There is no real debate. The people who actually know the science are largely in agreement about the conclusions. The "debate" being spoke of is faux debate stirred up by people from think tanks funded by oil companies. It's about as meaningful as fundy wackos going on about how there is large debate over the legitimacy over the theory of evolution.
I've known this was bullshit for 20+ years, back when I read an article that predicted sea level rises up to 2 feet, +/- 2 feet. In other words, it may be sooooo bad, the we wouldn't even be able to tell that it's happening!
The real problem is anthropogenic continental drift, anyways.
Maybe you should actually read the book, instead of taking someone else's word on it's contents, then commenting on those comments.
The thesis is not that universal military superiority of Western culture, but that a culture is reflected in how a civilization or nation wages war.
Western culture does not guarantee success in any endeavor, but in war, gives a larger margin for error than many others.
Really, read the book, your local library probably carries it. Hanson is no mere darling of the right, as someone describes him in this thread, but a well-informed classicist and a good writer.
Thomas Sowell wrote "Ethnic America", exploring why different ethnic groups do better or worse than others in the American milieu, but he also discusses different ethnic groups and cultures around the world. For instance, Jews tended to be more successful in urban-type jobs (clerks, lawyers, educators, etc.) than rural, e.g. farming. Jews newly immigrating to the US and still living in tenements tended to have the same rates of public library use as native-born middle class Americans. They were in the slums, but the slums were not in them. Chinese, Arabs, Persians, and Indians who emigrate tend to be in merchant or small businessman class wherever they end up, even if they were not merchants back home. Could have to do with the temperament of someone who is willing to leave hearth,home and the familiar and take on the responsibilities of a new, different society.
Germany was long known as the "land of poets and philosophers", until the rise of Nazism and it was done in by its poets and philosophers.
Ditto. I give my students the answers to the more challenging exercises and check for proper method. And I like the term under-competent to under-qualified. They can be perfectly qualified (thank you, NCLB!) but still be under-competent.
Well, I didn't find it any easier to use, that's why it's not my favorite. An airliner passenger is riding in a vehicle just as complex as a submarine, but just because all that complexity is hidden doesn't make it easy to fly a jet. Ubuntu doesn't live up to its hype, that's all.
I've used Ubuntu, installed it, ran it for a few weeks, and went back to Slackware. It's origins and aims are noble, but it's not my favorite distro. Even as a "live" CD, Pro-Mepis and Knoppix have it beat; I keep a copy of Knoppix 4.03 around just in case I have to (or have the opportunity to) use/fix a PC. Java is a better C++, but not by much; C# is better designed and you're not giving up too much in the way of SDK size, available documentation and libraries or ease of use over C++. It's not available as such for non-Windows, as Java is, but Java is still overdesigned and combines the worst of dynamically typed/interpreted languages and more rigidly typed/compiled languages. On Linux/Unix/etc, I use Python, Scheme and C, because you can't spell cilice without C.
I used to use NetBeans 3.6 for my Java stuff, then NB4, then NB3.6, then NB5, tnen NB3.6, then I wised up and stop using Java unless at the point of a gun (or paycheck). Making Java's source code available for perusal is as welcome as making some random cat's hairball available for swallowing.
Or a buffer overrun in Python, Ruby, Scheme, Smalltalk, Haskell, etc.
It's overdesigned because you need to wrap a DataInputStream in a BufferedInputStream in a FileInputStream in a Riddle in a Mystery in an Enigma to open a file. Did I get the order wrong? Well, I'll just have to go look it up. Like I have to look up everything in Java. Want to output a float or double rounded to 3 decimal places? Easy, just instantiate a DecimalFormat class. Now where does that live? I don't know, I can just look it up. How did I know that I needed a DecimalFormat object? I googled it. See how simple Java is? It's not overdesigned at all! All I need is a multi-hundred megabyte IDE to handle code completions for me, and the Mother Of All Drive Arrays and a payroll full of geniuses for me to discover how to do in Java what I can do in Python or C with %.3f.
...making it easier for Linux users to eat tree bark. Java has jumped the shark. It's the COBOL of the 21st century. C# is less baroque, and is comparable in size for the SDK and runtime. Applications can be written and deployed more quickly and easily in Python or Ruby. Seen any new Java applets in your web browser lately? Not any to compare with Flash, Javascript, PHP, and AJAX. It's no good for system scripts, like Perl (or the even sh for that matter). It's overdesigned and inconsistent.
It will run on your cell phone, possibly. Big woop.
I think teaching the "classics" is a bad approach to begin with. The classics are so out-of-touch with modern society and culture that the qualities that made them great at the time are almost completely lost on modern students unless they also invest huge amounts of time understanding the language and culture of the era.
They are not out of touch with modern society, because so much of human society never changes. People are no more nor less pious, brutal, kind, evil, wise, or merciful than they ever were. Many things stay the same, even such contemporary things as the War on Terror have uncanny analogues to past conflicts. The classics, by keeping the universe of discourse in the past, reveal what is timeless and universal about the human experience. You learn that some things never change.
In case you hadn't noticed, Americans are becoming less and less intelligent as the years go by.
On average, yes, that's true. But sooner or later the nihilist moonbat lefties and the aging hippies will die off, since they abort their babies before they're born or feel that it's too "establishment" to parent in the first place. Over the years, the average IQ will begin to rise again, and we won't have to worry about them or their ilk appeasing the modern anachronisms of 8th-century islamofascists, legalizing dope while criminalizing tobacco and guns, demanding fruit without labors, actions without consequences, and materialism without morality. A great day is in the offing.
Cuba doesn't have trade embargoes with the entire world, does it? Why doesn't it profit from the trade it engages in with Mexico and Canada? BECAUSE IT'S A DICTATORSHIP! Neither capital, labor, nor information flow freely, or even semi-freely. Central planning is what keeps North Korea starving, and Zimbabwe on the brink of starvation.
Slashdot Mirror
I decided to give up on Reddit and come back to my roots on slashdot, and this is the top story I see.
Can anyone help me get bitcoin for my left over flooz?
Sharks that can carry those frikkin lasers.
There is no real debate. The people who actually know the science are largely in agreement about the conclusions. The "debate" being spoke of is faux debate stirred up by people from think tanks funded by oil companies. It's about as meaningful as fundy wackos going on about how there is large debate over the legitimacy over the theory of evolution.
I've known this was bullshit for 20+ years, back when I read an article that predicted sea level rises up to 2 feet, +/- 2 feet. In other words, it may be sooooo bad, the we wouldn't even be able to tell that it's happening! The real problem is anthropogenic continental drift, anyways.
And now they're going to build an arcology.
Maybe you should actually read the book, instead of taking someone else's word on it's contents, then commenting on those comments. The thesis is not that universal military superiority of Western culture, but that a culture is reflected in how a civilization or nation wages war. Western culture does not guarantee success in any endeavor, but in war, gives a larger margin for error than many others. Really, read the book, your local library probably carries it. Hanson is no mere darling of the right, as someone describes him in this thread, but a well-informed classicist and a good writer.
Thomas Sowell wrote "Ethnic America", exploring why different ethnic groups do better or worse than others in the American milieu, but he also discusses different ethnic groups and cultures around the world. For instance, Jews tended to be more successful in urban-type jobs (clerks, lawyers, educators, etc.) than rural, e.g. farming. Jews newly immigrating to the US and still living in tenements tended to have the same rates of public library use as native-born middle class Americans. They were in the slums, but the slums were not in them. Chinese, Arabs, Persians, and Indians who emigrate tend to be in merchant or small businessman class wherever they end up, even if they were not merchants back home. Could have to do with the temperament of someone who is willing to leave hearth,home and the familiar and take on the responsibilities of a new, different society. Germany was long known as the "land of poets and philosophers", until the rise of Nazism and it was done in by its poets and philosophers.
Then read "Carnage and Culture" by Victor Hanson, to find out why Diamond is full of it.
a screen door that can be used both submerged and airborne.
At least, not according to this physicist: http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/01/inside-the-chin.html
Ditto. I give my students the answers to the more challenging exercises and check for proper method. And I like the term under-competent to under-qualified. They can be perfectly qualified (thank you, NCLB!) but still be under-competent.
[blinking lights signaling contraband of some kind] LUCYYYY! You got some splaining to doooooo!
the ON [Original Nerd (C)] Netmaster 10baseT?
People for the Eating and Tanning of Animals
I bet you have a hard time understanding that a '67 Mustang is sexier than a 2007 Mustang
Well, I didn't find it any easier to use, that's why it's not my favorite. An airliner passenger is riding in a vehicle just as complex as a submarine, but just because all that complexity is hidden doesn't make it easy to fly a jet. Ubuntu doesn't live up to its hype, that's all.
I've used Ubuntu, installed it, ran it for a few weeks, and went back to Slackware. It's origins and aims are noble, but it's not my favorite distro. Even as a "live" CD, Pro-Mepis and Knoppix have it beat; I keep a copy of Knoppix 4.03 around just in case I have to (or have the opportunity to) use/fix a PC. Java is a better C++, but not by much; C# is better designed and you're not giving up too much in the way of SDK size, available documentation and libraries or ease of use over C++. It's not available as such for non-Windows, as Java is, but Java is still overdesigned and combines the worst of dynamically typed/interpreted languages and more rigidly typed/compiled languages. On Linux/Unix/etc, I use Python, Scheme and C, because you can't spell cilice without C.
I used to use NetBeans 3.6 for my Java stuff, then NB4, then NB3.6, then NB5, tnen NB3.6, then I wised up and stop using Java unless at the point of a gun (or paycheck). Making Java's source code available for perusal is as welcome as making some random cat's hairball available for swallowing.
Or a buffer overrun in Python, Ruby, Scheme, Smalltalk, Haskell, etc. It's overdesigned because you need to wrap a DataInputStream in a BufferedInputStream in a FileInputStream in a Riddle in a Mystery in an Enigma to open a file. Did I get the order wrong? Well, I'll just have to go look it up. Like I have to look up everything in Java. Want to output a float or double rounded to 3 decimal places? Easy, just instantiate a DecimalFormat class. Now where does that live? I don't know, I can just look it up. How did I know that I needed a DecimalFormat object? I googled it. See how simple Java is? It's not overdesigned at all! All I need is a multi-hundred megabyte IDE to handle code completions for me, and the Mother Of All Drive Arrays and a payroll full of geniuses for me to discover how to do in Java what I can do in Python or C with %.3f.
...making it easier for Linux users to eat tree bark. Java has jumped the shark. It's the COBOL of the 21st century. C# is less baroque, and is comparable in size for the SDK and runtime. Applications can be written and deployed more quickly and easily in Python or Ruby. Seen any new Java applets in your web browser lately? Not any to compare with Flash, Javascript, PHP, and AJAX. It's no good for system scripts, like Perl (or the even sh for that matter). It's overdesigned and inconsistent. It will run on your cell phone, possibly. Big woop.
...then a half an hour later you're running Windows again.
I think teaching the "classics" is a bad approach to begin with. The classics are so out-of-touch with modern society and culture that the qualities that made them great at the time are almost completely lost on modern students unless they also invest huge amounts of time understanding the language and culture of the era.
They are not out of touch with modern society, because so much of human society never changes. People are no more nor less pious, brutal, kind, evil, wise, or merciful than they ever were. Many things stay the same, even such contemporary things as the War on Terror have uncanny analogues to past conflicts. The classics, by keeping the universe of discourse in the past, reveal what is timeless and universal about the human experience. You learn that some things never change.
In case you hadn't noticed, Americans are becoming less and less intelligent as the years go by.
On average, yes, that's true. But sooner or later the nihilist moonbat lefties and the aging hippies will die off, since they abort their babies before they're born or feel that it's too "establishment" to parent in the first place. Over the years, the average IQ will begin to rise again, and we won't have to worry about them or their ilk appeasing the modern anachronisms of 8th-century islamofascists, legalizing dope while criminalizing tobacco and guns, demanding fruit without labors, actions without consequences, and materialism without morality. A great day is in the offing.
Nortius Maximus, i.e., Big Nose
Agnus Imperator
Cuba doesn't have trade embargoes with the entire world, does it? Why doesn't it profit from the trade it engages in with Mexico and Canada? BECAUSE IT'S A DICTATORSHIP! Neither capital, labor, nor information flow freely, or even semi-freely. Central planning is what keeps North Korea starving, and Zimbabwe on the brink of starvation.