshot developers, and then he says something like ".NET is a dandy language." And as for it being "your only choice" on Windows Phone 7 -- does Windows Phone 7 even run.Net? I thought Windows Phone 7 apps were coded in Silverlight and XNA?
This guy sounds like yet another brainless blowhard CEO, nothing more.
Quick obsolescence also makes sense when you're Apple. I'm not saying that's Apple's model, mind you -- I'm just saying, when you're Apple, and your customer's phone becomes obsolete, you can be pretty sure that customer's next phone is also going to come from Apple. Motorola doesn't enjoy anything near that level of brand loyalty, so it should be working a lot harder to keep the customers it already has.
Remember, though, that particularly around "Trial of a Time Lord," the show was beset upon all sides by bad critical response, BBC budget cuts, and other production problems. Also, I think Colin Baker gets sort of a bad rap as the Doctor. They launched him off as an unpredictable, occasionally irrational character that could often be abrasive, but the idea was that he'd change a little over time and settle into a more nuanced performance. Then the costume department gave him that horrible multi-colored coat, the budget got cut, stories got canceled, they messed around with the format (turning it from a half-hour drama into a one-hour show), and any chance for character development basically went out the window.
In hindsight, the years when John Nathan-Turner was the producer of Doctor Who were not the best.
I do not get how many people still rave about Eccleston. I enjoyed his episodes, don't get me wrong. But I just never saw him as the Doctor. At all. People rave about his performance; I thought he was just constantly chewing the scenery throughout the entire thing, really gnawing it into a fine mush. I just could not figure out what kind of personality he was trying to project, for most of the time. One minute the Doctor is all serious, then he's all giggling and babbling with this totally forced, maniacal grin. It seemed like there was nothing in between. If anyone acted like that in real life, their friends would be urging them to seek mental help. The costuming also seemed all wrong to me (a black leather jacket? on the Doctor?). Eccleston certainly seems to have succeeded at what they hired him for -- bringing a lot of attention to the show -- but for me he just did not work.
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It's dumb to talk about "adding more requirements" to a high school education in America. Requirements for what? Graduation? If you tell a student that he can't graduate high school without learning advanced mathematics that he'll never use in his daily life, you'll just end up with fewer high school graduates, not more educated ones.
K-12 education is compulsory in most states. Until the 12th grade, a low-achieving kid has been forced to be in school. Now you're saying you're going to force him to learn, too? I don't think so. Once that student turns 18, legally there is not a damn thing you can do to keep him in the classroom.
One side effect of all the emphasis on college education these days is that the message to high school students is that a high school diploma is meaningless and only a college degree gives you any advantage in the workforce. So if you're a student who isn't planning to go to college, why would you bother with a high school diploma? It's worthless, right? Especially if the required coursework includes college preparatory classes like Algebra 2 -- a kid who is not college-bound but is held back at age 18 when all of his friends are graduating is going to walk away, and in his mind it will just be good riddance to high school.
On the other hand, for college-bound students, Algebra II is a requirement anyway. It's a requirement because it's a prerequisite for other college courses. Every kid knows this, and the ones who want to get into those courses as soon as possible start signing up for the prerequisites in high school. If they don't do well at them in high school, they can usually re-take them at the college level (and they will, if they want to advance). It's all built into the education system; we don't need any artificial "requirements" at the high school level.
And consider this: In the State of California at least, you do not need a high school diploma to enter the community college program. Let me repeat: There is no prerequisite to enrolling in a community college program other than that you be 18 years of age. So let's say you're a college-bound high school senior who has not yet passed the Algebra II requirement. Are you going to hang around high school for another year, re-taking Algebra II when you've passed all of your other classes? Of course not. You'd enroll in community college and re-take Algebra II while you continue your education, not waste time hanging around an education system that's basically designed to babysit teenagers.
If our math courses usually went up to Trig, did our Algebra course likely cover most of this 'algebra II'?
Yes. At my school the class was just called Advanced Algebra. Typically it introduces concepts like solving systems of equations, more complex graphing topics such as graphing ellipses, matrices, maybe conic sections... stuff like that. It's normally a prerequisite for Trigonometry classes.
Agreed. I didn't even realize it wasn't required to begin with -- I though Algebra III and/or Pre-Calc were the optional bits.
There seems to be some confusion of terms here, as my high school did not have any Algebra III class, and if you took the Algebra II/Trigonometry series, that was "Pre-Calculus"; there was no other required class before you could go directly into Calculus. Even at my local community college, Pre-Calculus is a refresher class for people who don't feel confident enough about the core algebra/trig concepts to move on to Calculus (perhaps because they're adults and it's been a while since they had math in school).
That said, I'm in full support of requiring Algebra II in high school. I think continuously pushing students is a great learning technique
I'm not sure I agree. In my experience, the kids who succeed in higher math in high school were the ones who were challenged by earlier classes but rewarded for their successes, which inspired them to keep going on to still more challenging classes. If you go around "pushing" students, pretty soon you'll find you're dragging them instead. Resentment sets in, then defiance, and you've pretty much switched off any part of their brains that enjoyed the process of education.
I have not taken a GCSE Maths test, so I can't really speak to what might actually be on that test. But my impression is that second-year Algebra in the U.S. is a little more in-depth than what is required by the GCSE, as the course is generally taught as a precursor to Calculus. This is one reason why it is not required -- if you have no intention to go on to an education that requires the use of calculus, why should you suffer through the precursors to calculus (which also include a full course on Trigonometry)?
Also, don't sound too smug about the British education system ... apparently you don't actually have to know any maths to pass the GCSE Maths test with flying colors.
At my school, Algebra 2 and Trig were one semester each. If you took them both Junior year, you could take Calculus your senior year.
That would be the street price. The sub would transport high purity (>90%) coke, by the time it gets to the consumer it's usually around 10-15%.
However the authorities always grossly over-estimate the value of a haul. Looks good for their totals, and helps prosecutors secure higher sentences.
I agree with your first point, so in this case it seems like your second point isn't true.
We agree it wouldn't make any sense to smuggle low-purity cocaine using so costly and risky a method. That's going to be nine tons of nearly pure coke.
But by my math, $250 million divided by nine tons comes out to a little less than $31 a gram, or $93 for an eight ball. Of pure cocaine? I don't think so. They could easily step on this shipment five times, still have the best stuff around, and make considerably more than $250 million.
If anything, it sounds like law enforcement is throwing out a number that downplays the amount of money involved in the drug trade.
the US Government in general avoids foreign-built computers out of a strange fear that there might be keyloggoers or similar installed on them at the factory: an idea that many /.ers once dismissed as crazy paranoia, back when Thinkpad shifted to Lenovo.
Thinkpads were being built by Lenovo long before they carried Lenovo's branding on them.
Several of my old philosophy professors discussed never, ever, being accepted for jury duty, for instance. Philosophy is another academic field that teaches critical thought, and independent analysis.
There is some of this, but I suspect being dismissed from a jury is seldom as clear-cut as all that. For example, the last time I was actually sitting in a jury box during the selection process (meaning, if attorneys had no further objections, I would be actually be on the jury for that trial), the district attorney thanked me for my service and dismissed me, without asking me a single question. All she knew about me was that I had no conflicts (I didn't know anyone involved in the case), my occupation (I believe I said "freelance writer"), my age, my race, my gender, and my marital status.
Now, your philosophy professors might assume that it was my profession, which one might assume requires critical thinking, was what turned them off. I doubt that, and your philosophy professors sound like they have a little bit of that academic arrogance themselves. For one thing, a "freelance writer" could be a travel writer, or someone who writes car manuals -- hardly occupations that encourage second-guessing. Rather, my assumption is that it was the last four qualities that excluded me: age, race, gender, and marital status.
Why? Because it was a rape case. A woman was allegedly raped at a local bar. Furthermore, the woman was an admitted part-time prostitute. I strongly suspect that "mid-30s single white professional male" does not read "sympathetic juror" for either side of such a case. People in my age group hang out at bars -- maybe I even hang out at the very bar in question (I have in fact been there, but not regularly). People in my economic class might not be sympathetic to people in lower economic classes. White folks like me might be generally prejudicial toward minorities (and both the accused and the victim might have been minorities). Men of my age and marital status might have different ideas about women than married men do, they're probably more likely than married men to pick up women at bars for sex, and they might also visit prostitutes. That might mean we're misogynists, or it might make us unduly sympathetic to hookers. Why bother to ask? Dismiss me and pick a different juror from the pool.
So you see, the jury selection process is quite complex, and while it certainly isn't perfect, and I'm unlikely to find "people just like me" sitting on my own jury should I ever go to trial, I think for the most part it works pretty well, or as well as can be expected.
Well... that's nice and all, but the cops are always going to say the guy is a scumbag.
All it needs to do is attach itself to Gnome's or KDE's startup folder or .bashrc or .login.
Indeed. From what I've read, Bagle might run under Wine, but only when you run it. Unlike on Windows, it doesn't have any way to make it auto-start after a reboot. To expect a Windows virus to know how to rewrite a .bashrc or .login file on some random version of Linux, which might be running Gnome or might be running KDE, etc., sounds pretty far-fetched.
Kind of sad, though. I mean, are you absolutely certain that you will never stand trial before a jury, for anything? And if not, who would you like to be on that jury?
Me, I honestly don't have a problem with sitting on a jury. Some people treat it like they're being drafted to Vietnam. It's not like that at all (and it happens to me every single year, so I know). It's a pain in the ass, but it's actually pretty interesting, and in the end it's seldom much of a drain on your time. Especially a criminal jury; criminal trials are usually short, and often last just a day or two. You're much more likely to get called for a strong-arm robbery or a drug sales charge than for a murder. (Civil trials, on the other hand, are a totally different matter, and can last months -- I dread the times I'm called for those.)
So to my previous point, fuck's sake -- these people who are on trial for these criminal charges, they're people just like you. A lot of them are scumbag criminals, but some of them didn't even do what they're charged with. This is the essence of our jury system: It's not some elitist racket designed to let people like you dodge being on jury duty. Rather, it's designed so that people like you will sit on juries so that people like you don't go to prison for breaking laws they never broke.
The U.S. has the highest incarceration rate in the world, a massive problem with violent crime, is one of only a handful of developed nations that executes its own citizens, and has a racist prison-industrial complex. Are you seriously suggesting that our legal system is "pretty good"?
None of this has anything to do with the jury system. Jurors are not entitled to decide matters of law. They can only find a defendant guilty or not guilty based on the instructions they are given, which are based on the law as currently written. Only legislators can change the laws, and thus, the instructions juries are given. The "jurors' biases and ignorance," as the GP describes, play no part in any of the social issues you describe.
We need to realize that it's not practical to keep people in the dark and start designing trials to counter this.
Either that, or we need to keep doing what we do now: Expect jurors to act like adults, respect the rule of law, and obey the instructions of the judge. And if they don't, they're dismissed, fined, and the defendant is potentially entitled to a new trial because his defense was poisoned by a misbehaving juror.
So once again, design a new form of trial where jurors' biases and ignorance (which are, of course, society's biases and ignorance) get addressed.
In all the times I've been called as a juror (and it happens every year without fail), I've found the current legal system is actually pretty good at this. Do you have experience otherwise?
Same here. In the City of San Francisco, cell phones and other mobile devices are allowed in the jury assembly room, and they even provide free WiFi, but everything must be switched off once you're inside the courtroom.
But in real life, all you have to say to be disqualified from a juror role is that you can't stand any type of criminality and that any criminal should be sentenced to death even if he is only suspected of a crime.
When's the last time you sat on a jury? I once saw a guy try to pull the old "I hate all niggers" routine, which is only slightly more obvious than what you suggest. The judge asked him whether he wouldn't be able to put aside his preconceptions and evaluate the case fairly. He said no he would not. The judge reminded him of his obligations as a juror. He persisted with his tactic -- which, no doubt, the judge had seen a hundred times before. The judge ended up holding him in contempt of court.
First question to ask yourself is: What does your wife want to do with her Windows laptop?
There are a bunch more factors you can consider (for example, maybe you're not planning to give Sony any more money). But until we know what your wife wants a Windows laptop for, it's pretty difficult to point you in any specific direction.
BTW, you might want to make sure she's comfortable with Windows 7, too. If all she wants is Windows XP, you might skip the stores and start looking other places (eBay, Craigslist).
It's a dead end because you've inextricably tied yourself to one, and only one vendor. And recognizing this trap for what it is goes a long way in my evaluation of a candidate.
Why? Most people take jobs to make money. If someone got hired at a place that was using Microsoft tools, and now they'd like a shot at a position you're looking to fill, how does that experience make them a less attractive candidate? How were they "trapped"? Most in-the-trenches coders don't get to make the big purchasing decisions; they work with what they're given. I'd be more impressed with someone who can be flexible, adaptable, and inventive than someone who stormed off a job because the boss wanted to use .Net.
This guy says he spends "about half his time" trying to recruit hotshot developers, and then he says something like ".NET is a dandy language." And as for it being "your only choice" on Windows Phone 7 -- does Windows Phone 7 even run .Net? I thought Windows Phone 7 apps were coded in Silverlight and XNA?
This guy sounds like yet another brainless blowhard CEO, nothing more.
Quick obsolescence also makes sense when you're Apple. I'm not saying that's Apple's model, mind you -- I'm just saying, when you're Apple, and your customer's phone becomes obsolete, you can be pretty sure that customer's next phone is also going to come from Apple. Motorola doesn't enjoy anything near that level of brand loyalty, so it should be working a lot harder to keep the customers it already has.
You mean "Midnight," not "Twilight."
Remember, though, that particularly around "Trial of a Time Lord," the show was beset upon all sides by bad critical response, BBC budget cuts, and other production problems. Also, I think Colin Baker gets sort of a bad rap as the Doctor. They launched him off as an unpredictable, occasionally irrational character that could often be abrasive, but the idea was that he'd change a little over time and settle into a more nuanced performance. Then the costume department gave him that horrible multi-colored coat, the budget got cut, stories got canceled, they messed around with the format (turning it from a half-hour drama into a one-hour show), and any chance for character development basically went out the window.
In hindsight, the years when John Nathan-Turner was the producer of Doctor Who were not the best.
Avoid Colin Baker and Peter Davidson (especially any with Adric)
But then you'd be cheating yourself out of the deep sense of contentment that comes when the credits roll on the last episode of "Earthshock"!
I do not get how many people still rave about Eccleston. I enjoyed his episodes, don't get me wrong. But I just never saw him as the Doctor. At all. People rave about his performance; I thought he was just constantly chewing the scenery throughout the entire thing, really gnawing it into a fine mush. I just could not figure out what kind of personality he was trying to project, for most of the time. One minute the Doctor is all serious, then he's all giggling and babbling with this totally forced, maniacal grin. It seemed like there was nothing in between. If anyone acted like that in real life, their friends would be urging them to seek mental help. The costuming also seemed all wrong to me (a black leather jacket? on the Doctor?). Eccleston certainly seems to have succeeded at what they hired him for -- bringing a lot of attention to the show -- but for me he just did not work.
But no, what I mean is the gung-ho 'we're US marines, lets do it, roarrr!!!' thing.
Here's a clue for you.