First off, I agree that school funding is not evenly distributed in the US. Irrelevant. As has been pointed out here before, there is no corrolation between funding and student achievement. So that can be ignored.
As for schools being expected to do far to much, yes, they are. I agree.
As for vouchers, however, I must disagree.
1 & 2. As for the situation of the best going to the best schools, yes, this will occur. But is it really such a problem? Is it a proble mwith colleges? Do they not do the same thing? And do you really believe there is no incentive for a lesser school to improve? With hundreds of thousands of schools, all competing, is improvement not the natural state? If you don't think so, just look at the IT industry.
3. As for parent involvement, there is a good reason that vouchers will help this if it's so important: The schools, all competing with each other, will want an edge. And making parents get involved will quickly become one of those edges the will strive to achieve.
As for funding schools with income tax, uniform funding, and doing away with private schools, this is moronic. Yes, it'll give everyone a "fair" start -- just like Communism did, as that's what it is -- at the lowest common deminator. It's better from any standpoint (except a silly one of fairness and to hell with the consequences) to have one genius and four morons than five morons.
All in all, public funding for schools should be abolished, and all should attend PRIVATE schools. Will this mean some people will not be able to attend school? Probably not -- there is always charity. But it will be a FAR better education, for the sole reason that schools will be forced to improve to stay in business. It'd be 3 or four geniuses and a moron. Better than four morons.
And consider how many of the other complaints it would address. Do you think a school in which teachers were encouraged to innovate would do better than one where they were made to follow a rigid curriculum, get lesson plans approved, and fill out mounds of paperwork? Of course. And would teachers stay at a school that underpaid and overworked them?
Would this ever happen? Probably not without a revolution -- just condier how many people would have to loose power for it to happen...
While certainly observable, it is not a fact. It, too, is a theory. It is possible (though very unlikely) that somewhere there is an exception.
We only believe the inverse square law because we have measured it. We know that in all the measurements we have taken, it holds. If we were to find an exception, we'd need a new theory.
Same with Newton's work. For quite some time, I'm sure many people called them facts. But then some guy with funny-looking hair came along and said 'no, there are exceptions.'
Seriously, though, many religions hold that prayer does not always come true. This would seem to imply that the message does not always reach its destination. Many religions also hold that you must feel the responce in your heart, that you can't hear it. This would indicate many of the responce packets do not get through -- sort of like RealPlayer on a bad day over a 2400bps modem.
Prayer is clearly on UDP.
I'll refrain from commenting on the validity of religion:)
Hmmm... how about the patent office in a big room with white, padded, rubber walls, with the patent examiners standing out front in straight jackets, and the words "CLAIMS: 1. A method of handling mentally maladjusted persons through the use of protective enclosures."; somehow shoved underneath.
For prior art, I'd suggest the Macintosh and HyperCard, in particular. Both of which are quite capable of figuring out that when I say 10, I mean 2010 -- but when I say 89, I mean 1989.
I also suggest as prior art anyone who has writtin a date on a freakin' sheet of paper in the form DD/MM/YY or any variation thereof and later read it:)
Hard to believe there are such morons in the world as to accept this 'patent'. What are the chances the examiner was baught?
Not too easy to do. The point was to use a bunch of unsecured boxes to send out requests that appear perfectly legit. I don't think there is a good way to make sure all the computer neophyte's boxes are secure. Especially when at least one major operating system can not be made secure:)
Consider if you have a 500-byte HHTP request, and 2000 unsecured computers to do it with. Send 5 a second -- which would look like a perfectly valid image load -- and you've nailed the server with 4.8MB/s, and 10,000 requests/s. If it's a 30K image, it's trying to pump back 293MB/s.
I don't know what kind of connection/hardware you've got, but that's quite a bit of bandwidth -- especially if it's kept up for a minute or two. What kind of cable gives you 2.3 gigabits? Or for that matter, webserver?
Factor in the people who think that M$ makes reasonable webservers, and decide to run IIS (or whatever it's called today) on NT and you've got a formula for crashing a good part of the internet.
And all in all, it looked like a person surfing the web to the cable modem company. They may not even notice the 4.8MB/s. And when they do, it'd be quite a mess to stop it.
WTF is the "Internet Economy" and how do you "target" a chip at it?
Hmmm... Internet Economy... well, let's see. What does a normal computer chip do that you don't need to stare at webpages? Hmmm... Floating point math! This is clearly just a marketing doublespeak way of saying:
The Itanium can't divide.
Sort of like a Pentium.
Even more interesting is going to be the Intel marketing. How does one market such a wretched sounding name? Are they planning on selling this as a mixture of the Internet and the Pentium? Well, geeh, that's great. As if the Pentium did not already have enough privacy problems.
Hmmm... Now all they need is a nice jingle...
Lacking germanium, we made it out of wild geranium, Nullifying your privacy to a symposium!
Itanium, it sounds like titanium! Itanium, it's less stable than uranium!
Itanium, the only chip built in a gymnasium, Sending it strait to a crematorium!
Itanium, it sounds like titanium! Itanium, it's less stable than uranium!
Itanium, it's giving our lawyers a honorarium, You'd rather have Cryptosporidium!
Itanium, it sounds like titanium! Itanium, it's less stable than uranium!
And by the way, saying that more people use metric, so therefore we must all adopt it, is as smart as saying that most people in the world speak Chinese, so every country should adopt Chinese as their official language. It would certainly make it easier to communicate if everyone spoke the same language.
Or like saying: "Well, most people use Windows, so therefore we all must adopt Windows!"
Quite frankly -- use whatever system you want. I don't care if you measure things in relation to c in cocacola bottles/s (that should be a mu). Just label the units, and I'll choose not to have anything to do with you -- because, quite frankly, I don't want to convert 3.4x10^-8c cocacola bottles/s to something reasonable.
If we do it that way, we'll get units we can all deal with.
First off, one has been able to buy a personal computer without Windows or MSDOS on it since...umm...personal computers came out. Choices included Apple, Amiga, Commadore, etc. The entire time, you could (for example) buy something from Apple. It did not, does not, and will not (hopefully) ever come with Windows or MS-DOS installed. Hell, you could of gotten OS/2 from IBM.
What you could not buy -- and still can not buy -- is a Windows-based PC without Windows. Nor will you ever be able to. Because that simply does not make sense.
If Compaq decides they want to sell only Windows-based PC's, that's their choice. It's their money they're using to make them. If you don't like it, don't buy from Compaq.
If MicroSoft says that if you want to sell Windows, you can sell nothing else, fine. Windows is their product. Their property. Just as I have no obligation to invite you to my home except on my terms -- to my property -- MicroSoft has no obligation to sell Windows except on their terms. If you don't like it, don't buy it.
If MicroSoft wants to include Internet Explorer with Windows, fine. Windows is MicroSoft's property. So is IE. They may do with them what they want.
Neither you nor you and any number of others (e.g., government) have any right whatsoever to force me to build a PC the way you want it. You may build one yourself and install whatever you like. You may pay your local hacker to build one for you. And you can install Linux or BSD or whatever ylou want on it -- provided you can obtain a copy.
What does this teach us? If we lie, cheat, and steal to get our wealth, do we have a right to keep it?
Yes, that's absolutely what a victory for the Justice department would teach us. The United States federal government (and just about all governments) steal (though they call it 'taxes') to get wealth. They produce nothing, yet claim anything they want. If life is a game, that is for sure cheating. Further, I can think of no larger group of liars than one finds on Capital Hill.
I, personally, avoid MicroSoft products, because all and all, they're ugly, exceedingly complex for the minimal functionality, and crash perpetualy. However, if you want to use Windows, fine.
If you think there is a demand for non-Windows PC's, then by all means build them and sell them. If you don't think there is a demand, they of course MicroSoft has a monopoly!
The lawyers persuing the case has always send threathening letters to participants on the Danish newsgroups, apparently based solely on keywords in the articles.
Hmmm... Sounds like spam to me. Get the lawyers' ISPs to cancel the account -- sounds like fun to me:) I bet that'll make them happy.
In computers there is a range of ease of use going from, say, the MacOS on one side to those old computers that where programmed by placing wires in the correct location.
Before we can much wory about the newbie reading the docs, we must worry about the newbie being able to use the program. Less, the docs will look like:
If thou willst thy Sendmail program to printeth the queue, shalt thou passeth the "-bp" option, unless thou wilt useth thy mailq command.
After reading such docs, the only thing a newbie will be doing is running for a (ak!) Windows '98 CD. And we all do not want that!
While we no doubt understand the use of Sendmail by now, to the newbie, it is quite incomprehensible. And if that newbie can't manage to understand the software, what is the point of scaring him with a large manual?
Would it not of been easier to -- at least the first time you did it -- to configure sendmail with a simple preferences screen, in which as you drag the mouse over the checkboxes, it gave you help text in a box below? And then when you hit "OK" it configured sendmail?
Feel free to mail me any comments; I may miss them if only posted here.
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As for schools being expected to do far to much, yes, they are. I agree.
As for vouchers, however, I must disagree.
1 & 2. As for the situation of the best going to the best schools, yes, this will occur. But is it really such a problem? Is it a proble mwith colleges? Do they not do the same thing? And do you really believe there is no incentive for a lesser school to improve? With hundreds of thousands of schools, all competing, is improvement not the natural state? If you don't think so, just look at the IT industry.
3. As for parent involvement, there is a good reason that vouchers will help this if it's so important: The schools, all competing with each other, will want an edge. And making parents get involved will quickly become one of those edges the will strive to achieve.
As for funding schools with income tax, uniform funding, and doing away with private schools, this is moronic. Yes, it'll give everyone a "fair" start -- just like Communism did, as that's what it is -- at the lowest common deminator. It's better from any standpoint (except a silly one of fairness and to hell with the consequences) to have one genius and four morons than five morons.
All in all, public funding for schools should be abolished, and all should attend PRIVATE schools. Will this mean some people will not be able to attend school? Probably not -- there is always charity. But it will be a FAR better education, for the sole reason that schools will be forced to improve to stay in business. It'd be 3 or four geniuses and a moron. Better than four morons.
And consider how many of the other complaints it would address. Do you think a school in which teachers were encouraged to innovate would do better than one where they were made to follow a rigid curriculum, get lesson plans approved, and fill out mounds of paperwork? Of course. And would teachers stay at a school that underpaid and overworked them?
Would this ever happen? Probably not without a revolution -- just condier how many people would have to loose power for it to happen...
--
We only believe the inverse square law because we have measured it. We know that in all the measurements we have taken, it holds. If we were to find an exception, we'd need a new theory.
Same with Newton's work. For quite some time, I'm sure many people called them facts. But then some guy with funny-looking hair came along and said 'no, there are exceptions.'
--
Prayer is clearly on UDP.
I'll refrain from commenting on the validity of religion :)
--
Hmmm... how about the patent office in a big room with white, padded, rubber walls, with the patent examiners standing out front in straight jackets, and the words "CLAIMS: 1. A method of handling mentally maladjusted persons through the use of protective enclosures."; somehow shoved underneath.
I also suggest as prior art anyone who has writtin a date on a freakin' sheet of paper in the form DD/MM/YY or any variation thereof and later read it :)
Hard to believe there are such morons in the world as to accept this 'patent'. What are the chances the examiner was baught?
Consider if you have a 500-byte HHTP request, and 2000 unsecured computers to do it with. Send 5 a second -- which would look like a perfectly valid image load -- and you've nailed the server with 4.8MB/s, and 10,000 requests/s. If it's a 30K image, it's trying to pump back 293MB/s.
I don't know what kind of connection/hardware you've got, but that's quite a bit of bandwidth -- especially if it's kept up for a minute or two. What kind of cable gives you 2.3 gigabits? Or for that matter, webserver?
Factor in the people who think that M$ makes reasonable webservers, and decide to run IIS (or whatever it's called today) on NT and you've got a formula for crashing a good part of the internet.
And all in all, it looked like a person surfing the web to the cable modem company. They may not even notice the 4.8MB/s. And when they do, it'd be quite a mess to stop it.
WTF is the "Internet Economy" and how do you "target" a chip at it?
Hmmm... Internet Economy... well, let's see. What does a normal computer chip do that you don't need to stare at webpages? Hmmm... Floating point math! This is clearly just a marketing doublespeak way of saying:
Sort of like a Pentium.Even more interesting is going to be the Intel marketing. How does one market such a wretched sounding name? Are they planning on selling this as a mixture of the Internet and the Pentium? Well, geeh, that's great. As if the Pentium did not already have enough privacy problems.
Hmmm... Now all they need is a nice jingle...
Lacking germanium, we made it out of wild geranium,
Nullifying your privacy to a symposium!
Itanium, it sounds like titanium!
Itanium, it's less stable than uranium!
Itanium, the only chip built in a gymnasium,
Sending it strait to a crematorium!
Itanium, it sounds like titanium!
Itanium, it's less stable than uranium!
Itanium, it's giving our lawyers a honorarium,
You'd rather have Cryptosporidium!
Itanium, it sounds like titanium!
Itanium, it's less stable than uranium!
I would love to see that on an Intel commercial!
And by the way, saying that more people use metric, so therefore we must all adopt it, is as smart as saying that most people in the world speak Chinese, so every country should adopt Chinese as their official language. It would certainly make it easier to communicate if everyone spoke the same language.
Or like saying: "Well, most people use Windows, so therefore we all must adopt Windows!"
Quite frankly -- use whatever system you want. I don't care if you measure things in relation to c in cocacola bottles/s (that should be a mu). Just label the units, and I'll choose not to have anything to do with you -- because, quite frankly, I don't want to convert 3.4x10^-8c cocacola bottles/s to something reasonable.
If we do it that way, we'll get units we can all deal with.
Let's see how low I can get moderated...
First off, one has been able to buy a personal computer without Windows or MSDOS on it since...umm...personal computers came out. Choices included Apple, Amiga, Commadore, etc. The entire time, you could (for example) buy something from Apple. It did not, does not, and will not (hopefully) ever come with Windows or MS-DOS installed. Hell, you could of gotten OS/2 from IBM.
What you could not buy -- and still can not buy -- is a Windows-based PC without Windows. Nor will you ever be able to. Because that simply does not make sense.
If Compaq decides they want to sell only Windows-based PC's, that's their choice. It's their money they're using to make them. If you don't like it, don't buy from Compaq.
If MicroSoft says that if you want to sell Windows, you can sell nothing else, fine. Windows is their product. Their property. Just as I have no obligation to invite you to my home except on my terms -- to my property -- MicroSoft has no obligation to sell Windows except on their terms. If you don't like it, don't buy it.
If MicroSoft wants to include Internet Explorer with Windows, fine. Windows is MicroSoft's property. So is IE. They may do with them what they want.
Neither you nor you and any number of others (e.g., government) have any right whatsoever to force me to build a PC the way you want it. You may build one yourself and install whatever you like. You may pay your local hacker to build one for you. And you can install Linux or BSD or whatever ylou want on it -- provided you can obtain a copy.
What does this teach us? If we lie, cheat, and steal to get our wealth, do we have a right to keep it?
Yes, that's absolutely what a victory for the Justice department would teach us. The United States federal government (and just about all governments) steal (though they call it 'taxes') to get wealth. They produce nothing, yet claim anything they want. If life is a game, that is for sure cheating. Further, I can think of no larger group of liars than one finds on Capital Hill.
I, personally, avoid MicroSoft products, because all and all, they're ugly, exceedingly complex for the minimal functionality, and crash perpetualy. However, if you want to use Windows, fine.
If you think there is a demand for non-Windows PC's, then by all means build them and sell them. If you don't think there is a demand, they of course MicroSoft has a monopoly!
The lawyers persuing the case has always send threathening letters to participants on the Danish newsgroups, apparently based solely on keywords in the articles.
Hmmm... Sounds like spam to me. Get the lawyers' ISPs to cancel the account -- sounds like fun to me :) I bet that'll make them happy.
Write a #$@#*& perl script to do it.
./ can't even spel bayta. Me can't no spel alfa.
Remember the IRS employees reading supposedly-confidential files? Nah, it just couldn't happen with the FBI!
You have forgetten the most fun one: Telemarket to the telemarketers :)
However, it's not to small on my computer -- and I'm using the standard settings -- so I don't know why it is on yours.
Before we can much wory about the newbie reading the docs, we must worry about the newbie being able to use the program. Less, the docs will look like:
After reading such docs, the only thing a newbie will be doing is running for a (ak!) Windows '98 CD. And we all do not want that!
While we no doubt understand the use of Sendmail by now, to the newbie, it is quite incomprehensible. And if that newbie can't manage to understand the software, what is the point of scaring him with a large manual?
Would it not of been easier to -- at least the first time you did it -- to configure sendmail with a simple preferences screen, in which as you drag the mouse over the checkboxes, it gave you help text in a box below? And then when you hit "OK" it configured sendmail?
Feel free to mail me any comments; I may miss them if only posted here.