Ah, I see now. Marxist, you believe quoting web site links as factual, informative, or justification for you "beliefs"?
Actually, it was just a convient story link for something I also saw elsewhere- including a big story back on August 27th in my local paper about the mandatory evacuation and declaration of State of Emergency.
And those were reports from some "reporter" analyzing said events out in Florida?!
Not only- partially, but there has been a lot more written on the subject than just that.
Hmm. Where's the real ignorance here? Some of us actually live along the Gulf Coast line and were actually there,
Yes- and nearly 275,000 of them actually believed the stories and got out before the hurricane under the mandatory evacuation order.
so go back to your precious little google repo for your "wealth" of enlightenment..
Better than watching obviously shilled news stories on television while your neighbors drown.
I take it that these are the local nonprofits? Yeah, you'd think they could find say, 5 minutes out of every hour to read off an information sheet or something.
Well, let's see the options. A well known website that debunks or supports urban ledgends based on sound research, or "news" programs well known for actually buying stories from the government. I think I'll take the first.
I heard on a news broadcast that GWB was trying to get the local officials to declare a need for federal aid.
And if you check snopes, that urban legend has been debunked. Yes, the administration itself has been trying to put forth that image to make a very bad excuse for not showing up sooner- and yes, elsewhere on Snopes you'll actually find support for such things as underwater buses and other mistakes made by local officials- but the point is to try to tell the truth, otherwise you do more harm to your side than is needed. And repeating stuff you heard on a single news program with no colaberation for the story? That's just drinking the kool aid without checking it for poison first.
And you don't care to comment on the other parts of my post?
No, because the other parts of your post were mere logical extensions of a fact that did not exist to begin with, and thus were invalid by extension.
The actual meat of the comment?
The actual meat of the comment seemed to be that local officials needed to call for federal aid before federal aid would be offered. The link to snopes in my message shows the real timeline that was recorded- and that it was actually 3 days between the local officials asking for a mandatory evacuation, declaring a state of emergency, and formally asking for federal help, all of which were done BEFORE the hurricane hit; and the federal government actually responding at all. It was an additional 2 days before NBC broke the news in an interview to the head of FEMA that there were people in the convention center- something that the entire rest of the country knew the entire time.
I'm sorry- the basic excuse of "but we couldn't go in until the local governments asked us to" falls completely flat on it's face- and that is obvious from the Snopes article on the subject that I linked to.
Like I said the first time- next time check snopes before you repeat urban legends you heard on the "news".
Well, Congress seemed to think so in 1803- long before the Red Cross was thought of (bet YOU didn't know FEMA was that old). And it did a damned good job for us on September 12, 2001. It's just that in 2003, the buracracy took a spin into the Dilbert Principle when our bonehead President appointed a horse show judge to be the head of FEMA, instead of say, promoting somebody with emergency management experience.
George Bush had been trying to get the local government to declare a need for federal assistance.
You might want to check Snopes before you try to repeat urban legends as fact, lest we think you're a part of the current administration (who all seem to be so media illiterate that they probably can't spell snopes let alone look up to see if their information is accurate before spreading it).
There's the basis of your racist bullshit from FEMA, right there. Someone got their whole family drowned, has been starved, dehydrated, literally dragged through shit, kept in a stable under the conditions of a hog farm feed-lot... Listening to Kurupt is gonna' put 'em over the edge.
Just as bad as right here in Portland. The Multnomah County Sheriff has a brand new jail that was built right before the recession. It's a minimum security facility- 535 beds, no bars, full service medical hospital, kitchen, Internet Access (both Wifi and brand new cubicles with two-year-old but never used computers in them on the wired network), flat screen TVs everywhere. He offered it as a shelter when it was thought that we'd get 2500 refugees here- hey, it's better than a cot in a gym of an abandoned high school, which is the other two sites offered. But because it's a J-A-I-L, the Red Cross got all racially and southern culturally sensitive and turned him down. I say, when or if refugees arrive- the Sheriff should make his pitch directly to those involved- it's a damned sight more comfortable in the barracks of the Wapato Correctional Facility than in a disused gym.
volunteers say they plan to begin distributing them anyway in hopes they can set up some kind of station in the Astrodome parking lot, or else partner with KPFT to provide news for hurricane survivors.
That seems to be the right idea in this case- if you can't broadcast from inside the astrodome, then get the FCC to increase the power of your license and broadcast from *outside* the astrodome.
Because/. has that 8-hour interrogation to prove who you really are so no marketing geeks ever get on here and try to pretend that they are unbiased users.
No, because/. doesn't let the "marketing geeks" have any more say than the "unbiased users"- thus letting a ton of people jump on the marketing geek's posts with disagreements and bad reviews. The bad reviews that you'd never see on a marketing site like ZDNet or Tom's Hardware.
Well, it's just as easy to pay people to post reviews on slashdot as it is to pay them to post them anywhere else.
Yeah- but you have to pay a lot more for multiple reviews upon request, your marketing department has to read slashdot to see when the story comes out, and even then, there's nothing preventing somebody NOT in your pay from giving a bad review.
Much more with reality- from Google you get paid reviews. From slashdot you get user reviews. For any geek, the second is much more valuable because the first is just marketing.
Uh, can somebody explain to me why they consider all-in-oners not to be TWAIN compatible? TWAIN is after all a software protocol, and my wife's Epson scanner/printer/copier/fax seems to be TWAIN compatible (in that I can hook up to it's driver as a TWAIN source in Paint Shop Pro and get a picture back).
Or.."You're too dumb to ever actually know anything. Just ask the other guy."
That remark resembles more than 55% of the general population- and it's the reason computers and databases were invented to begin with.
'Career' isn't everything.
True, but it's one of the two main reasons society is sending you to school in the first place. Sitting around with your friends answering trivia questions isn't among those reasons.
Imagine sitting around with some friends, discussing events in the Middle East, or WWII. Without having a picture in your mind of where countries sit in relation to others...you miss a lot of the implications of why, who, and where.
Yes, but that's not the reason our society pays between $2000 and $10,000 per student per year for school. And thus, it's beside the point. The real point is to learn what you need to be a productive citizen. That means career and enough of an understanding of history to vote correctly. No more, no less.
And you never really learn to think for yourself.
The only "thinking for yourself" that society as a whole is interested in is that which is profitable or pragmatically usefull. School is not the place to learn to think- it never has been.
With the one smarter kid supplying the answer to the other two all 3 times.
Thus teaching the other two the most invaluable lesson anybody can possibly learn- to listen to experts.
No. Some stuff you just need to 'know'.
And how much of that have you used in your career?
Especially at the high school level. If you merely look up the answer each time, you never internalize it. It never becomes a part of you.
But what you do internalize is where it exists- which is far more valueable than the fact itself. How many times have you had to know where France is in your lifetime? But if you know where Google Earth is, you not only are able to very quickly get to the location of France, but also Germany...or anyplace else.
You never really 'know' anything, beyond how to ask the omnipotent Google.
If so, they'll have to take it 3 times, and with the randomization factor thrown in, they aren't likely to get the same questions twice. Three times as much work.
And this will be an open book test?
All modern testing should be open book and timed. After all, in reality, that's the new mode of skills people need to survive- the ability to research solutions and discern among several potential solutions, while applying event-specific variables correctly.
The distribution of the letters would dictate the order of the alpha sort- it's not truly random. I'm not sure what the effects would be- but it's a highly interesting problem that certainly deserves more research. But as a random number generator- it's only a very weak pseudorandom. Even seeding with the system clock on the server would be better than that.
You're supposed to make the answers first, THEN alphabetize them. It's not my fault your teacher was a tool.
Still better to randomize them- though that would do a pretty good job. Of course, the grand majority of answers would still be EATONRIDSH based if they were in English- making the most likely answer probably the first one instead of the 2nd.
Not really- I had a teacher that did this and I could constantly score 80% on his tests. His subconscious got the better of him- his answers were usually (not always, but usually) 2nd or 3rd in alphabetical order, and because he was concentrating on the alphabet, the wrong answers were always rediculous enough that skimming the material at 1500 WPM was enough to make a good guess.
Is that most human beings are WAY too predictable in creating them- 75% of the answers will be B, unless it's a true and false question in which case 60% will be A.
My suggestion- get togehter with a programmer, and save class time by giving your tests on the web. You can code the tests in XML- the ASP or Java or python or PHP or whatever can randomize them for you so that no two students get the test answers in the same order. Students can log in from the computer lab to take the tests after school, or from home. Grading? All stored under their user name in your database, likely both as an already totalled value for the gradebook and a detailed view so that you can zoom in on what individual students are having a problem understanding.
I'm willing to bet there are not a few unemployed programmers out there willing to take on such a simple project as open source just for the resume fodder. I personally don't have the time, plus I'm not real good at web programming.
At any rate- try to be a teacher, not just a tech guy. You can do a lot by contacting FreeGeek in your area and getting a donation of a few linux boxen. In addition, NEVER refuse a donation, no matter how outdated you think it is- there's always a student living in poverty who could use a computer. Some of my most interesting high school computer experinces were spent learning ISIS II, the operating system of an old Intel Chip burning computer that was given to the high school that they didn't know what to do with.
Also, remember to think age-appropriate- nothing beats old TI-99 4/As (20 years old!) with speech synthesizers for kindergarteners- they're easy to maintain because the OS is in Rom, and the kid does not need to know how to read to learn how to type.
In other words, think outside the box- and don't limit yourself to one platform or operating system. Apples, IBMs, old 8-bit computers that might have been sitting in the closet for 20 years, all are usefull for kids.
OTOH, when it comes to the teachers- internet connected systems that are all alike but have Firefox, a standard IM program, and a floppy or R/W CD based e-mail program are the way to go. And don't forget Open Office for teachers- spreadsheets and word processors are the most usefull programs for their line of work.
And if you have the time, my equipment will let you do that too- it's a menu option in most of the software, but it's also a separate free application with the Bluetooth GPS driver.
My one problem, I've yet to find a good way to carry everything- I'm thinking about putting some velcro on the shoulder of my ScottEVest so I get better GPS data (just velcro the GPS unit to my shoulder, turn it on and off I go).
My equipment: PocketPC with Bluetooth, NavMan GPS Bluetooth module, iGuidance mapping software for urban/vehicle Geocaching, Maptech Pocket Navigator for foot/bicycle. You want good hiking software; sometimes following coordinates alone can lead you through the bushes, when there was a perfectly good trail coming from the other direction! Depending on your target- boats and folding shovels are optional. Sometimes a calculator is good for finding that next waypoint in some of the more puzzle-style caches; I just keep a copy of DIV calculator on the PDA.
Of course, I'm into the tech- technically, all you need is one of those cheap $50 recievers that gives you your current coordinates, speed and direction. But that's doing it the hard way.
Here's what I'd do- but then again, I'm just wild about security AND PocketPCs.
I'd have an access database with an intranet web interface that checks MAC addresses to limit access through the web interface. In addition, I'd use Activesync Access Table Synchronization to synchronize the PocketPCs, but only when they are connected to a machine within your LAN- physical connection, not network connection- sync the table.
That way, you maintain full access for your people- but no access for anybody else. To save memory on the PocketPCs, limit information to machine name/domain name, IP address, userID with root (administrator) access, and password.
The problem is when it's done for profit instead of as a hobby. Biodiesel may cost only 70 cents per gallon to make, but when you add road taxes, wholesaler fees, distribution fees, retailer fees, and that infamous supply vs demand scam that most capitalists play, the average price of B100 in Portland, OR at the pump is $2.76/gallon- which still beats petrol all hollow, but not by much.
Slashdot Mirror
Ah, I see now. Marxist, you believe quoting web site links as factual, informative, or justification for you "beliefs"?
Actually, it was just a convient story link for something I also saw elsewhere- including a big story back on August 27th in my local paper about the mandatory evacuation and declaration of State of Emergency.
And those were reports from some "reporter" analyzing said events out in Florida?!
Not only- partially, but there has been a lot more written on the subject than just that.
Hmm. Where's the real ignorance here? Some of us actually live along the Gulf Coast line and were actually there,
Yes- and nearly 275,000 of them actually believed the stories and got out before the hurricane under the mandatory evacuation order.
so go back to your precious little google repo for your "wealth" of enlightenment..
Better than watching obviously shilled news stories on television while your neighbors drown.
I take it that these are the local nonprofits? Yeah, you'd think they could find say, 5 minutes out of every hour to read off an information sheet or something.
Who's "facts" do you believe?
Well, let's see the options. A well known website that debunks or supports urban ledgends based on sound research, or "news" programs well known for actually buying stories from the government. I think I'll take the first.
I heard on a news broadcast that GWB was trying to get the local officials to declare a need for federal aid.
And if you check snopes, that urban legend has been debunked. Yes, the administration itself has been trying to put forth that image to make a very bad excuse for not showing up sooner- and yes, elsewhere on Snopes you'll actually find support for such things as underwater buses and other mistakes made by local officials- but the point is to try to tell the truth, otherwise you do more harm to your side than is needed. And repeating stuff you heard on a single news program with no colaberation for the story? That's just drinking the kool aid without checking it for poison first.
And you don't care to comment on the other parts of my post?
No, because the other parts of your post were mere logical extensions of a fact that did not exist to begin with, and thus were invalid by extension.
The actual meat of the comment?
The actual meat of the comment seemed to be that local officials needed to call for federal aid before federal aid would be offered. The link to snopes in my message shows the real timeline that was recorded- and that it was actually 3 days between the local officials asking for a mandatory evacuation, declaring a state of emergency, and formally asking for federal help, all of which were done BEFORE the hurricane hit; and the federal government actually responding at all. It was an additional 2 days before NBC broke the news in an interview to the head of FEMA that there were people in the convention center- something that the entire rest of the country knew the entire time.
I'm sorry- the basic excuse of "but we couldn't go in until the local governments asked us to" falls completely flat on it's face- and that is obvious from the Snopes article on the subject that I linked to.
Like I said the first time- next time check snopes before you repeat urban legends you heard on the "news".
Well, Congress seemed to think so in 1803- long before the Red Cross was thought of (bet YOU didn't know FEMA was that old). And it did a damned good job for us on September 12, 2001. It's just that in 2003, the buracracy took a spin into the Dilbert Principle when our bonehead President appointed a horse show judge to be the head of FEMA, instead of say, promoting somebody with emergency management experience.
George Bush had been trying to get the local government to declare a need for federal assistance.
You might want to check Snopes before you try to repeat urban legends as fact, lest we think you're a part of the current administration (who all seem to be so media illiterate that they probably can't spell snopes let alone look up to see if their information is accurate before spreading it).
There's the basis of your racist bullshit from FEMA, right there. Someone got their whole family drowned, has been starved, dehydrated, literally dragged through shit, kept in a stable under the conditions of a hog farm feed-lot... Listening to Kurupt is gonna' put 'em over the edge.
Just as bad as right here in Portland. The Multnomah County Sheriff has a brand new jail that was built right before the recession. It's a minimum security facility- 535 beds, no bars, full service medical hospital, kitchen, Internet Access (both Wifi and brand new cubicles with two-year-old but never used computers in them on the wired network), flat screen TVs everywhere. He offered it as a shelter when it was thought that we'd get 2500 refugees here- hey, it's better than a cot in a gym of an abandoned high school, which is the other two sites offered. But because it's a J-A-I-L, the Red Cross got all racially and southern culturally sensitive and turned him down. I say, when or if refugees arrive- the Sheriff should make his pitch directly to those involved- it's a damned sight more comfortable in the barracks of the Wapato Correctional Facility than in a disused gym.
volunteers say they plan to begin distributing them anyway in hopes they can set up some kind of station in the Astrodome parking lot, or else partner with KPFT to provide news for hurricane survivors.
That seems to be the right idea in this case- if you can't broadcast from inside the astrodome, then get the FCC to increase the power of your license and broadcast from *outside* the astrodome.
Because /. has that 8-hour interrogation to prove who you really are so no marketing geeks ever get on here and try to pretend that they are unbiased users.
/. doesn't let the "marketing geeks" have any more say than the "unbiased users"- thus letting a ton of people jump on the marketing geek's posts with disagreements and bad reviews. The bad reviews that you'd never see on a marketing site like ZDNet or Tom's Hardware.
No, because
Well, it's just as easy to pay people to post reviews on slashdot as it is to pay them to post them anywhere else.
Yeah- but you have to pay a lot more for multiple reviews upon request, your marketing department has to read slashdot to see when the story comes out, and even then, there's nothing preventing somebody NOT in your pay from giving a bad review.
Much more with reality- from Google you get paid reviews. From slashdot you get user reviews. For any geek, the second is much more valuable because the first is just marketing.
Uh, can somebody explain to me why they consider all-in-oners not to be TWAIN compatible? TWAIN is after all a software protocol, and my wife's Epson scanner/printer/copier/fax seems to be TWAIN compatible (in that I can hook up to it's driver as a TWAIN source in Paint Shop Pro and get a picture back).
Or.."You're too dumb to ever actually know anything. Just ask the other guy."
That remark resembles more than 55% of the general population- and it's the reason computers and databases were invented to begin with.
'Career' isn't everything.
True, but it's one of the two main reasons society is sending you to school in the first place. Sitting around with your friends answering trivia questions isn't among those reasons.
Imagine sitting around with some friends, discussing events in the Middle East, or WWII. Without having a picture in your mind of where countries sit in relation to others...you miss a lot of the implications of why, who, and where.
Yes, but that's not the reason our society pays between $2000 and $10,000 per student per year for school. And thus, it's beside the point. The real point is to learn what you need to be a productive citizen. That means career and enough of an understanding of history to vote correctly. No more, no less.
And you never really learn to think for yourself.
The only "thinking for yourself" that society as a whole is interested in is that which is profitable or pragmatically usefull. School is not the place to learn to think- it never has been.
With the one smarter kid supplying the answer to the other two all 3 times.
Thus teaching the other two the most invaluable lesson anybody can possibly learn- to listen to experts.
No. Some stuff you just need to 'know'.
And how much of that have you used in your career?
Especially at the high school level. If you merely look up the answer each time, you never internalize it. It never becomes a part of you.
But what you do internalize is where it exists- which is far more valueable than the fact itself. How many times have you had to know where France is in your lifetime? But if you know where Google Earth is, you not only are able to very quickly get to the location of France, but also Germany...or anyplace else.
You never really 'know' anything, beyond how to ask the omnipotent Google.
Which is all you ever really need anymore.
Or 3 people taking the test at once?
If so, they'll have to take it 3 times, and with the randomization factor thrown in, they aren't likely to get the same questions twice. Three times as much work.
And this will be an open book test?
All modern testing should be open book and timed. After all, in reality, that's the new mode of skills people need to survive- the ability to research solutions and discern among several potential solutions, while applying event-specific variables correctly.
The distribution of the letters would dictate the order of the alpha sort- it's not truly random. I'm not sure what the effects would be- but it's a highly interesting problem that certainly deserves more research. But as a random number generator- it's only a very weak pseudorandom. Even seeding with the system clock on the server would be better than that.
You're supposed to make the answers first, THEN alphabetize them. It's not my fault your teacher was a tool.
Still better to randomize them- though that would do a pretty good job. Of course, the grand majority of answers would still be EATONRIDSH based if they were in English- making the most likely answer probably the first one instead of the 2nd.
Not really- I had a teacher that did this and I could constantly score 80% on his tests. His subconscious got the better of him- his answers were usually (not always, but usually) 2nd or 3rd in alphabetical order, and because he was concentrating on the alphabet, the wrong answers were always rediculous enough that skimming the material at 1500 WPM was enough to make a good guess.
Is that most human beings are WAY too predictable in creating them- 75% of the answers will be B, unless it's a true and false question in which case 60% will be A.
My suggestion- get togehter with a programmer, and save class time by giving your tests on the web. You can code the tests in XML- the ASP or Java or python or PHP or whatever can randomize them for you so that no two students get the test answers in the same order. Students can log in from the computer lab to take the tests after school, or from home. Grading? All stored under their user name in your database, likely both as an already totalled value for the gradebook and a detailed view so that you can zoom in on what individual students are having a problem understanding.
I'm willing to bet there are not a few unemployed programmers out there willing to take on such a simple project as open source just for the resume fodder. I personally don't have the time, plus I'm not real good at web programming.
But best oxymoron ever- they can't come to agreement about a Constitution that makes everybody happy, but their TLD is .iq.
At any rate- try to be a teacher, not just a tech guy. You can do a lot by contacting FreeGeek in your area and getting a donation of a few linux boxen. In addition, NEVER refuse a donation, no matter how outdated you think it is- there's always a student living in poverty who could use a computer. Some of my most interesting high school computer experinces were spent learning ISIS II, the operating system of an old Intel Chip burning computer that was given to the high school that they didn't know what to do with.
Also, remember to think age-appropriate- nothing beats old TI-99 4/As (20 years old!) with speech synthesizers for kindergarteners- they're easy to maintain because the OS is in Rom, and the kid does not need to know how to read to learn how to type.
In other words, think outside the box- and don't limit yourself to one platform or operating system. Apples, IBMs, old 8-bit computers that might have been sitting in the closet for 20 years, all are usefull for kids.
OTOH, when it comes to the teachers- internet connected systems that are all alike but have Firefox, a standard IM program, and a floppy or R/W CD based e-mail program are the way to go. And don't forget Open Office for teachers- spreadsheets and word processors are the most usefull programs for their line of work.
And if you have the time, my equipment will let you do that too- it's a menu option in most of the software, but it's also a separate free application with the Bluetooth GPS driver.
My one problem, I've yet to find a good way to carry everything- I'm thinking about putting some velcro on the shoulder of my ScottEVest so I get better GPS data (just velcro the GPS unit to my shoulder, turn it on and off I go).
I like Chavez- his "danger" is that he's an example to say, poor black people from Louisianna.
My equipment: PocketPC with Bluetooth, NavMan GPS Bluetooth module, iGuidance mapping software for urban/vehicle Geocaching, Maptech Pocket Navigator for foot/bicycle. You want good hiking software; sometimes following coordinates alone can lead you through the bushes, when there was a perfectly good trail coming from the other direction! Depending on your target- boats and folding shovels are optional. Sometimes a calculator is good for finding that next waypoint in some of the more puzzle-style caches; I just keep a copy of DIV calculator on the PDA.
Of course, I'm into the tech- technically, all you need is one of those cheap $50 recievers that gives you your current coordinates, speed and direction. But that's doing it the hard way.
Here's what I'd do- but then again, I'm just wild about security AND PocketPCs.
I'd have an access database with an intranet web interface that checks MAC addresses to limit access through the web interface. In addition, I'd use Activesync Access Table Synchronization to synchronize the PocketPCs, but only when they are connected to a machine within your LAN- physical connection, not network connection- sync the table.
That way, you maintain full access for your people- but no access for anybody else. To save memory on the PocketPCs, limit information to machine name/domain name, IP address, userID with root (administrator) access, and password.
The problem is when it's done for profit instead of as a hobby. Biodiesel may cost only 70 cents per gallon to make, but when you add road taxes, wholesaler fees, distribution fees, retailer fees, and that infamous supply vs demand scam that most capitalists play, the average price of B100 in Portland, OR at the pump is $2.76/gallon- which still beats petrol all hollow, but not by much.