I believe some tickets are 'no refund or reschedule' (by the passenger/not the airline), and others that you pay more for have the flexibility to reschedule if you can't make the flight.
Things happen, 6 months, my employer sent me for training to Chicago from KC. On Friday morning, I felt awful, and decided to go to the hospital, and ended up getting my appendix out, missing my flight home that evening (would have been home before I got to the operating table in Chicago). Sunday morning, I got on another flight without having to pay for an extra ticket because of this option.
The interaction between customers and airlines has lead to the situation we have, and if airlines decide less flexibility is better, then they'll have to deal with customers who prefer the flexible option.
I understand that was how my father preferred to handle baby teething. Just smear a little on the baby's gums, and the pain would subside enough for everybody in the house to get a little sleep.
I think that size is sufficient as a beginning point. Linguistically, you want your word to do one thing to keep things simple. Classify all items by size as asteroids or planets. Where they are, the type of orbit (or lack of one), what they are made of should be a qualifier. Otherwise you have to have a different word for a planet based on where you find it. Orbiting a star = planet, orbiting a planet=moon, beyond the Neptune or not having a clear neighborhood=more classifications and words than we can currently foresee. Yet, scientifically, they all have two common characteristics, shape due to size.
Once you want to add an additional characteristic, you should have new words that tell you about that specific characteristic. Ones in the inner solar system are solar planets, those out in the Kuiper belt or Oort cloud are Kuiper planets and Oort planets, and those out between the stars are interstellar planets. Likewise, an asteroid is an asteroid no matter where it is, and you can add any modifiers you need (asteroid moon or moonroid, solo, irregular, rouge or solar asteroid, belted asteroid, Kuiper asteroid, Oort asteroid, interstellar asteroid, etc.). If you want to talk about composition, then you have gas planets (giant ones if desired), rocky planets, ice planets, diamond planets, silicon, iron or any other crazy combination that comes up.
Then, no matter what, you can describe what something is so that most people can understand. Rocky interstellar planet v. rocky solar planet v. gas solar planet v solar belted asteroid v interstellar belted asteroid etc. Have each word do as little as possible, and add a couple of informative words that convey any additional information instead of combining and making thousands of words that try to do 3 things at a time, which implies needing 8 words to tell the story of things that are different on each of the three parts of the definition of a planet from the 2006 definition.
I like the definition of planet based upon any body of sufficient mass to be round (or nearly so to some mathematical measurement). That is, it is a planet based on size/mass and what it is within itself, and it is what it is no matter where it is (in the inner solar system or floating between stars).
The definition of having cleared it's neighborhood means that when it first formed, Jupiter wasn't a planet because it hadn't had time to clear it's neighborhood, and obviously this would include all of the other planets during formation. At some point, we'll probably find a distant solar system where there are two planets that orbit each other. Since they wouldn't have cleared their orbit of their twin, could they even be considered a planet under the 2006 definition even if they were far more massive than Earth, and even had an earth like eco-system? Would you like to be the astronomer that had to be pedantic an tell journalists that these weren't planets because it's hadn't eliminated it's binary partner?
So, moons (not counting Mars', perhaps they would be called asteroid moons) are planets (or planetoids) that orbit larger planet. If you want to have a distinction for planets that do what the re-definition did in 2006, add some modifier like solar planet (indicating that the planet is considered to be a part of a star's main planetary system) and give it the additional requirements that were voted on 2006.
And this is why most people will probably have a ride sharing membership with some sort of millage allotment with Uber, Lyft, Google, Apple, Chevy, Ford, Nissan, Lexus, etc. I will pay the company for 1000 miles of transportation about what my cost of owning the same vehicle will be. (There will be lots of competition, there will be a lot of incentive to undercut competitors for market share, so the price should be about the same as owning my own vehicle.) I'll never have to stop for gas, take it in for maintenance or repairs, park it myself at my destination, pay for parking, have a garage, worry about break-ins or theft. I'll never need to worry about the vehicle breaking down, because if it does, the service will send a replacement car and have their tow service take care of it.
And the company will be responsible for the insurance and any liability for operational error.
If somebody owns their own car, it will come with a disclaimer that if you modify the auto-driving system, and it malfunctions and causes a wreck, then you better have insurance that will have had a clause that prevents you from messing with said system, which means you will be paying the rate you would if you were operating the vehicle instead of the rate for your car using the manufacturer's auto-drive system.
For self owned cars, it should suffice that there is a warning signal that indicates a problem with the car, and when an error occurs, the vehicle move to a safe location (if needed), and the owner either can call for assistance, take manual control, or reboot to see if the fault is corrected. The system must refuse to drive the vehicle if there is a problem with the auto-drive, and the user will be forced to manually drive until such time as they get the problem with the auto-drive corrected.
Except for the fact that each person may make several kids, making hundreds of additional mouths to feed within a couple of centuries where the people kept in prisons are only one mouth to feed before they die.
Are most of the existing laws on the books preferred by Republicans or Democrats? Since the Republicans can't actually overturn the laws that are causing many of the problems (for example, the (Un)Affordable Care Act), perhaps we don't really have a good way to conclusively tell which side would really have a good chance at ruling this country better since many bad laws get on the books and never get overturned, not to mention all of the regulations put in place by Democrat friendly bureaucrats in the various departments of the various governments.
Won't work. Newer cars have the LATCH system, in which case the seat belt isn't used when a child is secured in a car seat (not a booster). If the regular car seat is buckled in order to secure the infant seat, it's always buckled except on a rare day when you need to remove the seat (I only do this about 2 times a year) and would always trigger the alarm above the trigger temperature.
But 99% (my estimate) of flying happens outside of occupied locations. Few people are flying from one side of a metro area to the other. If you fly from NYC to Buffalo, most of your air time is over unpopulated farmland in upstate New York. If you eliminate most of the flight time that happens outside of metro areas, the number of accidents per mile are probably not so insignificant as the statistics indicate.
The postal system was established by the Constitution and interfering with the delivery of the mail is a federal offense with penalties of up to 5 years in federal prison and $250,000 in fines. UPS, FedEx, Amazon and other companies won't enjoy that level of protection.
The ability to identify a problem spontaneously (for instance, identifying and understanding that there is a problem in politics), having the necessary logic to look at the problem from multiple points of view, realizing things about a variety of issues (scarcity v private ownership, self interest v selflessness, freedom v the common good, etc.), realizing that maybe there is no 'right answer', but trying to do a better job than most media folks of identifying the issues, and articulating some ways that we could adjust our politics that would make things better.
But the computer must be intelligent enough to identify the problem (self directed instead of programmed) and come to it's own conclusions. An AI should be capable of working in the abstract, thinking philosophically, and understanding all sorts of things. Just because I can calculate doesn't mean that a device that calculates or simulates things is intelligent. It has no understanding, and therefore has no actual intelligence. Frankly, I don't think this is something computer science will ever overcome, and I'm OK with that.
The unasked question is how many military members would sympathize with the rebels, and decide to go AWOL to fight against their own government, and how many of them would take equipment they have access to in order to even the fight?
Has anybody put their money where their mouth is and built a worship space for the FSM? Have people then made a time commitment to attending this space for worship on some defined schedule? Have there been any serious books published about what the existence of the FSM means for human existence, and do it in a way that some significant portion of humanity would consider it better than all of the alternatives?
Earth is moving about 20% faster than Mars. What this means is that the optimal time to launch from Earth to Mars is when Earth is behind Mars. The space ship will continue to have a speed advantage which will have to be negated. Now, the travel time from Earth to Mars is so long that Earth will long pass Mars by the time the spacecraft reaches Mars. Now, since the Earth will be ahead and getting farther away, to catch the Earth before it goes around the Sun, the space craft would have to speed up the difference plus even more to actually catch up. Fuel efficiency wise, the mission will have to last about half a year before the astronauts have an opportunity to launch and head fly on an intercept course with Earth.
You might be interested in Thomas Jefferson Education. They advise a phased learning system, love of learning, reading great books, and a variety of other concepts that you might be interested in.
First, they recommend letting kids learn through playing and having fun. Then, when they are ready, you start them on a Core, rather like the old reading, writing and arithmetic, although they recommend a character/religion component depending on your values. They don't proscribe what you use for materials, so if you want to use a mental math program, they would say go for it.
The second phase is love of learning, so children are recommended to explore what they are interested in. So if she is interested in science, find some books on experiments and others that relate to what they are interested in exploring, then explore them together. If that leads to an interest in a related subject or a new interest comes about, follow where the child leads, and they will lead themselves to a great education.
The final phase, begins in junior high or early high school and runs through college and can last rest of their life, and is called scholar phase. In this phase, the scholar structures their education with more rigor, and there are specific subjects that should be covered, like making sure any holes from their love of learning phase are covered.
My primary role in my children's education is to read to them on a regular basis. I've made a list of a couple of thousand books that are considered classics (I do have a website for this called Fanatics 4 Classics), and I pick and choose things that I think they are ready for based on their interests. So, in the past few years, we've read a lot of Roald Dahl because the kids laugh and giggle at the silly things that happen in his stories. Finding ways to make reading enjoyable is one of the most important things to get a child interested in books and learning. My second daughter has especially liked reading the Ramona Quimby stories, and my son has found he loves the Prydain novels even though he didn't care for the Disney Black Cauldron movie. (This is also great because I get to read the stuff I never had access to when I was younger.)
The X in Xmas still refers to Jesus since the first letter in Christ in Greek (the language the gospels were written in) is X. I suppose the uneducated may think that using Xmas reduces the Christianity in Christmas, but people who know will understand that it doesn't.
I especially like how LibreOffice handles some things better than MS office, but then I am a power user. (These are issues in Excel 2010)
Specifically, one thing I can think of off the top of my head, the Control + End key combo takes you to the cell that intersects the last row and column of the sheet in both Excel and Calc (This is highly efficient way of highlighting from a specific point to the end of the worksheet). In Calc, it takes you to the intersection of the current last row and cell. If you have thousands of rows of data, and then delete some, it will take you to the last row of the current data. But in Excel, it takes you to the intersection of the last row and column ever used in the sheet since it was created. If you delete some data, save, close and reopen the sheet, and press the Control + End, Excel will take you to the last row that ever had data even if the sheet is now thousands of rows shorter.
It drives me nuts because I have business users who use a template sheet to build data they want entered into our Oracle system. Even though they'll only have a few hundred rows of data, when select cell A2, then hit Control + End, I often end up thousands of rows away from where the data ends. Sure, I only have to hold Control+shift+up to get back to the current last row, but it's still the same lack of polish in Excel that most users think Calc has.
Another issue in Excel, If I update the format for a range of cells, from Scientific Notation to Text, because I pasted some shipping track numbers into a sheet and want it to show the complete number, it doesn't redisplay after changing the format from General to Text. You have to F2 followed by Enter for EVERY CELL to force Excel to show the correct formatting. That, or paste the values in then use the import wizard to paste in the text values. Or Paste, Set the format, then paste again. But for a low tech user, it just looks bad.
You are thinking of Germany relative to your perspective. Realize almost 60% of the world's population lives between Japan, and Eastern Europe, with most of the rest in Africa, Europe and the Western Hemisphere.
Western refers to society based on culture, laws and values that developed in Europe, starting with Greek and Roman civilizations, and shaped by Christianity (Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox), the Enlightenment, and the French and American revolutions, and dozens of wars and cultural movements in between. Western civilization refers to any country found in Europe (including Russia) and civilizations largely dependent upon Europe for it's founding, especially the entire Western Hemisphere and Australia which are largely populated by Europeans or natives who lived and were educated in societies ruled by Europeans.
There's a book about generational cycles called Generations that talks about how there is a 4 generation cycle that repeats itself every 80 years or so cause by shared life experiences that are shaped primarily by the emotional and attitudes of society in general and their parents in particular. So, the Millenials have been shaped in attitude by 9/11, the current international conflicts, and their parents' reactions to these events.
It's called Strauss-Howe generaitonal theory. Each generation is one of 4 types (the wikipedia page has the basics, the book is interesting). So what we have is the departure of the Baby boomers from the work force and the arrival of the Millenials and the maturing of Gen X from young adult to mature adult. With this change comes a change of attitude. So, most likely what we are experiencing (saying this as an X'er) is Gen X taking the reigns from the Boomers, and establishing efficiency and control mechanisms on the work place, within a Crisis Turning. Sometime early in the next decade, the next turning will start, as the last boomers turn 65 and we will begin a new High cycle, much like the period between the end of World War II and The assassination of JFK, the bookends of the last High.
They predicted our current Crisis environment (I read their later book, the Fourth Turning, from 1997) with a start date between 2000 & 2005, 18-23 years from 1982, the beginning of the last Turning.
While these two spearheaded the current rule, I've read that more than 20 quarterbacks advocated for the rule. The point of allowing the teams to have the balls the week before the game is to allow equipment managers to massage the balls the week before the game to condition the balls to their quarterback's or wide receiver's preferences, mostly by wearing the waxy cover off the leather so the balls are less likely to slip. They may also be able to soften the leather through some method of their preference. The quarterbacks can then practice with the balls to ensure they like them. On game day the balls are all inflated and checked by officials before the game starts.
On this occasion, the Patriots ball manager, probably working with Brady's approval, took the balls from the officials, entered a restroom where no cameras present, came out less than two minutes later, and took the balls to the field. The official has been shown on video noticeably distraught because the balls were missing. He requested the reserve balls, but when the Patriots balls showed up on the field, allowed them to be used.
This will no doubt lead to several rule changes, and penalties for the Patriots and several employees.
The rules around the balls are all arbitrary. They could have a rule that a different ball is used on every play, and it must be new from the factory. They could have that each team can have a much wider range of inflation levels on the ball (8-15 lbs) instead of the current range. But the teams all have to agree to the rules, and everybody involved need to abide by those rules.
Let's see, things were a mix of great, OK and awful when completely decentralized. Now, we have moved toward centralization, and we've gone toward mostly awful with a few bright spots left (not counting private schools since they are mostly fine and decentralized).
So where do I think it went wrong? The centralization of the money in the hands of the state and federal government, who have a strong incentive to cooperate with the union leaders who are probably friends of theirs since the unions help (re)elect those who promise to funnel more money their way.
Do you know what, I'd hate to be a great teacher and stuck getting paid on a pay scale based on seniority with the lazy bum down the hall who doesn't do a good job. I'd much rather have a system that gives me the freedom to compete to be a superior teach who makes a superior wage, even if it results in inequality. Do you know why? Because prices send information to people who want jobs, or students who are interested in becoming teachers. If science teaching jobs make $70,000 instead of $50,000 for an English teacher, that's a good thing. Do you know why? Because young scientifically minded students will see that, and say "I can make $70,000 to teach science? Sign me up."
I also think that the unions are a problem because all of the money being spent on education, how much is going to retirement benefits, with teachers claiming to be underpaid, but if you include their retirement, they may be making significantly above market value. How much is going to retired teachers who are outliving the administration's math on how much they needed to set aside to pay the teachers more in retirement than they made when they were in the classroom?
Single payer is bad. Do you want to know why? No competition. Imagine our politicians and doctors running our medical profession the same way our politicians and educational establishment worked together to destroy education in this country?
Do you want to know what will work at much lower cost than what we have? Turn the hospitals into co-ops. Instead of paying an insurance company, you pay a hospital for a monthly membership. If you have to go in, everything is already paid for. But, if you live in an area with a large enough population, you'll actually have choices, which will force the co-op to compete on price, efficiency and results with other co-ops. Perhaps the various doctors and other medical professionals in the area then come to an agreement with the various hospitals that they will treat your hospital membership like insurance, and the hospital could pay out for your preventative care like your insurance company. Or perhaps the co-op will hire the necessary personnel to provide all care except for extraordinary things (Exceptional care only provided by research institutions, etc, which they could contribute a certain amount to whether used or not, or pay as you go like insurance.)
With this model, you'll get the benefits of single payer with the added benefit of having choices, so you don't get stuck in a situation where there are 3 month waiting lists, but you can't do anything about it because you have no choice.
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I believe some tickets are 'no refund or reschedule' (by the passenger/not the airline), and others that you pay more for have the flexibility to reschedule if you can't make the flight.
Things happen, 6 months, my employer sent me for training to Chicago from KC. On Friday morning, I felt awful, and decided to go to the hospital, and ended up getting my appendix out, missing my flight home that evening (would have been home before I got to the operating table in Chicago). Sunday morning, I got on another flight without having to pay for an extra ticket because of this option.
The interaction between customers and airlines has lead to the situation we have, and if airlines decide less flexibility is better, then they'll have to deal with customers who prefer the flexible option.
I understand that was how my father preferred to handle baby teething. Just smear a little on the baby's gums, and the pain would subside enough for everybody in the house to get a little sleep.
It seem the existence of asteroids like this indicates that Earth hasn't cleared its orbit and is not a planet.
I think that size is sufficient as a beginning point. Linguistically, you want your word to do one thing to keep things simple. Classify all items by size as asteroids or planets. Where they are, the type of orbit (or lack of one), what they are made of should be a qualifier. Otherwise you have to have a different word for a planet based on where you find it. Orbiting a star = planet, orbiting a planet=moon, beyond the Neptune or not having a clear neighborhood=more classifications and words than we can currently foresee. Yet, scientifically, they all have two common characteristics, shape due to size.
Once you want to add an additional characteristic, you should have new words that tell you about that specific characteristic. Ones in the inner solar system are solar planets, those out in the Kuiper belt or Oort cloud are Kuiper planets and Oort planets, and those out between the stars are interstellar planets. Likewise, an asteroid is an asteroid no matter where it is, and you can add any modifiers you need (asteroid moon or moonroid, solo, irregular, rouge or solar asteroid, belted asteroid, Kuiper asteroid, Oort asteroid, interstellar asteroid, etc.). If you want to talk about composition, then you have gas planets (giant ones if desired), rocky planets, ice planets, diamond planets, silicon, iron or any other crazy combination that comes up.
Then, no matter what, you can describe what something is so that most people can understand. Rocky interstellar planet v. rocky solar planet v. gas solar planet v solar belted asteroid v interstellar belted asteroid etc. Have each word do as little as possible, and add a couple of informative words that convey any additional information instead of combining and making thousands of words that try to do 3 things at a time, which implies needing 8 words to tell the story of things that are different on each of the three parts of the definition of a planet from the 2006 definition.
I like the definition of planet based upon any body of sufficient mass to be round (or nearly so to some mathematical measurement). That is, it is a planet based on size/mass and what it is within itself, and it is what it is no matter where it is (in the inner solar system or floating between stars).
The definition of having cleared it's neighborhood means that when it first formed, Jupiter wasn't a planet because it hadn't had time to clear it's neighborhood, and obviously this would include all of the other planets during formation. At some point, we'll probably find a distant solar system where there are two planets that orbit each other. Since they wouldn't have cleared their orbit of their twin, could they even be considered a planet under the 2006 definition even if they were far more massive than Earth, and even had an earth like eco-system? Would you like to be the astronomer that had to be pedantic an tell journalists that these weren't planets because it's hadn't eliminated it's binary partner?
So, moons (not counting Mars', perhaps they would be called asteroid moons) are planets (or planetoids) that orbit larger planet. If you want to have a distinction for planets that do what the re-definition did in 2006, add some modifier like solar planet (indicating that the planet is considered to be a part of a star's main planetary system) and give it the additional requirements that were voted on 2006.
And this is why most people will probably have a ride sharing membership with some sort of millage allotment with Uber, Lyft, Google, Apple, Chevy, Ford, Nissan, Lexus, etc. I will pay the company for 1000 miles of transportation about what my cost of owning the same vehicle will be. (There will be lots of competition, there will be a lot of incentive to undercut competitors for market share, so the price should be about the same as owning my own vehicle.) I'll never have to stop for gas, take it in for maintenance or repairs, park it myself at my destination, pay for parking, have a garage, worry about break-ins or theft. I'll never need to worry about the vehicle breaking down, because if it does, the service will send a replacement car and have their tow service take care of it.
And the company will be responsible for the insurance and any liability for operational error.
If somebody owns their own car, it will come with a disclaimer that if you modify the auto-driving system, and it malfunctions and causes a wreck, then you better have insurance that will have had a clause that prevents you from messing with said system, which means you will be paying the rate you would if you were operating the vehicle instead of the rate for your car using the manufacturer's auto-drive system.
For self owned cars, it should suffice that there is a warning signal that indicates a problem with the car, and when an error occurs, the vehicle move to a safe location (if needed), and the owner either can call for assistance, take manual control, or reboot to see if the fault is corrected. The system must refuse to drive the vehicle if there is a problem with the auto-drive, and the user will be forced to manually drive until such time as they get the problem with the auto-drive corrected.
Except for the fact that each person may make several kids, making hundreds of additional mouths to feed within a couple of centuries where the people kept in prisons are only one mouth to feed before they die.
Are most of the existing laws on the books preferred by Republicans or Democrats? Since the Republicans can't actually overturn the laws that are causing many of the problems (for example, the (Un)Affordable Care Act), perhaps we don't really have a good way to conclusively tell which side would really have a good chance at ruling this country better since many bad laws get on the books and never get overturned, not to mention all of the regulations put in place by Democrat friendly bureaucrats in the various departments of the various governments.
Won't work. Newer cars have the LATCH system, in which case the seat belt isn't used when a child is secured in a car seat (not a booster). If the regular car seat is buckled in order to secure the infant seat, it's always buckled except on a rare day when you need to remove the seat (I only do this about 2 times a year) and would always trigger the alarm above the trigger temperature.
But 99% (my estimate) of flying happens outside of occupied locations. Few people are flying from one side of a metro area to the other. If you fly from NYC to Buffalo, most of your air time is over unpopulated farmland in upstate New York. If you eliminate most of the flight time that happens outside of metro areas, the number of accidents per mile are probably not so insignificant as the statistics indicate.
The postal system was established by the Constitution and interfering with the delivery of the mail is a federal offense with penalties of up to 5 years in federal prison and $250,000 in fines. UPS, FedEx, Amazon and other companies won't enjoy that level of protection.
The ability to identify a problem spontaneously (for instance, identifying and understanding that there is a problem in politics), having the necessary logic to look at the problem from multiple points of view, realizing things about a variety of issues (scarcity v private ownership, self interest v selflessness, freedom v the common good, etc.), realizing that maybe there is no 'right answer', but trying to do a better job than most media folks of identifying the issues, and articulating some ways that we could adjust our politics that would make things better.
But the computer must be intelligent enough to identify the problem (self directed instead of programmed) and come to it's own conclusions. An AI should be capable of working in the abstract, thinking philosophically, and understanding all sorts of things. Just because I can calculate doesn't mean that a device that calculates or simulates things is intelligent. It has no understanding, and therefore has no actual intelligence. Frankly, I don't think this is something computer science will ever overcome, and I'm OK with that.
The unasked question is how many military members would sympathize with the rebels, and decide to go AWOL to fight against their own government, and how many of them would take equipment they have access to in order to even the fight?
Has anybody put their money where their mouth is and built a worship space for the FSM? Have people then made a time commitment to attending this space for worship on some defined schedule? Have there been any serious books published about what the existence of the FSM means for human existence, and do it in a way that some significant portion of humanity would consider it better than all of the alternatives?
Earth is moving about 20% faster than Mars. What this means is that the optimal time to launch from Earth to Mars is when Earth is behind Mars. The space ship will continue to have a speed advantage which will have to be negated. Now, the travel time from Earth to Mars is so long that Earth will long pass Mars by the time the spacecraft reaches Mars. Now, since the Earth will be ahead and getting farther away, to catch the Earth before it goes around the Sun, the space craft would have to speed up the difference plus even more to actually catch up. Fuel efficiency wise, the mission will have to last about half a year before the astronauts have an opportunity to launch and head fly on an intercept course with Earth.
You might be interested in Thomas Jefferson Education. They advise a phased learning system, love of learning, reading great books, and a variety of other concepts that you might be interested in.
First, they recommend letting kids learn through playing and having fun. Then, when they are ready, you start them on a Core, rather like the old reading, writing and arithmetic, although they recommend a character/religion component depending on your values. They don't proscribe what you use for materials, so if you want to use a mental math program, they would say go for it.
The second phase is love of learning, so children are recommended to explore what they are interested in. So if she is interested in science, find some books on experiments and others that relate to what they are interested in exploring, then explore them together. If that leads to an interest in a related subject or a new interest comes about, follow where the child leads, and they will lead themselves to a great education.
The final phase, begins in junior high or early high school and runs through college and can last rest of their life, and is called scholar phase. In this phase, the scholar structures their education with more rigor, and there are specific subjects that should be covered, like making sure any holes from their love of learning phase are covered.
My primary role in my children's education is to read to them on a regular basis. I've made a list of a couple of thousand books that are considered classics (I do have a website for this called Fanatics 4 Classics), and I pick and choose things that I think they are ready for based on their interests. So, in the past few years, we've read a lot of Roald Dahl because the kids laugh and giggle at the silly things that happen in his stories. Finding ways to make reading enjoyable is one of the most important things to get a child interested in books and learning. My second daughter has especially liked reading the Ramona Quimby stories, and my son has found he loves the Prydain novels even though he didn't care for the Disney Black Cauldron movie. (This is also great because I get to read the stuff I never had access to when I was younger.)
The X in Xmas still refers to Jesus since the first letter in Christ in Greek (the language the gospels were written in) is X. I suppose the uneducated may think that using Xmas reduces the Christianity in Christmas, but people who know will understand that it doesn't.
I'll wait for the disc release, and watch it at home free (library check out). I suppose my portion of the purchase is less than a dollar.
I think I heard it was Norse mythology?
I especially like how LibreOffice handles some things better than MS office, but then I am a power user. (These are issues in Excel 2010)
Specifically, one thing I can think of off the top of my head, the Control + End key combo takes you to the cell that intersects the last row and column of the sheet in both Excel and Calc (This is highly efficient way of highlighting from a specific point to the end of the worksheet). In Calc, it takes you to the intersection of the current last row and cell. If you have thousands of rows of data, and then delete some, it will take you to the last row of the current data. But in Excel, it takes you to the intersection of the last row and column ever used in the sheet since it was created. If you delete some data, save, close and reopen the sheet, and press the Control + End, Excel will take you to the last row that ever had data even if the sheet is now thousands of rows shorter.
It drives me nuts because I have business users who use a template sheet to build data they want entered into our Oracle system. Even though they'll only have a few hundred rows of data, when select cell A2, then hit Control + End, I often end up thousands of rows away from where the data ends. Sure, I only have to hold Control+shift+up to get back to the current last row, but it's still the same lack of polish in Excel that most users think Calc has.
Another issue in Excel, If I update the format for a range of cells, from Scientific Notation to Text, because I pasted some shipping track numbers into a sheet and want it to show the complete number, it doesn't redisplay after changing the format from General to Text. You have to F2 followed by Enter for EVERY CELL to force Excel to show the correct formatting. That, or paste the values in then use the import wizard to paste in the text values. Or Paste, Set the format, then paste again. But for a low tech user, it just looks bad.
You are thinking of Germany relative to your perspective. Realize almost 60% of the world's population lives between Japan, and Eastern Europe, with most of the rest in Africa, Europe and the Western Hemisphere.
Western refers to society based on culture, laws and values that developed in Europe, starting with Greek and Roman civilizations, and shaped by Christianity (Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox), the Enlightenment, and the French and American revolutions, and dozens of wars and cultural movements in between. Western civilization refers to any country found in Europe (including Russia) and civilizations largely dependent upon Europe for it's founding, especially the entire Western Hemisphere and Australia which are largely populated by Europeans or natives who lived and were educated in societies ruled by Europeans.
There's a book about generational cycles called Generations that talks about how there is a 4 generation cycle that repeats itself every 80 years or so cause by shared life experiences that are shaped primarily by the emotional and attitudes of society in general and their parents in particular. So, the Millenials have been shaped in attitude by 9/11, the current international conflicts, and their parents' reactions to these events.
It's called Strauss-Howe generaitonal theory. Each generation is one of 4 types (the wikipedia page has the basics, the book is interesting). So what we have is the departure of the Baby boomers from the work force and the arrival of the Millenials and the maturing of Gen X from young adult to mature adult. With this change comes a change of attitude. So, most likely what we are experiencing (saying this as an X'er) is Gen X taking the reigns from the Boomers, and establishing efficiency and control mechanisms on the work place, within a Crisis Turning. Sometime early in the next decade, the next turning will start, as the last boomers turn 65 and we will begin a new High cycle, much like the period between the end of World War II and The assassination of JFK, the bookends of the last High.
They predicted our current Crisis environment (I read their later book, the Fourth Turning, from 1997) with a start date between 2000 & 2005, 18-23 years from 1982, the beginning of the last Turning.
While these two spearheaded the current rule, I've read that more than 20 quarterbacks advocated for the rule. The point of allowing the teams to have the balls the week before the game is to allow equipment managers to massage the balls the week before the game to condition the balls to their quarterback's or wide receiver's preferences, mostly by wearing the waxy cover off the leather so the balls are less likely to slip. They may also be able to soften the leather through some method of their preference. The quarterbacks can then practice with the balls to ensure they like them. On game day the balls are all inflated and checked by officials before the game starts.
On this occasion, the Patriots ball manager, probably working with Brady's approval, took the balls from the officials, entered a restroom where no cameras present, came out less than two minutes later, and took the balls to the field. The official has been shown on video noticeably distraught because the balls were missing. He requested the reserve balls, but when the Patriots balls showed up on the field, allowed them to be used.
This will no doubt lead to several rule changes, and penalties for the Patriots and several employees.
The rules around the balls are all arbitrary. They could have a rule that a different ball is used on every play, and it must be new from the factory. They could have that each team can have a much wider range of inflation levels on the ball (8-15 lbs) instead of the current range. But the teams all have to agree to the rules, and everybody involved need to abide by those rules.
Let's see, things were a mix of great, OK and awful when completely decentralized. Now, we have moved toward centralization, and we've gone toward mostly awful with a few bright spots left (not counting private schools since they are mostly fine and decentralized).
So where do I think it went wrong? The centralization of the money in the hands of the state and federal government, who have a strong incentive to cooperate with the union leaders who are probably friends of theirs since the unions help (re)elect those who promise to funnel more money their way.
Do you know what, I'd hate to be a great teacher and stuck getting paid on a pay scale based on seniority with the lazy bum down the hall who doesn't do a good job. I'd much rather have a system that gives me the freedom to compete to be a superior teach who makes a superior wage, even if it results in inequality. Do you know why? Because prices send information to people who want jobs, or students who are interested in becoming teachers. If science teaching jobs make $70,000 instead of $50,000 for an English teacher, that's a good thing. Do you know why? Because young scientifically minded students will see that, and say "I can make $70,000 to teach science? Sign me up."
I also think that the unions are a problem because all of the money being spent on education, how much is going to retirement benefits, with teachers claiming to be underpaid, but if you include their retirement, they may be making significantly above market value. How much is going to retired teachers who are outliving the administration's math on how much they needed to set aside to pay the teachers more in retirement than they made when they were in the classroom?
Single payer is bad. Do you want to know why? No competition. Imagine our politicians and doctors running our medical profession the same way our politicians and educational establishment worked together to destroy education in this country?
Do you want to know what will work at much lower cost than what we have? Turn the hospitals into co-ops. Instead of paying an insurance company, you pay a hospital for a monthly membership. If you have to go in, everything is already paid for. But, if you live in an area with a large enough population, you'll actually have choices, which will force the co-op to compete on price, efficiency and results with other co-ops. Perhaps the various doctors and other medical professionals in the area then come to an agreement with the various hospitals that they will treat your hospital membership like insurance, and the hospital could pay out for your preventative care like your insurance company. Or perhaps the co-op will hire the necessary personnel to provide all care except for extraordinary things (Exceptional care only provided by research institutions, etc, which they could contribute a certain amount to whether used or not, or pay as you go like insurance.)
With this model, you'll get the benefits of single payer with the added benefit of having choices, so you don't get stuck in a situation where there are 3 month waiting lists, but you can't do anything about it because you have no choice.