I wish you were right, but suspect you are wrong. The 2nd amendment was essentially abandoned after the Whiskey rebellion highlighted the ineffectiveness of the militias, and the British burning DC to the ground finished it off. They never bothered to repeal it.
Well, they've already become AAPL - their margins are almost identical at around 20%. But that is down from the roughly 30% margins they enjoyed over the last 5 years. And the trend is downward. A pessimist might look and see them trending towards Samsung's 12% margins if they insist on ramping up their hardware business.
I agree that it is hard, but we've had over a hundred years of public education to figure this out. I suspect some combination scoring from peers, parents, and administration along with maybe some test scores. We have to do something, and that is why I don't push too hard against the standardized testing - despite the obvious flaws, at least they are trying to affect change. It should be completely routine to lay off the bottom performing teachers in a district each year or so. Tiny districts are exceptions, of course - but most of your cities and suburban schools would stand to benefit.
I'd agree with you if we weren't actively lightening our fleet through uniform, nationwide CAFE standards, and if crash statistics didn't show a long-term, continuous reduction in automobile deaths.
Also, when comparing diesel and gasoline you need to account for the energy density advantage of diesel. This is around 12%, depending on the ethanol content of the gasoline. So now it is 37MPG vs 47MPG. Still impressive, but not as crazy and now it passes the sniff test.
They are taking on more and more hardware business. This is a much less profitable venture than they had before, so I don't expect things to be as rosy as you seem to. It is very hard to maintain the profit margins that they are accustomed to. Wall Street has given them a huge boost over the last year, but remember that comes after 10 years of no movement, and they still aren't anywhere near their highs during the dot-com bubble.
Still, the layoffs show that they are serious and PC sales have finally stabilized. While I am not a stockholder, I think you are right to be bullish in the short term.
Again, I completely agree. But I refuse to support throwing more money at the problem until they fix the systemic issues. If we are buying iPads while lacking pencils, this is just plain stupid and we need to address the stupidity. We already spend more per pupil than any other country in the world, and more in constant dollars than at any time in our history. More money will not fix anything.
I'm convinced that the teachers union is hell-bent on protecting bad teachers. Heck, they even oppose methods to try and measure teacher performance. Don't get me wrong - I'm not firmly on the side of the people who want to base teacher pay on standardized tests. But any interest which ignores the need to routinely purge the bottom of the barrel is clearly self interested at the expense of my kids. I therefore oppose simply throwing more money at the problem, since I feel it would be ineffective until the underlying structural problems are dealt with.
As an aside, I don't understand the approach that most unions take. Their position would be much stronger if they made their membership stronger. Culling the herd should not be such a cursed concept. Hard working union members should be incensed when slackers hitch on for the ride. Instead we see an institutional protection of the weakest members.
I know this isn't true, because I sure as hell don't have most of the table memorized.
Earlier:
I made no specific effort to memorize a huge table of calculations. Instead, I *naturally* memorized the results of calculations that I saw often. 8*8 = 64. I saw such things often, so I memorized them naturally.
So do you have 8*8 memorized or don't you? I find it hard to fathom how you could see 8*7 and not immediately think "56". Can you provide an example of your thought process? That would allow me to understand what you are suggesting as an alternative and allow me to consider that my kids would be better off having that instead.
But that's their choice.
As kids get older, sure, they make more and more choices. But at the age of 8 when they learn multiplication tables, they have very few choices. The need to learn how to read, full stop. They need to learn basic arithmetic, full stop. These are essential life skills - as critical as learning about appropriate social interaction.
But I would say that using a calculator really doesn't take that much time
If you need a calculator to do 30% off, then I feel sad for our public education system. This is the reason that grocery stores get away with selling larger bottles for a higher price per ounce than the smaller bottles. Liquid Tide, I'm looking at you... If everyone spent 2 weeks rote memorizing these allegedly pointless tables when they were 8, we wouldn't have such shenanigans.
Agreed on bad teachers. I was trying to be careful to not to say that having a bad teacher was OK. But I also reject the hypothesis that paying teachers like rock stars would fix our educational system.
You don't need to memorize a huge table of calculations in order to figure out what 30% off is.
Yes, you do. Unless you want to take an inordinate amount of time or whip out a calculator. You need to have at least up to 10x10 memorized if you want to do even quick and dirty estimates.
that doesn't mean that someone won't be able to do or understand mathematics; that's just completely insane, and I have no idea how someone could come to such a huge misunderstanding.
I never made such a statement. You could do 3x6 = 6+6+6 every single time and still understand how it all works. You'll stand there in the grocery store like a retard, but you'll eventually get it done.
I shouldn't even touch this discussion, but "genocide" is not the right word here. The Muslims are out-reproducing the Jews. In 2005 there were 1.2 million Muslims and 5.3 million Jews in Israel/Palestine. Now there are 1.65 million Muslims and 5.3 million Jews. That's a 45% increase in the Muslim population and a 14% increase in the Jewish population over the same period.
I completely agree. But I disagree that money is the stumbling block here - it is easy to blame finances, except for three facts: - Funding for the US is, on average, either the highest or one of the highest in the world per pupil. - Funding levels have consistently gone up in constant dollars since the 50s. - Funding is more even now than ever. Education used to be almost 100% locally funded and now it is more than 50% funded by the states.
I no longer worry much about the funding - I feel that the answer must be that the whole institution is fundamentally flawed. They spend millions on shiny new facilities, state of the art teaching materials, smart boards, etc. They have huge administrations to deal with acres of paperwork resulting from the shift to state (and now federal) funding. They have a fad mentality when it comes to teaching methods, completely changing the school's curriculum whenever the winds of educational reform are blowing.
And yet, colleges continue to complain that students - even good students from "good" schools - are unprepared when they arrive.
Your solution won't be rejected because it is too expensive. Your solution won't be adopted because it makes some kids unequal to others - like summer school. And we mustn't damage their little psyches - that is supposed to be done later on by cold, hard reality.
Technically you are right, but they control the company completely and are the head of the conglomerate which includes Kia. Weird, complicated Korean corporate/government world. In any event, the two vans differ in ways similar to the above examples and share common platforms and drive trains. I'd be surprised if they did not plop out of the same factory.
Plenty of people don't have it memorized at all, and that's fine.
It's fine in the same way that it is fine to not know your state's capital. You can live without the knowledge, but if you can't even figure out what 30% off is at the mall, that's pretty pathetic.
useless rote memorization on people
Some memorization is indeed useless, and I agree that I hate it. But that doesn't mean that ALL rote memorization is bad. Addition, subtraction, multiplication are all essential life skills for anyone who ever deals with money - which is everyone.
And do you think my complaints end at multiplication tables?
No, but I do think it has a whiff of extremism: ALL rote memorization is bad. I think that is as absurd as basing all education on rote learning. I and the other poster mentioned multiplication tables because they are such an obvious example of rote learning. Your average 8 year old can memorize the table to 9 or 12 in a week or two. At that point, reinforcement and they are set for life. Sure, it's no fun - but this isn't about discovery, this is about making your brain a shitty pocket calculator... there's nothing fun about that.
No, it's not necessary. To claim that it's necessary is simply absurd and defies all logic.
What functional adult in modern society does not need to calculate percentages? I have to admit that I find your argument slightly amusing.
LOL, well I'm just being practical... how do you hold down a job if you are driving kids all over the place all the time. I team up with other parents. So, for instance, I work near the summer day camp and often pick up and drop off other kids there on my way. Other parents help me out with other dropoffs. This week, a friend is taking my son to camp with her sons, which saves me a stop and probably adds a whole hour or so to my working day.
There was no big rote memorization scheme involved.
So your complaint is that kids are forced to memorize what you later found you had to memorize, but using a different method. I'm still not seeing the logic. Either way, you need to have your multiplication tables memorized.
Plus, you'll likely memorize much of the multiplication table on your own without making a specific effort to memorize it, like I did.
Well now you have me confused. You eventually found it necessary to rote memorize the multiplication tables, yet you are arguing against rote memorization?
Two things: - Teachers (at least around these parts where they are all unionized) have a ridiculously steep slope to their salary curve. They make a pittance in the beginning, and are paid quite handsomely just before retirement. They have no one to blame for their crappy starting salary then their senior teachers - they negotiate this in. I would much rather flatten the curve. - I'll get massacred for this, but the teachers aren't all that important. The kids in good districts would do fine even with mediocre teachers and the kids in horrid districts are pretty much doomed no matter how good the teachers are. You can see this in action right now. They have this absurd "everyday math" thing happening in the schools, and every parent that I know here in the burbs is re-teaching their kids math when they get home. That is not happening in a household where the single parent works 3 jobs. There is a reason teachers in those districts say things like "if I can get through to just one child..." They have realistic goals and they know that most of the classroom is doomed.
Don't get me wrong, when my kids have a good teacher it is really satisfying and makes the whole parenting thing much easier. But you know what? I don't fall into despair when they get the mediocre ones because my kids will be just fine. You could triple the pay and it wouldn't substantially improve the low-performing districts - there are systemic issues far deeper than the quality of the teachers.
The average family doesn't need to seat more than 4.
Sure, if you never cart other people's kids around. I regularly fill my 7-passenger van, despite having only 2 kids. This is especially true when the kids are still required to have car seats, which really cut down a sedan's carrying capacity. Car seats make the middle seat in the back pretty much useless (even on the minivan), and the front seat is a no-no - at least in my state.
Yeah, I lumped them together since they are the same company. Sort of like the old Plymouth/Dodge/Chrysler, Mercury/Ford, or Pontiac/Chevy/Oldsmobile minivans.
Slashdot Mirror
Obviously I was not quoting gross. Microsoft's is over 65%, and headed downward. In 2010 it was around 80%!
I wish you were right, but suspect you are wrong. The 2nd amendment was essentially abandoned after the Whiskey rebellion highlighted the ineffectiveness of the militias, and the British burning DC to the ground finished it off. They never bothered to repeal it.
Well, they've already become AAPL - their margins are almost identical at around 20%. But that is down from the roughly 30% margins they enjoyed over the last 5 years. And the trend is downward. A pessimist might look and see them trending towards Samsung's 12% margins if they insist on ramping up their hardware business.
I agree that it is hard, but we've had over a hundred years of public education to figure this out. I suspect some combination scoring from peers, parents, and administration along with maybe some test scores. We have to do something, and that is why I don't push too hard against the standardized testing - despite the obvious flaws, at least they are trying to affect change. It should be completely routine to lay off the bottom performing teachers in a district each year or so. Tiny districts are exceptions, of course - but most of your cities and suburban schools would stand to benefit.
I'd agree with you if we weren't actively lightening our fleet through uniform, nationwide CAFE standards, and if crash statistics didn't show a long-term, continuous reduction in automobile deaths.
Also, when comparing diesel and gasoline you need to account for the energy density advantage of diesel. This is around 12%, depending on the ethanol content of the gasoline. So now it is 37MPG vs 47MPG. Still impressive, but not as crazy and now it passes the sniff test.
They are taking on more and more hardware business. This is a much less profitable venture than they had before, so I don't expect things to be as rosy as you seem to. It is very hard to maintain the profit margins that they are accustomed to. Wall Street has given them a huge boost over the last year, but remember that comes after 10 years of no movement, and they still aren't anywhere near their highs during the dot-com bubble.
Still, the layoffs show that they are serious and PC sales have finally stabilized. While I am not a stockholder, I think you are right to be bullish in the short term.
Again, I completely agree. But I refuse to support throwing more money at the problem until they fix the systemic issues. If we are buying iPads while lacking pencils, this is just plain stupid and we need to address the stupidity. We already spend more per pupil than any other country in the world, and more in constant dollars than at any time in our history. More money will not fix anything.
I'm convinced that the teachers union is hell-bent on protecting bad teachers. Heck, they even oppose methods to try and measure teacher performance. Don't get me wrong - I'm not firmly on the side of the people who want to base teacher pay on standardized tests. But any interest which ignores the need to routinely purge the bottom of the barrel is clearly self interested at the expense of my kids. I therefore oppose simply throwing more money at the problem, since I feel it would be ineffective until the underlying structural problems are dealt with.
As an aside, I don't understand the approach that most unions take. Their position would be much stronger if they made their membership stronger. Culling the herd should not be such a cursed concept. Hard working union members should be incensed when slackers hitch on for the ride. Instead we see an institutional protection of the weakest members.
but I certainly don't stand around in the grocery store like a retard.
It sounds like you have at least the entire table memorized through 9x9. I think some schools go to 12x12, but that is a minor detail.
I'm gonna double quote you here:
I know this isn't true, because I sure as hell don't have most of the table memorized.
Earlier:
I made no specific effort to memorize a huge table of calculations. Instead, I *naturally* memorized the results of calculations that I saw often. 8*8 = 64. I saw such things often, so I memorized them naturally.
So do you have 8*8 memorized or don't you? I find it hard to fathom how you could see 8*7 and not immediately think "56". Can you provide an example of your thought process? That would allow me to understand what you are suggesting as an alternative and allow me to consider that my kids would be better off having that instead.
But that's their choice.
As kids get older, sure, they make more and more choices. But at the age of 8 when they learn multiplication tables, they have very few choices. The need to learn how to read, full stop. They need to learn basic arithmetic, full stop. These are essential life skills - as critical as learning about appropriate social interaction.
But I would say that using a calculator really doesn't take that much time
If you need a calculator to do 30% off, then I feel sad for our public education system. This is the reason that grocery stores get away with selling larger bottles for a higher price per ounce than the smaller bottles. Liquid Tide, I'm looking at you... If everyone spent 2 weeks rote memorizing these allegedly pointless tables when they were 8, we wouldn't have such shenanigans.
Agreed on bad teachers. I was trying to be careful to not to say that having a bad teacher was OK. But I also reject the hypothesis that paying teachers like rock stars would fix our educational system.
You don't need to memorize a huge table of calculations in order to figure out what 30% off is.
Yes, you do. Unless you want to take an inordinate amount of time or whip out a calculator. You need to have at least up to 10x10 memorized if you want to do even quick and dirty estimates.
that doesn't mean that someone won't be able to do or understand mathematics; that's just completely insane, and I have no idea how someone could come to such a huge misunderstanding.
I never made such a statement. You could do 3x6 = 6+6+6 every single time and still understand how it all works. You'll stand there in the grocery store like a retard, but you'll eventually get it done.
I shouldn't even touch this discussion, but "genocide" is not the right word here. The Muslims are out-reproducing the Jews. In 2005 there were 1.2 million Muslims and 5.3 million Jews in Israel/Palestine. Now there are 1.65 million Muslims and 5.3 million Jews. That's a 45% increase in the Muslim population and a 14% increase in the Jewish population over the same period.
I'm definitely getting too old for this. I wouldn't bother except that my kid is home sick and I have little else to waste my time on :)
I completely agree. But I disagree that money is the stumbling block here - it is easy to blame finances, except for three facts:
- Funding for the US is, on average, either the highest or one of the highest in the world per pupil.
- Funding levels have consistently gone up in constant dollars since the 50s.
- Funding is more even now than ever. Education used to be almost 100% locally funded and now it is more than 50% funded by the states.
I no longer worry much about the funding - I feel that the answer must be that the whole institution is fundamentally flawed. They spend millions on shiny new facilities, state of the art teaching materials, smart boards, etc. They have huge administrations to deal with acres of paperwork resulting from the shift to state (and now federal) funding. They have a fad mentality when it comes to teaching methods, completely changing the school's curriculum whenever the winds of educational reform are blowing.
And yet, colleges continue to complain that students - even good students from "good" schools - are unprepared when they arrive.
Your solution won't be rejected because it is too expensive. Your solution won't be adopted because it makes some kids unequal to others - like summer school. And we mustn't damage their little psyches - that is supposed to be done later on by cold, hard reality.
Technically you are right, but they control the company completely and are the head of the conglomerate which includes Kia. Weird, complicated Korean corporate/government world. In any event, the two vans differ in ways similar to the above examples and share common platforms and drive trains. I'd be surprised if they did not plop out of the same factory.
Plenty of people don't have it memorized at all, and that's fine.
It's fine in the same way that it is fine to not know your state's capital. You can live without the knowledge, but if you can't even figure out what 30% off is at the mall, that's pretty pathetic.
useless rote memorization on people
Some memorization is indeed useless, and I agree that I hate it. But that doesn't mean that ALL rote memorization is bad. Addition, subtraction, multiplication are all essential life skills for anyone who ever deals with money - which is everyone.
And do you think my complaints end at multiplication tables?
No, but I do think it has a whiff of extremism: ALL rote memorization is bad. I think that is as absurd as basing all education on rote learning. I and the other poster mentioned multiplication tables because they are such an obvious example of rote learning. Your average 8 year old can memorize the table to 9 or 12 in a week or two. At that point, reinforcement and they are set for life. Sure, it's no fun - but this isn't about discovery, this is about making your brain a shitty pocket calculator... there's nothing fun about that.
No, it's not necessary. To claim that it's necessary is simply absurd and defies all logic.
What functional adult in modern society does not need to calculate percentages? I have to admit that I find your argument slightly amusing.
LOL, well I'm just being practical... how do you hold down a job if you are driving kids all over the place all the time. I team up with other parents. So, for instance, I work near the summer day camp and often pick up and drop off other kids there on my way. Other parents help me out with other dropoffs. This week, a friend is taking my son to camp with her sons, which saves me a stop and probably adds a whole hour or so to my working day.
There was no big rote memorization scheme involved.
So your complaint is that kids are forced to memorize what you later found you had to memorize, but using a different method. I'm still not seeing the logic. Either way, you need to have your multiplication tables memorized.
Plus, you'll likely memorize much of the multiplication table on your own without making a specific effort to memorize it, like I did.
Well now you have me confused. You eventually found it necessary to rote memorize the multiplication tables, yet you are arguing against rote memorization?
Two things:
- Teachers (at least around these parts where they are all unionized) have a ridiculously steep slope to their salary curve. They make a pittance in the beginning, and are paid quite handsomely just before retirement. They have no one to blame for their crappy starting salary then their senior teachers - they negotiate this in. I would much rather flatten the curve.
- I'll get massacred for this, but the teachers aren't all that important. The kids in good districts would do fine even with mediocre teachers and the kids in horrid districts are pretty much doomed no matter how good the teachers are. You can see this in action right now. They have this absurd "everyday math" thing happening in the schools, and every parent that I know here in the burbs is re-teaching their kids math when they get home. That is not happening in a household where the single parent works 3 jobs. There is a reason teachers in those districts say things like "if I can get through to just one child..." They have realistic goals and they know that most of the classroom is doomed.
Don't get me wrong, when my kids have a good teacher it is really satisfying and makes the whole parenting thing much easier. But you know what? I don't fall into despair when they get the mediocre ones because my kids will be just fine. You could triple the pay and it wouldn't substantially improve the low-performing districts - there are systemic issues far deeper than the quality of the teachers.
The average family doesn't need to seat more than 4.
Sure, if you never cart other people's kids around. I regularly fill my 7-passenger van, despite having only 2 kids. This is especially true when the kids are still required to have car seats, which really cut down a sedan's carrying capacity. Car seats make the middle seat in the back pretty much useless (even on the minivan), and the front seat is a no-no - at least in my state.
Childbirth is far more dangerous than the risk from any of those things.
Yeah, I lumped them together since they are the same company. Sort of like the old Plymouth/Dodge/Chrysler, Mercury/Ford, or Pontiac/Chevy/Oldsmobile minivans.