If a district's teachers are not looking out for their kids this way, you have a deeper problem than a grading policy
Yes, I think this indicates a teacher problem more than a school policy problem.
If bad teachers are the problem, then good teachers are the solution, however, so many bungled ideas about how to attract quality professionals to education have made it impossible to attract quality applicants in many, many districts across the country (here in Indiana it's worse than the national trend)
If you want quality professional teachers who know when to "pull a kid aside" and give them some targeted help to pass a class, then you have TO PAY THEM.
Why would a quality teacher leave the serenity of the university town they lived in for school and go to some backwards dysfunctional derelict school district for half the pay as they could get at a functioning district?
The only solution is to have a national teacher's minimum wage, subsidized by the Fed. Gov't if necessary (some red states would rather pardon child murderers than raise teacher salaries).
Anyone who disagrees needs to think hard about what teachers are asked to do in today's america. They are expected to do so much but paid like unionized factory workers.
$50,000 is a good starting figure. You could pay for it by ditching NCLB and all the wasteful bureaucracy that it created.
Fed, state, and local gov't wastes millions on ineffective programs that try to do systematically what a good teacher will do intuitively.
For the record, IANAT...I used to be until I realized I was carrying the burden of absent parents and ignorant policy makers.
You obviously know alot about MMO gaming but I think your conclusions are based on massive (heh) assumptions about the gameplay and how they were going to integrate this game into the Halo universe.
You talk about there "not being enough spartans..." and other limitations you foresee based on the Halo FPS storyline. Fact is, the game 'writers' could dream up any scenario they wanted to explain why there were more units. A post-apocalyptic alternate universe for example. The doors are wide open.
As far as players not appreciating MMO gameplay style, that's an open question. It's wrong to assume that Halo players are just mindless ADD addled button mashers. Halo has been around for years now, enough for gamers to have started playing in high school and now be post-collegiate professionals. Halo3 online consistently has about 300,000 players whenever I sign in to play. Sure *some* Halo players are button mashing pre-teens, but you're insinuating that they are the majority (and assuming that ADD button mashers don't like WoW).
Also, I know several specific cases of friends who will play anything Halo. They don't like WoW b/c of the fantasy aspect of it more than the gameplay (in the end...good gameplay transcends 'style' or game 'genre'). If a Halo MMO was at least comparable to WoW, they'd play.
Speaking of WoW comparisons...nothing is ever going to measure up. Basically WoW perfected the massive multiplayer genre (it's the Michael Jordan of the genre), and every MMOG after will be "just a WoW" clone. So what? Millions love MMOG, why isn't there room for a well designed, Halo-based, sci-fi version? I think there is plenty of potential gamers.
same here...are we sure that this device will only work through T-Mobile? it's open-source, so isn't it possible to easily make it work with AT&T's service?
The iphone is nice and all, but i'm hesitant to put all my eggs in apple's basket. I've had a few issues with DRM protected iTunes downloads and it put a bad taste in my mouth (found a winamp plugin that works fine, but still...)
All we've got is a device which can spot normal people trying to be visibly "suspicious".
You are correct. From TFA:
Some subjects were told to act shifty, be evasive, deceptive and hostile. And many were detected.
It is absolutely ridiculous to think that they have produced any kind of test results that would indicate a functioning system. This is government and business at its absolute worst.
Not only is DHS trying their damnedest to become big brother, they are doing it in the most incompetent way possible.
This tech will never, ever work. All it can measure is physiological attributes. Correlation is not causation. Just because some percentage of people who are intending to commit a crime have certain physiological characteristics does not mean that anyone with those characteristics is a 'pre-criminal' and should be questioned. I weep for the future.
And even if, in some far-flung scenario, it did become functional it would still be illegal. It is invasion of privacy. Our thoughts and intentions are private. They mean nothing until we act on them. Human thought is vast and unlimited, part of our nature is boiling down the infinite array of ideas we have into action in the physical world where there are consequences. Everyone has the right to think whatever they want. When they act on it, then that action enters the territory of having (potentially bad) consequences.
What this evolves into is thought control and that is the end of liberty.
I hate DRM as much as the next slashdotter, but I think Blu-Ray (and HDDVD) were doomed from the beginning because the need for the technology just wasn't there in the numbers to justify its existence.
HD-DVD and Blue-Ray are mostly a marketing-driven creation. The tech doesn't actually do much that DVD's do not do. The jump from VHS (past laser disc) to DVD as the mainstream format was an evolutionary step forward. No matter how many marketing people tried to say otherwise, it just wasn't a significant step forward. Sure early adopters, rich people, and the like would buy it, but the wider market just wasn't there.
HD-DVD and Blu-Ray will go down as a big waste of money.
While doing research for the article, I saw that the wikipedia entry for the group talked about a new album, but had no citation. I asked the band about it, got the scoop, and adjusted the wikipedia article after my story was published.
why would a band that wants to be known want to put itself on a 'wikia' and not on wikipedia itself? that makes no sense whatsoever.
Look, here's how journalism is done. If I do all the research I can for an upcoming artist interview, and find that the wikipedia entry for the band says that the band will have a new album out in 2008, but there is no citation, I can either email the band's publicist or ask the band directly in the interview to confirm that information. If I do get confirmation, then I get a scoop. Then I can go back and edit the wikipedia entry to cite my own article, because I have confirmed the information.
I can understand wikipedians who are annoyed when a bunch of 8th graders make up a band and put up a wikipedia article about it. But how often does that really happen? And, how many of your favorite bands started out as a bunch of 8th grader wannabes?
wikipedia nazis need to balance themselves and realize that wikipedia has been successful beyond their wildest dreams and that with that success comes some side-effects. No need to get crazy.
new bands want to reach as many people as possible, for a band to say "oh, let's not put our band on wikipedia, because there are too many entries on it already" would be insane and stupid.
I'm a music writer, and I'm also section editor of an online music/movie reivew website. The section I edit is the "new artist" section (we call it FIND).
My job is to find all the information I can about new bands. Here's the problem:
1. often press releases are insufficient or leave out pertinent, possibly negative information (understandable, that's what p.r. people are for)
2. band websites are often run by labels. labels don't give each artist the same ammount of attention, and often really good bands fall through the cracks because of it. many 'official' band websites are 'under construction' for years
3. myspace is unreliable...it's good to hear some tracks and keep up with show dates but like press release, sometimes important info that a journalist needs to know is left out
wikipedia is an invaluable starting point for the research I do...save the 'indie' band entries!
He probably made a point of being there to help Taylor out - a little bit of positive publicity
gotta help out the homies...I went back and watched the video again (this time with the sound on) and the design inspiration for the concentric circles was very interesting, I must admit. Pity they couldn't have made it so it is accurate to the second...I'd still put it on my wall
The author of A Brief History of Time was guest of honour when the unique clock, which has no hands or numbers, was revealed at Corpus Christi College.
Yeah, so the only think Hawking had to do with this clock is: he was a guest at its unveiling.
But the clock is only accurate once every five minutes - the rest of the time the lights are simply for decoration.
And the clock itself really isn't much of a clock. The only mildly interesting thing about it is the "time eating" grasshopper that travels around the outside.
Universities will always have an 'official' guide book for prospective students. Really, they'd be idiots to let random students post content and let that serve as the 'official' guide book.
As usual, the article description is silly, what with the claim that "dead tree college guidebooks are a thing of the past"...uni's already have well developed websites, and that fact, more than some wiki-guide book website is what's making the dead tree guidebook less important. It's the internet itself.
every year we allocate more and more money for military spending
No, you're not wrong for feeling disgusted.
If all the nooks and crannies of the military's budget were reviewed with the same oversight that, say, the Feds apply to our income taxes, we would all weep out of disgust.
The military (and most gov't agencies) waste so much money it seriously is staggering. I'm not one of those that thinks everything the gov't does is wrong, but I know for a fact it is being grossly mismanaged, bungled, and fumbled. Actually, if you look at Enron, HP, etc...you'll see that contemporary American management philosophy is deficient...it's not just a military issue at all.
Developing this "thought control" technology is, IMHO, a good idea. What I think is stupid is that they think they can eventually get a helmet that lets you drive a hummer with your thoughts. It's so far fetched it's silly.
My laptop boots in about 20-30 seconds, with windows XP
My XP laptop (Toshiba Satellite, 1gig ram) boots in less than 45 seconds
It recovers from hibernate in about 8 seconds
Not sure what the guy who wrote the article description at top is running XP on, but 4 minutes seems ridiculous. Even the slow-ass machines where I work boot XP in less than 2 minutes.
I'd also go with hibernate or use cell phone, b/c it sounds like he's using an underpowered computer
Tons of Linux guys on here have (probably better) suggestions, but if you want to stick w/ XP, hibernate
I saw that episode awhile ago. I don't remember the specifics, but that episode and many others require cooperation from the police.
Seriously, Mythbusters isn't going to do a show on national television, aided by the police, that describes what license plate accessories will help evade the cops. It just won't happen. Think of the lawsuits. Of course all the accessories didn't work.
why the -1 "troll" mods? i'm not posting to piss people off...i really think what I said is relevant and needs to be said...I don't want to rant, 1. b/c I already did and 2. b/c I don't want this comment downmodded either.
my point is, is there a GOP backlash of modding on/. lately? have the neo-cons taken over this board?
between the four branches of the military, the CIA, the FBI, the state dept., the DIA, DHS, ICE, and the DoD itself (and of course all the secret apparatuses we don't know about)...between all of those...you don't think we have hundreds of thousands of analysts???
what do you think they do?
oh yeah, and I also forgot the civilian contractors that we pay 3x as much to do the same thing the gov't used to do only MORE incompetently!
With all the resources the DoD, CIA, FBI, etc. have at their disposal, this shouldn't happen. Sure, occasionally the MSM or a blogger will scoop the military, but with the hundreds of thousands of people we pay with our tax dollars to do this, it shouldn't be very often.
Incompetence has taken hold of our government like never before, and we have been experiencing the effects since before 9/11.
Seriously, it IS just a name. Napster hasn't been worth anything since it stopped being a p2p filesharing network...well, scratch that...the name 'napster' is worth whatever people will pay for it, in a sense...
I have no idea how Best Buy financial analysts could think that "napster" is work that much.
It's deals like this that explain why US business is doing so poorly
Weird as it sounds, it seems like you and Senator Tom Coburn have something in common.
Your link didn't have any mention of Coburn's stance on filesharing. I can't stand his policies, in general, and doubt that I have anything in common with him on this issue.
Someone else talked about how the music industry itself is the main problem...that they are run by lawyers. I agree that the music industry is a joke, and has tried to litigate itself of a problem that they didn't have the will to handle. Filesharing, mp3's, and digital media players became a reality over a decade ago, and instead of adapting to technology, they filed lawsuits against their customers.
When the laws are insufficient, that's when they need to be changed. Sure the RIAA, etc. stupidly clung to a bad business plan, but our lawmakers also are to blame for not making good laws.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, I think this indicates a teacher problem more than a school policy problem.
If bad teachers are the problem, then good teachers are the solution, however, so many bungled ideas about how to attract quality professionals to education have made it impossible to attract quality applicants in many, many districts across the country (here in Indiana it's worse than the national trend)
If you want quality professional teachers who know when to "pull a kid aside" and give them some targeted help to pass a class, then you have TO PAY THEM.
Why would a quality teacher leave the serenity of the university town they lived in for school and go to some backwards dysfunctional derelict school district for half the pay as they could get at a functioning district?
The only solution is to have a national teacher's minimum wage, subsidized by the Fed. Gov't if necessary (some red states would rather pardon child murderers than raise teacher salaries).
Anyone who disagrees needs to think hard about what teachers are asked to do in today's america. They are expected to do so much but paid like unionized factory workers.
$50,000 is a good starting figure. You could pay for it by ditching NCLB and all the wasteful bureaucracy that it created.
Fed, state, and local gov't wastes millions on ineffective programs that try to do systematically what a good teacher will do intuitively.
For the record, IANAT...I used to be until I realized I was carrying the burden of absent parents and ignorant policy makers.
no kidding! I always get my ass handed to me in that DLC map...the one that's basically a warehouse with shipping containers all around...
whoa...*steps back slowly trying not to make sudden moves*
I give, I give...
please explain what you mean by "corporate keynesianism"
You obviously know alot about MMO gaming but I think your conclusions are based on massive (heh) assumptions about the gameplay and how they were going to integrate this game into the Halo universe.
You talk about there "not being enough spartans..." and other limitations you foresee based on the Halo FPS storyline. Fact is, the game 'writers' could dream up any scenario they wanted to explain why there were more units. A post-apocalyptic alternate universe for example. The doors are wide open.
As far as players not appreciating MMO gameplay style, that's an open question. It's wrong to assume that Halo players are just mindless ADD addled button mashers. Halo has been around for years now, enough for gamers to have started playing in high school and now be post-collegiate professionals. Halo3 online consistently has about 300,000 players whenever I sign in to play. Sure *some* Halo players are button mashing pre-teens, but you're insinuating that they are the majority (and assuming that ADD button mashers don't like WoW).
Also, I know several specific cases of friends who will play anything Halo. They don't like WoW b/c of the fantasy aspect of it more than the gameplay (in the end...good gameplay transcends 'style' or game 'genre'). If a Halo MMO was at least comparable to WoW, they'd play.
Speaking of WoW comparisons...nothing is ever going to measure up. Basically WoW perfected the massive multiplayer genre (it's the Michael Jordan of the genre), and every MMOG after will be "just a WoW" clone. So what? Millions love MMOG, why isn't there room for a well designed, Halo-based, sci-fi version? I think there is plenty of potential gamers.
Even if it's meant as a joke, the summary is misleading and badly written.
And if you're right, and it is supposed to be a joke, then it's a double fail.
same here...are we sure that this device will only work through T-Mobile? it's open-source, so isn't it possible to easily make it work with AT&T's service?
The iphone is nice and all, but i'm hesitant to put all my eggs in apple's basket. I've had a few issues with DRM protected iTunes downloads and it put a bad taste in my mouth (found a winamp plugin that works fine, but still...)
You are correct. From TFA:
It is absolutely ridiculous to think that they have produced any kind of test results that would indicate a functioning system. This is government and business at its absolute worst.
Not only is DHS trying their damnedest to become big brother, they are doing it in the most incompetent way possible.
This tech will never, ever work. All it can measure is physiological attributes. Correlation is not causation. Just because some percentage of people who are intending to commit a crime have certain physiological characteristics does not mean that anyone with those characteristics is a 'pre-criminal' and should be questioned. I weep for the future.
And even if, in some far-flung scenario, it did become functional it would still be illegal. It is invasion of privacy. Our thoughts and intentions are private. They mean nothing until we act on them. Human thought is vast and unlimited, part of our nature is boiling down the infinite array of ideas we have into action in the physical world where there are consequences. Everyone has the right to think whatever they want. When they act on it, then that action enters the territory of having (potentially bad) consequences.
What this evolves into is thought control and that is the end of liberty.
I hate DRM as much as the next slashdotter, but I think Blu-Ray (and HDDVD) were doomed from the beginning because the need for the technology just wasn't there in the numbers to justify its existence.
HD-DVD and Blue-Ray are mostly a marketing-driven creation. The tech doesn't actually do much that DVD's do not do. The jump from VHS (past laser disc) to DVD as the mainstream format was an evolutionary step forward. No matter how many marketing people tried to say otherwise, it just wasn't a significant step forward. Sure early adopters, rich people, and the like would buy it, but the wider market just wasn't there.
HD-DVD and Blu-Ray will go down as a big waste of money.
Well, that's exactly what happened when I interviewed The Crystal Method a few months ago.
While doing research for the article, I saw that the wikipedia entry for the group talked about a new album, but had no citation. I asked the band about it, got the scoop, and adjusted the wikipedia article after my story was published.
why would a band that wants to be known want to put itself on a 'wikia' and not on wikipedia itself? that makes no sense whatsoever.
Look, here's how journalism is done. If I do all the research I can for an upcoming artist interview, and find that the wikipedia entry for the band says that the band will have a new album out in 2008, but there is no citation, I can either email the band's publicist or ask the band directly in the interview to confirm that information. If I do get confirmation, then I get a scoop. Then I can go back and edit the wikipedia entry to cite my own article, because I have confirmed the information.
I can understand wikipedians who are annoyed when a bunch of 8th graders make up a band and put up a wikipedia article about it. But how often does that really happen? And, how many of your favorite bands started out as a bunch of 8th grader wannabes?
wikipedia nazis need to balance themselves and realize that wikipedia has been successful beyond their wildest dreams and that with that success comes some side-effects. No need to get crazy.
why not do both?
new bands want to reach as many people as possible, for a band to say "oh, let's not put our band on wikipedia, because there are too many entries on it already" would be insane and stupid.
Leave those new band wikipedia entries alone.
I'm a music writer, and I'm also section editor of an online music/movie reivew website. The section I edit is the "new artist" section (we call it FIND).
My job is to find all the information I can about new bands. Here's the problem:
1. often press releases are insufficient or leave out pertinent, possibly negative information (understandable, that's what p.r. people are for)
2. band websites are often run by labels. labels don't give each artist the same ammount of attention, and often really good bands fall through the cracks because of it. many 'official' band websites are 'under construction' for years
3. myspace is unreliable...it's good to hear some tracks and keep up with show dates but like press release, sometimes important info that a journalist needs to know is left out
wikipedia is an invaluable starting point for the research I do...save the 'indie' band entries!
gotta help out the homies...I went back and watched the video again (this time with the sound on) and the design inspiration for the concentric circles was very interesting, I must admit. Pity they couldn't have made it so it is accurate to the second...I'd still put it on my wall
Misleading description...from TFA:
Yeah, so the only think Hawking had to do with this clock is: he was a guest at its unveiling.
And the clock itself really isn't much of a clock. The only mildly interesting thing about it is the "time eating" grasshopper that travels around the outside.
Universities will always have an 'official' guide book for prospective students. Really, they'd be idiots to let random students post content and let that serve as the 'official' guide book.
As usual, the article description is silly, what with the claim that "dead tree college guidebooks are a thing of the past"...uni's already have well developed websites, and that fact, more than some wiki-guide book website is what's making the dead tree guidebook less important. It's the internet itself.
No, you're not wrong for feeling disgusted.
If all the nooks and crannies of the military's budget were reviewed with the same oversight that, say, the Feds apply to our income taxes, we would all weep out of disgust.
The military (and most gov't agencies) waste so much money it seriously is staggering. I'm not one of those that thinks everything the gov't does is wrong, but I know for a fact it is being grossly mismanaged, bungled, and fumbled. Actually, if you look at Enron, HP, etc...you'll see that contemporary American management philosophy is deficient...it's not just a military issue at all.
Developing this "thought control" technology is, IMHO, a good idea. What I think is stupid is that they think they can eventually get a helmet that lets you drive a hummer with your thoughts. It's so far fetched it's silly.
My XP laptop (Toshiba Satellite, 1gig ram) boots in less than 45 seconds
It recovers from hibernate in about 8 seconds
Not sure what the guy who wrote the article description at top is running XP on, but 4 minutes seems ridiculous. Even the slow-ass machines where I work boot XP in less than 2 minutes.
I'd also go with hibernate or use cell phone, b/c it sounds like he's using an underpowered computer
Tons of Linux guys on here have (probably better) suggestions, but if you want to stick w/ XP, hibernate
I saw that episode awhile ago. I don't remember the specifics, but that episode and many others require cooperation from the police.
Seriously, Mythbusters isn't going to do a show on national television, aided by the police, that describes what license plate accessories will help evade the cops. It just won't happen. Think of the lawsuits. Of course all the accessories didn't work.
why the -1 "troll" mods? i'm not posting to piss people off...i really think what I said is relevant and needs to be said...I don't want to rant, 1. b/c I already did and 2. b/c I don't want this comment downmodded either.
my point is, is there a GOP backlash of modding on /. lately? have the neo-cons taken over this board?
between the four branches of the military, the CIA, the FBI, the state dept., the DIA, DHS, ICE, and the DoD itself (and of course all the secret apparatuses we don't know about)...between all of those...you don't think we have hundreds of thousands of analysts???
what do you think they do?
oh yeah, and I also forgot the civilian contractors that we pay 3x as much to do the same thing the gov't used to do only MORE incompetently!
faking incompetence is completely beyond their capability
With all the resources the DoD, CIA, FBI, etc. have at their disposal, this shouldn't happen. Sure, occasionally the MSM or a blogger will scoop the military, but with the hundreds of thousands of people we pay with our tax dollars to do this, it shouldn't be very often.
Incompetence has taken hold of our government like never before, and we have been experiencing the effects since before 9/11.
Seriously, it IS just a name. Napster hasn't been worth anything since it stopped being a p2p filesharing network...well, scratch that...the name 'napster' is worth whatever people will pay for it, in a sense...
I have no idea how Best Buy financial analysts could think that "napster" is work that much.
It's deals like this that explain why US business is doing so poorly
Your link didn't have any mention of Coburn's stance on filesharing. I can't stand his policies, in general, and doubt that I have anything in common with him on this issue.
Someone else talked about how the music industry itself is the main problem...that they are run by lawyers. I agree that the music industry is a joke, and has tried to litigate itself of a problem that they didn't have the will to handle. Filesharing, mp3's, and digital media players became a reality over a decade ago, and instead of adapting to technology, they filed lawsuits against their customers.
When the laws are insufficient, that's when they need to be changed. Sure the RIAA, etc. stupidly clung to a bad business plan, but our lawmakers also are to blame for not making good laws.