I think the idea is to have the software redact the text and get human eyes to go over the document. However, humans may also have to correct the redactions from the computer, and, I suppose if a patch is released for the software new problems may come up which doesn't make it redact the same way. Either way, it's still going to entail that there is a duplication of efforts.
As well, in recent news (and this likely isn't a "new" trick) researchers were able to determine what the redacted word were in documents given the space used for the redaction and the font used in the document.
I think the solution is better document control via a Classification system like the military. And, not releasing documents deemed sensitive unless there's a damn good reason - and I don't think request for information for all things government qualifies. It doesn't exactly lead to transparent functioning when 1/2 the text is all black. Excusing any political butt-kissing that will occur if the document needs to be released to save said important butts.;)
There's always a need for more storage space and I don't think the computer industry has been able to keep up with consumer and corporate demand. There is a rapid growth on the consumer side because people are storing photo albums, home-made videos etc. all on the PC. It also brings up the important idea of backups. Increasingly larger hard drives are really the only quick, practical way to back up home movies. DVDs are too inconvenient often requiring too much compression and Blu-Ray/HD-DVD are too expensive per GB.
The other equation, computer speed. I have a PIII 800 w. 512 MB of RAM. If I run an *older* version of MS Office and do run-of the mill tasks it still runs Windows XP fairly well.
Demand of faster comptuers at least in the comsumer market, IMO, is directly related to the efficiency of code and speed of an application. I own an iMac G5 1.8 Ghz w/ 1 GB RAM not the speediest thing by today's standard. I have lots of pictures from my Digital camera. As an example, if I try to bring up a catalog of several hundred pictures up in several 'thumbnail' shareware programs and iPhoto, I can look at the screen for a while. A freeware program I found can display those images at blistering speed - close to what an Athlon 3800+ with 2 GB RAM was able to do in the fastest program I could find in Windows. I'm not trying to pit OS X vs Windows or program A vs program B. Its just to say, had that OS X app not existed or had I not many other options.... my first thought would have been: "So when do I buy a new computer?"
I think the need for faster computing is dwindling and although I would like to get a quad-core system with 8 GB of RAM it is, I believe, there isn't a need.
Perhaps some one is looking for a bit of "Coffee Money" for particular names entering the country. "Coffee Money" from a certain Bill Gates could be substantial enough for an entire years' salary. I'm not advocating that all these people are bad, but it leaves to reason if you see a name like that you're hoping to pay for a lot of "Coffee".
Ditto. I'm also a very satisfied TekSavvy customer. Their service is awesome. Unlimited and uncapped service. Great speeds and low pings. They offer peering through two backbone providers - one is unlimited, the other is capped at 100 GB but offers lower pings for on-line gaming. I have nothing but praise. The techs and their sales staff they know what they're talking about and are extremely pleasant. They gave me the setup instructions I needed in about 30 seconds. I haven't had to call support since I signed up in January. I only have high praise. The service works, runs great and is wholly transparent to the end-user.
This is also the benefit of dealing with a support and service oriented company. Several of the larger providers could do the same but has never learned so the smaller companies in Canada tend to service a lot of dissatisfied customers of the larger guys. And you don't get phone calls telling you your contract has changed, that you have to pay more money for the *same* service, that there are new 'tiers' of service or that you notice on your bill "Please check on-line for our new User Agreement." Bell and Rogers esp in Ontario have made a great effort to tier their customers - it creates an illusion of the haves vs. the have nots, AFAIC.
As for the Bell support, I used to work for an ISP that re-sold Bell's services. Having to call the Bell corporate/reseller support on behalf of our DSL customers was a nightmare. I've also known people who worked at Bell support. They were the ones who knew what they were doing. Simply, the work environment there they told me only supported underachievement. This isn't just something I heard through the grapevine - I'm talking of the vineyard.
I don't agree with the kind of regulation the CRTC has had on the ISP industry but at least we have a number of independents to deal with. Though there are some large markets that remain under the control of several large providers. My impression is this is how Vancouver is controlled with telephone and Internet.
Exactly. I never got the idea in the first place. It seems the expert is the person who can change the trail of evidence to point to wether the defendant is guilty or innocent (depending on the 'side' of the expert). As well, said expert's testimony is evaluated by team of lawyers to ensure that testimony will stand up to cross examination. The expert is really an expert of convenience and sides. Its not a matter of who is right, it seems for jury presentation is whoever appears to be more correct.
Frankly, I don't understand the point of jury trials. The judges have years of education and are very well paid for their work. Leaving to a jury trial not only allows the lowest common denominator evaluate the case, but essentially reduces the judge (who is paid the same amount) to the position of a referee.
I've seen that happen several times in places where I have worked, purposefully, I suspect it is always lost in the mail or was received but lost in the warehouse.
I can find no other explanation for the disintegration of the X-Wing other than the following. Lucas sensed a disturbance in "The Force". This disturbance is caused by Trademark infringement. When he sensed the disturbance, he crushed the Rebel alliance that dared to go against "The Force"..... suddenly I feel something strange grasping my neck..... Session Terminated.......
You didn't mention if you have to use testing strips. I think the only people benefitting from Diabetes are the drug companies. They give away the meters for free and price gouge the testing strips. I can't be convinced that the cost to develop, manufacture and test these strips is anywhere near what they cost.
I don't disagree with making a profit, but they're doing it on the backs of people with a -so far- incurable disease and because most can't afford strips long term, skip or reuse strips which can lead to diabetic seizures.
Pogue brings up the point of using the device as an eBook reader. I think this would be a great idea. It beats the likely DRM enabled Sony readers that are to arrive on the market.
The screen looks big enough to read a lot of text, turn the display to B&W, buy cheap batteries, run with a solar panel, and by buying one are helping children in a developing country.
BTW - if you find the NYT video slow, its on YouTube as well.
I think its also important to remember to transition data to new mediums if they're backup worthy. For example, when CDs began to replace floppies, I backed up much of my work. But I forgot about a few floppies and a few years later had trouble reading the data. I still have paper copies but its still a heck of a lot of work to recover from since OCR can't pick up all the text - yes, I kept paper copies.
I also think its important to let others know not to use cheap or no-name brand CDs for backups. Gold layer CDs from Kodak and company are probably the best for archival. But many people buy the $0.02/ per disc CDs or DVDs and backup all their family photos and stuff on it. And its also important to make several backups at the slowest burn speeds. Most of us reading here probably know this, but we should remind others.
I hardly think this is a funny post. My Coppola probably like others has photos of relatives, children, etc in digital format which are irreplaceable.
I agree with the other replies in the thread. But, we also have to consider, will the OLPC run a good portion of the websites right now? There are many websites that simply take too much CPU power to process sending my desktop to a crawl. I think this is going to get worse before it gets better. Unless if better coding practices and web technologies take low watt Computers into account (e.g. not the quad-core, 4 GB RAM type systems).
Are there any spreadsheets/methods that are available for download that would do a good job of running large test cases on Excel? With the amount of companies running this for sales projections, marketing, stock price trending, etc. a large portion of the economy is dependent on the accuracy of Excel and other mathematical software.
I'm not a Programmer, but I'm getting the impression that MS's test cases weren't extensive enough to pick this one up. Do Sys admins or end-users have test case spreadsheets before installing patches or new versions of Excel to ensure that the results of the new version of Excel or patched version gives the same results as previous versions? And were those the correct numbers?
I've wondered too, are there chances that different CPUs (hardware or compiler bugs) generate different results for the same equation?
The point I'd like to make responding to parent, is that the threat of suicide bombers in some countries, venues/public spaces is real. There have also been some loonies that emulate/copycat acts from scenes in movies - and there are several of people visibly wearing bombs - the movie Speed comes to mind. So why wouldn't this scenario be possible? And why shouldn't airport security consider this to be a real threat?
As to other poster in this thread saying this was probably a bread board for security... consider that the cameras might not be hi-res enough. Also don't assume security people know everything about science and technology items. Even upclose, when arresting someone with guns pointed, I'm sure there's enough adrenaline to just think about stopping or arrest the person. That is, they are doing their jobs. This event is certainly rare. If everyone were wearing, what I'm sure are fashionable shirts with wires handing out and holding 'silly putty' then other security measures would be considered.
Point taken and something I forgot to mention.:) UCAVs will definitely if for no other reason that current limiting factor of G-forces acting on the human pilots will not be a factor.
I think what's more interesting here is that the UK would have put themselves at a serious disadvantage if they turned around and bought the Eurofighter or had been forced to buy one (unless of course neither would come with the Avionics/computers, source etc). Disadvantage, why? I recall on earlier Slashdot thread, F-35 was reported of having kill ratios in dog-fighting Top Gun pilot vs Top Gun Pilot of an unheard of 40 or 60: 1. Often the other pilots couldn't shoot down the F-35 or the F-35 ran out of ammo with not one radar lock before having to land. The missile guidance computers and stealth capability of this plane must be nothing short of spectacular.
I like this idea. If the content is high-res enough and manageable size - say about 300 MB, then I don't mind this have non-skippable commercials. For one, it beats downloading the content illegally. Second, it supports the content providers. Third, there are few shows I'm interested in watching and of those some are on NBC. Cable is an expense I would rather spare. And buying box-sets on DVD (or renting them) is expensive in my area.
Lastly, I live in Canada - it sends a big Fuck You to the CRTC (I'm quite sure there won't be too many opposing me here;) ) - they don't have to exist anymore since they don't have any control over digital mediums. Besides, in Canada, the CRTC *makes* cable TV more expensive since I *have* to buy Canadian channels and American channels. I could care less for all the Canadian channels save the CBC.
This is a bad move. First, parent's basements do not have sunlight. Second, computer geeks tend to stay out of the sun. I'm sure they wouldn't have it if their computer (or some part of it) got more sunlight then they did!
Only benefit I can see from this is environmentally friendly SPAM. Then, if we take out the Sun, no more SPAM!!
Ditto. I'm soon to upgrade my desktop and am budgeting about $1500 to $2000. I love my iMac G5, but the limited storage space and the crappy DVD-burner has forced me to add external firewire HDDs and a burner. I don't want to run storage over a network, possibly on another computer. I'd much have internal drives, so for Apple that means another iMac (nope, limited expansion) or a PowerMac (way too expensive).
A PowerMac is too expensive. For the price of a PowerMac you can buy a serious, kick ass PC. OS X isn't worth it anymore for me. And Linux still blows. I'm going to either XP or Vista in a few months. I've seen the Leopard builds in action and I'm not impressed. I'm after hardware first, no longer paying a 'premium' just to use OS X. Back to school for Apple me thinks.
Adding to my other post, I think making the general adult population 'smarter' about science in general would also help. People fall prey to miracle cures, gadgets that do 'cool stuff' and think that everything works as advertised - and advertisers fall short of claiming their products beat the laws of physics. I think resources like Wikipedia are helpful but as I have a background in science (not a degree) it helps me interpret the information. Most of the general population has no understanding of the basics of science/math (or forgot about it). When you look at Wikipedia entries, most explain science material at the PHd level. Britannica, is much more helpful in this regard - Wikipedia has improved though.
And what kid hasn't asked their parents for help on a science or history project? It starts with better text books for the kids, more realistic assignments to avoid demotivation and large workloads, and perhaps even giving parents a help manual to instruct (or give logical step-by-step solutions) to help teach their kids through their homework. It provides quality time between parents and kids. Who wants to pull their hair out at 11:00 pm the night before Johnny's assignment is due and having to go to work? Because afterschool, parents often help their kids, playing role of teacher, and every kid looks up to their parent as being 'smart'. Might add to the motivation level of parent and child.
I would agree that a child' teacher and parent(s) can be an incredible influence. That was my experience more so than any other movie, TV show or book. Its not as simple as if you read this or watch that you'll want to do science obviously. I would say that it can unlock different pathways of thinking about things. I remember as a kid figuring out/thinking about natural and human events (and not understanding the science of things) just after being influenced by media.
There's other factors at play here too... what is the learning environment, what neighborhood do they live in, what is income of parents, child's IQ, natural intuition, ability to solve problems, explore the environment, ask questions. They might all play a miniscule role but all add up.
My father is a biochemist. I decided to study in university the natural sciences partly because he showed me some of the 'cool' stuff he did as a kid as did his coworkers. This still has an influence on my to this day... but I changed course of study. But as I'm still curious, I still read a lot of science literature etc.
If anything, I think its most imporant that students being to realize the importance of math at the junior high level as they start doing algebra. When we asked "Why we needed to know this?" questions, almost all our math and science teachers rolled their eyes and said - because its on the exam, or you need to know this if you want to be x or y in a real smart ass tone of voice. Every single time. We didn't realize that algebra and calculus played such a vital role in statistics, economics, electronics, computers, business, social sciences. etc. We were listening for an informed response. Never got one.
The other thing to consider: death blows are illegal in UFC. Many martial arts use these as way to quickly kill or debilitate your opponent. I wouldn't want to see it otherwise, but something to consider nonetheless if you're to compare grapplers to other martial arts. And not to say grapplers don't know or can't figure it out these moves. But I'm sure there are still some moves and techniques that are not known to the public.
Slashdot Mirror
I think the idea is to have the software redact the text and get human eyes to go over the document. However, humans may also have to correct the redactions from the computer, and, I suppose if a patch is released for the software new problems may come up which doesn't make it redact the same way. Either way, it's still going to entail that there is a duplication of efforts.
;)
As well, in recent news (and this likely isn't a "new" trick) researchers were able to determine what the redacted word were in documents given the space used for the redaction and the font used in the document.
I think the solution is better document control via a Classification system like the military. And, not releasing documents deemed sensitive unless there's a damn good reason - and I don't think request for information for all things government qualifies. It doesn't exactly lead to transparent functioning when 1/2 the text is all black. Excusing any political butt-kissing that will occur if the document needs to be released to save said important butts.
There's always a need for more storage space and I don't think the computer industry has been able to keep up with consumer and corporate demand. There is a rapid growth on the consumer side because people are storing photo albums, home-made videos etc. all on the PC. It also brings up the important idea of backups. Increasingly larger hard drives are really the only quick, practical way to back up home movies. DVDs are too inconvenient often requiring too much compression and Blu-Ray/HD-DVD are too expensive per GB.
.... my first thought would have been: "So when do I buy a new computer?"
The other equation, computer speed. I have a PIII 800 w. 512 MB of RAM. If I run an *older* version of MS Office and do run-of the mill tasks it still runs Windows XP fairly well.
Demand of faster comptuers at least in the comsumer market, IMO, is directly related to the efficiency of code and speed of an application. I own an iMac G5 1.8 Ghz w/ 1 GB RAM not the speediest thing by today's standard. I have lots of pictures from my Digital camera. As an example, if I try to bring up a catalog of several hundred pictures up in several 'thumbnail' shareware programs and iPhoto, I can look at the screen for a while. A freeware program I found can display those images at blistering speed - close to what an Athlon 3800+ with 2 GB RAM was able to do in the fastest program I could find in Windows. I'm not trying to pit OS X vs Windows or program A vs program B. Its just to say, had that OS X app not existed or had I not many other options
I think the need for faster computing is dwindling and although I would like to get a quad-core system with 8 GB of RAM it is, I believe, there isn't a need.
Perhaps some one is looking for a bit of "Coffee Money" for particular names entering the country. "Coffee Money" from a certain Bill Gates could be substantial enough for an entire years' salary. I'm not advocating that all these people are bad, but it leaves to reason if you see a name like that you're hoping to pay for a lot of "Coffee".
Better yet, here is an updated version of the dialog.
"Nigeria Government requires that you review the permission to allow:
Bill Gates into the country.
If you do not trust this person, do not allow him in the country. This person
can potentially harm the country.
Cancel or Allow? "
Don't suppose this feature is in Vista? Perhaps Steve added this to Leopard and Nigerian Customs found that REALLY "Top Secret" feature.
Ditto. I'm also a very satisfied TekSavvy customer. Their service is awesome. Unlimited and uncapped service. Great speeds and low pings. They offer peering through two backbone providers - one is unlimited, the other is capped at 100 GB but offers lower pings for on-line gaming. I have nothing but praise. The techs and their sales staff they know what they're talking about and are extremely pleasant. They gave me the setup instructions I needed in about 30 seconds. I haven't had to call support since I signed up in January. I only have high praise. The service works, runs great and is wholly transparent to the end-user.
This is also the benefit of dealing with a support and service oriented company. Several of the larger providers could do the same but has never learned so the smaller companies in Canada tend to service a lot of dissatisfied customers of the larger guys. And you don't get phone calls telling you your contract has changed, that you have to pay more money for the *same* service, that there are new 'tiers' of service or that you notice on your bill "Please check on-line for our new User Agreement." Bell and Rogers esp in Ontario have made a great effort to tier their customers - it creates an illusion of the haves vs. the have nots, AFAIC.
As for the Bell support, I used to work for an ISP that re-sold Bell's services. Having to call the Bell corporate/reseller support on behalf of our DSL customers was a nightmare. I've also known people who worked at Bell support. They were the ones who knew what they were doing. Simply, the work environment there they told me only supported underachievement. This isn't just something I heard through the grapevine - I'm talking of the vineyard.
I don't agree with the kind of regulation the CRTC has had on the ISP industry but at least we have a number of independents to deal with. Though there are some large markets that remain under the control of several large providers. My impression is this is how Vancouver is controlled with telephone and Internet.
hmmmm.... How much would, xxx.madamiamadam.xxx, sell for?
Exactly. I never got the idea in the first place. It seems the expert is the person who can change the trail of evidence to point to wether the defendant is guilty or innocent (depending on the 'side' of the expert). As well, said expert's testimony is evaluated by team of lawyers to ensure that testimony will stand up to cross examination. The expert is really an expert of convenience and sides. Its not a matter of who is right, it seems for jury presentation is whoever appears to be more correct.
Frankly, I don't understand the point of jury trials. The judges have years of education and are very well paid for their work. Leaving to a jury trial not only allows the lowest common denominator evaluate the case, but essentially reduces the judge (who is paid the same amount) to the position of a referee.
I've seen that happen several times in places where I have worked, purposefully, I suspect it is always lost in the mail or was received but lost in the warehouse.
I can find no other explanation for the disintegration of the X-Wing other than the following. Lucas sensed a disturbance in "The Force". This disturbance is caused by Trademark infringement. When he sensed the disturbance, he crushed the Rebel alliance that dared to go against "The Force". .... suddenly I feel something strange grasping my neck..... Session Terminated.......
You didn't mention if you have to use testing strips. I think the only people benefitting from Diabetes are the drug companies. They give away the meters for free and price gouge the testing strips. I can't be convinced that the cost to develop, manufacture and test these strips is anywhere near what they cost.
I don't disagree with making a profit, but they're doing it on the backs of people with a -so far- incurable disease and because most can't afford strips long term, skip or reuse strips which can lead to diabetic seizures.
Pogue brings up the point of using the device as an eBook reader. I think this would be a great idea. It beats the likely DRM enabled Sony readers that are to arrive on the market.
The screen looks big enough to read a lot of text, turn the display to B&W, buy cheap batteries, run with a solar panel, and by buying one are helping children in a developing country.
BTW - if you find the NYT video slow, its on YouTube as well.
I think its also important to remember to transition data to new mediums if they're backup worthy. For example, when CDs began to replace floppies, I backed up much of my work. But I forgot about a few floppies and a few years later had trouble reading the data. I still have paper copies but its still a heck of a lot of work to recover from since OCR can't pick up all the text - yes, I kept paper copies.
I also think its important to let others know not to use cheap or no-name brand CDs for backups. Gold layer CDs from Kodak and company are probably the best for archival. But many people buy the $0.02/ per disc CDs or DVDs and backup all their family photos and stuff on it. And its also important to make several backups at the slowest burn speeds. Most of us reading here probably know this, but we should remind others.
I hardly think this is a funny post. My Coppola probably like others has photos of relatives, children, etc in digital format which are irreplaceable.
I agree with the other replies in the thread. But, we also have to consider, will the OLPC run a good portion of the websites right now? There are many websites that simply take too much CPU power to process sending my desktop to a crawl. I think this is going to get worse before it gets better. Unless if better coding practices and web technologies take low watt Computers into account (e.g. not the quad-core, 4 GB RAM type systems).
Are there any spreadsheets/methods that are available for download that would do a good job of running large test cases on Excel? With the amount of companies running this for sales projections, marketing, stock price trending, etc. a large portion of the economy is dependent on the accuracy of Excel and other mathematical software.
I'm not a Programmer, but I'm getting the impression that MS's test cases weren't extensive enough to pick this one up. Do Sys admins or end-users have test case spreadsheets before installing patches or new versions of Excel to ensure that the results of the new version of Excel or patched version gives the same results as previous versions? And were those the correct numbers?
I've wondered too, are there chances that different CPUs (hardware or compiler bugs) generate different results for the same equation?
The point I'd like to make responding to parent, is that the threat of suicide bombers in some countries, venues/public spaces is real. There have also been some loonies that emulate/copycat acts from scenes in movies - and there are several of people visibly wearing bombs - the movie Speed comes to mind. So why wouldn't this scenario be possible? And why shouldn't airport security consider this to be a real threat?
... consider that the cameras might not be hi-res enough. Also don't assume security people know everything about science and technology items. Even upclose, when arresting someone with guns pointed, I'm sure there's enough adrenaline to just think about stopping or arrest the person. That is, they are doing their jobs. This event is certainly rare. If everyone were wearing, what I'm sure are fashionable shirts with wires handing out and holding 'silly putty' then other security measures would be considered.
As to other poster in this thread saying this was probably a bread board for security
Point taken and something I forgot to mention. :) UCAVs will definitely if for no other reason that current limiting factor of G-forces acting on the human pilots will not be a factor.
I think what's more interesting here is that the UK would have put themselves at a serious disadvantage if they turned around and bought the Eurofighter or had been forced to buy one (unless of course neither would come with the Avionics/computers, source etc). Disadvantage, why? I recall on earlier Slashdot thread, F-35 was reported of having kill ratios in dog-fighting Top Gun pilot vs Top Gun Pilot of an unheard of 40 or 60: 1. Often the other pilots couldn't shoot down the F-35 or the F-35 ran out of ammo with not one radar lock before having to land. The missile guidance computers and stealth capability of this plane must be nothing short of spectacular.
I like this idea. If the content is high-res enough and manageable size - say about 300 MB, then I don't mind this have non-skippable commercials. For one, it beats downloading the content illegally. Second, it supports the content providers. Third, there are few shows I'm interested in watching and of those some are on NBC. Cable is an expense I would rather spare. And buying box-sets on DVD (or renting them) is expensive in my area.
;) ) - they don't have to exist anymore since they don't have any control over digital mediums. Besides, in Canada, the CRTC *makes* cable TV more expensive since I *have* to buy Canadian channels and American channels. I could care less for all the Canadian channels save the CBC.
Lastly, I live in Canada - it sends a big Fuck You to the CRTC (I'm quite sure there won't be too many opposing me here
This is a bad move. First, parent's basements do not have sunlight. Second, computer geeks tend to stay out of the sun. I'm sure they wouldn't have it if their computer (or some part of it) got more sunlight then they did!
Only benefit I can see from this is environmentally friendly SPAM. Then, if we take out the Sun, no more SPAM!!
Ditto. I'm soon to upgrade my desktop and am budgeting about $1500 to $2000. I love my iMac G5, but the limited storage space and the crappy DVD-burner has forced me to add external firewire HDDs and a burner. I don't want to run storage over a network, possibly on another computer. I'd much have internal drives, so for Apple that means another iMac (nope, limited expansion) or a PowerMac (way too expensive).
A PowerMac is too expensive. For the price of a PowerMac you can buy a serious, kick ass PC. OS X isn't worth it anymore for me. And Linux still blows. I'm going to either XP or Vista in a few months. I've seen the Leopard builds in action and I'm not impressed. I'm after hardware first, no longer paying a 'premium' just to use OS X. Back to school for Apple me thinks.
I'd wager the Dell 'dude' kid will live happily ever after as an HP printer sales person (or somewhere in the toner division).
recall: Dell 'dude' kid lost job for smoking pot.
Maybe make a sales-couple/team with Eileen Feiss?
Toby McQuire seems fit for doing a 3quel as he has with the Spidey series. So 3 movies for each chapter.
Adding to my other post, I think making the general adult population 'smarter' about science in general would also help. People fall prey to miracle cures, gadgets that do 'cool stuff' and think that everything works as advertised - and advertisers fall short of claiming their products beat the laws of physics. I think resources like Wikipedia are helpful but as I have a background in science (not a degree) it helps me interpret the information. Most of the general population has no understanding of the basics of science/math (or forgot about it). When you look at Wikipedia entries, most explain science material at the PHd level. Britannica, is much more helpful in this regard - Wikipedia has improved though.
And what kid hasn't asked their parents for help on a science or history project? It starts with better text books for the kids, more realistic assignments to avoid demotivation and large workloads, and perhaps even giving parents a help manual to instruct (or give logical step-by-step solutions) to help teach their kids through their homework. It provides quality time between parents and kids. Who wants to pull their hair out at 11:00 pm the night before Johnny's assignment is due and having to go to work? Because afterschool, parents often help their kids, playing role of teacher, and every kid looks up to their parent as being 'smart'. Might add to the motivation level of parent and child.
I would agree that a child' teacher and parent(s) can be an incredible influence. That was my experience more so than any other movie, TV show or book. Its not as simple as if you read this or watch that you'll want to do science obviously. I would say that it can unlock different pathways of thinking about things. I remember as a kid figuring out/thinking about natural and human events (and not understanding the science of things) just after being influenced by media.
... but I changed course of study. But as I'm still curious, I still read a lot of science literature etc.
There's other factors at play here too... what is the learning environment, what neighborhood do they live in, what is income of parents, child's IQ, natural intuition, ability to solve problems, explore the environment, ask questions. They might all play a miniscule role but all add up.
My father is a biochemist. I decided to study in university the natural sciences partly because he showed me some of the 'cool' stuff he did as a kid as did his coworkers. This still has an influence on my to this day
If anything, I think its most imporant that students being to realize the importance of math at the junior high level as they start doing algebra. When we asked "Why we needed to know this?" questions, almost all our math and science teachers rolled their eyes and said - because its on the exam, or you need to know this if you want to be x or y in a real smart ass tone of voice. Every single time. We didn't realize that algebra and calculus played such a vital role in statistics, economics, electronics, computers, business, social sciences. etc. We were listening for an informed response. Never got one.
The other thing to consider: death blows are illegal in UFC. Many martial arts use these as way to quickly kill or debilitate your opponent. I wouldn't want to see it otherwise, but something to consider nonetheless if you're to compare grapplers to other martial arts. And not to say grapplers don't know or can't figure it out these moves. But I'm sure there are still some moves and techniques that are not known to the public.