perhaps we should rethink our post-modernist ways. we can't control the earth, we are not omnipotent. we can no more change the climate than we can change the earth's rotation. man is not supreme, and i don't mean in a religious sense. modern man has made himself into a god,we can cure, solve, fix, alter, or redo anything. in truth, we can't. it is humbling, no?
yellowdog 3.01 ran much faster than 10.3. but, for some reason fedora 4 wouldn't run, and i need keynote for my classes. ( I teach.) so, I went back to os x exclusively. but, yeah, linux is faster, at least from my experience.
anger should be widespread across ideological grounds. this stifles progress, limits choice, and increases costs. using the law as a cludgeon is wrong, even it addresses the right issues. it will always be misused. someone's ox will always be gored. be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.
I don't think it's confidence so much as offereing a product that people will buy. I for one would rather have a G4 then a celeron. Maybe lots of folk want to transfer legacy apps or want a laptop that's not a nutburner. I'll trade anyday the ibooks cool temps for horsepower. plus, the prices of G4's and even the G5's will drop, and allow apple to compete more and more in the low end pc market. imagine a sub 1K imac compared to a dell.
In a nutshell, yes. Except, with standardized testing schools and teachers can be held accountable. See, I am totally fine and even very supportive of testing and holding teachers and schools accountable. However, it willnever work until students are held accountable as well. If there's no penalty or consequence, then the testing is invalid. Period.
I'll be the first to push no tenure, performance pay, etc. But it's a reciprocal agreement. If we're to be held to the fire, then we must know that failure is a two way street. For example, if a student fails, send the parents the bill. Bet your arse the parents won't treat us a free day care.
But then again, I am sort of a rebel in my profession. My colleagues think I'm crazy. they scream school choice and vouchers will take money from schools. Like we've done well with what we've been given!! And, I tell them money for schools is no the issue, you mean teacher's salaries. At least they could be honest!! It'd be like the UAW going on strike for better cars. Hah!!
1 million/. users and you remember I've written about this before. Thanks. Actually, yes, I have. It is a seriouspoint of contention for me. Look at the level of debate in society, whether you're for or against the Iraqi war, abortion, taxes, etc. John Stewart (who I don't agree with on much) was dead on with his CNN comments. We've turned political discourse, reasoned, rational debate, into a Jerry Springeresque brouhaha, where he who yells loudest and longest, wins. I don't watch Fox, nor CNN, nor MSNBC, etc. Honestly. It's all white noise.
As for schools, yeah, it's getting harder as we comnpete with tv, video games, etc. Even when we try to liven it up, very little I can do can match what I'm competing with. And let's face it, learnign to read well and write well are not easily accomplished, require lots of work, and are processes, not events. Like dieting, you lose 5-10 pounds and know there's progress, but, it takes time. Frustration sets in. Same with learning.
I have both my history classes and econ classes do current events as well as read a variety of sources. I use the history text very little (though the econ one is not too bad), as it is wretched in content, style, and depth. I do present a large breadth and depth of the subject, but truth is, no matter how well it's taught or presented, it's still "Why do we need to learn this...". Every argument about learnign who we are, why we're here, lessons of the past, etc., etc., falls on primarily deaf ears. In ten years of teaching, I've never been asked once by a parent what they're learning, only "how are they doing" which translates into "what is their grade" and then "how can they raise their grade?" It's as if they could learn nothing and get an A, they'd be perfectly happy. Do I want to scream? Yeah, alot.
Here's what I mean by a penalty. We spend several thousand a year per student. We are required by law to "educate" them, or whatever it's called!! At the end of 13 years, if they haven't mastered even basic ideas and concepts, shouldn't we hold them or their parents responsible? I believe so. That's what I mean.
This is true, as I did not begin reading and studying the past until after college. Now I have a library of books and read constantly. Then, I did what I had to do to get by. I imagine some of my students will do likewise. I think it is more cultural, that unless something means more money, it is worthless. I remember reading Washington's biography. He was not educated like most of his colleagues. His father died when he was very young, we joined the military, worked long and hard hours, finally marrying Martha Custis, who was wealthy. His lack of formal education was always a sore spot for him, and he always felt out of place among his contemporaries, even in Philadelphia 1787. Which was altogether quite ironic considering his accomplishments and the fact that everyone there called him "His Excellency".
Since I teach HS, maybe I can clarify. Yes, school is babysitting, at least the way many parents see it. Neither I nor most my colleagues see it that way, but it's hard because we often have to deal with a large number of kids that don't want to be there, are f*** ups, or just don't care. We can't remove the 2 or 3 that screw it up for the remaining 34.
Our schools are on warehouse mode most of the time, and that comes from on high, not in the classroom. Part of the problem is the very idea of education has been severely deprecated. I am a geek, linux, java, yada yada, but I teach history and consider myself an historian first. But, history, nor 99% of anything else in school is going to be worth $1 more in the "real world". But that's not, nor has is ever been the point of an education.
So, we have marginalized an education for practical use, which means that kids don't give two shits about history, just a letter on a piece of paper. It's either "I need it for college, how do I get an A" or "When are we ever gonna need this"?
Don't cry for me Argentina, as I love what I do and have great kids. Really. But, we are in many ways a babysitter, or a caretaker, holding them long enough so they don't rampage the neighborhood while the mommies are out walking the babies. Until there is a penalty (other than personal opportunity squandered) for not graduating and learning, it'll only get worse.
my old bondi blue 233mhz/160mb ram imac ran really nicely with yellowdog 3.01. I hosed it and installed panther for games for the kids. it is kinda sad that ppclinux just doesn't do as well as x86 linux with hardware, etc. but ppc is an awesome linux platform if it does work. in fact, i think it can be better than x86. i know it's supposed to be platform independent, but linux was built ground up to be unix on x86, and probably will be best there, unless a company puts resources into it, like sun or ibm. apple i imagine is in no great hurry to push linux, not they care the same level microsoft does.
i couldn't get my G3 ibook to work with fedora 4 PPC. Don't know why. It'd install fine, reboot, go through boot process, then hang somewhere. Never could figure it out. Even booted with resuce disk, changed/etc/inittab to run level 3, nothing. No idea. Now the g3 is in my classroom and my g4 ibook is home and I can't play around with the g4. i owul dlove to run fedora on the mac. i had yellow dog 3.01 some time ago on the g3 and it ran much faster than jaguar. now, panther runs really well, plus i use keynote every day. still, i'd like to run gcj4.0 and native compiled eclipse. oh well.
I am a high school teacher and from what I've seen in 10 years of public education is that technology is far more a crutch than anything. It's like "A week in the lab, yeah!!" We are consumed with powerpoint (which should be banned from schools along with guns, knives drugs, and rap music) and making pretty things that look good but lack content. I did my MA thesis on writing and technology and lo and behold, not only do comptuers not improve writing, it actually hurts it by interrupting the pre-writing and totally eliminating the rewrite.
They have their place, as I teach the AP Comp Sci class, and will expanding the computer programming classes soon. However, as a history and econ teacher first, reading, writing, and analytical skill suffer.
I have an MA in Ed. Tech, so I'm no Luddite. Computers have their uses, but most often they're a crutch, or worse, used improperly. Definitely have a tech curriculum, but integrating it into other disciplines, no way.
you're absolutely right. we need only think "ahead" a few years and imagine what might be possible. if embryonic stem cells, than what about more mature embryoes? how about fetus farming? the potential is enormous. it's a thought i don't like.
i would love for us to reduce our foreign oil habit, and that includes nuclear energy. but we can't reduce greenhouse gasses as we're not the cause of them. there is much scientific debate, and kyoto, et al. are not based on anything but hyperbole and predetermined computer modeling. i'd find the google links but i'm a little lazy. it shouldn't be too hard to find. in fact, in today's wall street journal, the first Sec. Energy, James Schlesinger (a Carter appointee by the way), calls into question the whole movement. environmentalists take it as a religous tenet, when it is at best uncertain.
anything that helps us to stop sending dollars to the terrorist supporting regimes, i'm all for. but don't base your hopes on some psuedo-scientific nonsense to help with a non-existent problem.
mud huts were certainly an exaggeration. and yes, corporations are not all warm and fuzzies. but...the point i was trying to make was this: without the ability to earn a profit, seek rewards from hard work and entrepreneurialism, and the freedom to be free of government confiscation, economies, and yes, people will suffer. no business should care about your welfare, only about satisfying your needs and wants. big difference. likewise, you should feel no concern for any firm. if firm A is priced too high, products too poor, then find firm B with lower prices and better products. now, monopolies screw up the market and MUST be regulated by the government. corporatism is not capitalism. in fact, it's the opposite. i believe in the free market's ability to be the fairest, most efficient system. all others fail miserably.
capitalization, yes. anything that uses capital to produce goods is capitalization. was it in society's best interest? no. anything that stifles competition and free market adjustment of prices needs control. if it's electricity, an economy of scale, a natural monopoly, then it needs regulation. if it's not, railroads, etc., whether through legal or illegal, ethical or not, means, it needs to be broken up. the economy as a whole should not be held captive to a single entity. likewise, no industry, or firm, is deserving of special consideration. if some rise, some fail, that's the market. belly aching and tear jerking stories to asshole demagogues in wshington only seves to screw up the market as much as vanderbilt and his briefcase full of money. it sounds cruel, but so what if say, an auto worker loses his job, three other tech jobs have been created. job security and protection also slow innovation, growth, and progress. capitalism is a bitch, but it beats any other.
if we treat texts as simply reference material, than maybe. i guess i'm thinking of many of my books for uppoer level classes, the history books and such. these were "texts" in the classical sense, we read sraffa, keynes, samuelson, robinson, etc. we read their books and those were our texts. imagining them in e form only is sad. I still have them. they're econ classics. plus, reading prose is a lost art. that i guess is what troubles me. my intro astronomy book. fine. my "General Theory" by Keynes, never. also, one of my favorite US history books, "The Glorius Cause" by Middlekauf I reread every several years.
I've no problem with regulation of monopolies. the argument was the "money grabbbing..." yada yada crap. i agree microsoft is hardly an innovative company. and their tactics have done more to stifle than promote innovation. no argument here.
by the way, I teach history and am well aware of the rise of the corporation. which by the way, was not capitalism. it wasn't even close.
Slashdot Mirror
If Bill Gates and I do a press release about our new partnership, that's an entirely different thing.
wouldn't mrs. gates have something to say about that one. of course, with those funny glasses, you just never know!!
perhaps we should rethink our post-modernist ways. we can't control the earth, we are not omnipotent. we can no more change the climate than we can change the earth's rotation. man is not supreme, and i don't mean in a religious sense. modern man has made himself into a god,we can cure, solve, fix, alter, or redo anything. in truth, we can't. it is humbling, no?
yellowdog 3.01 ran much faster than 10.3. but, for some reason fedora 4 wouldn't run, and i need keynote for my classes. ( I teach.) so, I went back to os x exclusively. but, yeah, linux is faster, at least from my experience.
They were running IIS and the darn humans hacked into it. They never recovered after that. They should have used linux.
none of the features, all of the problems.
anger should be widespread across ideological grounds. this stifles progress, limits choice, and increases costs. using the law as a cludgeon is wrong, even it addresses the right issues. it will always be misused. someone's ox will always be gored. be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.
how do you pronounce the name? leenix? luhnix? lienux? I just don't know.
</sarcasm>
I don't think it's confidence so much as offereing a product that people will buy. I for one would rather have a G4 then a celeron. Maybe lots of folk want to transfer legacy apps or want a laptop that's not a nutburner. I'll trade anyday the ibooks cool temps for horsepower. plus, the prices of G4's and even the G5's will drop, and allow apple to compete more and more in the low end pc market. imagine a sub 1K imac compared to a dell.
They might have good reason to fear the advent of such programs.
Yes many would. And so would all the education profs in colleges.
In a nutshell, yes. Except, with standardized testing schools and teachers can be held accountable. See, I am totally fine and even very supportive of testing and holding teachers and schools accountable. However, it willnever work until students are held accountable as well. If there's no penalty or consequence, then the testing is invalid. Period.
I'll be the first to push no tenure, performance pay, etc. But it's a reciprocal agreement. If we're to be held to the fire, then we must know that failure is a two way street. For example, if a student fails, send the parents the bill. Bet your arse the parents won't treat us a free day care.
But then again, I am sort of a rebel in my profession. My colleagues think I'm crazy. they scream school choice and vouchers will take money from schools. Like we've done well with what we've been given!! And, I tell them money for schools is no the issue, you mean teacher's salaries. At least they could be honest!! It'd be like the UAW going on strike for better cars. Hah!!
1 million /. users and you remember I've written about this before. Thanks. Actually, yes, I have. It is a seriouspoint of contention for me. Look at the level of debate in society, whether you're for or against the Iraqi war, abortion, taxes, etc. John Stewart (who I don't agree with on much) was dead on with his CNN comments. We've turned political discourse, reasoned, rational debate, into a Jerry Springeresque brouhaha, where he who yells loudest and longest, wins. I don't watch Fox, nor CNN, nor MSNBC, etc. Honestly. It's all white noise.
As for schools, yeah, it's getting harder as we comnpete with tv, video games, etc. Even when we try to liven it up, very little I can do can match what I'm competing with. And let's face it, learnign to read well and write well are not easily accomplished, require lots of work, and are processes, not events. Like dieting, you lose 5-10 pounds and know there's progress, but, it takes time. Frustration sets in. Same with learning.
I have both my history classes and econ classes do current events as well as read a variety of sources. I use the history text very little (though the econ one is not too bad), as it is wretched in content, style, and depth. I do present a large breadth and depth of the subject, but truth is, no matter how well it's taught or presented, it's still "Why do we need to learn this...". Every argument about learnign who we are, why we're here, lessons of the past, etc., etc., falls on primarily deaf ears. In ten years of teaching, I've never been asked once by a parent what they're learning, only "how are they doing" which translates into "what is their grade" and then "how can they raise their grade?" It's as if they could learn nothing and get an A, they'd be perfectly happy. Do I want to scream? Yeah, alot.
Here's what I mean by a penalty. We spend several thousand a year per student. We are required by law to "educate" them, or whatever it's called!! At the end of 13 years, if they haven't mastered even basic ideas and concepts, shouldn't we hold them or their parents responsible? I believe so. That's what I mean.
This is true, as I did not begin reading and studying the past until after college. Now I have a library of books and read constantly. Then, I did what I had to do to get by. I imagine some of my students will do likewise. I think it is more cultural, that unless something means more money, it is worthless. I remember reading Washington's biography. He was not educated like most of his colleagues. His father died when he was very young, we joined the military, worked long and hard hours, finally marrying Martha Custis, who was wealthy. His lack of formal education was always a sore spot for him, and he always felt out of place among his contemporaries, even in Philadelphia 1787. Which was altogether quite ironic considering his accomplishments and the fact that everyone there called him "His Excellency".
Since I teach HS, maybe I can clarify. Yes, school is babysitting, at least the way many parents see it. Neither I nor most my colleagues see it that way, but it's hard because we often have to deal with a large number of kids that don't want to be there, are f*** ups, or just don't care. We can't remove the 2 or 3 that screw it up for the remaining 34.
Our schools are on warehouse mode most of the time, and that comes from on high, not in the classroom. Part of the problem is the very idea of education has been severely deprecated. I am a geek, linux, java, yada yada, but I teach history and consider myself an historian first. But, history, nor 99% of anything else in school is going to be worth $1 more in the "real world". But that's not, nor has is ever been the point of an education.
So, we have marginalized an education for practical use, which means that kids don't give two shits about history, just a letter on a piece of paper. It's either "I need it for college, how do I get an A" or "When are we ever gonna need this"?
Don't cry for me Argentina, as I love what I do and have great kids. Really. But, we are in many ways a babysitter, or a caretaker, holding them long enough so they don't rampage the neighborhood while the mommies are out walking the babies. Until there is a penalty (other than personal opportunity squandered) for not graduating and learning, it'll only get worse.
my old bondi blue 233mhz/160mb ram imac ran really nicely with yellowdog 3.01. I hosed it and installed panther for games for the kids. it is kinda sad that ppclinux just doesn't do as well as x86 linux with hardware, etc. but ppc is an awesome linux platform if it does work. in fact, i think it can be better than x86. i know it's supposed to be platform independent, but linux was built ground up to be unix on x86, and probably will be best there, unless a company puts resources into it, like sun or ibm. apple i imagine is in no great hurry to push linux, not they care the same level microsoft does.
i couldn't get my G3 ibook to work with fedora 4 PPC. Don't know why. It'd install fine, reboot, go through boot process, then hang somewhere. Never could figure it out. Even booted with resuce disk, changed /etc/inittab to run level 3, nothing. No idea. Now the g3 is in my classroom and my g4 ibook is home and I can't play around with the g4. i owul dlove to run fedora on the mac. i had yellow dog 3.01 some time ago on the g3 and it ran much faster than jaguar. now, panther runs really well, plus i use keynote every day. still, i'd like to run gcj4.0 and native compiled eclipse. oh well.
I am a high school teacher and from what I've seen in 10 years of public education is that technology is far more a crutch than anything. It's like "A week in the lab, yeah!!" We are consumed with powerpoint (which should be banned from schools along with guns, knives drugs, and rap music) and making pretty things that look good but lack content. I did my MA thesis on writing and technology and lo and behold, not only do comptuers not improve writing, it actually hurts it by interrupting the pre-writing and totally eliminating the rewrite.
They have their place, as I teach the AP Comp Sci class, and will expanding the computer programming classes soon. However, as a history and econ teacher first, reading, writing, and analytical skill suffer.
I have an MA in Ed. Tech, so I'm no Luddite. Computers have their uses, but most often they're a crutch, or worse, used improperly. Definitely have a tech curriculum, but integrating it into other disciplines, no way.
and your enemies closer!! (it plays both ways!!)
you're absolutely right. we need only think "ahead" a few years and imagine what might be possible. if embryonic stem cells, than what about more mature embryoes? how about fetus farming? the potential is enormous. it's a thought i don't like.
Linux Apache/1.3.29 Unix mod_auth_passthrough/1.8 mod_log_bytes/1.2 mod_bwlimited/1.4 PHP/4.3.3 FrontPage/5.0.2.2634 mod_ssl/2.8.16 OpenSSL/0.9.7a
i would love for us to reduce our foreign oil habit, and that includes nuclear energy. but we can't reduce greenhouse gasses as we're not the cause of them. there is much scientific debate, and kyoto, et al. are not based on anything but hyperbole and predetermined computer modeling. i'd find the google links but i'm a little lazy. it shouldn't be too hard to find. in fact, in today's wall street journal, the first Sec. Energy, James Schlesinger (a Carter appointee by the way), calls into question the whole movement. environmentalists take it as a religous tenet, when it is at best uncertain.
anything that helps us to stop sending dollars to the terrorist supporting regimes, i'm all for. but don't base your hopes on some psuedo-scientific nonsense to help with a non-existent problem.
mud huts were certainly an exaggeration. and yes, corporations are not all warm and fuzzies. but...the point i was trying to make was this: without the ability to earn a profit, seek rewards from hard work and entrepreneurialism, and the freedom to be free of government confiscation, economies, and yes, people will suffer. no business should care about your welfare, only about satisfying your needs and wants. big difference. likewise, you should feel no concern for any firm. if firm A is priced too high, products too poor, then find firm B with lower prices and better products. now, monopolies screw up the market and MUST be regulated by the government. corporatism is not capitalism. in fact, it's the opposite. i believe in the free market's ability to be the fairest, most efficient system. all others fail miserably.
capitalization, yes. anything that uses capital to produce goods is capitalization. was it in society's best interest? no. anything that stifles competition and free market adjustment of prices needs control. if it's electricity, an economy of scale, a natural monopoly, then it needs regulation. if it's not, railroads, etc., whether through legal or illegal, ethical or not, means, it needs to be broken up. the economy as a whole should not be held captive to a single entity. likewise, no industry, or firm, is deserving of special consideration. if some rise, some fail, that's the market. belly aching and tear jerking stories to asshole demagogues in wshington only seves to screw up the market as much as vanderbilt and his briefcase full of money. it sounds cruel, but so what if say, an auto worker loses his job, three other tech jobs have been created. job security and protection also slow innovation, growth, and progress. capitalism is a bitch, but it beats any other.
if we treat texts as simply reference material, than maybe. i guess i'm thinking of many of my books for uppoer level classes, the history books and such. these were "texts" in the classical sense, we read sraffa, keynes, samuelson, robinson, etc. we read their books and those were our texts. imagining them in e form only is sad. I still have them. they're econ classics. plus, reading prose is a lost art. that i guess is what troubles me. my intro astronomy book. fine. my "General Theory" by Keynes, never. also, one of my favorite US history books, "The Glorius Cause" by Middlekauf I reread every several years.
I've no problem with regulation of monopolies. the argument was the "money grabbbing..." yada yada crap. i agree microsoft is hardly an innovative company. and their tactics have done more to stifle than promote innovation. no argument here.
by the way, I teach history and am well aware of the rise of the corporation. which by the way, was not capitalism. it wasn't even close.