Hell, God *could* exist and *could* have intelligently designed the universe. It's highly unlikely, but not impossible.
Just like God's existence in unprovable, and Him having intelligently designed (or created) the universe is unprovable, the likelihood of those items is unknown. Until such time as He decides to settle the matter, anyway. But until then, the probability is somewhere between 0 and 1.
(and seeing how Christians worship images and symbols of Christ, and icons of saints, it makes some sense)
This was actually brought in by Catholicism, which is only a (very large) subset of Christianity. The list of differences between Christianity and Judaism (which also prohibits icons and idols) generally fall into that category. With the key exception of Jesus Christ being the Messiah, of course.
Or... You could install as normal, go into the LinkScanner options, disable it, go back to the main window, right-click on the LinkScanner icon, and select "Ignore Component State". Sounds a lot easier. On that note, I've already done this on mine.
What's an AutoCAD? Anyone who knows anything about CAD/CAM is going to have a clue what AutoCAD is for - the last three letters in the name sort of gives it away. The fact that it is the de facto standard has little bearing on that. Now, if you had said, "What's an Inventor?" I would have had to agree.
You mean to say the rest of the world can't keep up? Poor choice of words. When the key criteria was "keeping up", the (US) martian probe linked elsewhere failed miserably due to just this problem.
If you can't do (x-32)*5/9 in your head, what kind of nerd are you? Likewise if you don't know the (generally useless) formula. And if the problem is that the formula is generally useless, again, what kind of nerd are you?
Just kidding.
Now for my favorite amusing temperature anecdote. A teacher tells his students that the temperature of the surface of the sun is about 6000 degrees. One of the kids asks "Celsius or Kelvin?" The teacher replies, "It doesn't matter!"
Nope, my double bed is Southern Yellow Pine. Sure, it's laminated, but that isn't a problem for me - most glued joints nowadays are stronger than the wood. Ikea also sells solid wood dressers, although they tend to sell more pine than oak, which is not always a bad thing. And you're assuming that I don't care enough to select against buying crap. Not that all engineered wood products are crap, but this is generally the case in furniture. Oh, and typing in 'solid wood' in their search page yields this. In minutes I found a handful of sizable items that are solid wood with the exception of large panels that were not structural in concealed locations (one of those places where engineered wood is more economical and less problematic than solid wood). The typical ones are fiber board and plywood.
NCLB isn't the problem. The problem is school systems who game the system. They divert money and attention from where it should be.
It is the nature of systems to be gamed. The trick is to make the system in such a way that 'gaming' it gets you the desired results. I'll give a couple examples. I lived in an area where the property taxes were based on the resale value of your home. What this meant was that if I improved my home, property taxes went up. If a number of people in a neighbourhood improved their home, it would go up for everyone! Likewise, if I didn't maintain my home, the resale value (and the taxes) would drop. Ultimately, this leads to an incentive to turn your neighbourhood into a slum. Another property tax system I heard of taxes you based on the property value of the land - my palace has the same property tax as the vacant lot next to it. This gives me no incentive to not improve my house, and even has tax benefits to have a nice house in a somewhat poorer area. Sure, the taxes will go up if all my neighbours start improving their homes, but our houses will be worth much more, too. It would also give you an incentive to improve poorer property because you don't want to keep paying high taxes on a property that can't support it. This ultimately provides an incentive against turning a neighbourhood into a slum. This also applies to the differences between capitalism and communism. Communism provides incentives against greed and for laziness while capitalism provides incentives for greed and against laziness. In communism, your are rewarded about the same no matter how much (or little!) you put in. In capitalism, you can starve or work, and if you work hard, you get more goodies. (Note that I'm not saying that communism doesn't work, especially in small, carefully selected groups.)
So what we need for education is a 'game plan' that actually provides incentive for achieving our goals, not some incidentals that may or may not be related to them. Well, we have a bunch of very smart people here - let's see if we can come up with some incentives that would guide us to the goal of academic excellence. Remember, this is high-level - the results we want to see, not how we get there.
We need to accept that people are academically different - not everyone is going to excel in any given class.
We want people to maximize their academic abilities - either maintain or improve their current academic standards.
Given those two statements, it seems that NCLB fails both - it doesn't matter if gifted students underachieve, and it's okay if everyone meets the standards. I'd say that a relatively simple metric for achieving the goals listed above would be to track each student. As long as a student's academic standing isn't dropping year-to-year, you're doing okay. If they are, that's a problem. And if they're improving, that's a good thing. Here's some of the benefits I see to doing this. If we track year-over-year, there's no incentive to have the kids do poorly at the beginning of the year - that would be an indicator of gaming the system. Any kids that has potential to improve would be beneficial for the teacher to pay attention to - their grades might go up. It's also wise to keep paying attention to the kids who are neither struggling nor unchallenged - if they're neglected, their grades might slip, which would be bad. There would seem to be an indicator there to have kids of a similar academic ability in the same class, to maximize the teacher's ability to maintain their grades as effectively as possible. There would also seem to be an indicator to have classes for those who are disinclined to perform well, because anyone who has potential can be turned into a success for the school. Basically, classes geared towards raising their interest, or overcoming whatever challenges they're facing. I don't see an indicator there for helping the high achievers too much, because they already can't improv
Biomass is a nice thought, but you get back to the food supply and other effects. Wood chips? Watch the price of particulate board matter of all sorts (the sort likely most of your furniture is made of, especially if it came from Ikea) jack through the roof. Much of the rest is fed to animals or composted to create fertilizer in order to grow more food, which means you'll decrease crop yields and jack food prices up again. We have a ready source of biomass in all major cities in the world, which is generally not used for fertilizing food. It's called sewage, it's expensive to treat, and it's a good source of nutrients for algae. If algae biofuel becomes economical in mass production, every sewage treatment plant would be remiss to ignore this potential profit centre and sewage treatment option.
And all the furniture I buy from Ikea is solid wood.
Most of the land line suggestions in that article don't seem to bother with taking care of the noticeable voltage drop caused by adding an extra phone to a call. You can tell when somebody else in your house picks up the phone while you're on it because the person on the other end gets quieter. The same thing would happen if you plugged a phone into the line outside your house. I thought professional surveillance systems did something to make up for this, so there's no noticeable change in volume when the wiretapper starts listening. I've found that when sharing a phone call with someone (two of us on different phones in the house) that if you held down the mute button, the volume drop pretty much went away. It's worked for me as recently as a year or so ago. With some connections, it's the only thing that makes it possible for either person on the shared line to hear the conversation well.
Indeed. I don't have a big problem with someone being penalised for violating a court order, as that's what courts are for -- to put their foot down w.r.t. interpreting the law; then if someone violates that interpretation, it's again the courts' job to tell them off. This is valid so long as the law is moral or constitutionally valid. Just blindly following the law because it's the law is how atrocities occur. Remember, it was against the law for Gandhi to evaporate sea water to make salt. And I personally have to question whether a temporary gag order (a violation of rights in most peoples' minds) should last for 3 years.
Again, I don't agree with you, and I see benefits for having a certification logo with one or more levels of compatibility, but I doubt either of us are going to change the other's mind. I'm even more than willing to admit I could be wrong. OTOH, this discussion has made me more interested in researching Wine, so it's still a good thing.
These researchers found a correlation, and made a further testable (falsifiable) hypothesis based on it. That's science. Only idiots who tag stories like this with correlationisnotcausation think science is causation studies. It's not. Moreover, it's an easily identified indicator of whether or not someone is going to be an idiot on the road, and I can stay the hell away from them. If it was as easy to identify drunks on the road, I'd be happy about that, too.
And of course such a program would be pointless anyway. If 'Designed For Windows' apps don't work under Wine then Wine itself has failed its objective.
I disagree. What that would mean is that software producers have tested against the platform, and certified it as a working alternative. That would be a level of awareness that has yet to be seen. It's also no different than having both XP and Vista, or only one, listed on the box. And that's besides the publicity that Wine would get.
That's similar to where I am. I have XP on my home desktop, got Pro because I like the additional features. I wasn't happy when XP came out, but SP1 solved a lot of it's ills (remember defragging your HDD before SP1? You do if you tried). But things got fixed, hardware got faster, and about a year after it came out I was reluctant but willing to make the switch. I still don't like how they redesign the management tools every version, but overall I got used to it, and even like it.
Now, I look at Vista, and it's pretty. I like pretty, but I like pretty stable even more. I don't need to wait for candy to be drawn on my screen (except when I'm playing games, and it still better be quick!), I don't need a bunch of stuff moved around, I don't care much for transparency (I can't read like that anyway), and as a developer, I'm frustrated with yet another set of widgets that I probably won't get built into the developer tools anyway. Also, I find that hardware increases just don't feel as dramatic anymore, even though I haven't heard about Moore's Law no longer holding in the hardware world.
In the end, I figure I'll be taking that upgrade to Vista, probably on my next machine, perhaps earlier. Or, if I have two boxes (or more! *drools*), I'll seriously look at Linux for my work computer, and keep my current one for my play computer. But right now, the only thing really keeping me using Windows is some of the Windows-only games that I love, and work that I have to do for the Windows world.
Are you kidding? If they can make oil using an alternate technology for cheaper than they can get oil out of the ground then there is every benefit. They could _bury_ the competition!
1. Discover alternate technology 2. Sell off existing oil assets while the alternate technology is unknown 3. Pay politicians (using funds from step 2) to outlaw the use of crude oil extracted from the ground. 4. Profit! If the product is cheaper than pumping oil out of the ground, why bother with step 3?
Or, equally possible, people with a high level of emotional attachment to something that doesn't actually identify them tend to fight over things that just don't matter enough to justify the time. Compounded with the fact that women tend to be more emotionally driven than men, and this can be a problem. Although I've seen men who fall into this category, too. In most traditional professional circumstances (read: work for hire), it doesn't benefit anyone for you to be too emotionally attached to your code.
There will be a meeting followed by a handout of the new rules about how all men must grovel a sufficient amount everyday to be allowed in the room with women's amazing wonderfulness. Ah, I see you've met my ex.
So, obviously, Mr. "She's not doing her job" you are just a supporter of the white male patriarchy, since you hate women and want them all to be barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen. Not only want it, and not only willing to do my part, but willing to do the part of multiple men to make this happen.
P.S. If you're taking my comments seriously, it's already too late for you.
My lab partner was a girl (probably only 10% of the class was female) who really, really thought differently than me in a way. It was weird -- some of the things I thought were impossible or not worth doing she would code in 10 hours; and the reverse was true. I had a similar, though opposite, experience. I worked with a woman who coded extremely similar to me. In fact, if I looked at code that had been written over a year ago, I sometimes couldn't be sure if it was her code or mine. I don't remember if she commented better or worse than me, but the coding was incredibly similar. There was more than one time where I would say something along the lines of, "If I didn't write it, it's how I would have written it," or "I'm pretty sure it was me or her who wrote that code."
For a year's salary, I'd shoot a lawyer in the back of the head, cut them up, pour concrete over them, and toss them off a bridge. See, the thing is, there are people who would be happy to do that for free. Yet another business model shot down in flames by the open source movement.
Slashdot Mirror
Whoever the incumbent is, regardless of your party affiliation, vote for the other candidate.
Homer: Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos.
I could care less...
Just how much less could you care? I, on the other hand, couldn't care less, not even a little.
Okay, I'm tired, so sue me.
Hell, God *could* exist and *could* have intelligently designed the universe. It's highly unlikely, but not impossible.
Just like God's existence in unprovable, and Him having intelligently designed (or created) the universe is unprovable, the likelihood of those items is unknown. Until such time as He decides to settle the matter, anyway. But until then, the probability is somewhere between 0 and 1.
(and seeing how Christians worship images and symbols of Christ, and icons of saints, it makes some sense)
This was actually brought in by Catholicism, which is only a (very large) subset of Christianity. The list of differences between Christianity and Judaism (which also prohibits icons and idols) generally fall into that category. With the key exception of Jesus Christ being the Messiah, of course.
Wow, modded "laughing at you, not laughing with you". That's gotta hurt.
Given that I'm a free user, I would disagree. In fact, I still get the nag message to upgrade to the paid-for version.
Or...
You could install as normal, go into the LinkScanner options, disable it, go back to the main window, right-click on the LinkScanner icon, and select "Ignore Component State". Sounds a lot easier.
On that note, I've already done this on mine.
Now, if you had said, "What's an Inventor?" I would have had to agree.
If you can't do (x-32)*5/9 in your head, what kind of nerd are you? Likewise if you don't know the (generally useless) formula. And if the problem is that the formula is generally useless, again, what kind of nerd are you?
Just kidding.
Now for my favorite amusing temperature anecdote. A teacher tells his students that the temperature of the surface of the sun is about 6000 degrees. One of the kids asks "Celsius or Kelvin?" The teacher replies, "It doesn't matter!"
Nope, my double bed is Southern Yellow Pine. Sure, it's laminated, but that isn't a problem for me - most glued joints nowadays are stronger than the wood.
Ikea also sells solid wood dressers, although they tend to sell more pine than oak, which is not always a bad thing.
And you're assuming that I don't care enough to select against buying crap. Not that all engineered wood products are crap, but this is generally the case in furniture.
Oh, and typing in 'solid wood' in their search page yields this. In minutes I found a handful of sizable items that are solid wood with the exception of large panels that were not structural in concealed locations (one of those places where engineered wood is more economical and less problematic than solid wood). The typical ones are fiber board and plywood.
NCLB isn't the problem. The problem is school systems who game the system. They divert money and attention from where it should be.
It is the nature of systems to be gamed. The trick is to make the system in such a way that 'gaming' it gets you the desired results. I'll give a couple examples.
I lived in an area where the property taxes were based on the resale value of your home. What this meant was that if I improved my home, property taxes went up. If a number of people in a neighbourhood improved their home, it would go up for everyone! Likewise, if I didn't maintain my home, the resale value (and the taxes) would drop. Ultimately, this leads to an incentive to turn your neighbourhood into a slum.
Another property tax system I heard of taxes you based on the property value of the land - my palace has the same property tax as the vacant lot next to it. This gives me no incentive to not improve my house, and even has tax benefits to have a nice house in a somewhat poorer area. Sure, the taxes will go up if all my neighbours start improving their homes, but our houses will be worth much more, too. It would also give you an incentive to improve poorer property because you don't want to keep paying high taxes on a property that can't support it. This ultimately provides an incentive against turning a neighbourhood into a slum.
This also applies to the differences between capitalism and communism. Communism provides incentives against greed and for laziness while capitalism provides incentives for greed and against laziness. In communism, your are rewarded about the same no matter how much (or little!) you put in. In capitalism, you can starve or work, and if you work hard, you get more goodies. (Note that I'm not saying that communism doesn't work, especially in small, carefully selected groups.)
So what we need for education is a 'game plan' that actually provides incentive for achieving our goals, not some incidentals that may or may not be related to them. Well, we have a bunch of very smart people here - let's see if we can come up with some incentives that would guide us to the goal of academic excellence. Remember, this is high-level - the results we want to see, not how we get there.
Given those two statements, it seems that NCLB fails both - it doesn't matter if gifted students underachieve, and it's okay if everyone meets the standards.
I'd say that a relatively simple metric for achieving the goals listed above would be to track each student. As long as a student's academic standing isn't dropping year-to-year, you're doing okay. If they are, that's a problem. And if they're improving, that's a good thing.
Here's some of the benefits I see to doing this.
If we track year-over-year, there's no incentive to have the kids do poorly at the beginning of the year - that would be an indicator of gaming the system.
Any kids that has potential to improve would be beneficial for the teacher to pay attention to - their grades might go up. It's also wise to keep paying attention to the kids who are neither struggling nor unchallenged - if they're neglected, their grades might slip, which would be bad.
There would seem to be an indicator there to have kids of a similar academic ability in the same class, to maximize the teacher's ability to maintain their grades as effectively as possible.
There would also seem to be an indicator to have classes for those who are disinclined to perform well, because anyone who has potential can be turned into a success for the school. Basically, classes geared towards raising their interest, or overcoming whatever challenges they're facing.
I don't see an indicator there for helping the high achievers too much, because they already can't improv
And all the furniture I buy from Ikea is solid wood.
Remember, it was against the law for Gandhi to evaporate sea water to make salt. And I personally have to question whether a temporary gag order (a violation of rights in most peoples' minds) should last for 3 years.
Again, I don't agree with you, and I see benefits for having a certification logo with one or more levels of compatibility, but I doubt either of us are going to change the other's mind. I'm even more than willing to admit I could be wrong. OTOH, this discussion has made me more interested in researching Wine, so it's still a good thing.
And of course such a program would be pointless anyway. If 'Designed For Windows' apps don't work under Wine then Wine itself has failed its objective.
I disagree. What that would mean is that software producers have tested against the platform, and certified it as a working alternative. That would be a level of awareness that has yet to be seen. It's also no different than having both XP and Vista, or only one, listed on the box. And that's besides the publicity that Wine would get.That's similar to where I am. I have XP on my home desktop, got Pro because I like the additional features. I wasn't happy when XP came out, but SP1 solved a lot of it's ills (remember defragging your HDD before SP1? You do if you tried). But things got fixed, hardware got faster, and about a year after it came out I was reluctant but willing to make the switch. I still don't like how they redesign the management tools every version, but overall I got used to it, and even like it.
Now, I look at Vista, and it's pretty. I like pretty, but I like pretty stable even more. I don't need to wait for candy to be drawn on my screen (except when I'm playing games, and it still better be quick!), I don't need a bunch of stuff moved around, I don't care much for transparency (I can't read like that anyway), and as a developer, I'm frustrated with yet another set of widgets that I probably won't get built into the developer tools anyway. Also, I find that hardware increases just don't feel as dramatic anymore, even though I haven't heard about Moore's Law no longer holding in the hardware world.
In the end, I figure I'll be taking that upgrade to Vista, probably on my next machine, perhaps earlier. Or, if I have two boxes (or more! *drools*), I'll seriously look at Linux for my work computer, and keep my current one for my play computer. But right now, the only thing really keeping me using Windows is some of the Windows-only games that I love, and work that I have to do for the Windows world.
1. Discover alternate technology
2. Sell off existing oil assets while the alternate technology is unknown
3. Pay politicians (using funds from step 2) to outlaw the use of crude oil extracted from the ground.
4. Profit! If the product is cheaper than pumping oil out of the ground, why bother with step 3?
Or, equally possible, people with a high level of emotional attachment to something that doesn't actually identify them tend to fight over things that just don't matter enough to justify the time. Compounded with the fact that women tend to be more emotionally driven than men, and this can be a problem. Although I've seen men who fall into this category, too.
In most traditional professional circumstances (read: work for hire), it doesn't benefit anyone for you to be too emotionally attached to your code.
P.S. If you're taking my comments seriously, it's already too late for you.