Um, the bad feeling continues for me. Why are people thrilled about this? Jesus, yes, Lord, I wish desperately to talk with Google's advertisers. Oh, thank you Google! Gosh, I'm so happy now. "Pure genius?" Um... sure. I'm sorry if I'm missing the point. I'd be much more excited if I could click on a myspace.com link and call my friend's house right from there. Is that the next step? If so, then yes, very cool. Right now, I don't really want to talk to some sales dude at pricegrabber.com or wherever...
Education reform is difficult precisely because of this question. "What is education, anyhow?" Good luck answering it on Slashdot.:-)
However, I just want to point out that while I agree with the gist of your comments, your "solution" of giving each child an "emphasis" is problematic because we don't know who is going to be a laborer or not when they are older, and also because the definition of a specialization itself is a limitation on knowledge. I think most kids are interested in multiple "subjects" (sometimes seemingly arbitrary categorizations of knowledge). Also, people change, you see, and their interests fluctuate. Children are very difficult to raise and teach because they are individual human beings. You cannot make a one-size-fits-all program that does a good job with everyone.
I agree we should have a "core set of competencies" we expect all children to develop. We should try to make the system of navigating these competencies as flexible as possible, perhaps allowing kids to choose emphases that suit their desires each year, and asking that they stick with their interests for at least a year at a time. I don't know, I'm not an "educational expert," but I know that we need to throw a LOT more at this problem. Another issue is the fact that kids need strong guidance. So you have to balance this need for direction with the need for creativity. Kids should be forced to work on hard on *something* in school, but I guess what that is might be up to them?
Last time I tried 1.5, I bailed on it because StumbleUpon stopped working with it. If it weren't for that, I'd probably not use FF. Do most plugins now work with 1.5, or should I still wait? Thanks.
I think the grandparent was saying that it would be nice to replace the J in AJAX with something else. But I am not sure what they meant and should let them speak for themselves.:-)
Ah, but it's still relevantly recently that Joe Sixpack actually feels comfortable using the internet. But yes, now the newspapers are going to be put under pressure to actually deliver the depth of reporting and excellence that they claim the Internet lacks and they are able to deliver, due to the professionalism and ethics of their reporters (cough). This is All Good, Baby.
And I bet you wonder why the number of american kids enrolled in technology and science degree programs keeps dropping. I've got news for you - the kids aren't stupid - they see that there is no real future there.
They ARE stupid if they think that science and engineering has no future. Where do these brilliant students go to make money? These geniuses are either going to leech off their parents or they are not going to be well off if they reject science as an option. Do you think a law degree or a medical degree is so lucrative compared to a good engineering degree? I'm not so sure about that.
The truth is that kids aren't becoming scientists not because of money, but because they are looking for a way to have a good life, meaning make a good contribution to the world. We put scientists down as geeks and emphasize money over all else. There is zero appreciation for science in the popular culture, compared to Indian and Chinese cultures, where becoming an engineer makes you a respected professional, even a hero to your family.
The fact is that unless we continue to improve our skills here, we will lose ground. The fact is that complaining about how hard our competition in the labor market works is not going to cut it -- we will have to work as hard as they do. They want it more, so they are getting it. They are offering their labor for a lower price and it is just as good usually. Why shouldn't they get the prize?
Re:Cheaper yes, but less skilled?
on
The H-1B Swindle
·
· Score: 1
I'm not sure why you used the word "allowed." Do you think you can stop it? This globalist suggests you are in trouble if the work you do can be shipped overseas as 1/10th the wage. The only thing you can do as an individual is either switch careers or take a pay cut. It's the harsh truth. Another thing, and I'm not kidding here, is to invest in foreign index funds as a hedge!
The big picture is that it helps the whole world when your job goes overseas, but that doesn't help those of us in America so affected. Here's what I suggest we do as a society if we wish to try to maintain our position as a global economic leader. We need to start providing cheap access to high quality education in America by spending a crapload of money on it as a society. Improve our schools by paying teachers more and at the same time making it easier to fire them when they stink. The benefits to us as a society would be enormous, economically, politically, and socially.
The Chinese and the Indians get it: education is where it's at. They laud their scientists and encourage their children to study hard. We make fun of ours and spend our time watching TV and worshipping the Britney Spears' of the world. It's just a matter of time before we start getting into trouble. If we don't get educated, we'll be making shoes for the Chinese pretty soon, metaphorically speaking.
Cheaper yes, but less skilled?
on
The H-1B Swindle
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
I'm not sure how the assertion that these workers are less skilled is borne out here. This is just more globalization fallout. Apparently, programming skills are not as precious as we would all like to think; there are many workers in China and India that will work for less than half of what we make here; this is the same thing that has happened in other industries historically. The only way to save our skins is to continue to provide more value or agree to work for less. Programming that can be shifted overseas effectively is going to go there and no amount of complaining will do it. I say it's better to attract and hire these people here in America and let them build industries here than to push them out and artificially fix wages high here. Protectionism will not work.
In the U.N, you have countries like China and Saudi Arabia taking places on the human rights councils. We don't need a bunch of governments running things, that's not going to make the Internet more open. The attempt of US puritans to restrict porn shows that even in a fairly open society like the US, government control just imposes censorship. Let's have the government handle physical security of critical Internet infrastructures, or better yet, lets just make the internet more redundant so that nobody has to have control and it's very hard to disrupt. A recent article here (sorry, no link) pointed out that in fact there is a central backbone to the Internet that is critical and vulnerable... if we eliminate that single point of failure, then why do we need any government control? Or do we need to "protect the children?"
A Tokamak style fusion reactor that exhausted into the engine feed would be the best system, and probably have the thrust to take us to the stars (1 G acceleration for 1 year to get damn close to lightspeed).
Perfect! Let's use a nuclear reactor that is at LEAST 30 years from being invented to power our thrust system! Ya gotta love Slashdot for its plethora of "futurists," to put it mildly.:-)
It might be faster to throw a rock at the nearest star than to wait for all these hypothetical inventions to get it there. ---- joke.
It seems very strange for me to hear conservatives, which I'm sure you undeniably are, cry foul at simply criticizing the policy of the Bush administration.
Why should it seem strange? It is the secret of their political strength: loyalty to a fault. People instinctively mobilize around other people, and not so much around issues. This is an unfortunate fact. I don't know what the solution is.
While I agree that government surveillance is a potential problem here, I am not in favor of people exceeding the speed limit anyhow. A system such as this would also be perfect for balancing traffic around congestion, thus limiting traffic issues such as those around where I live. So the potential good from this is enormous. I just hope we continue to preserve the anonymity.
Unfortunately, you know that what will really happen is that a huge database tracking literally every cell phone's' movements will be set up in the name of fighting terrorism. The database will be secret and inaccessible to the public. Paranoia? I don't know. Anyone know what ever happened to the ECHELON project, which is a system intended to monitor literally every piece of human communication on the planet and mine it for analysis later?
Re:Actually, he has a point ...
on
Google Terror Threat
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
If Al-Queda wanted to cause a complete breakdown in the United States' economy, the most ultimate economy shattering that has been delivered in the history of the world - they would go into India and destroy the tech sector by blowing up the tech parks and computer infrastructure.
Sheesh. Cut the hysteria.
First of all, this is probably impossible. They don't have enough people and resources to do this. Al Queda, while being real and dangerous, is nowhere near as ominous a threat as our incompetent and hysterical government claims. AQ is just another device being used by governments to scare us into giving up our freedoms in the name of security. Notice how the government does not request secrecy for any private chemical plants or refineries, or other vulnerable targets. This is just politicians reacting hysterically to their own trumped up crap.
Second of all, even if all of India's tech sector imploded, or all of New York City was vaporized, it would at most put a few percent of people out of work temporarily. There would be no worldwide depression, no starvation, no nuclear war. It would be an asterisk on page 10,000 of human history.
Why is this put so apocalyptically? Wake me up when it starts spreading among humans. AFAIK, the real problem is that when the next pandemic hits, we don't have a way to manufacture immunizations.
I tell you what, how about we start investing more money in science and research, and less in crazy religions?
Nice try. When did they hire you? Surely you don't think that a page that says something like " Oh and hey, wanna join the flock? We're hiring! So guess what? Send us your resume!" is going to get any intelligent takers? So guess what? Is that a question? These people are dorks and I have no faith in their efforts, yes, based purely and unfairly on a crappy horrific website. As others have said, if their website is this bad, how many people think they will bother to make their browser experience a pleasant one?
From TFA, I read that no decision to terminate the project has been made. Instead, the council voted to terminate as a way to pressure the project to shorten its plans, to shave $250MM off of a $3.6B project.
TFA:
Monorail board approves ballot measure
By Mike Lindblom
Seattle Times staff reporter
The Seattle Monorail Project board has just approved a Nov. 8 ballot measure to shorten the proposed line, and run it from the Alaska Junction in West Seattle to West Dravus Street in Interbay.
The decision to send a ballot measure to voters came hours after the Seattle City Council agreed to advocate for the termination of the financially troubled monorail plan. Last night, monorail board members rejected putting forward a ballot measure or any plan to shorten the line. Mayor Greg Nickels had pushed hard for both.
"It's time for the people to decide whether they want to save the people's train," said Kristina Hill, SMP board chair.
The City Council today, in supporting Nickels' denial of street-use permits for the project, expressed frustration and anger at SMP's handling of the situation and refusal to come up with a ballot measure last night. They said they would ask the Legislature, which created the monorail agency, to dissolve it.
The deadline to submit a ballot measure is 4:30 p.m. today.
The trim to the planned 14-mile line would cut about $250 million from the $1.64 billion construction contract -- if the contracting team sticks with the project.
Pat Flaherty, president of the Cascadia team, said today his team doesn't want to keep working on the Seattle monorail unless the City Council and Nickels reverse course and actively support the ballot measure.
You are assuming two things:
1) Yahoo mail's interface is better, as measured by the number of users it pleases
2) Users switch to yahoo mail because of #1
Google will only "improve" its interface if they believe either #1 or #2 is true.
Slashdot Mirror
Um, the bad feeling continues for me. Why are people thrilled about this? Jesus, yes, Lord, I wish desperately to talk with Google's advertisers. Oh, thank you Google! Gosh, I'm so happy now. "Pure genius?" Um... sure. I'm sorry if I'm missing the point. I'd be much more excited if I could click on a myspace.com link and call my friend's house right from there. Is that the next step? If so, then yes, very cool. Right now, I don't really want to talk to some sales dude at pricegrabber.com or wherever...
However, I just want to point out that while I agree with the gist of your comments, your "solution" of giving each child an "emphasis" is problematic because we don't know who is going to be a laborer or not when they are older, and also because the definition of a specialization itself is a limitation on knowledge. I think most kids are interested in multiple "subjects" (sometimes seemingly arbitrary categorizations of knowledge). Also, people change, you see, and their interests fluctuate. Children are very difficult to raise and teach because they are individual human beings. You cannot make a one-size-fits-all program that does a good job with everyone.
I agree we should have a "core set of competencies" we expect all children to develop. We should try to make the system of navigating these competencies as flexible as possible, perhaps allowing kids to choose emphases that suit their desires each year, and asking that they stick with their interests for at least a year at a time. I don't know, I'm not an "educational expert," but I know that we need to throw a LOT more at this problem. Another issue is the fact that kids need strong guidance. So you have to balance this need for direction with the need for creativity. Kids should be forced to work on hard on *something* in school, but I guess what that is might be up to them?
Parent posting sounds like it was translated by the device in the article.
Last time I tried 1.5, I bailed on it because StumbleUpon stopped working with it. If it weren't for that, I'd probably not use FF. Do most plugins now work with 1.5, or should I still wait? Thanks.
I think the grandparent was saying that it would be nice to replace the J in AJAX with something else. But I am not sure what they meant and should let them speak for themselves. :-)
No chance of a flame war breaking out here, eh? :-)
Ah, but it's still relevantly recently that Joe Sixpack actually feels comfortable using the internet. But yes, now the newspapers are going to be put under pressure to actually deliver the depth of reporting and excellence that they claim the Internet lacks and they are able to deliver, due to the professionalism and ethics of their reporters (cough). This is All Good, Baby.
I keep reading articles about how MS is taking aim at Google every other week. But they never seem to aim true. Hmm.
They ARE stupid if they think that science and engineering has no future. Where do these brilliant students go to make money? These geniuses are either going to leech off their parents or they are not going to be well off if they reject science as an option. Do you think a law degree or a medical degree is so lucrative compared to a good engineering degree? I'm not so sure about that.
The truth is that kids aren't becoming scientists not because of money, but because they are looking for a way to have a good life, meaning make a good contribution to the world. We put scientists down as geeks and emphasize money over all else. There is zero appreciation for science in the popular culture, compared to Indian and Chinese cultures, where becoming an engineer makes you a respected professional, even a hero to your family.
The fact is that unless we continue to improve our skills here, we will lose ground. The fact is that complaining about how hard our competition in the labor market works is not going to cut it -- we will have to work as hard as they do. They want it more, so they are getting it. They are offering their labor for a lower price and it is just as good usually. Why shouldn't they get the prize?
The big picture is that it helps the whole world when your job goes overseas, but that doesn't help those of us in America so affected. Here's what I suggest we do as a society if we wish to try to maintain our position as a global economic leader. We need to start providing cheap access to high quality education in America by spending a crapload of money on it as a society. Improve our schools by paying teachers more and at the same time making it easier to fire them when they stink. The benefits to us as a society would be enormous, economically, politically, and socially.
The Chinese and the Indians get it: education is where it's at. They laud their scientists and encourage their children to study hard. We make fun of ours and spend our time watching TV and worshipping the Britney Spears' of the world. It's just a matter of time before we start getting into trouble. If we don't get educated, we'll be making shoes for the Chinese pretty soon, metaphorically speaking.
I'm not sure how the assertion that these workers are less skilled is borne out here. This is just more globalization fallout. Apparently, programming skills are not as precious as we would all like to think; there are many workers in China and India that will work for less than half of what we make here; this is the same thing that has happened in other industries historically. The only way to save our skins is to continue to provide more value or agree to work for less. Programming that can be shifted overseas effectively is going to go there and no amount of complaining will do it. I say it's better to attract and hire these people here in America and let them build industries here than to push them out and artificially fix wages high here. Protectionism will not work.
In the U.N, you have countries like China and Saudi Arabia taking places on the human rights councils. We don't need a bunch of governments running things, that's not going to make the Internet more open. The attempt of US puritans to restrict porn shows that even in a fairly open society like the US, government control just imposes censorship. Let's have the government handle physical security of critical Internet infrastructures, or better yet, lets just make the internet more redundant so that nobody has to have control and it's very hard to disrupt. A recent article here (sorry, no link) pointed out that in fact there is a central backbone to the Internet that is critical and vulnerable... if we eliminate that single point of failure, then why do we need any government control? Or do we need to "protect the children?"
Perfect! Let's use a nuclear reactor that is at LEAST 30 years from being invented to power our thrust system! Ya gotta love Slashdot for its plethora of "futurists," to put it mildly. :-)
It might be faster to throw a rock at the nearest star than to wait for all these hypothetical inventions to get it there. ---- joke.
This reminds me of an old joke: What time is it when you go to see the dentist? Tooth hurty! :-)
Why should it seem strange? It is the secret of their political strength: loyalty to a fault. People instinctively mobilize around other people, and not so much around issues. This is an unfortunate fact. I don't know what the solution is.
Unfortunately, you know that what will really happen is that a huge database tracking literally every cell phone's' movements will be set up in the name of fighting terrorism. The database will be secret and inaccessible to the public. Paranoia? I don't know. Anyone know what ever happened to the ECHELON project, which is a system intended to monitor literally every piece of human communication on the planet and mine it for analysis later?
Sheesh. Cut the hysteria.
First of all, this is probably impossible. They don't have enough people and resources to do this. Al Queda, while being real and dangerous, is nowhere near as ominous a threat as our incompetent and hysterical government claims. AQ is just another device being used by governments to scare us into giving up our freedoms in the name of security. Notice how the government does not request secrecy for any private chemical plants or refineries, or other vulnerable targets. This is just politicians reacting hysterically to their own trumped up crap.
Second of all, even if all of India's tech sector imploded, or all of New York City was vaporized, it would at most put a few percent of people out of work temporarily. There would be no worldwide depression, no starvation, no nuclear war. It would be an asterisk on page 10,000 of human history.
Uh, the part where God kills all the chickens?
Why is this put so apocalyptically? Wake me up when it starts spreading among humans. AFAIK, the real problem is that when the next pandemic hits, we don't have a way to manufacture immunizations.
I tell you what, how about we start investing more money in science and research, and less in crazy religions?
Nice try. When did they hire you? Surely you don't think that a page that says something like " Oh and hey, wanna join the flock? We're hiring! So guess what? Send us your resume!" is going to get any intelligent takers? So guess what? Is that a question? These people are dorks and I have no faith in their efforts, yes, based purely and unfairly on a crappy horrific website. As others have said, if their website is this bad, how many people think they will bother to make their browser experience a pleasant one?
You mean my math teacher in high school WASN'T a robot? I'm stunned
You meant "prosecution." "Persecution" occurs on /.
So is every unlicensed file illegal? 'Cause I think that's exactly what all the broohaha is about.
... because we all know how wonderfully FAIR the music executives are to the artists who sign on with them.
TFA:
Monorail board approves ballot measure
By Mike Lindblom
Seattle Times staff reporter
The Seattle Monorail Project board has just approved a Nov. 8 ballot measure to shorten the proposed line, and run it from the Alaska Junction in West Seattle to West Dravus Street in Interbay.
The decision to send a ballot measure to voters came hours after the Seattle City Council agreed to advocate for the termination of the financially troubled monorail plan. Last night, monorail board members rejected putting forward a ballot measure or any plan to shorten the line. Mayor Greg Nickels had pushed hard for both.
"It's time for the people to decide whether they want to save the people's train," said Kristina Hill, SMP board chair.
The City Council today, in supporting Nickels' denial of street-use permits for the project, expressed frustration and anger at SMP's handling of the situation and refusal to come up with a ballot measure last night. They said they would ask the Legislature, which created the monorail agency, to dissolve it.
The deadline to submit a ballot measure is 4:30 p.m. today.
The trim to the planned 14-mile line would cut about $250 million from the $1.64 billion construction contract -- if the contracting team sticks with the project.
Pat Flaherty, president of the Cascadia team, said today his team doesn't want to keep working on the Seattle monorail unless the City Council and Nickels reverse course and actively support the ballot measure.
1) Yahoo mail's interface is better, as measured by the number of users it pleases
2) Users switch to yahoo mail because of #1
Google will only "improve" its interface if they believe either #1 or #2 is true.