When I say the battery is sufficient, i'm talking in the context of the true 'hybrid' way the Prius works now.
Here's what would be perfect, a Prius that had a "manual" mode that allowed the driver to select to be running on batteries (in the context of the prius, it would be the mode where your consumption meter reads '99 MPG' which, IIRC, isn't truely 100% on battery) and a plug in charger.
My dad is really good at keeping the Prius on 99% for miles and miles in the automatic mode now (and when I steal it, I'm not bad myself)...if he could manually control how the energy is distributed, he could look at how much battery life he has when he starts out from his house and then, if he's only going to the corner market, he can select to go on the 99% mode there and back (it would drain the battery pretty low), and then plug the car right into the wall and recharge for the next day.
It just gives you so much more flexibility if you can plug the car in...and it encourages smart driving!
They've been making them for the US since 2001 so by your logic the majority of second-hand cars of that age should already be Priuses - except that they're not.
Gas prices haven't been as high as they are since 2001.
holy shit man...i'm talking about how mainstream people perceive based on what they hear in the media...for fuck's sake, I wasn't stereotyping anarchists...just pointing out that many people do...
why are automakers so irrationally risk averse! I understand making sound decisions, but damnit...the market was ready for electric plug-ins in the late 70's...today it's a no brainer!
questioning how many people will really buy electric cars
yes
whether people will really charge them at night to keep the grid clear
yes
whether batteries will make them too expensive and more.
no
If you build it, they will come...in my podunk former GM factory town, everyone would own a prius if they could afford to get a new car (many working and middle class people can't afford ANY kind of new car, no matter what make/model)
The people that can afford to buy a new car are buying Prius's in record numbers...a friend at the Toyota dealership (who helped my parents get their Prius) says they always order the maximum from Toyota and sell out before they hit the lot...for almost two years that's been the case
Plugging in at night is just a logical progression, and from an automaker's perspective, a simple engineering isssue (professional engineers can easily handle redesigning a Prius to have plug-in capability)
As far as added cost of batteries, the Prius my parents own now has more than sufficient battery power, all it needs is a plug-in...
I could see how mainstream, non-geeks would get the idea that the guys who run a "piracy file sharing website" (as some in the MSM portray it) would look like that picture of Stallman from that/. story a few days ago...you know...stereotypical "anti-establishment" look...scraggly beard, Castro hat, dread locks or green-colored hair...
Geeks shouldn't be surprised at all...but people who are on the outside looking in only have what they've heard in news reports to guide their perception, and I can at least understand why they would expect some anarchist types to be being TPB
Can you give any examples of somewhere someone has used "web 2.0" to mean something other than not refreshing the page to communicate to the server?
In the context of our discussion, this should be significant enough. Yes the wiki mentions AJAX, etc. and the fact that some things that people call "web 2.0" use applications that do not require full page loading, but the criticism section addresses that directly.
here's an example:
Time magazine named "You and Web 2.0" as the "person of the year" and all through the article they talk about things like blogs, wikis, you tube, facebook, and all kinds of other things that span the spectrum of the internet, and most of them do not meet your criteria...
and don't reply back saying "well on paragraph 8 of that article it talks about AJAX" b/c that doesn't prove anything...your contention is that web 2.0 means "pages that don't have to reload to change content" and the Time article, among MANY others uses "web 2.0" as an umbrella term for just about anything on the internet that is new and "cool"
Look, you're using a logical fallacy, trying to force me into some false threshold of proof saying "there are millions of places where they use it the way I use it...not so fast...
In your reply, please specifically address the content of the wikipedia entry (esp. under the "criticism" section) and somehow explain how Time magazine isn't an exemplar about the mainstream usage of a term...then we can talk...
I find this theory to be kind of specious myself...IANAA...so maybe some of you could help me out
space-time around us would be different than it is outside, because matter warps space-time. Light travelling from supernovae outside our bubble would appear dimmer, because the light would diverge more than we would expect once it got inside our void.
1. Light is affected by gravity...that's one way we find extra-solar planets...but how could it be affected in a way that it would make supernovae appear have less magnitude? Wouldn't it (the light) just wobble?
2. Also, how abnormally less-dense is our area (I hate that they call it a bubble...pocket maybe)? It seems that in order to be significant, it would have to be so abnormal that we would have noticed by now...
3. Lastly, these supernovae arent' the only thing we have that tells us the universe is expanding with acceleration, right? don't observations of the cosmic microwave background also lead us to conclude that the universe is accelerating and expanding? how could both these ideas be correct?
not refreshing the page to communicate to the server
Sorry, but though you in your parlance "web 2.0" might describe that aspect, the common usage of the term is not at all in a context that fits that definition. Not even in TFA is it used in that context.
It's a hype word...a word that people who aren't even aware that a website communicates with a server use to describe anything from social networking sites to e-commerce as a way to generate copy for a publication or to pitch a new product. They are in the great majority, and however technical and accurate your usage of the term is, it doesn't matter.
"2.0" commonly indicates a second version of software...the internet isn't a software program you download or purchase like photoshop...it's a computer network. There was never a new version of the internet, just more progressive ways to transfer content. And the difference is just a progressive difference, not any evolutionary step forward.
Businesses want to make money. The trend is business thinking is "why sell them something when we can rent it to them and keep charging them indefinitely."
RMS hits it right on when he says web-based applications are really an effort to change the market so that every computing function is on a pay per use or subscription basis. Look at itunes DRM if you want to see the future of "cloud computing"
It's all marketing.
As an aside, from TFA:
has become a core part of the rise of Web 2.0 applications
I was amused that the writer of an article about how "cloud computing" is hype used another one of those hype buzzwords that have no concrete meaning whatsoever..."web 2.0"...
Yes! I read that too. Most of the problems seem truly mathematical in nature, but the first two especially seemed Orewellian:
1. The Mathematics of the Brain: Develop a mathematical theory to build a functional model of the brain that is mathematically consistent and predictive rather than merely biologically inspired.
Emphasis mine...the second one is worse.
2. The Dynamics of Networks: Develop the high-dimensional mathematics needed to accurately model and predict behavior in large-scale distributed networks that evolve over time occurring in communication, biology and the social sciences.
They want to quantify every aspect of human existence and be able to predict with high accuracy every potential human behavior. Just re-read that sentence once and ponder if you really want the government to be able to do that, given what we've seen them do to people in the War on Terror (TM).
The worst part is, human behavior is never, repeat: NEVER going to be able to be predicted on that level. Sure there are tendencies, but correlation is not causation, and the best we can do in the predictive sense is observe tendencies. If the DoD's goal is to have total predictive awareness of an individual's thoughts and actions, they will eventually come up with something...whether it works or not!
That's the root of it...they can't do it, but they're spending so much money trying that eventually they will have to come up with some BS system (polygraph combined with brain imaging and psycological profile) and call it a predictive system.
Their goals may seem innocuous at first (and I don't want to insinuate evil intentions on any one individual, save Dick Cheney)...the old "national security" but we know how that evolves into just maintaining power over the citizenry.
Humans behavior will NEVER be quantifiable enough to do what the DoD and DARPA want.
this is not an exhaustive defense...at all...not even close
Public funded space exploration is wrong because it deprives tax payers of their liberty
This sounds like a anarcho-capitalist argument against all taxes. I don't have the energy for a political discussion, but I think it's important to acknowledge going in that the core of critics like you is not about how to do science or anything of that nature...you're against all taxes.
I would however like to see you defense -- I believe it will be ripped apart here with great haste...
don't flame this topic...please. I'm a left-leaning libertarian, just fyi.
I think space exploration should be funded by the government because of the inherent nature of this type of exploration. It's expensive, requires decades of planning and preparation, and has very high stakes. It really is 'the final frontier' and as the original US astronauts liked to call it, "pushing the edge of the envelope."
I advocate government funded scientific endeavor of all types. We're talking about space, but the benefits of expanding our knowledge through space exploration are seen in practically ever scientific discipline.
Here's a ridiculously cursory list:
1. Survival of our species. Depending on who you talk to, we may have already ruined it. Climate change is a recognized fact. Of course there is always an asteroid, war, overpopulation, pandemic, FPS video games, etc. Take your pick. Space exploration as I (and many others) see it is a way to expand the human presence beyond our world, and in doing so dramatically increase our chances of moving past the dangerous times in which we live.
2. Science. I shouldn't have to go into this too much on/. Seriously...this is/. Space exploration lets us look deeper into space with telescopes, which allows us to test our theories about how the universe, and our planet came into being in the first place. It helps us understand how the most fundamental aspects of our existence function...idk, like say, gravity. Like I said, this is/. and I think this point is self-explanitory.
3. Technology. The trip to the moon pushed the US to develop technology that wasn't necessarily 'marketable' at the time, and may not have ever gotten developed. I really don't have time to put up links with specifics, but increased computer capacity for guidance systems and all the communications technology spring to mind. Private exploration can take risks with technology that may not make financial sense at the time but reap huge rewards later.
Corporations are risk averse and profit from defective design (DRM anyone?). Public endeavors have fewer limits on what they can do.
4. Promoting increasing knowledge. I know some hardcore anarcho-capitalist is going to say "it's not the government's job to blah blah blah"...that's a straw man argument. I'm not advocating Soviet style government mandated work programs! I'm saying that because of our space endeavors in the 50s and 60s generations were inspired to get involved in science and engineering. That's priceless.
That's 4...in no way presented to represent all the reasons why public funded space exploration is a good investment.
Now, if you want to talk about how NASA's mission and policies need to be focused and reformed, of course we can improve!...that's a different discussion. This discussion, if you read the parent is not about that aspect. This is about whether the US should even do it in the first place, and the answer is a big fat yes.
the mismanaged, overpriced, overpoliticised, goverment monopoly
What monopoly? The U.S. government didn't do anything to prevent these guys from their commercial enterprise...they didn't do anything anti-competitive.
Sure NASA has problems, but they need to fix the problems, not mothball the whole agency!
Private industry will never replace public endeavor. THEY HAVE DIFFERENT GOALS. Sure both are going to space, but one is going to make money, the other is going for more altruistic reasons...you know...science (among many other reasons...don't flame me).
If you want to respond...please address my main point, which is: We can have BOTH successful private space development AND publicly funded scientific exploration...they are not mutually exclusive.
In fact, if it wasn't for publicly funded exploration (which did orbital flights 50 years ago;) this company wouldn't exist.
Grand parent sounded ridiculous with his 'toast' to man finally reaching to the stars...there was, you know, the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo programs, whatever the Soviets called their programs, dozens of probes, satellites, etc...all done decades ago.
I applaud what SpaceX is doing, but I cannot stand when people praise them like retarded donkeys while pretending they are space pioneers. They are pioneers of funding...the stuff they are doing has already been done several times. If you look at what they're doing IN CONTEXT it's still remarkable!
As far as the analogies that the parent is speaking of...let's just drop the BS...you can look right through the 'government does it first' and the 'private industry does it first' counter argument and see its just your standard liberal vs. conservative circular argument.
Sure the military and other gov't agencies have pioneered several technologies (the internet springs to mind...ARPANET anyone?), and private industry has had its successes as well.
You get to choose whether to be a part of this, or not.
Are you implying that public funded space exploration is wrong for some reason? If so you are dead wrong. I can type out a great defense of NASA's existence and mission if need be...
Bad comparison...sure here in the U.S. speeches and articles are put together ahead of time with specifics added at the end...
that's the difference...we wait to add the quotations until someone actually says them
with the Obama election article example...for this comparison to be valid, this Obama article you speak of would have to include quotations from a speech he hasn't given yet...
the chinese article had quotations of conversations that *hadn't happened yet*
you can't downplay the difference...it's the difference between getting a head start on an article to meet deadline and bold face lying propaganda
So you're answer is to 'blame the parent'...but several times you indicated that with greater pay, teachers would be motivated to stay in crappy inner city schools and make calls to the delinquent parents at night??
Your statements support my point.
Fact: not all parents will be good parents. Teachers, in today's America, are expected to fill in that deficiency in some ways, like making phone calls after school (to use your example). You said yourself more money would encourage you to do that! You are agreeing with me;)
Do you think you would still be a teacher of you were given a salary of $50,000?
not after reading some of the comments on this board!
Seriously, I don't know. It would help for sure. Someone else on this thread said something to the effect of: "teachers do it for the love of the profession, so it's ok to pay them less"...it's that attitude that made the sacrifices not worth it...like I'm this civics teacher trying to educate high schoolers to be competent citizens, and because I love my job, I deserve to get paid less?
There were personal factors to my decision to leave...it wasn't just one thing. The lack of appreciation from parents, lawmakers, and society as a whole was a factor for sure though.
I don't have 100% faith in the 'black hand' of the economy...but in our society, one of the major ways we assign value to an occupation is by how much we pay those who do it. If we want better teachers we have to show them how important the job is in a tangible way...not take advantage of their idealism.
after the example of this one power monger.... I'd say let the lot of them starve
Consider that statement...you had one bad encounter (and of course were relying on what the kid told you...you didn't actually TALK to the teacher in question, did you?) and from that encounter you conclude that all teachers are incompetent. Ridiculous...so often in our culture, teachers are like hockey goalies, their contribution is only noticed when they perform poorly.
it's nigh impossible for a good teacher to do better than a bad one
You're contradicting yourself. First you tell a story of a blatantly 'bad" teacher, then you say that it's impossible for one teacher to perform better than another.
Here's the thing...teachers get fired for poor performance all the time. Using your example, if complaints about that teacher giving unfair grades (especially to a student who got the question right) were reported to the principle, a good principle would have a word with the teacher. How it would proceed from there depends on the teacher, but if, after several warnings, the teacher in your example refused to be fair, that teacher would get fired!
Unions do not prevent teachers from getting fired for being bad teachers. I saw it myself. In our department, everyone knew which teachers were slacking, and no one was surprised when they didn't get their contracts renewed the next year.
It's funny, everyone has a story about a bad teacher, but those same people refuse to acknowledge that bad teachers can be weeded out. It happens all the time.
About the salaries...nurses, lawyers, doctors, accountants, engineers, etc. can usually make close to $50,000 a year starting out (depending on the CPI of the area). When you consider that without teachers, none of these other occupations would exist, I'd say $50,000 is, at least, a good starting point.
Ah, the old can't fire bad teachers argument...it's still a red herring...bad teachers get fired all the time
Bad teachers can be fired for poor performance or with no cause. It's not like the tenure system in colleges that affords liberal amounts of 'Academic freedom'...some school districts have something akin to 'seniority' for long-serving teachers, but even then those teachers can be fired for no cause or for poor performance.
You parrot a common misconception perpetuated by anti-union people for decades.
If you continue the grand parent's analogy, if a teacher is unfairly failing kids left and right with no regard for his/her duty to adapt to particular situations (aka, they patently refuse to "take the student aside" and work out a plan), that teacher could be fired for bad performance after basic guidelines for notification and probationary periods have elapsed.
When bad teachers keep their jobs, it's almost always b/c of an overly politicized school board or an incompetent administrator unwilling to show leadership.
I'm not calling for teachers to get fired arbitrarily, not at all...poor teacher performance is usually easy to spot. Admin's and school boards need to show leadership when it happens.
Slashdot Mirror
When I say the battery is sufficient, i'm talking in the context of the true 'hybrid' way the Prius works now.
Here's what would be perfect, a Prius that had a "manual" mode that allowed the driver to select to be running on batteries (in the context of the prius, it would be the mode where your consumption meter reads '99 MPG' which, IIRC, isn't truely 100% on battery) and a plug in charger.
My dad is really good at keeping the Prius on 99% for miles and miles in the automatic mode now (and when I steal it, I'm not bad myself)...if he could manually control how the energy is distributed, he could look at how much battery life he has when he starts out from his house and then, if he's only going to the corner market, he can select to go on the 99% mode there and back (it would drain the battery pretty low), and then plug the car right into the wall and recharge for the next day.
It just gives you so much more flexibility if you can plug the car in...and it encourages smart driving!
Gas prices haven't been as high as they are since 2001.
>And what if one or more of the actors gets sick?
This is porn, right? You could write that into the script!
holy shit man...i'm talking about how mainstream people perceive based on what they hear in the media...for fuck's sake, I wasn't stereotyping anarchists...just pointing out that many people do...
i love anarchists...
why are automakers so irrationally risk averse! I understand making sound decisions, but damnit...the market was ready for electric plug-ins in the late 70's...today it's a no brainer!
yes
yes
no
If you build it, they will come...in my podunk former GM factory town, everyone would own a prius if they could afford to get a new car (many working and middle class people can't afford ANY kind of new car, no matter what make/model)
The people that can afford to buy a new car are buying Prius's in record numbers...a friend at the Toyota dealership (who helped my parents get their Prius) says they always order the maximum from Toyota and sell out before they hit the lot...for almost two years that's been the case
Plugging in at night is just a logical progression, and from an automaker's perspective, a simple engineering isssue (professional engineers can easily handle redesigning a Prius to have plug-in capability)
As far as added cost of batteries, the Prius my parents own now has more than sufficient battery power, all it needs is a plug-in...
I could see how mainstream, non-geeks would get the idea that the guys who run a "piracy file sharing website" (as some in the MSM portray it) would look like that picture of Stallman from that /. story a few days ago...you know...stereotypical "anti-establishment" look...scraggly beard, Castro hat, dread locks or green-colored hair...
Geeks shouldn't be surprised at all...but people who are on the outside looking in only have what they've heard in news reports to guide their perception, and I can at least understand why they would expect some anarchist types to be being TPB
In the context of our discussion, this should be significant enough. Yes the wiki mentions AJAX, etc. and the fact that some things that people call "web 2.0" use applications that do not require full page loading, but the criticism section addresses that directly.
here's an example:
Time magazine named "You and Web 2.0" as the "person of the year" and all through the article they talk about things like blogs, wikis, you tube, facebook, and all kinds of other things that span the spectrum of the internet, and most of them do not meet your criteria...
and don't reply back saying "well on paragraph 8 of that article it talks about AJAX" b/c that doesn't prove anything...your contention is that web 2.0 means "pages that don't have to reload to change content" and the Time article, among MANY others uses "web 2.0" as an umbrella term for just about anything on the internet that is new and "cool"
Look, you're using a logical fallacy, trying to force me into some false threshold of proof saying "there are millions of places where they use it the way I use it...not so fast...
In your reply, please specifically address the content of the wikipedia entry (esp. under the "criticism" section) and somehow explain how Time magazine isn't an exemplar about the mainstream usage of a term...then we can talk...
I find this theory to be kind of specious myself...IANAA...so maybe some of you could help me out
1. Light is affected by gravity...that's one way we find extra-solar planets...but how could it be affected in a way that it would make supernovae appear have less magnitude? Wouldn't it (the light) just wobble?
2. Also, how abnormally less-dense is our area (I hate that they call it a bubble...pocket maybe)? It seems that in order to be significant, it would have to be so abnormal that we would have noticed by now...
3. Lastly, these supernovae arent' the only thing we have that tells us the universe is expanding with acceleration, right? don't observations of the cosmic microwave background also lead us to conclude that the universe is accelerating and expanding? how could both these ideas be correct?
Sorry, but though you in your parlance "web 2.0" might describe that aspect, the common usage of the term is not at all in a context that fits that definition. Not even in TFA is it used in that context.
It's a hype word...a word that people who aren't even aware that a website communicates with a server use to describe anything from social networking sites to e-commerce as a way to generate copy for a publication or to pitch a new product. They are in the great majority, and however technical and accurate your usage of the term is, it doesn't matter.
"2.0" commonly indicates a second version of software...the internet isn't a software program you download or purchase like photoshop...it's a computer network. There was never a new version of the internet, just more progressive ways to transfer content. And the difference is just a progressive difference, not any evolutionary step forward.
ok, I'll bite..."so, what doesweb 2.0 mean"
be concrete, and don't copy/paste from urban dictionary
Businesses want to make money. The trend is business thinking is "why sell them something when we can rent it to them and keep charging them indefinitely."
RMS hits it right on when he says web-based applications are really an effort to change the market so that every computing function is on a pay per use or subscription basis. Look at itunes DRM if you want to see the future of "cloud computing"
It's all marketing.
As an aside, from TFA:
I was amused that the writer of an article about how "cloud computing" is hype used another one of those hype buzzwords that have no concrete meaning whatsoever..."web 2.0"...
Yes! I read that too. Most of the problems seem truly mathematical in nature, but the first two especially seemed Orewellian:
Emphasis mine...the second one is worse.
They want to quantify every aspect of human existence and be able to predict with high accuracy every potential human behavior. Just re-read that sentence once and ponder if you really want the government to be able to do that, given what we've seen them do to people in the War on Terror (TM).
The worst part is, human behavior is never, repeat: NEVER going to be able to be predicted on that level. Sure there are tendencies, but correlation is not causation, and the best we can do in the predictive sense is observe tendencies. If the DoD's goal is to have total predictive awareness of an individual's thoughts and actions, they will eventually come up with something...whether it works or not!
That's the root of it...they can't do it, but they're spending so much money trying that eventually they will have to come up with some BS system (polygraph combined with brain imaging and psycological profile) and call it a predictive system.
Their goals may seem innocuous at first (and I don't want to insinuate evil intentions on any one individual, save Dick Cheney)...the old "national security" but we know how that evolves into just maintaining power over the citizenry.
Humans behavior will NEVER be quantifiable enough to do what the DoD and DARPA want.
look man, i know you think that reducing taxes will solve all your problems, but you've got to stop being so myopic.
yeah, now that I read it again, you could be right
this is not an exhaustive defense...at all...not even close
This sounds like a anarcho-capitalist argument against all taxes. I don't have the energy for a political discussion, but I think it's important to acknowledge going in that the core of critics like you is not about how to do science or anything of that nature...you're against all taxes.
don't flame this topic...please. I'm a left-leaning libertarian, just fyi.
I think space exploration should be funded by the government because of the inherent nature of this type of exploration. It's expensive, requires decades of planning and preparation, and has very high stakes. It really is 'the final frontier' and as the original US astronauts liked to call it, "pushing the edge of the envelope."
I advocate government funded scientific endeavor of all types. We're talking about space, but the benefits of expanding our knowledge through space exploration are seen in practically ever scientific discipline.
Here's a ridiculously cursory list:
1. Survival of our species. Depending on who you talk to, we may have already ruined it. Climate change is a recognized fact. Of course there is always an asteroid, war, overpopulation, pandemic, FPS video games, etc. Take your pick. Space exploration as I (and many others) see it is a way to expand the human presence beyond our world, and in doing so dramatically increase our chances of moving past the dangerous times in which we live.
2. Science. I shouldn't have to go into this too much on /. Seriously...this is /. Space exploration lets us look deeper into space with telescopes, which allows us to test our theories about how the universe, and our planet came into being in the first place. It helps us understand how the most fundamental aspects of our existence function...idk, like say, gravity. Like I said, this is /. and I think this point is self-explanitory.
3. Technology. The trip to the moon pushed the US to develop technology that wasn't necessarily 'marketable' at the time, and may not have ever gotten developed. I really don't have time to put up links with specifics, but increased computer capacity for guidance systems and all the communications technology spring to mind. Private exploration can take risks with technology that may not make financial sense at the time but reap huge rewards later.
Corporations are risk averse and profit from defective design (DRM anyone?). Public endeavors have fewer limits on what they can do.
4. Promoting increasing knowledge. I know some hardcore anarcho-capitalist is going to say "it's not the government's job to blah blah blah"...that's a straw man argument. I'm not advocating Soviet style government mandated work programs! I'm saying that because of our space endeavors in the 50s and 60s generations were inspired to get involved in science and engineering. That's priceless.
That's 4...in no way presented to represent all the reasons why public funded space exploration is a good investment.
Now, if you want to talk about how NASA's mission and policies need to be focused and reformed, of course we can improve!...that's a different discussion. This discussion, if you read the parent is not about that aspect. This is about whether the US should even do it in the first place, and the answer is a big fat yes.
What monopoly? The U.S. government didn't do anything to prevent these guys from their commercial enterprise...they didn't do anything anti-competitive.
Sure NASA has problems, but they need to fix the problems, not mothball the whole agency!
Private industry will never replace public endeavor. THEY HAVE DIFFERENT GOALS. Sure both are going to space, but one is going to make money, the other is going for more altruistic reasons...you know...science (among many other reasons...don't flame me).
If you want to respond...please address my main point, which is: We can have BOTH successful private space development AND publicly funded scientific exploration...they are not mutually exclusive.
In fact, if it wasn't for publicly funded exploration (which did orbital flights 50 years ago ;) this company wouldn't exist.
Grand parent sounded ridiculous with his 'toast' to man finally reaching to the stars...there was, you know, the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo programs, whatever the Soviets called their programs, dozens of probes, satellites, etc...all done decades ago.
I applaud what SpaceX is doing, but I cannot stand when people praise them like retarded donkeys while pretending they are space pioneers. They are pioneers of funding...the stuff they are doing has already been done several times. If you look at what they're doing IN CONTEXT it's still remarkable!
As far as the analogies that the parent is speaking of...let's just drop the BS...you can look right through the 'government does it first' and the 'private industry does it first' counter argument and see its just your standard liberal vs. conservative circular argument.
Sure the military and other gov't agencies have pioneered several technologies (the internet springs to mind...ARPANET anyone?), and private industry has had its successes as well.
We can, you know, have both...
Are you implying that public funded space exploration is wrong for some reason? If so you are dead wrong. I can type out a great defense of NASA's existence and mission if need be...
Bad comparison...sure here in the U.S. speeches and articles are put together ahead of time with specifics added at the end...
that's the difference...we wait to add the quotations until someone actually says them
with the Obama election article example...for this comparison to be valid, this Obama article you speak of would have to include quotations from a speech he hasn't given yet...
the chinese article had quotations of conversations that *hadn't happened yet*
you can't downplay the difference...it's the difference between getting a head start on an article to meet deadline and bold face lying propaganda
So you're answer is to 'blame the parent'...but several times you indicated that with greater pay, teachers would be motivated to stay in crappy inner city schools and make calls to the delinquent parents at night??
Your statements support my point.
Fact: not all parents will be good parents. Teachers, in today's America, are expected to fill in that deficiency in some ways, like making phone calls after school (to use your example). You said yourself more money would encourage you to do that! You are agreeing with me ;)
not after reading some of the comments on this board!
Seriously, I don't know. It would help for sure. Someone else on this thread said something to the effect of: "teachers do it for the love of the profession, so it's ok to pay them less"...it's that attitude that made the sacrifices not worth it...like I'm this civics teacher trying to educate high schoolers to be competent citizens, and because I love my job, I deserve to get paid less?
There were personal factors to my decision to leave...it wasn't just one thing. The lack of appreciation from parents, lawmakers, and society as a whole was a factor for sure though.
I don't have 100% faith in the 'black hand' of the economy...but in our society, one of the major ways we assign value to an occupation is by how much we pay those who do it. If we want better teachers we have to show them how important the job is in a tangible way...not take advantage of their idealism.
Consider that statement...you had one bad encounter (and of course were relying on what the kid told you...you didn't actually TALK to the teacher in question, did you?) and from that encounter you conclude that all teachers are incompetent. Ridiculous...so often in our culture, teachers are like hockey goalies, their contribution is only noticed when they perform poorly.
You're contradicting yourself. First you tell a story of a blatantly 'bad" teacher, then you say that it's impossible for one teacher to perform better than another.
Here's the thing...teachers get fired for poor performance all the time. Using your example, if complaints about that teacher giving unfair grades (especially to a student who got the question right) were reported to the principle, a good principle would have a word with the teacher. How it would proceed from there depends on the teacher, but if, after several warnings, the teacher in your example refused to be fair, that teacher would get fired!
Unions do not prevent teachers from getting fired for being bad teachers. I saw it myself. In our department, everyone knew which teachers were slacking, and no one was surprised when they didn't get their contracts renewed the next year.
It's funny, everyone has a story about a bad teacher, but those same people refuse to acknowledge that bad teachers can be weeded out. It happens all the time.
About the salaries...nurses, lawyers, doctors, accountants, engineers, etc. can usually make close to $50,000 a year starting out (depending on the CPI of the area). When you consider that without teachers, none of these other occupations would exist, I'd say $50,000 is, at least, a good starting point.
Ah, the old can't fire bad teachers argument...it's still a red herring...bad teachers get fired all the time
Bad teachers can be fired for poor performance or with no cause. It's not like the tenure system in colleges that affords liberal amounts of 'Academic freedom'...some school districts have something akin to 'seniority' for long-serving teachers, but even then those teachers can be fired for no cause or for poor performance.
You parrot a common misconception perpetuated by anti-union people for decades.
If you continue the grand parent's analogy, if a teacher is unfairly failing kids left and right with no regard for his/her duty to adapt to particular situations (aka, they patently refuse to "take the student aside" and work out a plan), that teacher could be fired for bad performance after basic guidelines for notification and probationary periods have elapsed.
When bad teachers keep their jobs, it's almost always b/c of an overly politicized school board or an incompetent administrator unwilling to show leadership.
I'm not calling for teachers to get fired arbitrarily, not at all...poor teacher performance is usually easy to spot. Admin's and school boards need to show leadership when it happens.
One teacher is worth more than 5 software developers. You would have never become a software developer if it hadn't been for teachers.
honest question for you (even though I have strong suspicions that you are flamebaiting for kicks or a paid GOP troll):
In your ideal scenario, would you advocate privatizing k-12 education, with no taxpayer supported public schooling?