But what if...the Chinese, knowing that US hackers would assume that the hacking attack would be proxied through another country, decided to instead proxy it through their own country, thus indirectly indicating that the attacks are being done by the Russian Mafia.
+1 Funny: Or the Russians, realizing that the Chinese and US hackers would think that way....
+1 Insightful: Really, the fact that the attacks came from China doesn't mean a god damn thing, other than that attacks can come from China.
Belgium has "proper beer"? That's like saying Italy has "proper pasta" or France has "proper cheese" or Japan has "proper sushi".
When you're pretty much the birthplace of something, and yours is the best in the world, I do not know that "proper" is the right word.
Hell, as an American, I'd have assumed you'd say that "grocery stores don't ask us to piss in bottles to send our used beer to Budwiser". That would have been more appropriate, and an adequate description of the difference between a good Belgian beer and Bud.
And the combination of those teachings and a fanatical religious teacher who told me I was not allowed to compare the current state of the Catholic church to them caused me to say "Fuck You" to religion as a whole. Now that was a brilliant way to do things, wasn't it?
Every now and then when I'm feeling snarky, I ask someone religious what Jesus had to say about taxes, and about giving to the poor. Then I ask what book contains the commandment "An thou shalt tax thy parishioners millions of dollars and use that money to build and maintain massively unpractical, gaudy, and expensive buildings, instead of worshiping modestly and giving that money to the poor." The resulting explanation is always entertaining.
I would hate religion less if it wasn't so god damn blind to its faults. But it seems that one must be truly unreligious to truly appreciate the heresy of most religions. Catholicism is my favorite heresy. The multi-trillion dollar, country owning empire dedicated to the worship of a man in dusty sandals, who had no possessions and spent all his time ministering to the poor and sick is truly a delicious mockery. If the Catholic Church isn't run by Satan, I really can't explain it.
The tractor possesses mass, and therefore has a constant gravitational effect upon the asteroid (and visa versa) and the only fuel it needs to expend are the minuscule amounts necessary to keep it tracking the asteroid.
That bolded bit there is the truly important part, and the part that I don't understand. Gravity will pull the two together, unless there is something holding them apart. The only thing to do this with (aside from a large piece of metal, which might prove problematic) would be the fuel onboard, which would have to provide thrust opposite the direction of the gravitational force.
Last I knew, we didn't have much onboard space vehicles that could be used to pull them, so this one will have to provide a net thrust towards the asteroid, to keep itself away. Of course, if there is any interaction by this thrust with the asteroid, it will start to counter the effect of the gravity. So now, as another poster pointed out, you have to waste fuel by shooting it out at angles around the craft so that the net cancels out the parallel movement, and the perpendicular amount adds up to equal the gravity, all without hitting the asteroid.
I truly fail to see why using that same fuel to push it would not be far more efficient, and far less complicated. I think that we're pretty well skilled in pushing things in space. It's done all the time.
Of course, if there is a high rate of rotation this might not be easy, but we're also good at slamming things into other things.
I really don't understand why an overly complicated and rather unique and untried solution would be favored over the alternatives.
I don't know why this got modded funny - that was my first thought when I read this. If you're traveling abroad, ship your laptop there. We know that they don't search that many packages, and I have not heard of the border patrol opening a fed-ex package and holding onto the contents for week to inspect them.
I'm really, really starting to hate this country. For the longest time I thought I lived in a good country. Now I find out that it's controlled by a bunch of stupid thugs, and getting worse every year. The worst part is how the media and the politicians slant this asinine shit, so that anyone trying to take it down looks like crap. I do not see any way to recover from this downward spiral.
At a company I used to work at, they had a fantastic summer flex plan - work an hour a day extra Mon-Thurs, get off Friday at 1pm. Friday afternoons off in the summer was an amazing morale booster, and everyone came in refreshed and in good spirits on Monday.
Then the corporate giant which had purchased our small company got wind of it, and told the president that this sort of thing was not to happen. He fought it and lost.
The best part was how we were always unable to get in touch with our corporate overlords on Friday afternoons, while we slaved miserably away.
Because "Education" is an entrenched elitist program. I know a gentleman who retired from IBM after 30 years of doing chip design, with a PhD in electrical engineering, and a BS in Physics. He tried to get a HS science job, and after two months of utter bullshit was essentially told by all involved that without a teaching degree, he couldn't teach.
There is something to be said for understanding educational theory and childhood development. And there is something to be said for being tested on ones teaching ability before being allowed to do it for a living. There are plenty of people who do NOT know how to teach. However, I've yet to see a school kick someone out of a teaching program for being unable to teach, same as I've yet to see a school give someone a license to teach without all the bullshit inherent in an education program.
I agree. I was thinking less skilled job apprenticeships, like farming, mining, janitorial work, factory work, car body shop, etc. Mainly because a lot of the students around here go into those jobs, making their last 2 years of high school pointless. They can count and have a basic reading ability. They really don't need their last two years of formal schooling, don't want to be there, and make it difficult for the kids who do want to be there.
I dunno....if we get rid of the ridiculous "education degrees" that are handed out for spewing out a dozen papers full of mamby-pamby bullshit, there would be time for a number of minor degrees. And for full disclosure, I have a Masters degree in Education. It was a complete and utter waste of time. But my bullshit skills were well proven, with a 3.97 gpa for not trying very hard.
A minor in education AND a minor in math or science AND a minor in english or history AND a minor in music or art
Would give you about the same number of credits as a normal undergraduate degree. I could definitely go for that. But first you'd have to change the state licensing laws, then gut the educational faculty at all the teacher prep colleges, then convince a lot of people to actually go through it. I know a lot of elementary teachers who would NOT have been able to get through all that content. They majored in "Elementary Education", which is noted, is a load of easy-peasy bullshit with no real challenging content.
As for being pushed into "good jobs", in the US there is far less of that, especially in rural areas. My father is self employed, pays 100% of his overpriced health insurance, and doesn't get paid if he doesn't work. He pushed my siblings and I to go to college, and spent all his savings to make it happen. He wanted us to get a job with health insurance and benefits.
However, he is a rarity in this area of the country. Probably only about 50% of students go on to some licensed trade or college degree. A "good job" in this area is working for one of the local prisons. Or plumbing. I know some local licensed plumbers who make about 2x my salary. They work a lot harder, but it's by no means a bad job.
Aaaah....but you see, if you allow some uneducated fool into the classroom, they will be a liability. You don't want to get sued because farmer Joe came in to talk about local crops, and talked about how the wetbacks do all the picking. You don't want some pedophile showing up to fondle the kiddies. Access to school has to be limited to only people trained, screened, and tested to work with kids. Otherwise you'll open yourself to a lawsuit.
And if you treat kids like adults, you have to actually hold them responsible for their actions. And if you do that, you're setting yourself up for a lawsuit. If you let anyone back into a school, you'll have 30 year old drop-out drug dealers showing up to hook up with 15 year old sisters and daughters.
Really, the entire education system needs to be overhauled. Getting more people from the community involved is important, but as it stands, it is in no way possible.
A brave soul in my district took the high school science curriculum and with the assumption that you could introduce 1 new concept per day, calculated that it would take about 3.5 school years to cover all the standards. We require 3 years of science at my school, and by state law do our standardized testing for science after about 2.5 years of science.
We can't cover it all, even with our entire school year dedicated to it. Add in community members with their own values, backgrounds, agendas, and ideas about how things should be done, and I can see it quickly grinding to a halt. Or every day will lack any tie to the one before.
I'm rare among teachers with this belief, but our education system needs to go. It needs to be scrapped and rebuilt from the ground up. "a few outsiders taking part in the "system" on a regular basis" isn't nearly enough. We need a few tons of dynamite, a couple hundred gallons of gasoline, and a nuke. We could build something amazing in the crater of Education. That is, if we let one or two sane people build it. Let the public vote, and we'll just get more of the same.
As a HS science teacher who likes to hear himself talk, let me give you my current viewpoint:
School in the US is hampered by a few things:
1) The entrenched educational system itself. 2) A deep seated fear of lawsuits leading to coddling and oversensitivity. 3) The students themselves. 4) The teacher education and certifications programs in the US.
The entrenchment of the US educational system is so deep that we are very unlikely to overturn it for anything short of a complete meltdown. The culture of traditional schooling is deep seated through three generations of Americans, and the vast majority of them feel that this is the "proper" way to educate students. These individuals include the administration, teachers, school board members, and, most unfortunately, the voters.
Our culture off litigation is such that our schools are now paralyzed by it. Schools run with 0 overhead. They have no savings, investments, or major assets. If they are sued, that money comes DIRECTLY from the pockets of the communities that fund them through taxes. With this threat over their heads, schools will do ANYTHING to avoid even the hint of a lawsuit. They will graduate students who haven't met the requirements, let convicted criminals come back and mingle with the rest of their classmates, avoid pressing charges against students, waive ineligibility for sports due to grades, felonies, or substance abuse, etc.
This fear of lawsuits drives our schooling today. Corporal punishment is out, due to a fear of a lawsuit. Public humiliation is out due to a fear of a lawsuit. Suspensions are limited, due to fears of lawsuits. Expulsions are rare, due to fears of a lawsuit. Discipline is lax at best, due to the fear of a lawsuit. On top of this, we continue to force the same curriculum on every student, once again, due to the fear of a lawsuit. And to make matters even worse, our ability to reward achievement and differentiate excellence is rapidly diminishing....want to guess why? LAWSUITS!!! It's the word of the decade.
The combination of lax discipline, untargeted and generic curricula, and less and less rewards for performances means that few students can really be engaged with the curriculum. Most of the students themselves do not see a major value in school. While some are curious, and view the educational system as a doorway to the universe, most see as it as an opportunity to climb some social ladder. Due to my other three reasons, we as teachers are not able to motivate students well at all.
The final issue is our teacher preparation programs. I attended a state meeting about our low standardized test scores. I was brave enough to ask all the assembled elementary school teachers (some 200 or so) how many had a minor or major in math. Out of the 200, there were four hands. It's no WONDER our math scores are low, and that we struggle to teach science.
To teach elementary school, teachers need a BA in something, and an education degree. That's it. There is no requirement for some basic math and science classes, much less basic math and science EDUCATION classes. Why is this? Because most of the Education Professors at our colleges....don't have math or science degrees. They have Education degrees. Why? Because it makes no sense to hire someone to teach Education classes who doesn't have a degree in Education. And who makes those decisions? The Education Department in each school, which is made up of people with degrees....in Education.
During one of our many pointless staff meetings a year or two ago I "solved" our education problems. Here's the itemized list as compiled by two science teachers:
1) Elementary teachers need to have a minor in every subject they are to teach. No more monoculture of a million English teachers teaching elementary schol. 2) Elementary school education remains largely the same. But by 9th grade we begin to organize students by trade. By "trade" I mean: College bound, military bound, trade school/certification bound, unsk
Well, if you're a backward and dangerous nation, that is. Here in the US, we're smart enough to locate our power plants far from where people live. Along with our stores, jobs, public transportation lines, etc. Our single-use zoning is a wonder of modern society.
I have it on good authority that you have to eat a live kitten to pass the final HR test to get hired there. And while some people feel that eating kittens is just plain wrong, and no one should do it, ever, I personally believe it is evil.
Not to mention that this bodes well for our future. If our kids could get porn and violence easily, they won't be getting smarter trying to work around stuff like this.
How many slashdotters learned creative thinking and problem solving from trying to circumvent or break something? If there's one way to stimulate creativity and ingenuity it's to tell a kid they can't do something due to some technological reason, then not monitor their access to it.
I have always loved the self-legitimizing process of collecting a few decades of writings, and then picking the ones which legitimize your organization. And then, as you pointed out, destroying anything which might threaten you, and persecuting any who believe in those works. I always thought that Leviticus was darn silly. I would love to see a collection of ALL the writings which were excluded from the bible. That must be a fun read.
You used the word "should". I'm not sure that many people in America really trust the economic industry enough to do what they "should" do. In fact, I know a lot of people who lack that trust, and do NOT do what they they should do.
That's not true in all of the US. In a lot of the US, it's a function of cost of living vs salary. I live 15 minutes from work, in another town. It's all highway between here and there, but there is no public transportation. I could have gotten an apt within walking distance from work, but that would have cost me 50-100% more.
As it is, I drive to and from work every day. There is no other option. I would carpool, but only two people who work the same hours I do go the same way, and one has other stuff to do after work and the other won't give up his freedom.
I'm actually a rarity in living so close to work. Most people are living double to triple the distance than I live to work. This is simply due to the economics. I can't afford to spend an extra $400 a month to live within walking distance to work, when my little toyota costs $150 a month to drive to and from.
I realized that more than three quarters of my evening computer use was surfing and IM. And I run a pretty beastly desktop for modern FPS games. After using a modest tax refund for an EEE-PC, I've seen a $5-$10 reduction in my electricity bill every month. And I can drag it around with me, since I can carry it between two fingers.
Will I ever upgrade this? Well, maybe - when surfing the web and IM needs more horsepower than this has currently. I'm guessing that is never, which conveniently is when I'm planning to upgrade this. Parts will fail before then.
All in all, it's pretty green. I estimate that I'll get a solid 6 years of surfing out of it, based on previous part lifetimes. If that's that case, that's 6 years of not running 500 watt (for the first two years, 1kW the next two, 2kW the next two) power supplies just to surf.
P.S. - It bounces off carpet, from three feet up. At least, the first three times. That I'm sure of.
It would be better than them hiding regular currency in the case of a fire. At least with precious metals you could scrape them out of the basement and recast them.
It's worse than that - this is CALIFORNIA in the SUMMER!
He reports that he can get a peak of 6.1kW out of his panels. That, I would assume, would be the max pretty much anywhere in the US. Here in the NE I'd be lucky to get 4kW, making a $30k-$50k investment impossible to pay off, even with my ability to sell power back at retail.
In winter, with 9 hours of weak daylight, and 50% cloud cover, I wouldn't even want to consider the cost of such a panel array. I'd really love to do solar - I just can't afford to do so. And it's not even a close thing.
Is there some way to generate power out of cold and dark? 'cause we could use that here.
Between our nuclear waste and landfills, we'll have all sorts of fuel and raw materials to mine for in the future. The best part is that they will be concentrated in small areas.
There is real truth in the piss poor quality of US cheeses. In large part this is due to our appalling lack of palate overall. (See our most popular beers and spirits as proof of this.) However, in good part this is due to ridiculous laws regarding food purity. It is very hard to sell non-pasteurized foods, be they beer or cheeses.
There are a fair number of microbreweries and microcheesemakers scattered around the US. It is only there you can get truly amazing products. One about an hour from my house does a lot of cheddars (yes, I know, but from raw milk which makes a world of difference.) but they age them from 6 months to 5 years. They hand foil and wax them, and will let you sample pieces going down the line from youngest to oldest. It was there that I finally started to understand what real cheese was. The fresh stuff was decent, but then got more and more sharp for the first few years. After that the sharpness started to melt away, and by the time you get to the 5 year old cheese, it's the most amazingly smooth stuff.
My mom currently has a friend who has a small herd of goats. She gets fresh, unpasteurized goat milk on a semi-regular basis, and has made some amazing cheeses with it. But if you go to the store an buy the exact same cheese, it's nothing like what she's made. Her yogurts are amazing as well, and nothing like what is found in local stores.
We in the US have completely ruined our palates with our obsession over food safety and cheep, mass produced products. It's a god damn shame,
Slashdot Mirror
But what if...the Chinese, knowing that US hackers would assume that the hacking attack would be proxied through another country, decided to instead proxy it through their own country, thus indirectly indicating that the attacks are being done by the Russian Mafia.
+1 Funny: Or the Russians, realizing that the Chinese and US hackers would think that way....
+1 Insightful: Really, the fact that the attacks came from China doesn't mean a god damn thing, other than that attacks can come from China.
Belgium has "proper beer"? That's like saying Italy has "proper pasta" or France has "proper cheese" or Japan has "proper sushi".
When you're pretty much the birthplace of something, and yours is the best in the world, I do not know that "proper" is the right word.
Hell, as an American, I'd have assumed you'd say that "grocery stores don't ask us to piss in bottles to send our used beer to Budwiser". That would have been more appropriate, and an adequate description of the difference between a good Belgian beer and Bud.
And the combination of those teachings and a fanatical religious teacher who told me I was not allowed to compare the current state of the Catholic church to them caused me to say "Fuck You" to religion as a whole. Now that was a brilliant way to do things, wasn't it?
Every now and then when I'm feeling snarky, I ask someone religious what Jesus had to say about taxes, and about giving to the poor. Then I ask what book contains the commandment "An thou shalt tax thy parishioners millions of dollars and use that money to build and maintain massively unpractical, gaudy, and expensive buildings, instead of worshiping modestly and giving that money to the poor." The resulting explanation is always entertaining.
I would hate religion less if it wasn't so god damn blind to its faults. But it seems that one must be truly unreligious to truly appreciate the heresy of most religions. Catholicism is my favorite heresy. The multi-trillion dollar, country owning empire dedicated to the worship of a man in dusty sandals, who had no possessions and spent all his time ministering to the poor and sick is truly a delicious mockery. If the Catholic Church isn't run by Satan, I really can't explain it.
The tractor possesses mass, and therefore has a constant gravitational effect upon the asteroid (and visa versa) and the only fuel it needs to expend are the minuscule amounts necessary to keep it tracking the asteroid.
That bolded bit there is the truly important part, and the part that I don't understand. Gravity will pull the two together, unless there is something holding them apart. The only thing to do this with (aside from a large piece of metal, which might prove problematic) would be the fuel onboard, which would have to provide thrust opposite the direction of the gravitational force.
Last I knew, we didn't have much onboard space vehicles that could be used to pull them, so this one will have to provide a net thrust towards the asteroid, to keep itself away. Of course, if there is any interaction by this thrust with the asteroid, it will start to counter the effect of the gravity. So now, as another poster pointed out, you have to waste fuel by shooting it out at angles around the craft so that the net cancels out the parallel movement, and the perpendicular amount adds up to equal the gravity, all without hitting the asteroid.
I truly fail to see why using that same fuel to push it would not be far more efficient, and far less complicated. I think that we're pretty well skilled in pushing things in space. It's done all the time.
Of course, if there is a high rate of rotation this might not be easy, but we're also good at slamming things into other things.
I really don't understand why an overly complicated and rather unique and untried solution would be favored over the alternatives.
I don't know why this got modded funny - that was my first thought when I read this. If you're traveling abroad, ship your laptop there. We know that they don't search that many packages, and I have not heard of the border patrol opening a fed-ex package and holding onto the contents for week to inspect them.
I'm really, really starting to hate this country. For the longest time I thought I lived in a good country. Now I find out that it's controlled by a bunch of stupid thugs, and getting worse every year. The worst part is how the media and the politicians slant this asinine shit, so that anyone trying to take it down looks like crap. I do not see any way to recover from this downward spiral.
At a company I used to work at, they had a fantastic summer flex plan - work an hour a day extra Mon-Thurs, get off Friday at 1pm. Friday afternoons off in the summer was an amazing morale booster, and everyone came in refreshed and in good spirits on Monday.
Then the corporate giant which had purchased our small company got wind of it, and told the president that this sort of thing was not to happen. He fought it and lost.
The best part was how we were always unable to get in touch with our corporate overlords on Friday afternoons, while we slaved miserably away.
In more plain language: if you throw it up and it comes back down, it's not in orbit.
Because "Education" is an entrenched elitist program. I know a gentleman who retired from IBM after 30 years of doing chip design, with a PhD in electrical engineering, and a BS in Physics. He tried to get a HS science job, and after two months of utter bullshit was essentially told by all involved that without a teaching degree, he couldn't teach.
There is something to be said for understanding educational theory and childhood development. And there is something to be said for being tested on ones teaching ability before being allowed to do it for a living. There are plenty of people who do NOT know how to teach. However, I've yet to see a school kick someone out of a teaching program for being unable to teach, same as I've yet to see a school give someone a license to teach without all the bullshit inherent in an education program.
I agree. I was thinking less skilled job apprenticeships, like farming, mining, janitorial work, factory work, car body shop, etc. Mainly because a lot of the students around here go into those jobs, making their last 2 years of high school pointless. They can count and have a basic reading ability. They really don't need their last two years of formal schooling, don't want to be there, and make it difficult for the kids who do want to be there.
I dunno....if we get rid of the ridiculous "education degrees" that are handed out for spewing out a dozen papers full of mamby-pamby bullshit, there would be time for a number of minor degrees. And for full disclosure, I have a Masters degree in Education. It was a complete and utter waste of time. But my bullshit skills were well proven, with a 3.97 gpa for not trying very hard.
A minor in education
AND
a minor in math or science
AND
a minor in english or history
AND
a minor in music or art
Would give you about the same number of credits as a normal undergraduate degree. I could definitely go for that. But first you'd have to change the state licensing laws, then gut the educational faculty at all the teacher prep colleges, then convince a lot of people to actually go through it. I know a lot of elementary teachers who would NOT have been able to get through all that content. They majored in "Elementary Education", which is noted, is a load of easy-peasy bullshit with no real challenging content.
I'm curious - what country?
As for being pushed into "good jobs", in the US there is far less of that, especially in rural areas. My father is self employed, pays 100% of his overpriced health insurance, and doesn't get paid if he doesn't work. He pushed my siblings and I to go to college, and spent all his savings to make it happen. He wanted us to get a job with health insurance and benefits.
However, he is a rarity in this area of the country. Probably only about 50% of students go on to some licensed trade or college degree. A "good job" in this area is working for one of the local prisons. Or plumbing. I know some local licensed plumbers who make about 2x my salary. They work a lot harder, but it's by no means a bad job.
Aaaah....but you see, if you allow some uneducated fool into the classroom, they will be a liability. You don't want to get sued because farmer Joe came in to talk about local crops, and talked about how the wetbacks do all the picking. You don't want some pedophile showing up to fondle the kiddies. Access to school has to be limited to only people trained, screened, and tested to work with kids. Otherwise you'll open yourself to a lawsuit.
And if you treat kids like adults, you have to actually hold them responsible for their actions. And if you do that, you're setting yourself up for a lawsuit. If you let anyone back into a school, you'll have 30 year old drop-out drug dealers showing up to hook up with 15 year old sisters and daughters.
Really, the entire education system needs to be overhauled. Getting more people from the community involved is important, but as it stands, it is in no way possible.
A brave soul in my district took the high school science curriculum and with the assumption that you could introduce 1 new concept per day, calculated that it would take about 3.5 school years to cover all the standards. We require 3 years of science at my school, and by state law do our standardized testing for science after about 2.5 years of science.
We can't cover it all, even with our entire school year dedicated to it. Add in community members with their own values, backgrounds, agendas, and ideas about how things should be done, and I can see it quickly grinding to a halt. Or every day will lack any tie to the one before.
I'm rare among teachers with this belief, but our education system needs to go. It needs to be scrapped and rebuilt from the ground up. "a few outsiders taking part in the "system" on a regular basis" isn't nearly enough. We need a few tons of dynamite, a couple hundred gallons of gasoline, and a nuke. We could build something amazing in the crater of Education. That is, if we let one or two sane people build it. Let the public vote, and we'll just get more of the same.
As a HS science teacher who likes to hear himself talk, let me give you my current viewpoint:
School in the US is hampered by a few things:
1) The entrenched educational system itself.
2) A deep seated fear of lawsuits leading to coddling and oversensitivity.
3) The students themselves.
4) The teacher education and certifications programs in the US.
The entrenchment of the US educational system is so deep that we are very unlikely to overturn it for anything short of a complete meltdown. The culture of traditional schooling is deep seated through three generations of Americans, and the vast majority of them feel that this is the "proper" way to educate students. These individuals include the administration, teachers, school board members, and, most unfortunately, the voters.
Our culture off litigation is such that our schools are now paralyzed by it. Schools run with 0 overhead. They have no savings, investments, or major assets. If they are sued, that money comes DIRECTLY from the pockets of the communities that fund them through taxes. With this threat over their heads, schools will do ANYTHING to avoid even the hint of a lawsuit. They will graduate students who haven't met the requirements, let convicted criminals come back and mingle with the rest of their classmates, avoid pressing charges against students, waive ineligibility for sports due to grades, felonies, or substance abuse, etc.
This fear of lawsuits drives our schooling today. Corporal punishment is out, due to a fear of a lawsuit. Public humiliation is out due to a fear of a lawsuit. Suspensions are limited, due to fears of lawsuits. Expulsions are rare, due to fears of a lawsuit. Discipline is lax at best, due to the fear of a lawsuit. On top of this, we continue to force the same curriculum on every student, once again, due to the fear of a lawsuit. And to make matters even worse, our ability to reward achievement and differentiate excellence is rapidly diminishing....want to guess why? LAWSUITS!!! It's the word of the decade.
The combination of lax discipline, untargeted and generic curricula, and less and less rewards for performances means that few students can really be engaged with the curriculum. Most of the students themselves do not see a major value in school. While some are curious, and view the educational system as a doorway to the universe, most see as it as an opportunity to climb some social ladder. Due to my other three reasons, we as teachers are not able to motivate students well at all.
The final issue is our teacher preparation programs. I attended a state meeting about our low standardized test scores. I was brave enough to ask all the assembled elementary school teachers (some 200 or so) how many had a minor or major in math. Out of the 200, there were four hands. It's no WONDER our math scores are low, and that we struggle to teach science.
To teach elementary school, teachers need a BA in something, and an education degree. That's it. There is no requirement for some basic math and science classes, much less basic math and science EDUCATION classes. Why is this? Because most of the Education Professors at our colleges....don't have math or science degrees. They have Education degrees. Why? Because it makes no sense to hire someone to teach Education classes who doesn't have a degree in Education. And who makes those decisions? The Education Department in each school, which is made up of people with degrees....in Education.
During one of our many pointless staff meetings a year or two ago I "solved" our education problems. Here's the itemized list as compiled by two science teachers:
1) Elementary teachers need to have a minor in every subject they are to teach. No more monoculture of a million English teachers teaching elementary schol.
2) Elementary school education remains largely the same. But by 9th grade we begin to organize students by trade. By "trade" I mean: College bound, military bound, trade school/certification bound, unsk
Well, if you're a backward and dangerous nation, that is. Here in the US, we're smart enough to locate our power plants far from where people live. Along with our stores, jobs, public transportation lines, etc. Our single-use zoning is a wonder of modern society.
not every single employee at Microsoft is evil.
I have it on good authority that you have to eat a live kitten to pass the final HR test to get hired there. And while some people feel that eating kittens is just plain wrong, and no one should do it, ever, I personally believe it is evil.
Check your sig. I'm guessing it wasn't knitted by your grammar.
Not to mention that this bodes well for our future. If our kids could get porn and violence easily, they won't be getting smarter trying to work around stuff like this.
How many slashdotters learned creative thinking and problem solving from trying to circumvent or break something? If there's one way to stimulate creativity and ingenuity it's to tell a kid they can't do something due to some technological reason, then not monitor their access to it.
I have always loved the self-legitimizing process of collecting a few decades of writings, and then picking the ones which legitimize your organization. And then, as you pointed out, destroying anything which might threaten you, and persecuting any who believe in those works. I always thought that Leviticus was darn silly. I would love to see a collection of ALL the writings which were excluded from the bible. That must be a fun read.
You used the word "should". I'm not sure that many people in America really trust the economic industry enough to do what they "should" do. In fact, I know a lot of people who lack that trust, and do NOT do what they they should do.
That's not true in all of the US. In a lot of the US, it's a function of cost of living vs salary. I live 15 minutes from work, in another town. It's all highway between here and there, but there is no public transportation. I could have gotten an apt within walking distance from work, but that would have cost me 50-100% more.
As it is, I drive to and from work every day. There is no other option. I would carpool, but only two people who work the same hours I do go the same way, and one has other stuff to do after work and the other won't give up his freedom.
I'm actually a rarity in living so close to work. Most people are living double to triple the distance than I live to work. This is simply due to the economics. I can't afford to spend an extra $400 a month to live within walking distance to work, when my little toyota costs $150 a month to drive to and from.
I realized that more than three quarters of my evening computer use was surfing and IM. And I run a pretty beastly desktop for modern FPS games. After using a modest tax refund for an EEE-PC, I've seen a $5-$10 reduction in my electricity bill every month. And I can drag it around with me, since I can carry it between two fingers.
Will I ever upgrade this? Well, maybe - when surfing the web and IM needs more horsepower than this has currently. I'm guessing that is never, which conveniently is when I'm planning to upgrade this. Parts will fail before then.
All in all, it's pretty green. I estimate that I'll get a solid 6 years of surfing out of it, based on previous part lifetimes. If that's that case, that's 6 years of not running 500 watt (for the first two years, 1kW the next two, 2kW the next two) power supplies just to surf.
P.S. - It bounces off carpet, from three feet up. At least, the first three times. That I'm sure of.
It would be better than them hiding regular currency in the case of a fire. At least with precious metals you could scrape them out of the basement and recast them.
It's worse than that - this is CALIFORNIA in the SUMMER!
He reports that he can get a peak of 6.1kW out of his panels. That, I would assume, would be the max pretty much anywhere in the US. Here in the NE I'd be lucky to get 4kW, making a $30k-$50k investment impossible to pay off, even with my ability to sell power back at retail.
In winter, with 9 hours of weak daylight, and 50% cloud cover, I wouldn't even want to consider the cost of such a panel array. I'd really love to do solar - I just can't afford to do so. And it's not even a close thing.
Is there some way to generate power out of cold and dark? 'cause we could use that here.
Between our nuclear waste and landfills, we'll have all sorts of fuel and raw materials to mine for in the future. The best part is that they will be concentrated in small areas.
There is real truth in the piss poor quality of US cheeses. In large part this is due to our appalling lack of palate overall. (See our most popular beers and spirits as proof of this.) However, in good part this is due to ridiculous laws regarding food purity. It is very hard to sell non-pasteurized foods, be they beer or cheeses.
There are a fair number of microbreweries and microcheesemakers scattered around the US. It is only there you can get truly amazing products. One about an hour from my house does a lot of cheddars (yes, I know, but from raw milk which makes a world of difference.) but they age them from 6 months to 5 years. They hand foil and wax them, and will let you sample pieces going down the line from youngest to oldest. It was there that I finally started to understand what real cheese was. The fresh stuff was decent, but then got more and more sharp for the first few years. After that the sharpness started to melt away, and by the time you get to the 5 year old cheese, it's the most amazingly smooth stuff.
My mom currently has a friend who has a small herd of goats. She gets fresh, unpasteurized goat milk on a semi-regular basis, and has made some amazing cheeses with it. But if you go to the store an buy the exact same cheese, it's nothing like what she's made. Her yogurts are amazing as well, and nothing like what is found in local stores.
We in the US have completely ruined our palates with our obsession over food safety and cheep, mass produced products. It's a god damn shame,