And how would you differentiate between two zeros and a one? If all you can store are zeros, then you are limited to a unary system which requires exponentially more room than a binary system.
We have several billion years before our sun burns out. The more immediate threat is obviously an asteroid, a comet, or mutual annihilation.
Your post does illustrate the fact that we can always be said to have our eggs in one basket, but that if the basket is big enough, that's OK.
The earth is safer than a single country, but can still be destroyed by the aforementioned tragedies.
The solar system is safer than the earth, but can still be destroyed by a dying sun (or nearby supernova - which is less likely to happen).
The galaxy is safer than the solar system, but will eventually exhaust its fuel.
Our universe is safer than our galaxy, but will suffer from some cataclysmic fate (heat-death or collapse, depending on the value of omega, current money is on heat-death).Hopefully, before that happens we will find some way to transcend the universe, but now I'm talking crazy.:)
Wage difference vs. Job Location
on
Offshoring IT
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· Score: 1
IANAPS (Political Scientist), but wouldn't a true socialist be bemoaning the lowering wages and not where the jobs are located?
I know many Americans (and many non-Americans, for that matter) have a nationalistic view point that it's more important for us to have jobs than for those already filthy-rich Indians to have jobs, but it seems that a true socialist (which I am not, but I can sympathize with) would be upset that these workers don't have the same protections (I assume) that workers in the US have. Of course, maybe they are getting the equivalent of US minimum wage (which is obviously less than the typical US IT worker gets), in which case the US protections probably wouldn't help. I don't know, just my thoughts.
And the book mentioned in the episode was titled "The Hotel Royale". And, what, you didn't find the plot riveting?:) Or were you merely bothered by Data's advice to stand in blackjack on 12? The movie was clearly a vehicle for Frakes to flex his tremendous acting skills, and he certainly lived up to it. He's almost as good as Shatner!
There has, however, been another movie titled "Casino Royale" that was a James Bond spoof made in 1967 with Peter Sellers.
I hardly know where to start, but I'll start with the beginning of your post:
You take for granted that those at the age of 16, who're trouble makers are lost causes.
No, I think that those who are trouble makers at the age of 16 are unlikely to change their ways by being exposed to two more years of a system they have already been exposed to for 10 years. I agree with your sentiment that tossing them to the wild is probably not the best thing for them either. However, if my only choice is between getting rid of the worst 5 trouble makers to save the other 27, or losing more than half the class...
You see them as babies and have little interest in caring about them, prefering to spend money elsewhere.
I don't see them as babies, but as students with behavior disorders that I am incapable of treating in the setting I was provided. Money would be better spent on treating these behavior disorders in a more appropriate setting. Granted, just letting them drop out might not be the best solution. (Although as another poster pointed out, some students drop out in order to pursue possibly better options. Should we prevent them from making that choice, even if we believe it is not the right choice in the long run?)
By chance did you ever read any of this ?
http://slashdot.org/articles/99/04/25/1438249.shtm l?tid=99
It's your sort of attitude towards today's youth in highschool from teachers that brings about some of the above feelings and commentary within the aforementioned article.
Actually, if we could isolate the bullies from the rest of the students, then the "trenchcoat" students might not have felt so helpless that they were willing to throw their life away. Granted, nothing is ever that simple, but I'm trying to look out for the teased kids here, not make their life worse.
FYI, Highschool is a special sort of hell. It's like a war of attrition, for the geeks as much as it is for every other student going through it as well. Being surrounded by teachers and school administrators who're out of touch with their students, as well as jaded about them being babies and lost causes is what draws out school violence when the students reach the breaking point of being unable to find anyone compassionate enough to understand their issues as well as work with them.
I know, I was there. Same high school as a matter of fact, and I was one of the teased, nerdy ones, so I have a special place in my heart for them. I don't believe that I truly allowed myself to become "jaded" until after I left. I internalized the problems of my students and it caused me tremendous pain. I am able to talk about it flippantly now, nearly 10 years later, and do say things that I don't necessarily feel, which might have given you a misrepresentation of what kind of person I am. (However, I've re-read my post, and I think you're projecting a lot of your experiences, or things you've read, on to me.)
Do i suggest that it's an easy road? No, but one thing is for certain, it highlights how much more involved high school teaching is today, than just giving lectures to politely obedient students. Who only care about learning the subject matter. Who politely leave their personal lives outside the building.
I wonder if you know how true that is? Have you spent any time on the other side of the desk? Do you truly understand how difficult it is?
Instead of being understanding or trying to, and working with the students you would rather cast them aside, letting them walk out into the harsh realities of life outside of school unprepared. Money better spent elsewhere.
I admit that my suggestion that we let them drop out was overly simplistic. Given the choice between forcing them to st
money isn't the reason I found another job. It was the constant stress I had to endure every minute of every day I was teaching. If I had been given a choice between a classroom with half as many students and twice as much money, I'd at least like to think that I would have chosen a classroom with half as many students. Now, if I could have had both...
Btw, I was making nearly 23k a year, thank you very much.:)
and I had several students tell me that after they had gone to college. I was not, however, a good disciplinarian, which is what the general/remedial students required. I truly loved teaching, and plan on doing it again. However, the next time I am teaching, I will be teaching college students, for which few discipline problems (of the nature I experiences) exist.
I think the force exerted by drag is proportional to the square of the speed. Therefore the total fuel requirement would also be proportional to the square of the speed, although the instantaneous fuel requirement will be propotional to the cube of the speed.
though I do feel that my attitude could be better.
Nevertheless, I encouraged all of the students in my class to put forth effort, even one who threatened my life. (This was before Columbine, and although I reported his threat to the administration, nothing was done about this particular student. Keep in mind that this threat was made in front of the entire class, so I was very concerned that he would follow through with it in order to save face. Turns out he was just blowing off steam, but I didn't know that, and I have no idea how the administration could have known that.)
I notice that you never claim to have spent time on the other side of the teacher's desk. Despite my current "attitude", I do not put the blame on the students, but rather on the system. Students who are arrested are returned to regular classrooms where they, more often than not, prevent other students from getting the education they deserve. Some of these students are sent to alternative schools, but not nearly enough, IMHO. Before becoming a full-time public school teacher I was a substitute teacher for two years. I spent a significant amount of time at an alternative school and found that it had a system that worked quite well - but only for students who were motivated to stay out of trouble. Since this school was only for students 16 and older, teachers were allowed to send trouble-makers of any kind out of their classroom. If a student was sent home three times in a quarter, they were kicked out of the school. (I'm not sure what happened to them then, but it must not have been good, because all of the students in the classes I subbed for were motivated to behave.) I had some of my best experiences in that school. Btw, this school also had some advanced students who were choosing the non-traditional route in order to graduate early, but I never taught any of those courses.
And, admittedly, letting them drop out probably isn't one of them. I guess what I'm afraid of, is forcing these kids to stay in school without actually addressing their problems.
As you can see from previous comments I got a lot of flak for "not caring" about my students, etc. I did care very much, and I think they actually felt that. Perhaps (as one poster might have suggested) I was too nice to them. I am not a natural disclipinarian. I was required to take several education courses, few of which actually were pertinent to my situation, but one of my wife's psychology courses (behavioral analysis) probably would have helped me the most. (She took it after I quit.) Anyone who has not read Karen Pryor's "Don't Shoot the Dog" should.
Anyways, I agree that a co-op program would help several kids. Adding more guidance counselors (and perhaps psychologists/psychiatrists) would also help. Reducing classroom size would definitely help. I don't think that standardized testing, at least as it's currently implemented, helps. And, of course, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. I worked in a school that was on the verge of being inner city (transient students, there was a shooting in the school the first year I was there, at least one of my students was in my 9th grade class as a condition of her parole - which I only found out about because she subsequently violated that condition - I have no idea how many other kids in my class were on parole since those records are blocked). It was also the high school that I graduated from, so I had a really strong desire to make it work. Unfortunately, I discovered that I did not have the requisite talents to work with children with significant behavioral disorders.
Furthermore, I said that they should probably not be allowed to drop out in 9th grade, because I realized that several of the kids I had could still be reached, and I nearly killed myself trying to reach those kids. The stress it put on me was too much for me to handle, which is why I said that I have extreme respect for those who can handle it. (Unless you have tried it, you have no idea how difficult it is.)
You are correct that it's easy to teach the smart kids who want to be there. My first year of teaching I taught Physics and AP Chemistry. There were some challenges (smart teenagers are still teenagers), but I found it rewarding. My second (and last) year of teaching was when I taught classes containing several students who didn't want to be there. In those classes were also children who had mental handicaps. The children with mental handicaps were a joy to work with. The children with behavioral handicaps were not. Furtheremore, they interfered with my ability to reach the children who did want to learn. (Btw, the children with behavioral handicaps typically were 'smart kids'.) Having a mother who teaches special education, I appreciate that different children have different needs. However, when you have 32 children in one classroom, a few trouble makers can make your job impossible unless you have a gift which I do not possess.
I know that my attitude was not always perfect, but I guarantee you I cared about all of the children in my class. All of them.
I agree with the idea of ten times the guidance counsellors. I had the good luck to have an excellent guidance counsellor and now know how exceptional she truly was. I would also recommend hiring twice the teachers, at least for the general/remedial high school classes. In each of my classes of approximately 32 kids, about 5 were determined miscreants, 5 more were willing accomplices, 10 to 15 were easily influenced, and only about 10 to 15 actually cared about their grades. Only about half of the kids had parents who cared about their grades, as well. I felt that I was able to reach a couple of the kids who were inclined to be trouble-makers, but there was no way I could reach all 5 of the determined miscreants. Other, more gifted teachers had somewhat better luck, but smaller classrooms would have gone a long way.
Basically, I felt that my job in those classes was to be a disciplinarian and not a teacher.
Here is CNN's national exit poll results. The first results I saw were those of Ohio, which had a similar trend, but did not quite get high enough for graduate degree for Kerry to actually beat Bush. (I.e., graduate degree favored Kerry more than bachelor degree only, but still favored Bush more - in Ohio.) I suspect that if the graduate degree were broken down further into Master's and Doctorate, Master's degrees would still go for Bush and Doctorates would go to Kerry. That is, however, merely a supposition.
My mother is a lead teacher for special education and has told me that this act applies to her children as well. Some of these children have IQ's below 60, and the school is held responsible for all of them (not just a percentage), passing the standardized tests.
As a former public school teacher, I can tell you that by the time they're 16 they're plenty able to cause trouble. And if they want to drop out, it's very unlikely that forcing them to stay in will cause them to learn anything. The only reason to keep them in would be as a public-funded baby-sitting service, and I can think of better ways to spend our tax money. Sometimes I think that we should let them drop out in 9th grade (I taught 9th grade physical science - a general/remedial level science course - my last year as a teacher, and it was no coincidence that it was my last year. I have a tremendous amount of respect for teachers that keep at it year after year after year.). However, some of the kids in 9th grade, might actually straighten up. Those who are 16, however, are very unlikely to straighten up by 18. Once they've been out in the "real world", there is a slightly greater chance that they will see the errors of their ways, in which case they can go to night school and/or get their GED.
The majority of people with a Bachelor's education voted for Bush, as well as the majority of people with a HS education.
Kerry did better amongst the non-educated (HS drop-out) and the highly-educated (graduate degree).
Feel free to make your own conclusions, but here are two I might suggest:
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
More realistically, those who support Kerry are those who most stand to benefit from a more liberal agenda (HS drop-outs), and idealists who think education has intrinsic value (those with graduate degrees).
In case it wasn't obvious, I fall into one of the two camps for which the majority voted for Kerry.:)
Rather, what you see in the case of lying is specific activity in the areas of the brain that are involved in the regulation of the emotional response, including ones (such as the amygdala) involved in fear and planning (prefrontal cortex).
Not to mention those involved in sequence completion (hippocampus) and configural learning (hippocampus). Configural learning has some similarities to what-if scenarios, as does sequence completion. Naturally, this is why the hippocampus is good at both.
Then it would be criminal not to. Granted, most of these bugs will never result in loss of life (though you never know). Also, I know that nothing will ever be idiot-proof - they will just build a better idiot. Nevertheless, if something is obviously flawed, and the benefit of fixing it outweighs the costs of repair, then it should be fixed. I know that neither the benefits nor the risks are always obvious, but most (if not all) of the points made here seem (to me) to meet the criteria of benefit > cost, even when pared down to benefit-to-company > cost-to-company, which is obviously the equation most companies care about.
They're having a severe problem with new home owner's associations creating ridiculous ordinances, and this robot is designed to edit the bylaws in such a way as to totally obliterate those ordinances!
Good point. However, this still produces less energy than it uses, which was the distinction I was making from fusion. OK, I know, currently fusion also falls into this category, but you know what I mean. Regardless of how hydrogen is used as a fuel (combustion or not), it currently is best viewed as an energy storage device.
Currently, the only viable use for hydrogen is as a combustion fuel - i.e., burning it with oxygen to form water. As such, hydrogen is (currently) more of a storage technology than an actual source of energy.
Using hydrogen for fusion would be great, and once we could do that, part of the energy generated by the fusion reactor could be put back into the electrolysis of water (very, very hot, or otherwise).
Slashdot Mirror
From their webpage:
It would appear that the US was the second to "deposit" our "instrument of ratification", right after Canada, eh.And how would you differentiate between two zeros and a one? If all you can store are zeros, then you are limited to a unary system which requires exponentially more room than a binary system.
We have several billion years before our sun burns out. The more immediate threat is obviously an asteroid, a comet, or mutual annihilation.
Your post does illustrate the fact that we can always be said to have our eggs in one basket, but that if the basket is big enough, that's OK.
IANAPS (Political Scientist), but wouldn't a true socialist be bemoaning the lowering wages and not where the jobs are located?
I know many Americans (and many non-Americans, for that matter) have a nationalistic view point that it's more important for us to have jobs than for those already filthy-rich Indians to have jobs, but it seems that a true socialist (which I am not, but I can sympathize with) would be upset that these workers don't have the same protections (I assume) that workers in the US have. Of course, maybe they are getting the equivalent of US minimum wage (which is obviously less than the typical US IT worker gets), in which case the US protections probably wouldn't help. I don't know, just my thoughts.
And the book mentioned in the episode was titled "The Hotel Royale". And, what, you didn't find the plot riveting? :) Or were you merely bothered by Data's advice to stand in blackjack on 12? The movie was clearly a vehicle for Frakes to flex his tremendous acting skills, and he certainly lived up to it. He's almost as good as Shatner!
There has, however, been another movie titled "Casino Royale" that was a James Bond spoof made in 1967 with Peter Sellers.
Barry Nelson played James Bond in a 1954 movie Casino Royale, based off Ian Fleming's first book.
Dr. No, with Sean Connery, didn't come out until 1962.
I hardly know where to start, but I'll start with the beginning of your post:
No, I think that those who are trouble makers at the age of 16 are unlikely to change their ways by being exposed to two more years of a system they have already been exposed to for 10 years. I agree with your sentiment that tossing them to the wild is probably not the best thing for them either. However, if my only choice is between getting rid of the worst 5 trouble makers to save the other 27, or losing more than half the class...
I don't see them as babies, but as students with behavior disorders that I am incapable of treating in the setting I was provided. Money would be better spent on treating these behavior disorders in a more appropriate setting. Granted, just letting them drop out might not be the best solution. (Although as another poster pointed out, some students drop out in order to pursue possibly better options. Should we prevent them from making that choice, even if we believe it is not the right choice in the long run?)
Actually, if we could isolate the bullies from the rest of the students, then the "trenchcoat" students might not have felt so helpless that they were willing to throw their life away. Granted, nothing is ever that simple, but I'm trying to look out for the teased kids here, not make their life worse.
I know, I was there. Same high school as a matter of fact, and I was one of the teased, nerdy ones, so I have a special place in my heart for them. I don't believe that I truly allowed myself to become "jaded" until after I left. I internalized the problems of my students and it caused me tremendous pain. I am able to talk about it flippantly now, nearly 10 years later, and do say things that I don't necessarily feel, which might have given you a misrepresentation of what kind of person I am. (However, I've re-read my post, and I think you're projecting a lot of your experiences, or things you've read, on to me.)
I wonder if you know how true that is? Have you spent any time on the other side of the desk? Do you truly understand how difficult it is?
I admit that my suggestion that we let them drop out was overly simplistic. Given the choice between forcing them to st
you'll feel far more confortable talking about pebifiles than petafiles. :)
Btw, I was making nearly 23k a year, thank you very much. :)
and I had several students tell me that after they had gone to college. I was not, however, a good disciplinarian, which is what the general/remedial students required. I truly loved teaching, and plan on doing it again. However, the next time I am teaching, I will be teaching college students, for which few discipline problems (of the nature I experiences) exist.
I think the force exerted by drag is proportional to the square of the speed. Therefore the total fuel requirement would also be proportional to the square of the speed, although the instantaneous fuel requirement will be propotional to the cube of the speed.
though I do feel that my attitude could be better.
Nevertheless, I encouraged all of the students in my class to put forth effort, even one who threatened my life. (This was before Columbine, and although I reported his threat to the administration, nothing was done about this particular student. Keep in mind that this threat was made in front of the entire class, so I was very concerned that he would follow through with it in order to save face. Turns out he was just blowing off steam, but I didn't know that, and I have no idea how the administration could have known that.)
I notice that you never claim to have spent time on the other side of the teacher's desk. Despite my current "attitude", I do not put the blame on the students, but rather on the system. Students who are arrested are returned to regular classrooms where they, more often than not, prevent other students from getting the education they deserve. Some of these students are sent to alternative schools, but not nearly enough, IMHO. Before becoming a full-time public school teacher I was a substitute teacher for two years. I spent a significant amount of time at an alternative school and found that it had a system that worked quite well - but only for students who were motivated to stay out of trouble. Since this school was only for students 16 and older, teachers were allowed to send trouble-makers of any kind out of their classroom. If a student was sent home three times in a quarter, they were kicked out of the school. (I'm not sure what happened to them then, but it must not have been good, because all of the students in the classes I subbed for were motivated to behave.) I had some of my best experiences in that school. Btw, this school also had some advanced students who were choosing the non-traditional route in order to graduate early, but I never taught any of those courses.
And, admittedly, letting them drop out probably isn't one of them. I guess what I'm afraid of, is forcing these kids to stay in school without actually addressing their problems.
As you can see from previous comments I got a lot of flak for "not caring" about my students, etc. I did care very much, and I think they actually felt that. Perhaps (as one poster might have suggested) I was too nice to them. I am not a natural disclipinarian. I was required to take several education courses, few of which actually were pertinent to my situation, but one of my wife's psychology courses (behavioral analysis) probably would have helped me the most. (She took it after I quit.) Anyone who has not read Karen Pryor's "Don't Shoot the Dog" should.
Anyways, I agree that a co-op program would help several kids. Adding more guidance counselors (and perhaps psychologists/psychiatrists) would also help. Reducing classroom size would definitely help. I don't think that standardized testing, at least as it's currently implemented, helps. And, of course, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. I worked in a school that was on the verge of being inner city (transient students, there was a shooting in the school the first year I was there, at least one of my students was in my 9th grade class as a condition of her parole - which I only found out about because she subsequently violated that condition - I have no idea how many other kids in my class were on parole since those records are blocked). It was also the high school that I graduated from, so I had a really strong desire to make it work. Unfortunately, I discovered that I did not have the requisite talents to work with children with significant behavioral disorders.
Furthermore, I said that they should probably not be allowed to drop out in 9th grade, because I realized that several of the kids I had could still be reached, and I nearly killed myself trying to reach those kids. The stress it put on me was too much for me to handle, which is why I said that I have extreme respect for those who can handle it. (Unless you have tried it, you have no idea how difficult it is.)
You are correct that it's easy to teach the smart kids who want to be there. My first year of teaching I taught Physics and AP Chemistry. There were some challenges (smart teenagers are still teenagers), but I found it rewarding. My second (and last) year of teaching was when I taught classes containing several students who didn't want to be there. In those classes were also children who had mental handicaps. The children with mental handicaps were a joy to work with. The children with behavioral handicaps were not. Furtheremore, they interfered with my ability to reach the children who did want to learn. (Btw, the children with behavioral handicaps typically were 'smart kids'.) Having a mother who teaches special education, I appreciate that different children have different needs. However, when you have 32 children in one classroom, a few trouble makers can make your job impossible unless you have a gift which I do not possess.
I know that my attitude was not always perfect, but I guarantee you I cared about all of the children in my class. All of them.
I agree with the idea of ten times the guidance counsellors. I had the good luck to have an excellent guidance counsellor and now know how exceptional she truly was. I would also recommend hiring twice the teachers, at least for the general/remedial high school classes. In each of my classes of approximately 32 kids, about 5 were determined miscreants, 5 more were willing accomplices, 10 to 15 were easily influenced, and only about 10 to 15 actually cared about their grades. Only about half of the kids had parents who cared about their grades, as well. I felt that I was able to reach a couple of the kids who were inclined to be trouble-makers, but there was no way I could reach all 5 of the determined miscreants. Other, more gifted teachers had somewhat better luck, but smaller classrooms would have gone a long way.
Basically, I felt that my job in those classes was to be a disciplinarian and not a teacher.
Here is CNN's national exit poll results. The first results I saw were those of Ohio, which had a similar trend, but did not quite get high enough for graduate degree for Kerry to actually beat Bush. (I.e., graduate degree favored Kerry more than bachelor degree only, but still favored Bush more - in Ohio.) I suspect that if the graduate degree were broken down further into Master's and Doctorate, Master's degrees would still go for Bush and Doctorates would go to Kerry. That is, however, merely a supposition.
My mother is a lead teacher for special education and has told me that this act applies to her children as well. Some of these children have IQ's below 60, and the school is held responsible for all of them (not just a percentage), passing the standardized tests.
As a former public school teacher, I can tell you that by the time they're 16 they're plenty able to cause trouble. And if they want to drop out, it's very unlikely that forcing them to stay in will cause them to learn anything. The only reason to keep them in would be as a public-funded baby-sitting service, and I can think of better ways to spend our tax money. Sometimes I think that we should let them drop out in 9th grade (I taught 9th grade physical science - a general/remedial level science course - my last year as a teacher, and it was no coincidence that it was my last year. I have a tremendous amount of respect for teachers that keep at it year after year after year.). However, some of the kids in 9th grade, might actually straighten up. Those who are 16, however, are very unlikely to straighten up by 18. Once they've been out in the "real world", there is a slightly greater chance that they will see the errors of their ways, in which case they can go to night school and/or get their GED.
The majority of people with a Bachelor's education voted for Bush, as well as the majority of people with a HS education.
Kerry did better amongst the non-educated (HS drop-out) and the highly-educated (graduate degree).
Feel free to make your own conclusions, but here are two I might suggest:
In case it wasn't obvious, I fall into one of the two camps for which the majority voted for Kerry. :)
Not to mention those involved in sequence completion (hippocampus) and configural learning (hippocampus). Configural learning has some similarities to what-if scenarios, as does sequence completion. Naturally, this is why the hippocampus is good at both.
And yes, I am a huge fan of the hippocampus.
Then it would be criminal not to. Granted, most of these bugs will never result in loss of life (though you never know). Also, I know that nothing will ever be idiot-proof - they will just build a better idiot. Nevertheless, if something is obviously flawed, and the benefit of fixing it outweighs the costs of repair, then it should be fixed. I know that neither the benefits nor the risks are always obvious, but most (if not all) of the points made here seem (to me) to meet the criteria of benefit > cost, even when pared down to benefit-to-company > cost-to-company, which is obviously the equation most companies care about.
They're having a severe problem with new home owner's associations creating ridiculous ordinances, and this robot is designed to edit the bylaws in such a way as to totally obliterate those ordinances!
Good point. However, this still produces less energy than it uses, which was the distinction I was making from fusion. OK, I know, currently fusion also falls into this category, but you know what I mean. Regardless of how hydrogen is used as a fuel (combustion or not), it currently is best viewed as an energy storage device.
Currently, the only viable use for hydrogen is as a combustion fuel - i.e., burning it with oxygen to form water. As such, hydrogen is (currently) more of a storage technology than an actual source of energy.
Using hydrogen for fusion would be great, and once we could do that, part of the energy generated by the fusion reactor could be put back into the electrolysis of water (very, very hot, or otherwise).
I think it could be argued that most of "us" (in the global sense) have learned very few lessons...