If local schools did have a choice, I might actually agree with you. However most textbooks are forced to conform to the standards put out by the Texas state board. This results from the facts that:
A.)Texas has a state textbook approval board.
B.)Texas is a large market with few textbook companies can do without while still remaining price competitive.
If local schools did have a choice (and enough funding to pay decent history teachers in sufficent numbers), then maybe there would be less blatant lies taught in American history classes.
Have you ever been to a hospital in Germany? Ever been to one in the US? Do you know that your public health insurance doesn't cover all medical necessities?
While in the Seattle area, I had a medical problem for which I required a hospital visit on a Sunday morning. The medical staff was friendly and efficient, and the hospital was clean. I was in and out of there within an hour and a half, including an examination, an X-Ray, and a prescription.
While in Aachen, I had a medical problem for which I required a hospital visit on a Friday evening. After standing in line in serious pain, I arrived at the check-in desk, where the woman sat there stamping and stapling things and ignoring me until I had stated three times that I really needed help and would she please put the paperwork to the side for just a second. After she had checked me in I sat in the filthy waiting room for 2 hours without a soul in sight (patient or doctor) before someone came and asked me if a doctor had seen me yet. I suspect they had very simply forgotten me up to that point. The doctor did finally see me, diagnose me, and prescribe a medicine which no longer exists under the name with which he prescribed it. Fortunately the pharmacist just brought me a substitute.
I do not feel safe with the hospitals in Germany. They are, in my experience, not significantly better than the indigent hospitals (Ben Taub in Houston for example) in the US.
The insurance makes me feel even less safe. The level of medical care covered by your public health insurance is determined by the government. There are medically necessary procedures which have been declared medically unnecessary by law in Germany. This is particularly true in the area of dental problems. And the level of coverage is probably going to be reduced this year again by law.
With private health insurance you have a contract, and the insurance provider is contractually required to continue his coverage at the same level. Not so with public health insurance.
And given how little you get, the public insurance is just extremely expensive. This is because it's not operated on any principles of economics valid in the real world. Insurers in the US know that you have to charge a deductible so that people have an economic motivation not to cause unnecessary costs. The total cost of an insurance to the insured is lowered in this way. Why don't insurers in Germany know this? Patients in the US know that you have to pay a doctor for services rendered, otherwise you won't be able to get good doctors. Why are most German doctors then payed per 3-month period the same amount for every patient they serve regardless how little or how much work that patient requires? The cost is enormous: 11-15% of your monthly salary -- and the public health insurance companies are still in serious financial difficulties. And the doctors are still not paid in a way fitting to the level of training, intelligence, and committment the profession requires. But the AOK still has it's office am Markt in Aachen -- in one of the most expensive real estate ares in the city.
I do think that the German wish and ideal of providing good health insurance to everyone shows a certain nobility of spirit, and I don't fault that desire. However the average level of health care in Germany is, in my opinion formed through personal experience, not significantly above that provided to bottom 20% of earners in the US. I don't have cost comparisons with the US, but the German health care system is the most expensive in Europe. And the current tendence is not towards improvement.
That noble German generousity needs to get back in touch with economic reality, or it's going to sink the whole system and everyone will be needy instead of just a few.
Prohibition caused selling alcohol to be more profitable, thus funnelling money to gangs.
Pirating Windows is profitable and can be used to funnel money to terrorist organisations. But *why* is selling Windows profitable?
The argument can't possibly be that all piracy supports terrorism. It's got to be that *some* pirates use piracy to support terrorism.
This really can only be used as a reason to crack down on "commercial piracy" (ie selling pirated copies). It would display flawed logic if this was used as a reason to further crack down on private piracy.
P.S. If you really want to reduce your support to terrorism join a carpool, or start riding your bike to work.
I read an excellent science fiction novel in which humans discovered a set of lifeforms on an oceanic planet which I found rather unique. (unfortunately, I can't remember which novel or which author).
They found huge floating chemical islands that steadily expanded as they came into contact with free floating molecules in the oceans. After further analysis they discovered that the boundaries of the islands contained patterns which interacted with eachother.
Essentially, the chemical islands were a computational host for a one-dimensional round universe. Time in that universe moved forward when chemicals accreted along the chemical island's boundary in this universe.
Of course whether or not finding a lifeform in another universe "counts" (even if that universe is hosted in our own) I don't know. Accepting the idea of other universes with different physical laws does make for some even more interesting difficulties in defining life though.
Hmm... It occurs to me that I should make it clear that my statements that there were problems with sexism at Microsoft and my complaints about my mentors are seperate issues. They magnified eachother in their effect on me, but that doesn't mean the one caused the other. I don't believe either of my mentors were sexist.
I think grassy knoll might have had a point if his assumptions had been correct. He assumes that my mentor deliberately assigned a project which lay in one of my weak areas, and then tried to help me improve in that area. I suspect he also assumes that Microsoft is a great place to work for everyone and that the only remaining explanation for my problems must then lie with my own weaknesses.
In reality, my mentor never asked what my weaknesses and strengths were, he just assigned a random project and then didn't make himself available to help me learn how to do the project. Really all I needed was a tutorial on Windows programming. He didn't even have to do it himself; as I figured out too late on my own, there were enough such tutorials at Microsoft for interns. Instead he thoroughly ignored me.
I didn't even get the mid-term review which was required in the guidelines of the internship program. Instead, at about the time when it was due, he admitted that he didn't have time to mentor me and switched me to a different mentor. This lead to a situation in which I didn't even really have a complete view as to what my weaknesses were. At the end of the summer, an uninvolved program manager was kind enough to give me some critical feedback which actually helped. I have taken that feedback seriously and it has made a significant difference in my professional life since then. From my mentors I only got "Well she didn't cut it here so it must be her fault -- she's not intelligent enough for the job." As far as I can tell, none of my own critical feedback to my mentors was even taken seriously.
Just to defend myself against the "wallowing in self-pity" "whining the whole summer through" charge, nobody including my friends heard even a peep out of me about these problems the whole summer through until the time it came to do evaluations at the end. This stubborn refusal on my part to believe that I couldn't solve the problem by myself, almost certainly made it worse. That's also a lesson I took away from the whole thing: when there are problems, limit the amount of time you spend trying to solve them yourself before going for help. (Though I still have a weakness in this area as I very much like to solve things myself.)
As far as making weaknesses to strengths, I did that on my own, thank you very much. As I have done for most of my life. I am now, arguably, one of the best Windows programmers in the German branch of my current company. I would go into this further but it doesn't have much to do with my original point which is that Microsoft was a bad job. I don't actually need to defend myself against most of your "blaming the victim", because I myself am not the topic, but rather a case in point.
(Sorry that I'm reposting this -- this is my first time posting on Slashdot and I messed up my first attempt)
> Personally, I had a great time as an intern at
> MS and would do it again in a hard beat. The
> only complaint I had was male intern to female
> intern ratio.
Speaking as a former female intern at Microsoft, for me the negatives outweighed the positives. In the group I was in I was the female developer. The men tended to be very cruel in various ways (not just to me -- also to each other). I suspect this problem wouldn't have occured if there had been more women in the group. Listening to them talk about women who had formerly been in the group, positively frightened me. Either none of those women were competant, or a woman was incapable of proving any kind of worth to these men.
I had a great deal of trouble getting attention from my mentor when I needed help with my first experiences in Windows programming. The other intern in my group got interesting projects and the help he needed to learn how to do them. I got boring projects which I found it difficult to get motivated for, and which focused more on exactly the things in which I had little experience, rather than on one of my strengths. And I got seriously slammed when I made mistakes stemming from my lack of experience, thus further reducing my motivation.
The male intern to female intern ratio was also a problem for the female interns, because many of the male interns would go all wierd around us. Bad hit-ons, and just plain standing and staring were common. There were also occasionally borderline-sexist comments in the intern newsgroup. The woman in human resource in charge of the intern program, had to delete some comments from the newsgroup that went over the line. I don't think it would have been this way if there had been more women -- the men would have quickly learned that we are normal human beings just like them.
All in all, I did fairly badly at Microsoft (although I have done very well at numerous other software development internships), because I was not in an environment where I could concentrate and learn and feel motivated. Because I take a great deal of pride in my work, and like doing a good job, and because Microsoft was not an environment in which I could realize even a fraction of my potential, I would not go back to work for them. The perks are nice and I certainly did enjoy them, but they don't make up for the fact that it was a bad job.
> Personally, I had a great time as an intern at
> MS and would do it again in a hard beat. The
> only complaint I had was male intern to female
> intern ratio.
Speaking as a former female intern at Microsoft(I've already posted this in a more abbreviated form), for me the negatives outweighed the positives.
In the group I was in, I was the only woman. The men tended to be very cruel in various ways (not just to me -- also to each other). I suspect this problem wouldn't have occured if there had been more women in the group. Listening to them talk about women who had formerly been in the group, positively frightened me. Either none of those women were competant, or a woman was incapable of proving any kind of worth to these men.
I had a great deal of trouble getting attention from my mentor when I needed help with my first experiences in Windows programming. The other intern in my group got interesting projects and the help he needed to learn how to do them. I got boring projects which I found it difficult to get motivated for, and which focused more on exactly the things which I had little experience in, rather than on one of my (numerous) strengths. And I got seriously slammed when I made mistakes stemming from my lack of experience, thus further reducing my motivation.
The male intern to female intern ratio was also a problem for the female interns, because many of the male interns would go all wierd around us. Bad hit-ons, and just plain standing and staring were common. There were also occasionally borderline-sexist comments in the intern newsgroup. I don't think it would have been this way if there had been more women -- the men would have quickly learned that we are normal human beings just like them.
All in all, I did fairly badly at Microsoft (although I have done very well at numerous other software development internships), because I was not in an environment where I could concentrate and learn and feel motivated. Because I take a great deal of pride in my work, and like doing a good job, and because Microsoft was not an environment in which I could realize even a fraction of my potential, I would not go back to work for them. The perks are nice and I certainly did enjoy them, but they don't make up for the fact that it was a bad job.
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If local schools did have a choice, I might actually agree with you. However most textbooks are forced to conform to the standards put out by the Texas state board. This results from the facts that:
A.)Texas has a state textbook approval board.
B.)Texas is a large market with few textbook companies can do without while still remaining price competitive.
If local schools did have a choice (and enough funding to pay decent history teachers in sufficent numbers), then maybe there would be less blatant lies taught in American history classes.
For more information on this try the book: Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James W. Loewen.
Have you ever been to a hospital in Germany? Ever been to one in the US? Do you know that your public health insurance doesn't cover all medical necessities?
While in the Seattle area, I had a medical problem for which I required a hospital visit on a Sunday morning. The medical staff was friendly and efficient, and the hospital was clean. I was in and out of there within an hour and a half, including an examination, an X-Ray, and a prescription.
While in Aachen, I had a medical problem for which I required a hospital visit on a Friday evening. After standing in line in serious pain, I arrived at the check-in desk, where the woman sat there stamping and stapling things and ignoring me until I had stated three times that I really needed help and would she please put the paperwork to the side for just a second. After she had checked me in I sat in the filthy waiting room for 2 hours without a soul in sight (patient or doctor) before someone came and asked me if a doctor had seen me yet. I suspect they had very simply forgotten me up to that point. The doctor did finally see me, diagnose me, and prescribe a medicine which no longer exists under the name with which he prescribed it. Fortunately the pharmacist just brought me a substitute.
I do not feel safe with the hospitals in Germany. They are, in my experience, not significantly better than the indigent hospitals (Ben Taub in Houston for example) in the US.
The insurance makes me feel even less safe. The level of medical care covered by your public health insurance is determined by the government. There are medically necessary procedures which have been declared medically unnecessary by law in Germany. This is particularly true in the area of dental problems. And the level of coverage is probably going to be reduced this year again by law.
With private health insurance you have a contract, and the insurance provider is contractually required to continue his coverage at the same level. Not so with public health insurance.
And given how little you get, the public insurance is just extremely expensive. This is because it's not operated on any principles of economics valid in the real world. Insurers in the US know that you have to charge a deductible so that people have an economic motivation not to cause unnecessary costs. The total cost of an insurance to the insured is lowered in this way. Why don't insurers in Germany know this? Patients in the US know that you have to pay a doctor for services rendered, otherwise you won't be able to get good doctors. Why are most German doctors then payed per 3-month period the same amount for every patient they serve regardless how little or how much work that patient requires? The cost is enormous: 11-15% of your monthly salary -- and the public health insurance companies are still in serious financial difficulties. And the doctors are still not paid in a way fitting to the level of training, intelligence, and committment the profession requires. But the AOK still has it's office am Markt in Aachen -- in one of the most expensive real estate ares in the city.
I do think that the German wish and ideal of providing good health insurance to everyone shows a certain nobility of spirit, and I don't fault that desire. However the average level of health care in Germany is, in my opinion formed through personal experience, not significantly above that provided to bottom 20% of earners in the US. I don't have cost comparisons with the US, but the German health care system is the most expensive in Europe. And the current tendence is not towards improvement.
That noble German generousity needs to get back in touch with economic reality, or it's going to sink the whole system and everyone will be needy instead of just a few.
Prohibition caused selling alcohol to be more profitable, thus funnelling money to gangs. Pirating Windows is profitable and can be used to funnel money to terrorist organisations. But *why* is selling Windows profitable?
The argument can't possibly be that all piracy supports terrorism. It's got to be that *some* pirates use piracy to support terrorism.
This really can only be used as a reason to crack down on "commercial piracy" (ie selling pirated copies). It would display flawed logic if this was used as a reason to further crack down on private piracy.
P.S. If you really want to reduce your support to terrorism join a carpool, or start riding your bike to work.
I read an excellent science fiction novel in which humans discovered a set of lifeforms on an oceanic planet which I found rather unique. (unfortunately, I can't remember which novel or which author).
They found huge floating chemical islands that steadily expanded as they came into contact with free floating molecules in the oceans. After further analysis they discovered that the boundaries of the islands contained patterns which interacted with eachother.
Essentially, the chemical islands were a computational host for a one-dimensional round universe. Time in that universe moved forward when chemicals accreted along the chemical island's boundary in this universe.
Of course whether or not finding a lifeform in another universe "counts" (even if that universe is hosted in our own) I don't know. Accepting the idea of other universes with different physical laws does make for some even more interesting difficulties in defining life though.
Hmm... It occurs to me that I should make it clear that my statements that there were problems with sexism at Microsoft and my complaints about my mentors are seperate issues. They magnified eachother in their effect on me, but that doesn't mean the one caused the other. I don't believe either of my mentors were sexist.
I think grassy knoll might have had a point if his assumptions had been correct. He assumes that my mentor deliberately assigned a project which lay in one of my weak areas, and then tried to help me improve in that area. I suspect he also assumes that Microsoft is a great place to work for everyone and that the only remaining explanation for my problems must then lie with my own weaknesses.
In reality, my mentor never asked what my weaknesses and strengths were, he just assigned a random project and then didn't make himself available to help me learn how to do the project. Really all I needed was a tutorial on Windows programming. He didn't even have to do it himself; as I figured out too late on my own, there were enough such tutorials at Microsoft for interns. Instead he thoroughly ignored me.
I didn't even get the mid-term review which was required in the guidelines of the internship program. Instead, at about the time when it was due, he admitted that he didn't have time to mentor me and switched me to a different mentor. This lead to a situation in which I didn't even really have a complete view as to what my weaknesses were. At the end of the summer, an uninvolved program manager was kind enough to give me some critical feedback which actually helped. I have taken that feedback seriously and it has made a significant difference in my professional life since then. From my mentors I only got "Well she didn't cut it here so it must be her fault -- she's not intelligent enough for the job." As far as I can tell, none of my own critical feedback to my mentors was even taken seriously.
Just to defend myself against the "wallowing in self-pity" "whining the whole summer through" charge, nobody including my friends heard even a peep out of me about these problems the whole summer through until the time it came to do evaluations at the end. This stubborn refusal on my part to believe that I couldn't solve the problem by myself, almost certainly made it worse. That's also a lesson I took away from the whole thing: when there are problems, limit the amount of time you spend trying to solve them yourself before going for help. (Though I still have a weakness in this area as I very much like to solve things myself.)
As far as making weaknesses to strengths, I did that on my own, thank you very much. As I have done for most of my life. I am now, arguably, one of the best Windows programmers in the German branch of my current company. I would go into this further but it doesn't have much to do with my original point which is that Microsoft was a bad job. I don't actually need to defend myself against most of your "blaming the victim", because I myself am not the topic, but rather a case in point.
(Sorry that I'm reposting this -- this is my first time posting on Slashdot and I messed up my first attempt)
> Personally, I had a great time as an intern at
> MS and would do it again in a hard beat. The
> only complaint I had was male intern to female
> intern ratio.
Speaking as a former female intern at Microsoft, for me the negatives outweighed the positives. In the group I was in I was the female developer. The men tended to be very cruel in various ways (not just to me -- also to each other). I suspect this problem wouldn't have occured if there had been more women in the group. Listening to them talk about women who had formerly been in the group, positively frightened me. Either none of those women were competant, or a woman was incapable of proving any kind of worth to these men.
I had a great deal of trouble getting attention from my mentor when I needed help with my first experiences in Windows programming. The other intern in my group got interesting projects and the help he needed to learn how to do them. I got boring projects which I found it difficult to get motivated for, and which focused more on exactly the things in which I had little experience, rather than on one of my strengths. And I got seriously slammed when I made mistakes stemming from my lack of experience, thus further reducing my motivation.
The male intern to female intern ratio was also a problem for the female interns, because many of the male interns would go all wierd around us. Bad hit-ons, and just plain standing and staring were common. There were also occasionally borderline-sexist comments in the intern newsgroup. The woman in human resource in charge of the intern program, had to delete some comments from the newsgroup that went over the line. I don't think it would have been this way if there had been more women -- the men would have quickly learned that we are normal human beings just like them.
All in all, I did fairly badly at Microsoft (although I have done very well at numerous other software development internships), because I was not in an environment where I could concentrate and learn and feel motivated. Because I take a great deal of pride in my work, and like doing a good job, and because Microsoft was not an environment in which I could realize even a fraction of my potential, I would not go back to work for them. The perks are nice and I certainly did enjoy them, but they don't make up for the fact that it was a bad job.
> Personally, I had a great time as an intern at > MS and would do it again in a hard beat. The > only complaint I had was male intern to female > intern ratio. Speaking as a former female intern at Microsoft(I've already posted this in a more abbreviated form), for me the negatives outweighed the positives. In the group I was in, I was the only woman. The men tended to be very cruel in various ways (not just to me -- also to each other). I suspect this problem wouldn't have occured if there had been more women in the group. Listening to them talk about women who had formerly been in the group, positively frightened me. Either none of those women were competant, or a woman was incapable of proving any kind of worth to these men. I had a great deal of trouble getting attention from my mentor when I needed help with my first experiences in Windows programming. The other intern in my group got interesting projects and the help he needed to learn how to do them. I got boring projects which I found it difficult to get motivated for, and which focused more on exactly the things which I had little experience in, rather than on one of my (numerous) strengths. And I got seriously slammed when I made mistakes stemming from my lack of experience, thus further reducing my motivation. The male intern to female intern ratio was also a problem for the female interns, because many of the male interns would go all wierd around us. Bad hit-ons, and just plain standing and staring were common. There were also occasionally borderline-sexist comments in the intern newsgroup. I don't think it would have been this way if there had been more women -- the men would have quickly learned that we are normal human beings just like them. All in all, I did fairly badly at Microsoft (although I have done very well at numerous other software development internships), because I was not in an environment where I could concentrate and learn and feel motivated. Because I take a great deal of pride in my work, and like doing a good job, and because Microsoft was not an environment in which I could realize even a fraction of my potential, I would not go back to work for them. The perks are nice and I certainly did enjoy them, but they don't make up for the fact that it was a bad job.