Simply pay kids who get good grades a stipend. Each A should be worth say, $50.
If I were paid like this, I'd have stopped playing video games and tried to get all As on my report card. Problem is we don't want to invest money in schools, we would prefer to pay military officers.
This is not a country of intellectuals, this is a nation of warriors. Nerds/Intellectuals are considered losers in school, and our culture makes outcasts of these people while offering no support for them.
Most Americans hate foriegners and actually tell to them to back to their country. Many Asians, Mexicans, Africans, Indians all come here and go to colleges such as MIT, get a degree, get a nice job and then get told on TV and by their neighbors to go home, get out, and leave the communities.
When the US is actually accepting of foreigners who are not white, perhaps these foreigners who arent white will actually stay here. This has been a problem with this country for a long while, its almost like the problem the jews faced in germany. Sure some germans may have wanted Einstien to stay in germany and work for hitler, but do you think Einstien really wanted to stay in a country he knew wanted him out?
Think from that point of view and you'll begin to understand the reasons why people just come to the USA to get an education and go back to their home country. Obviously an Indian or Japanese feels more comfortable in their own country than in ours.
You can teach logic through chess. A very fun way to introduce a kid to logic. You can teach logic through video games, through activities which are actually fun.
There is no fun way to teach calculus or algebra. There never will be a fun way to teach it. Chess is fun because its a game, chess is fun because the rules are simple. Mastering chess requires just as much memorization and logic as mastering calculus but for some reason I have a much easier time remembering the openings to chess than memorizing the steps in calculus.
Why? Because chess is actually fun. The problem solving is a game, its competitive, and enjoyable.
I enjoy solving chess problems when its a game. I do not enjoy solving chess problems when its listed in a book with chess notation and in the "please solve for mate" format. I like using math when its useful.
I never said I was against ratios, statistics and the basics. I said I was against calculus, algebra and advanced geometry. No one ever uses these unless you are a nuclear physicist, astronaught, or likewise.
Look, the average person uses very basic math. The job of painter is an esoteric field just like the few people who build houses. So a few thousand successful painters use advanced geometry? Most people work at Walmart and the only math they use are addition, subtraction and occassional division.
I have a perfect memory when it comes to spoken words. The best way to learn for me is to hear something being said.
So why do we even need classrooms? Just sell me the audio tapes. Because everyone else is just like me, lets outlaw books.
To be defined as a whiz kid you had to have learned to read and do math earlier. Guess what, earlier does not mean you'll develop into a smarter individual as an adult. Kids who pick up on stuff earlier should get extra attention?! So what about the genius who is in a regular class who may not have picked up on things early but then surpasses everyone in class later on like during highschool?
The problem with the current system you mention is that everything depends on how well you do in the first few grades. This decides what track you go on and you'll usually stay on that track because there is almost no mobility off of this track until college.
Why should we favor one track over the other? The track system does not track intelligence it tracks development. Child A learned to read earlier than Child B, but Child A may never learn to read as well. Child B may learn math way later than Child A, but Child B may someday be a genius while Child A may simply be a kid who learned stuff early.
A lot of scientists including Einstien did not learn early, they were late in development. The only important thing is how far you develop not so much how quickly. There is currently no test to figure out how far a person will develop, we only can figure out the rate of speed.
People who went to the regular classes like me were bored out of our minds and had to learn to teach ourselves. Whiz kids need to learn the same thing. In the long run if you don't, you will fail out of college while the kid who went to the boring easy classes but who learned to go to the library and research on their own will do well.
Whiz kids should be expected to teach themselves or have their parents teach them. If your mother taught you to read earlier obviously you don't need the extra attention in class, let your mother teach you other stuff and buy you books while the kids who don't have mothers to teach them can use the school as a resource.
You cannot control a kid and make them like what you want them to like. Some kids will like problem solving and some kids wont. Currently math is problem solving.
I like math, I hate problem solving, I hate memorizing useless calculations, formulas, steps and rules. I like logic, I like thinking, I don't like calculations and brute force memorization. No one on earth can change my likes or dislikes. The only thing which you can do is simply make the math more likeable to different types of people instead of just making it fun for problem solvers.
You are thinking "Ok, kids arent good as math like people of my generation, I know the solution! Lets force them to be good at it by drilling it into their brains brute force. This will make them so good at math!"
Problem is, it also will make them hate math. It will make them less likely to actually use the math. Where do you think the current generation of kids came from? Our parents were taught just like you how t hate math and when the time came for us younger generations to learn math our parents were the ones telling us how useless math is.
So really, if you want to help people learn math try making it useful. Timestables are about as useful as using a quil to write your papers instead of Microsoft word. Calculators are a tool to make calculations easier, to reduce the burden of the calculation part so a person can focus on the actual concept.
You want us to focus on the calculation because you enjoy or remember all the calculations and expect every human to be just like you. When you can remember every single note in a song you've heard and play it back on the piano will you really be a better musician ? No you'll just be someone who can copy what they hear note for note and you'll still know nothing about the art.
Lets all become math geniuses and solve every problem in our heads without any paper. Lets all think harder even if we are less efficient and lack the physical ability to do so.
Is the goal to be efficient/progress or is the goal to do things in the least efficient way just to use our brain more?
Hey if you can do math in your head without any paper go ahead, just don't tell every other kid in the world to be good at spatial and logic areas of their brain as if we all are clones of you.
Usually when we teach or do stuff we try to be as efficient and simple as possible yet with math this is not the case. We currently teach math as "problem solving". We teach it by having people solve pointless problems which they will never face and never remember the solutions for unless they are one of the rare people who actually enjoy solving problems and who actually enjoy working through calculations.
I enjoy computer work, but if I were to teach computers assuming everyone who uses one enjoys it as much as I do, I'd make everyone learn C, everyone learn the linux commandline, and everyone learn what every single component in the computer does.
Look, we all can't like the same things and in my opinion schools should focus more on the math that matters in life. Statistics, Addition and Subtraction, perhaps even some logic and discrete math. All which are more useful to the common man than calculus, algebra, geometry (perhaps some people do need geometry)
Basic math and basic english should be the primary goals of school. The other classes are simply a complete waste of time and only harm a person by preventing them from doing as well as they would have done if they focused on the basics.
The math we actually use in life should not be decided by the math experts, it should be decided by surveys which the government should conduct. Once we find out the math people use most in daily life that should be what we teach in school. If we want to learn any other math then we specialize in math and learn it in college or in AP math.
The problem with the school system is we expect a jack of all trades, as if a human can be good at every subject. In reality only several thousand go to Harvard, Yale or MIT, the rest go state schools, community college, or they never go to college at all. The majority of people simply don't need the math and never will go to a college or have a job which requires it. Statistics, working with money, and logic are the only types of math people use. Discrete math may also be useful for scientific or technical fields involving computers.
And those are the worlds most popular games. Games is not the major issue. The major issue is being able to download your porn, being able to surf the web, being able to burn pirated software, movies and DVDs, being able to get on AIM or some IM client, and occassionally use a word processor.
This is what 99% of internet users do. They don't run some esoteric application by Microsoft, 99% of people don't use all the features of word or office. Most of them wouldnt know the difference between Word Perfect, Star Office and Microsoft Office. Most people just think "I need to use the word processor." or "I need to get on AIM" or "I need to browse the web."
Simply name the App Web Browser, Word Processor, Instant Messager and 99% of users will know exactly what it is and what its for. They don't give a damn who makes it as long as it works and its easy to use. Functionality is what Linux needs, ease of use is what Linux needs, Eye candy is what Linux needs.
Linux does not need more apps, right now Linux has just the right amount of apps to work as a typical desktop machine for 99% of the population. Instead of building more Apps, its time to refine the apps already in development and make them more intuitive.
I guess you are talking about Africa and India? Because actually Korea and a lot of Asia have more broadband than anywhere else in the world and guess where the Linux market is making money?
Canada has plenty of broadband, the USA even has plenty of broadband. I don't see where you come up with this. Diskspace isnt a problem and neither is internet access, but for people who have poor internet connections let them use an old version of Linux and old software to go along with their old internet connection.
Why hold the rest of the world back because a few people in rural America still have 56k?
Unless users in Linux start using IE, how exactly will gator do this? Is gator even open source? If it were open source and were a hiijacking program who would actually host it?
Ease of use does not mean less security. OSX is doing pretty good with security and they are easy to use.
Bit Torrent works better than damn Apt. I don't know why we use Apt-Get as if it solves dependencies. It does nothing but automate the process. In the end you still have to configure the automation which makes it just as hard to use for a newbie as configuring a shell account or using binary news groups for file distribution.
Apt-Get is a geek tool, the way apt-get works is in a geeky way. People don't want to update or configure anything, you should click and the program should do it all in the backround with NO user intervention.
I should be able to click a file and have it solve the dependencies on its own, if theres a problem with it, it should check a list via Peer to Peer and download off Kazaa or whatever the hell we put Linux files on.
Fact is, theres no reason to use the client server model at all. People in Windows use Kazaa to download files, they use Edonkey, Emule etc. When the emule list of servers go back they click an update button and a new list of servers are downloaded from the Emule network itself.
Why can't we list repositories on a P2P network, let a user connect to this network to constantly update their respositories, in the same way that emule works?
I admit that may not work for the corporate environment but for the newbie users who arent paying anything its better than Apt-get. Let people from Windows and Mac world use what they know instead of telling them to learn YOUR software.
No one has to be the main server, let groups of people host to each other. Use mirrors, or use P2P on the school or work network.
Client server need not be used in a LAN, or on college campus where I'm sure theres a lot of other linux users. For people at work I'm sure they have their own private servers. For people at home you pay a fee, big deal.
Also consider this, for the average person not only is this a more secure form of distribution, its more efficient, its easier, and for 99% of files people will download it just works.
Unless you are going to compile your kernel or do serious changing to your machine you wont need apt get. Just to download GAIM, or KWORD or whatever, you only really need to drag drop and run, or even just click and run.
I see nothing wrong with this, and you could give the browser enhanced UI features to embed some of the apps into it in the future.
After you download it, its cached.
Basically you have to download the app anyway to run it. If you download say the new version of say GAIM it would be fantastic. I'd just drag it from the browser onto my desktop and then click it.
Apt-Get is for nerds like you. Regular people want to accomplish a task in the least amount of steps. If you can bring the task to two steps, click n run, or drag n drop, this is what people want.
Yes it's a good move/idea. Combine it with the new storage system in gnome, and you could really have something cool. This would also make Click N Run type functionality from websites a lot easier to do.
Face it, its racism to feel like you are entitled to a specific job just because you are white.
"Race, that taboo of American culture and politics, has reared its ugly head again. First we had the Senate Majority Leader telling an audience that if President Strom Thurmond had upheld segregation, we wouldn't have "all these problems" today. Then we have a bunch of crybabies who couldn't get into law school through the normal admission process trying to sue their way in (oddly enough, backed by the same groups that otherwise normally decry our lawsuit-happy culture). Then we have an unelected President attacking a program that helps students who worked a lot harder and did a lot better than he did at Yale but weren't lucky enough to be born with the right skin color and last name.
Unfortunately our society has never done a very good job of dealing with racial issues. The best we can manage is to look the other way, pretend that racism doesn't exist and comfort ourselves by saying things like, "I'm not racist, I have a black friend," or "My great-grandparents were Irish and were discriminated against too." Unfortunately, many of the folks who claim to be "not racist" as long as the issues are kept out of sight and mind quickly jump to the white right side when forced to confront the problem.
At the center of all of this swirling controversy are three main facts:
1. Centuries of mythologizing "the individual" - from Horatio Alger to cowboy stories to the liberal mushiness about the personal being political - has kept us from understanding and confronting the true nature of racism.
2. Members of the dominant race in the most wealthy and powerful nation in the world feel a certain sense of entitlement and ownership. This leads to a White Supremacist outlook even among "nonracists" that comes to the fore when that sense of entitlement is challenged.
3. As long as scarcity exists (in housing, wealth, education access, or whatever) and we're all fighting over small pieces of pie, folks are going to want to make sure they get a bigger piece - even if it means someone else gets none. People will rationalize this behavior however they must, because if they don't, they won't survive. Only by solving this problem can we really deal with racism (and its cousins sexism and nationalism)
In some ways, the civil rights movement is a victim of its own success. Pretty much everyone will agree that racism is bad, or as Rob Hudson puts it in a recent journal entry about Hitler:
"Who else in history shares the kind of name recognition that Hitler enjoys? I was trying to think of someone, and the only person I could think of (and this should spark some hate mail for sure) is Jesus Christ. Jesus and Hitler. Is there anyone else whom you could mention anywhere in the world and get a universal response like those two? And even then, people would react in a variety of different ways if you asked them to tell you what Jesus was all about, but Hitler, I believe, would get a nearly universal response. "Oh, yeah. That Hitler, he was a motherfucker."
Folks know that racism is bad. Folks know that being a racist is one of the worst things you can be - up there with child molesters and serial killers. The problem is that since no one wants to be associated with this evil, instead of dealing with the problem they simply claim, "I'm not a racist, I'm colorblind." In reality the only blindness going on is turning a blind eye to the truth.
In short, (almost) everyone agrees that racism is bad, but they don't agree on what racism is.
Further, rather than thinking of racism as a societal issue and a problem to be solved, many people see racism as merely an individual problem. Both conservatives and liberals have furthered this view, especially by focusing on things like "hate" rather than things like employment statistics. Racism is often confused with "prejudice" and "stereotyping" and the focus is too often on not saying the wrong words or admi
This is different and more like communism than capitalism. When there are no owners of the finished product then its ok for everyone to work as a team on that big project, like Linux for example because we all own it. We build it for utility not profit. Microsoft has a monopoly and the only way to fight a monopoly is by building competition. The capitalist method of competition won't work because Microsoft can always but it and own it.
One man's "Macroecononic Machinations" is another man's deflation. If prices go into a downward spiral than things will cost less over time.
This is the ideal situation but not the likely situation unless we outlaw mergers, and prevent monopolies. Currently any big company can merge with their competition and then not have to lower the price to compete. Thats the loophole.
Microsoft uses this loophole all the time and the tiny fine they pay to EU is nothing compared to the billions they made. The price will be as high as we can afford and no less. Piracy is the only thing which can drive the price down.
CD prices cost 10 cent to make and the prices are still 15 bucks.
Look, if over consumption is the issue well then nothing is wrong with capitalism. Putting a cap on consumption so that its even accross the board is called communism. Everyone is equal and everyone consumes exactly what they need, no more and no less. A fair system yes, but its the opposite of the current system and can never happen in capitalism.
Those people are people who don't matter. Look the stock market can support almost every American. Anyone can save up a few thousand dollars and buy stock instead of a car.
Slashdot Mirror
Simply pay kids who get good grades a stipend. Each A should be worth say, $50. If I were paid like this, I'd have stopped playing video games and tried to get all As on my report card. Problem is we don't want to invest money in schools, we would prefer to pay military officers. This is not a country of intellectuals, this is a nation of warriors. Nerds/Intellectuals are considered losers in school, and our culture makes outcasts of these people while offering no support for them.
Most Americans hate foriegners and actually tell to them to back to their country. Many Asians, Mexicans, Africans, Indians all come here and go to colleges such as MIT, get a degree, get a nice job and then get told on TV and by their neighbors to go home, get out, and leave the communities.
When the US is actually accepting of foreigners who are not white, perhaps these foreigners who arent white will actually stay here. This has been a problem with this country for a long while, its almost like the problem the jews faced in germany. Sure some germans may have wanted Einstien to stay in germany and work for hitler, but do you think Einstien really wanted to stay in a country he knew wanted him out?
Think from that point of view and you'll begin to understand the reasons why people just come to the USA to get an education and go back to their home country. Obviously an Indian or Japanese feels more comfortable in their own country than in ours.
You can teach logic through chess. A very fun way to introduce a kid to logic. You can teach logic through video games, through activities which are actually fun.
There is no fun way to teach calculus or algebra. There never will be a fun way to teach it. Chess is fun because its a game, chess is fun because the rules are simple. Mastering chess requires just as much memorization and logic as mastering calculus but for some reason I have a much easier time remembering the openings to chess than memorizing the steps in calculus.
Why? Because chess is actually fun. The problem solving is a game, its competitive, and enjoyable.
I enjoy solving chess problems when its a game. I do not enjoy solving chess problems when its listed in a book with chess notation and in the "please solve for mate" format. I like using math when its useful.
I never said I was against ratios, statistics and the basics. I said I was against calculus, algebra and advanced geometry. No one ever uses these unless you are a nuclear physicist, astronaught, or likewise.
Look, the average person uses very basic math. The job of painter is an esoteric field just like the few people who build houses. So a few thousand successful painters use advanced geometry? Most people work at Walmart and the only math they use are addition, subtraction and occassional division.
I have a perfect memory when it comes to spoken words. The best way to learn for me is to hear something being said. So why do we even need classrooms? Just sell me the audio tapes. Because everyone else is just like me, lets outlaw books.
To be defined as a whiz kid you had to have learned to read and do math earlier. Guess what, earlier does not mean you'll develop into a smarter individual as an adult. Kids who pick up on stuff earlier should get extra attention?! So what about the genius who is in a regular class who may not have picked up on things early but then surpasses everyone in class later on like during highschool?
The problem with the current system you mention is that everything depends on how well you do in the first few grades. This decides what track you go on and you'll usually stay on that track because there is almost no mobility off of this track until college.
Why should we favor one track over the other? The track system does not track intelligence it tracks development. Child A learned to read earlier than Child B, but Child A may never learn to read as well. Child B may learn math way later than Child A, but Child B may someday be a genius while Child A may simply be a kid who learned stuff early.
A lot of scientists including Einstien did not learn early, they were late in development. The only important thing is how far you develop not so much how quickly. There is currently no test to figure out how far a person will develop, we only can figure out the rate of speed.
People who went to the regular classes like me were bored out of our minds and had to learn to teach ourselves. Whiz kids need to learn the same thing. In the long run if you don't, you will fail out of college while the kid who went to the boring easy classes but who learned to go to the library and research on their own will do well.
Whiz kids should be expected to teach themselves or have their parents teach them. If your mother taught you to read earlier obviously you don't need the extra attention in class, let your mother teach you other stuff and buy you books while the kids who don't have mothers to teach them can use the school as a resource.
You cannot control a kid and make them like what you want them to like. Some kids will like problem solving and some kids wont. Currently math is problem solving.
I like math, I hate problem solving, I hate memorizing useless calculations, formulas, steps and rules. I like logic, I like thinking, I don't like calculations and brute force memorization. No one on earth can change my likes or dislikes. The only thing which you can do is simply make the math more likeable to different types of people instead of just making it fun for problem solvers.
You are thinking "Ok, kids arent good as math like people of my generation, I know the solution! Lets force them to be good at it by drilling it into their brains brute force. This will make them so good at math!"
Problem is, it also will make them hate math. It will make them less likely to actually use the math. Where do you think the current generation of kids came from? Our parents were taught just like you how t hate math and when the time came for us younger generations to learn math our parents were the ones telling us how useless math is.
So really, if you want to help people learn math try making it useful. Timestables are about as useful as using a quil to write your papers instead of Microsoft word. Calculators are a tool to make calculations easier, to reduce the burden of the calculation part so a person can focus on the actual concept.
You want us to focus on the calculation because you enjoy or remember all the calculations and expect every human to be just like you. When you can remember every single note in a song you've heard and play it back on the piano will you really be a better musician ? No you'll just be someone who can copy what they hear note for note and you'll still know nothing about the art.
Lets all become math geniuses and solve every problem in our heads without any paper. Lets all think harder even if we are less efficient and lack the physical ability to do so.
Is the goal to be efficient/progress or is the goal to do things in the least efficient way just to use our brain more?
Hey if you can do math in your head without any paper go ahead, just don't tell every other kid in the world to be good at spatial and logic areas of their brain as if we all are clones of you.
Thank you.
Usually when we teach or do stuff we try to be as efficient and simple as possible yet with math this is not the case. We currently teach math as "problem solving". We teach it by having people solve pointless problems which they will never face and never remember the solutions for unless they are one of the rare people who actually enjoy solving problems and who actually enjoy working through calculations.
I enjoy computer work, but if I were to teach computers assuming everyone who uses one enjoys it as much as I do, I'd make everyone learn C, everyone learn the linux commandline, and everyone learn what every single component in the computer does.
Look, we all can't like the same things and in my opinion schools should focus more on the math that matters in life. Statistics, Addition and Subtraction, perhaps even some logic and discrete math. All which are more useful to the common man than calculus, algebra, geometry (perhaps some people do need geometry)
Basic math and basic english should be the primary goals of school. The other classes are simply a complete waste of time and only harm a person by preventing them from doing as well as they would have done if they focused on the basics.
The math we actually use in life should not be decided by the math experts, it should be decided by surveys which the government should conduct. Once we find out the math people use most in daily life that should be what we teach in school. If we want to learn any other math then we specialize in math and learn it in college or in AP math.
The problem with the school system is we expect a jack of all trades, as if a human can be good at every subject. In reality only several thousand go to Harvard, Yale or MIT, the rest go state schools, community college, or they never go to college at all. The majority of people simply don't need the math and never will go to a college or have a job which requires it. Statistics, working with money, and logic are the only types of math people use. Discrete math may also be useful for scientific or technical fields involving computers.
Why cant we linux people design our own P2P system? Maybe use GNUnet when its done.
And those are the worlds most popular games. Games is not the major issue. The major issue is being able to download your porn, being able to surf the web, being able to burn pirated software, movies and DVDs, being able to get on AIM or some IM client, and occassionally use a word processor.
This is what 99% of internet users do. They don't run some esoteric application by Microsoft, 99% of people don't use all the features of word or office. Most of them wouldnt know the difference between Word Perfect, Star Office and Microsoft Office. Most people just think "I need to use the word processor." or "I need to get on AIM" or "I need to browse the web."
Simply name the App Web Browser, Word Processor, Instant Messager and 99% of users will know exactly what it is and what its for. They don't give a damn who makes it as long as it works and its easy to use. Functionality is what Linux needs, ease of use is what Linux needs, Eye candy is what Linux needs.
Linux does not need more apps, right now Linux has just the right amount of apps to work as a typical desktop machine for 99% of the population. Instead of building more Apps, its time to refine the apps already in development and make them more intuitive.
I guess you are talking about Africa and India? Because actually Korea and a lot of Asia have more broadband than anywhere else in the world and guess where the Linux market is making money? Canada has plenty of broadband, the USA even has plenty of broadband. I don't see where you come up with this. Diskspace isnt a problem and neither is internet access, but for people who have poor internet connections let them use an old version of Linux and old software to go along with their old internet connection. Why hold the rest of the world back because a few people in rural America still have 56k?
Unless users in Linux start using IE, how exactly will gator do this? Is gator even open source? If it were open source and were a hiijacking program who would actually host it? Ease of use does not mean less security. OSX is doing pretty good with security and they are easy to use.
Bit Torrent works better than damn Apt. I don't know why we use Apt-Get as if it solves dependencies. It does nothing but automate the process. In the end you still have to configure the automation which makes it just as hard to use for a newbie as configuring a shell account or using binary news groups for file distribution.
Apt-Get is a geek tool, the way apt-get works is in a geeky way. People don't want to update or configure anything, you should click and the program should do it all in the backround with NO user intervention.
I should be able to click a file and have it solve the dependencies on its own, if theres a problem with it, it should check a list via Peer to Peer and download off Kazaa or whatever the hell we put Linux files on.
Fact is, theres no reason to use the client server model at all. People in Windows use Kazaa to download files, they use Edonkey, Emule etc. When the emule list of servers go back they click an update button and a new list of servers are downloaded from the Emule network itself.
Why can't we list repositories on a P2P network, let a user connect to this network to constantly update their respositories, in the same way that emule works?
I admit that may not work for the corporate environment but for the newbie users who arent paying anything its better than Apt-get. Let people from Windows and Mac world use what they know instead of telling them to learn YOUR software.
No one has to be the main server, let groups of people host to each other. Use mirrors, or use P2P on the school or work network. Client server need not be used in a LAN, or on college campus where I'm sure theres a lot of other linux users. For people at work I'm sure they have their own private servers. For people at home you pay a fee, big deal.
Also consider this, for the average person not only is this a more secure form of distribution, its more efficient, its easier, and for 99% of files people will download it just works. Unless you are going to compile your kernel or do serious changing to your machine you wont need apt get. Just to download GAIM, or KWORD or whatever, you only really need to drag drop and run, or even just click and run. I see nothing wrong with this, and you could give the browser enhanced UI features to embed some of the apps into it in the future.
After you download it, its cached. Basically you have to download the app anyway to run it. If you download say the new version of say GAIM it would be fantastic. I'd just drag it from the browser onto my desktop and then click it. Apt-Get is for nerds like you. Regular people want to accomplish a task in the least amount of steps. If you can bring the task to two steps, click n run, or drag n drop, this is what people want.
Yes it's a good move/idea. Combine it with the new storage system in gnome, and you could really have something cool. This would also make Click N Run type functionality from websites a lot easier to do.
Face it, its racism to feel like you are entitled to a specific job just because you are white.
"Race, that taboo of American culture and politics, has reared its ugly head again. First we had the Senate Majority Leader telling an audience that if President Strom Thurmond had upheld segregation, we wouldn't have "all these problems" today. Then we have a bunch of crybabies who couldn't get into law school through the normal admission process trying to sue their way in (oddly enough, backed by the same groups that otherwise normally decry our lawsuit-happy culture). Then we have an unelected President attacking a program that helps students who worked a lot harder and did a lot better than he did at Yale but weren't lucky enough to be born with the right skin color and last name.
Unfortunately our society has never done a very good job of dealing with racial issues. The best we can manage is to look the other way, pretend that racism doesn't exist and comfort ourselves by saying things like, "I'm not racist, I have a black friend," or "My great-grandparents were Irish and were discriminated against too." Unfortunately, many of the folks who claim to be "not racist" as long as the issues are kept out of sight and mind quickly jump to the white right side when forced to confront the problem.
At the center of all of this swirling controversy are three main facts:
1. Centuries of mythologizing "the individual" - from Horatio Alger to cowboy stories to the liberal mushiness about the personal being political - has kept us from understanding and confronting the true nature of racism.
2. Members of the dominant race in the most wealthy and powerful nation in the world feel a certain sense of entitlement and ownership. This leads to a White Supremacist outlook even among "nonracists" that comes to the fore when that sense of entitlement is challenged.
3. As long as scarcity exists (in housing, wealth, education access, or whatever) and we're all fighting over small pieces of pie, folks are going to want to make sure they get a bigger piece - even if it means someone else gets none. People will rationalize this behavior however they must, because if they don't, they won't survive. Only by solving this problem can we really deal with racism (and its cousins sexism and nationalism)
In some ways, the civil rights movement is a victim of its own success. Pretty much everyone will agree that racism is bad, or as Rob Hudson puts it in a recent journal entry about Hitler:
"Who else in history shares the kind of name recognition that Hitler enjoys? I was trying to think of someone, and the only person I could think of (and this should spark some hate mail for sure) is Jesus Christ. Jesus and Hitler. Is there anyone else whom you could mention anywhere in the world and get a universal response like those two? And even then, people would react in a variety of different ways if you asked them to tell you what Jesus was all about, but Hitler, I believe, would get a nearly universal response. "Oh, yeah. That Hitler, he was a motherfucker."
Folks know that racism is bad. Folks know that being a racist is one of the worst things you can be - up there with child molesters and serial killers. The problem is that since no one wants to be associated with this evil, instead of dealing with the problem they simply claim, "I'm not a racist, I'm colorblind." In reality the only blindness going on is turning a blind eye to the truth.
In short, (almost) everyone agrees that racism is bad, but they don't agree on what racism is.
Further, rather than thinking of racism as a societal issue and a problem to be solved, many people see racism as merely an individual problem. Both conservatives and liberals have furthered this view, especially by focusing on things like "hate" rather than things like employment statistics. Racism is often confused with "prejudice" and "stereotyping" and the focus is too often on not saying the wrong words or admi
This is different and more like communism than capitalism. When there are no owners of the finished product then its ok for everyone to work as a team on that big project, like Linux for example because we all own it. We build it for utility not profit. Microsoft has a monopoly and the only way to fight a monopoly is by building competition. The capitalist method of competition won't work because Microsoft can always but it and own it.
One man's "Macroecononic Machinations" is another man's deflation. If prices go into a downward spiral than things will cost less over time. This is the ideal situation but not the likely situation unless we outlaw mergers, and prevent monopolies. Currently any big company can merge with their competition and then not have to lower the price to compete. Thats the loophole. Microsoft uses this loophole all the time and the tiny fine they pay to EU is nothing compared to the billions they made. The price will be as high as we can afford and no less. Piracy is the only thing which can drive the price down. CD prices cost 10 cent to make and the prices are still 15 bucks.
Look, if over consumption is the issue well then nothing is wrong with capitalism. Putting a cap on consumption so that its even accross the board is called communism. Everyone is equal and everyone consumes exactly what they need, no more and no less. A fair system yes, but its the opposite of the current system and can never happen in capitalism.
Those people are people who don't matter. Look the stock market can support almost every American. Anyone can save up a few thousand dollars and buy stock instead of a car.