Most other countries do a much better job educating their students when it comes to facts. Foreigners remember more dates, names, theories, etc.
But US universities have a much better reputation, in large part because the entire US educational system was originally designed to teach methodology - how to learn, rather than what to learn. The concept was basically teach a man to fish, rather than give him a fish.
This works REALLY well with highly intelligent people, as they need those tools and are usually excited to use them. Not so good with the average and sub-average students that don't care enough to use the tools they are taught.
Which brings us to the real problem.
Standardized tests (and I do well on them), basically test your knowledge of facts, not methodology.. The exact opposite goal of our educational system.
This leaves us with several possible take away points.
1) Should we teach our not-so gifted students using the same 'methodology' technique, or switch to a fact based education system for them (while maintaining our older philosophy for the gifted children)?
2) Wherever we teach method, rather than fact, then shouldn't we test their knowledge of methodology rather than fact? Forget about asking questions about facts and instead ask the students how they would investigate things?
3) Perhaps a better mix is appropriate for all students, in which case shouldn't we design our tests to at least partially test for methodology rather than memorized details.
The entire process is a feedback loop with a delay built in. This delay causes the problems we call unemployment and depression, but the feedback loop eventually fixes them.
Automate X frees up people Y to do task Z. Task Z starts getting done (eventually - after people figure out it is the next thing to do and learn how to do it), Bit not just Z. When Z is done, AA needs to be done, then AB then ACIt isn't one task to automate it is a BILLION tasks to automate. A billion jobs that we don't even try to do because we have more important things.
The amount of work that needs to be done is mindbogglingly. We don't do it because it is so big, and not as important as feeding each other. Things like genetic research, space research, policing polluting factories, rescuing abandoned animals, etc. etc. etc. etc.
200 years ago we thought it was ridiculous to even attempt to light our roads. We found ways to do it, creating new jobs. 100 years ago we thought it was ridiculous to clean our city streets. Now we do it routinely. 50 years ago we thought it was ridiculous to try and deliver packages in 24 hours or less. Now we do that.
All these things we could have tried before they became commonplace. We did not try them because it was too expensive and too big a problem. As we automate away lesser jobs it generates money to new ways to solve the bigger problems.
We are not running out of work, we are instead figuring out how to deal with the more critical problem that free us up to solve the less critical but much HARDER problems. Each time we do that, we create a whole new set of jobs.
Your argument is seriously flawed. Among other things demand did not suddenly disappear or re-appear.
Moreover, demand is a psychological thing. By your argument we can simply create more demand by education.
The main thing you misunderstand is that I was talking big picture and long term, in response to someone with a big picture/long term question. Short term there are lots of things that interfere with people getting jobs - education, fear, etc.
You also mentioned 'lack of funding', which is the opposite of demand. Lack of funding means there is demand for a job, but not from the people with the money. Money itself doesn't go away when people automate jobs, it simply gets concentrated into the people that own the automation.
That can be a problem - but only short term. The simplest way to solve a 'lack of funding' problem in a world where automation has 'lowered jobs', is to tax the ownership of automation. Then use the money from that tax to fund endeavors in the public interest.
That by the way is a fairly socialist solution to the problem. Personally I don't think it will come to that, because I disagree that 'funding' is the problem. Your personal opinion of economics is at heart based on a socialistic understanding of economics so the solution to the fake problem you created is socialistic in nature.
I disagree strongly. The main thing you don't understand is that people create jobs, not the other way around. Jobs are not a set supply to be divided up among the lucky few.
Instead, jobs are defined by work that people want to do. The more things we want done, the more jobs get created. We haven't run out of things to do, we've just taken care of the emergency stuff. There is a lot of new things we could do, so there are a lot of new jobs we can create.
When people automate jobs away, they decide to do more work, creating new jobs.
10,000 years ago the only jobs he had were food related. There was no doctor, nurse, entertainment, or law jobs. We solved the food problems and created new jobs.
Until man has spread throughout the solar system, terraforming what can be terraformed and building habitats where we can, then we will ALWAYS have new jobs.
Consider a simple thing.wine. Five hundred years ago, wine was treated like soda is now. It was everywhere, some was good, most was bad, but it wasn't really a luxury item. Now an entire luxury culture - with a ton of related jobs such as Wine shop owner, wine salesmen, tasting hosts, sommeliers, cellar managers, wine tour guides, wine club owners all exist now. Make no mistake, they had WINE 500 years ago, but none of these jobs existed.
You make a bunch of really stupid assumptions, that people disagree with.
1) The cameras work - they catch people that break the law and avoid people that don't. They are not always accurate and some can routinely cost innocent people a lot of time and effort.
2) Ever try to fight one of these in court? The judge ignores you and trusts the machine. Even when the machine doesn't work, they don't take your word for it. Effectively, innocent people get screwed - and screwed worse because it takes more time and effort to fight in court than it does to pay the ticket. Many courts end up charging you money for daring to fight it EVEN IF YOU WIN THE CASE. You can't realistically fight these tickets, With a cop with a radar gun, that gun get checked all the time - and the cop doesn't bother chasing you down if you are going 4 miles above the limit. Sometimes the cameras are set at the limit exactly.
3) Small towns often set them up as an INVOLUNTARY tax on outsiders driving past/through their town. Small towns love to be 'on the main road', rather than next to it. Residents drive slow on the one section that has a camera, and speed everywhere else. But people passing through get a ticket.
4) It is set tax per person, per offense, which means the wealthy can easily pay and speed and endanger the rest of us, while the poor have to live by a second set of rules. You want a fair 'tax', then make it equal to 1/1000 your salary. You make 50k a year, a speeding ticket is 50 dollars. You make 50 million a year, your speeding ticket is 50,000 dollars.
5) When the wealthy start using driverless cars (less than ten years from now), they won't ever pay this 'tax'.
Their is a HUGE market for driver-less cars today. Granted we do need to work out the laws and insurance.
But those things always come after the product is invented, not before.
People that would love to buy a driverless car for 60 thousand right RIGHT THIS MINUTE, include:
1) Any wealthy person whose kid got into an accident that they swear they were not drinking.
2) Any one whose parents are 70+ and doesn't see quite as well as they used to, but they still are active and need a car to get around.
3) Every single person that owns a taxi service that they have to pay a driver 30K a year and is seeing Uber etc. still their business.
4) Every single city that has bus drivers or garbage trucks,
Granted, their may also be union concerns when it comes to bus drivers/garbage truck drivers.
But the market is there, it already exists. It is up to us humans to solve the purely social problems caused by the legal system, the insurance industry, and unions.
Look Microsoft hates the very idea of Extensions - giving up control is anthem to them. They will find a way to make their extensions significantly flawed. Perhaps they will have veto power - being wielded with a very heavy hand.
Yes, they realize they need outsiders adding more power to their browser, but they don't like it and won't go in full throttle.
1) Competition is what matters.
Then all the 'mind sports' should be in, including video games. But by that same argument then figure skating and all other 'judged' things should be out - they are NOT really competing against each other, except in a very esoteric manner. There is no clearly defined winner, just people who did are believed to be better.
2) Physical effort: Then figure skating and dancing should be in, but video games and chess should be out.
3) Both competitive and physical effort. Here figure skating etc. should be out, as well as video games.
Frankly, I can't see a way that figure skating and video games both belong in the Olympics.
Note, I LIKE figure skating. It is a lot more fun to watch than most races. Similarly it is more fun to watch than someone else playing a video game.
Personally I think tradition will win, which will keep it as a "physical effort", so figure skating stays and video games will not be allowed.
They could have announced that they are working on a download immediately.
Instead they cowardly said "we surrender", then changed their mind when they realized how everyone thought they were weak, cowards giving in to terrorists rather than responsible businessmen avoiding lawsuits.
Your information is incorrect. The actual ratio is: one minute of movie for every page of SCRIPT, not book. Your mistake is understandable. The script is written using white space to indicate scene shifts, to help keep this ratio.
Typical books are 400 pages long = 5 hours.
Any good screen writer can easily cut a 400 page book into a 100 page script. Similarly, in a hi action/fantasy film with lots of great visuals, can stretch an 80 page book into a movie.
The Hobbit is more than 300 pages, it could easily be turned into 3 hour long movies.
The problem was poor screen writers, not the size of the book.
Movies are about the visuals. That's why a good director means more than a good screen writer. The better the visual, the more time on screen. All movies need an inciting incident, an escalation, then a crisis and resolution. You can easily do a fantastic movie without much dialogue or voiceovers. In fact, the best way to do dialogue and voice overs is to let a good actor improvise. Works better than having the screenwriter do it - who should be creating potentially amazing scenes.
Books are about the dialogue and thoughts of the character. You can delve deep into their motivations and what they say. But book visuals are all in the mind of the reader. If a book has really good descriptions, it doesn't matter that much. But good words - said and thought by the characters, that makes the book.
As per the article, many people were ignoring the voicemails. Now they can ignore their emails.
Or better yet, simply call the number that called them without bothering to listen to the email. Saves them the time and the person that left the message gets what they originally desired - personal contact.
Wrong. That is Sony propaganda. Everything the Sony CEO said was in service of his own cowardice. Yes, some theaters backed out. Others major movie theater chains BEGGED Sony to release the film.
More importantly, Sony could have released it direct to Video, to HBO, etc. You don't need to 'look for other ways' and if Netflix, HBO, and Hulu were 'afraid of getting hacked' They could simply have given it to the Pirate Bay.
This was a decision made by Sony, not anyone else. You on the other hand have fallen for a pack of lies.
The movie probably sucks. But bowing down to pressure from North Korea is ridiculous.
I am sure Hitler did not like The Great Dictator, but if he had tried to blackmail a US company into cancelling it, we would have laughed at him.
Sony should have done the same. I don't care what they got from the stolen emails, the only way to deal with terrorists demanding obedience is a bullet to their head, not a bow to to their feet.
You are correct. The problem is with the lunatic that thought this was worth suing over, as many, many people belonging to both parties have repeatedly violated the false legal theory he is trying to use to sue.
Their desire to make money? So what. I desire to make money to - can I block their services and force them to use mine?
By that desire, the Hotel has the right to block all Cellphone services, after all they put phones in your room (and charge you ridiculous amounts of money to make calls on them).
No.
Providing one service on a premise does not grant you a monopoly on all ancillary services provided on that premise.
The number of ex-Bush employees that have violated their fiduciary duty of loyalty is just shocking.
We can start with the fascist pig that thought a water boarding wasn't torture, and move on to Cheney, who when questioned about torture ignores our own actions and instead discusses the the crimes of our opponents - as if the ends justifies the means.
Slashdot Mirror
What could possibly go wrong?
But US universities have a much better reputation, in large part because the entire US educational system was originally designed to teach methodology - how to learn, rather than what to learn. The concept was basically teach a man to fish, rather than give him a fish.
This works REALLY well with highly intelligent people, as they need those tools and are usually excited to use them. Not so good with the average and sub-average students that don't care enough to use the tools they are taught.
Which brings us to the real problem.
Standardized tests (and I do well on them), basically test your knowledge of facts, not methodology.. The exact opposite goal of our educational system.
This leaves us with several possible take away points.
1) Should we teach our not-so gifted students using the same 'methodology' technique, or switch to a fact based education system for them (while maintaining our older philosophy for the gifted children)?
2) Wherever we teach method, rather than fact, then shouldn't we test their knowledge of methodology rather than fact? Forget about asking questions about facts and instead ask the students how they would investigate things?
3) Perhaps a better mix is appropriate for all students, in which case shouldn't we design our tests to at least partially test for methodology rather than memorized details.
Automate X frees up people Y to do task Z. Task Z starts getting done (eventually - after people figure out it is the next thing to do and learn how to do it), Bit not just Z. When Z is done, AA needs to be done, then AB then ACIt isn't one task to automate it is a BILLION tasks to automate. A billion jobs that we don't even try to do because we have more important things.
The amount of work that needs to be done is mindbogglingly. We don't do it because it is so big, and not as important as feeding each other. Things like genetic research, space research, policing polluting factories, rescuing abandoned animals, etc. etc. etc. etc.
200 years ago we thought it was ridiculous to even attempt to light our roads. We found ways to do it, creating new jobs. 100 years ago we thought it was ridiculous to clean our city streets. Now we do it routinely. 50 years ago we thought it was ridiculous to try and deliver packages in 24 hours or less. Now we do that.
All these things we could have tried before they became commonplace. We did not try them because it was too expensive and too big a problem. As we automate away lesser jobs it generates money to new ways to solve the bigger problems.
We are not running out of work, we are instead figuring out how to deal with the more critical problem that free us up to solve the less critical but much HARDER problems. Each time we do that, we create a whole new set of jobs.
Moreover, demand is a psychological thing. By your argument we can simply create more demand by education.
The main thing you misunderstand is that I was talking big picture and long term, in response to someone with a big picture/long term question. Short term there are lots of things that interfere with people getting jobs - education, fear, etc.
You also mentioned 'lack of funding', which is the opposite of demand. Lack of funding means there is demand for a job, but not from the people with the money. Money itself doesn't go away when people automate jobs, it simply gets concentrated into the people that own the automation.
That can be a problem - but only short term. The simplest way to solve a 'lack of funding' problem in a world where automation has 'lowered jobs', is to tax the ownership of automation. Then use the money from that tax to fund endeavors in the public interest.
That by the way is a fairly socialist solution to the problem. Personally I don't think it will come to that, because I disagree that 'funding' is the problem. Your personal opinion of economics is at heart based on a socialistic understanding of economics so the solution to the fake problem you created is socialistic in nature.
Instead, jobs are defined by work that people want to do. The more things we want done, the more jobs get created. We haven't run out of things to do, we've just taken care of the emergency stuff. There is a lot of new things we could do, so there are a lot of new jobs we can create.
When people automate jobs away, they decide to do more work, creating new jobs.
10,000 years ago the only jobs he had were food related. There was no doctor, nurse, entertainment, or law jobs. We solved the food problems and created new jobs.
Until man has spread throughout the solar system, terraforming what can be terraformed and building habitats where we can, then we will ALWAYS have new jobs.
Consider a simple thing.wine. Five hundred years ago, wine was treated like soda is now. It was everywhere, some was good, most was bad, but it wasn't really a luxury item. Now an entire luxury culture - with a ton of related jobs such as Wine shop owner, wine salesmen, tasting hosts, sommeliers, cellar managers, wine tour guides, wine club owners all exist now. Make no mistake, they had WINE 500 years ago, but none of these jobs existed.
2) Ever try to fight one of these in court? The judge ignores you and trusts the machine. Even when the machine doesn't work, they don't take your word for it. Effectively, innocent people get screwed - and screwed worse because it takes more time and effort to fight in court than it does to pay the ticket. Many courts end up charging you money for daring to fight it EVEN IF YOU WIN THE CASE. You can't realistically fight these tickets, With a cop with a radar gun, that gun get checked all the time - and the cop doesn't bother chasing you down if you are going 4 miles above the limit. Sometimes the cameras are set at the limit exactly.
3) Small towns often set them up as an INVOLUNTARY tax on outsiders driving past/through their town. Small towns love to be 'on the main road', rather than next to it. Residents drive slow on the one section that has a camera, and speed everywhere else. But people passing through get a ticket.
4) It is set tax per person, per offense, which means the wealthy can easily pay and speed and endanger the rest of us, while the poor have to live by a second set of rules. You want a fair 'tax', then make it equal to 1/1000 your salary. You make 50k a year, a speeding ticket is 50 dollars. You make 50 million a year, your speeding ticket is 50,000 dollars.
5) When the wealthy start using driverless cars (less than ten years from now), they won't ever pay this 'tax'.
I personally would damn well want to sue/arrest my neighbor if I found out he was using doppler radar to check if I was home.
Wait till they declassify the Elvis sighting reports... It was really President JFK, disguised by plastic surgery after he secretly resigned !
Or better yet apply enough solder correctly the first time.
But those things always come after the product is invented, not before.
People that would love to buy a driverless car for 60 thousand right RIGHT THIS MINUTE, include:
1) Any wealthy person whose kid got into an accident that they swear they were not drinking.
2) Any one whose parents are 70+ and doesn't see quite as well as they used to, but they still are active and need a car to get around.
3) Every single person that owns a taxi service that they have to pay a driver 30K a year and is seeing Uber etc. still their business.
4) Every single city that has bus drivers or garbage trucks,
Granted, their may also be union concerns when it comes to bus drivers/garbage truck drivers.
But the market is there, it already exists. It is up to us humans to solve the purely social problems caused by the legal system, the insurance industry, and unions.
Similarly, if Google doesn't obey all of China's laws and their service is cut off, it must be their fault, correct?
Yes, they realize they need outsiders adding more power to their browser, but they don't like it and won't go in full throttle.
2) Physical effort: Then figure skating and dancing should be in, but video games and chess should be out.
3) Both competitive and physical effort. Here figure skating etc. should be out, as well as video games.
Frankly, I can't see a way that figure skating and video games both belong in the Olympics.
Note, I LIKE figure skating. It is a lot more fun to watch than most races. Similarly it is more fun to watch than someone else playing a video game.
Personally I think tradition will win, which will keep it as a "physical effort", so figure skating stays and video games will not be allowed.
Instead they cowardly said "we surrender", then changed their mind when they realized how everyone thought they were weak, cowards giving in to terrorists rather than responsible businessmen avoiding lawsuits.
"People react differently when they know they are being watched".
What this cop was too stupid to realize was, the response to his comment is:
YES! THAT'S EXACTLY WHY WE WANT THE CAMERAS.
Typical books are 400 pages long = 5 hours.
Any good screen writer can easily cut a 400 page book into a 100 page script. Similarly, in a hi action/fantasy film with lots of great visuals, can stretch an 80 page book into a movie.
The Hobbit is more than 300 pages, it could easily be turned into 3 hour long movies.
The problem was poor screen writers, not the size of the book.
Movies are about the visuals. That's why a good director means more than a good screen writer. The better the visual, the more time on screen. All movies need an inciting incident, an escalation, then a crisis and resolution. You can easily do a fantastic movie without much dialogue or voiceovers. In fact, the best way to do dialogue and voice overs is to let a good actor improvise. Works better than having the screenwriter do it - who should be creating potentially amazing scenes.
Books are about the dialogue and thoughts of the character. You can delve deep into their motivations and what they say. But book visuals are all in the mind of the reader. If a book has really good descriptions, it doesn't matter that much. But good words - said and thought by the characters, that makes the book.
Or better yet, simply call the number that called them without bothering to listen to the email. Saves them the time and the person that left the message gets what they originally desired - personal contact.
Not that hard to have your voicemail system automatically record an mp3 and email the file, listing the telephone number as the "from" address.
More importantly, Sony could have released it direct to Video, to HBO, etc. You don't need to 'look for other ways' and if Netflix, HBO, and Hulu were 'afraid of getting hacked' They could simply have given it to the Pirate Bay.
This was a decision made by Sony, not anyone else. You on the other hand have fallen for a pack of lies.
I am sure Hitler did not like The Great Dictator, but if he had tried to blackmail a US company into cancelling it, we would have laughed at him.
Sony should have done the same. I don't care what they got from the stolen emails, the only way to deal with terrorists demanding obedience is a bullet to their head, not a bow to to their feet.
You are correct. The problem is with the lunatic that thought this was worth suing over, as many, many people belonging to both parties have repeatedly violated the false legal theory he is trying to use to sue.
Frankly, I wish they would go back to the core Star Trek TV values:
1) Duplicate an earth culture on another planet.
2) Have zero contact with Earth, letting Kirk do whatever he wants.
3) Make some kind of social commentary relevant to today that will seem weird 10 years from now.
4) If possible have someone claim to be a God, or demonstrate godlike abilities. Apollo was done already, so lets go with maybe Thor?
Their desire to make money? So what. I desire to make money to - can I block their services and force them to use mine?
By that desire, the Hotel has the right to block all Cellphone services, after all they put phones in your room (and charge you ridiculous amounts of money to make calls on them).
No.
Providing one service on a premise does not grant you a monopoly on all ancillary services provided on that premise.
We can start with the fascist pig that thought a water boarding wasn't torture, and move on to Cheney, who when questioned about torture ignores our own actions and instead discusses the the crimes of our opponents - as if the ends justifies the means.