Maybe I just have my head in the sand, but I haven't seen people on/. claiming that "[Europe] always have everything better than [America]" or that "Europe is perfect". I don't mean to sound rude, but you do sound like you are creating a mythical enemy for the purpose of ranting.
I see a lot of bad attitude about America no Slashdot. Not too many people claim that "Europe is perfect", but there is a significant attitude that Americans are just bumbling, selfish, uneducated idiots.
Reminds me of a conversation I had recently. We were talking about alcohol abuse in the US especially among college students. The person I was talking to made the statement that it's much more socially unacceptable to get drunk in Europe. I said "What about all those fans at the 'football' games that get drunk and act like idiots?". She said "That's just the UK". "OK, what about the Russians and Poles? They are renowned for their drinking. I have a friend that is a Russian immigrant and he's told us about some of their three day parties.". She said "Well, that's Eastern Europe".
Seems like when people refer to the sophistication and culture of Europeans it refers to some random part of Western Europe that no one can quite pinpoint. I think Chris Rock summed up the whole craziness quite nicely:
"You know the world's gone crazy when the best rapper's white, the best golfer's black, the tallest basketball player is Chinese, a Swiss holds the American cup, Germany doesn't want to go to war, France is accusing us of arrogance, and the US' three most powerful people are named Bush, Dick, and Colon."
-Chris Rock
Not only that, but C) how long before your local library becomes like Blockbuster, requiring a credit card to check out a book, charging you ridiculous late fees when appropriate, calling you and asking where their books are. I just don't think this is a path we want to start down with the public library system. Fingerprints may be a little ridiculous, but getting money involved in the system doesn't seem like a good way around it.
BEDEVERE: Tell me, what do you do with witches?
VILLAGER #2: Burn!
CROWD: Burn, burn them up!
BEDEVERE: And what do you burn apart from witches?
VILLAGER #1: More witches!
the tax should be significant and should make the consumer think hard about whether they really need a new computer.
Problem is, when you start doing that it no longer becomes a Free Market. You have actually influenced the market and encouraged consumers not to buy when they wanted to. This results in lower sales, lower revenue for tech companies, lower wages, etc... which isn't good for the entire economy. The trick here is to figure out a way to encourage consumers and manufacturers to recycle all of this old electronic equipment while mimizing the negative impact on the market.
And if manufacturers carry the direct burden, they will also have the desire to lower disposal costs.
Also, it would give the manufacturers incentive to make items reusable. Might help push us away from this idea that electronic devices are just 'disposable'.
Well, actually a LOT happens when you throw the computer/monitor (or television) in the Dumpster in California.
You aren't kidding. Sounds highly expensive. So, what happens if I bag the monitor first so the instpectors can't see if it's an electronic device or just a run of the mill body part.
As a consumer and taxpayer, do I want to pay more AND inconvenience myself?
Yeah, recycling programs can be a joke. 10 years ago the town I grew up in implemented a recycling program. They had municipal trash pickup which you were automatically billed for each month with your water bill and whatever else they felt like charging you for. On top of that, they sent out these little plastic tubs to everyone to sort their recycleable items into. Everything that wasn't put in to one of the tubs had to be put in a special, city supplied, trash bag, or in a trash back that had a special sticker on it. These special bags/stickers could be purchased for $1.00 each. So, any resident had to pay twice to have any garbage hauled away that didn't fit into the glass/plastic/newspaper bins, and the city doesn't allow any independant trash haulers, so everyone pays. The glorious part of this is that when the program was first started they didn't have any facilities to actually recycle any of the sorted items, so they just put them in the landfill anyway.
One, like you say, there are more than just 2 motivations for searching the net.
There are tons of motivations for searching the net, but almost everything can be broken down to either shopping or "not shopping" (they call it research, but I'm not sure that name always applies), even Entertainment. If I'm looking for free naked pictures of Vanessa Marcil, star of Las Vegas, I put the slider on Research. If I want to pay for naked pictures I move it to Shopping.
The slider approach is nice because you can regulate where you want to be. Say I'm researching a new product I want to buy, maybe a moped. Initially I can search for mopeds based purely on 100% research. Later, I can set the slider on "72% info and 28% shopping" so I get sites that are mostly informative, but also may have some price listings. Finally, I can slide all the way over to 100% shopping and purchase the item.
This is a topic I've thought about for some time. Always thought I ought to build a search engine that would filter out all the stupid shopping sites, but never could figure out how to get away from the 'all or nothing' aspect of just having two categories. Problem is many sites that are selling a product are also highly informative, maybe even more informative than a site that is not selling said item. If a search engine filtered out all of the shopping sites arbitrarily, the informational aspect might suffer as well. With a variable slider the user is put in control of what they want to find. I think it's rather ingenious.
Yet I can almost always tell you which of two movies I prefer.
Really? I can't. Much easier for me to rate them on a scale, like NetFlix. Of course Netflix just proves people are morons because the only movies that get rated well are the cheesy mainstream crap. Good, unique, Indie stuff doesn't usually make the cut.
The other thing I don't like about the A or B method is what if both movies are good (or bad). Which did you like better, "Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle" or "Without a Paddle". Ummm.. neither, they both suck, but if I pick A or B one of them has to get a positive rating.
If anything, home schoolers have the opportunity to have more and better social exposure than the denizens of our school systems.
Better, perhaps. More, absolutely not. The only social exposure during the 6 or so hours of daily school time most homeschooled kids are going to get is from the parent that schools them. Even classroom time at school is a social interaction. They are in a setting with other people, both their peers and teachers. When I was in elementary school we had art, music, PE. I was probably in contact with at least 5 or 6 adults weekly during the school day, pluss the 20 or so kids in my class and the 20 or so in the class next door.
This also neglects that large number of kids who "socialize" this way at school but are isolated once they get home.
Neglects? I don't see how. Kids that are isolated at home will be isolated if they are in a public/private school, or if they are homeschooled. I actually grew up that way. We lived on a farm just far enough from town to be very isolated when we weren't at school. I don't think it did wonders for my social development, but I can't imagine how much worse it would have been if I had been homeschooled.
And then there's the all too common harassment, bullying, cliques, peer pressure, etc, etc, etc.
This may come as a shock, but cliques, peer pressure and bullying are all part of life. Whenever you are around a group of your peers these things show up. Sure, as we get older the cliques become country clubs, the peer pressure becomes 'keeping up with the Joneses' and the bullying is all done by the State Patrol, but it's still there. I don't belive that sheltering children from these at an early age is beneficial. Actually, I think elementary school is a good time to learn do deal with these, mostly because it's not a static environment. Maybe Joe was a bully last year, but over the summer Billy grew three inches. Or maybe Sally was an outcast last year, but this year she became an early bloomer and all the boys are interested in her. I think most people get to experience a variety of different roles and situations in a public school and these opportunities are harder to replicate in a homeschool.
Sorry, any problems home schoolers have with socializing has little if anything to with their bypassing the shark pool.
Shark pool, huh? Funny. That 'shark pool' is made up of the same individuals that the kids are going to have to deal with at college, in the business world, at the DMV, where ever.
Don't get me wrong, I think our education system is a disaster. I just don't know what the right answer is. Our society has evolved into this odd situation where how hard you work and how brilliant you are is not nearly as important as how you deal with other people. Any possible improvement we can make to a child's social skillset is going to be much more beneficial than any educational boost we can give them. Again, out of the 10 or so homeschooled kids I've known as adults, none of them benefitted socially from all the extra time they spent with their Mom.
Did a little searching myself and it appears that we are on the traditional opposite sides of this issue. Most of the studies saying homeschooling is good comes from the homeschooling camps. Most of the naysayers are teachers and administrators (which I am not). Doesn't look like there is anyone unbiased studying the issue and it is difficult issue to study anyway. Bottom line, I don't like it and wouldn't do it. Not sure what I will do when I have kids, but I won't homeschool them.
I don't buy it....how the hell do you negotiate a price at a place like Wal-Mart
Hey, I don't make the news I just report it. Students in the class claimed they would get a manager to negotiate with them and sometimes they could actually succeed.
Heck, if you live the continental United States there's probably a Wal-Mart within 5 minutes of your location. Go down there and try it. Report back on the results. You don't have to buy it, you can confirm for yourself.
But in reality most prices for goods and services are negotiable and we probably don't have the same williness to pay.
When my sister was in college one of her professors had his students go into a local retail store and attempt to negotiate a price. It is amazing how often you can renegotiate a price at a store like Wal-Mart. Most people would never even try, but the students in this professor's class were often successful.
I assume that the western researchers also knew of the dangers of radiation, since even Marie Curie had suffered from radiation poisoning.
Well, you would have thought, but in high school we watched a documentary about the Navy sailors at Bikini Atoll. The Navy had men swim around in the water after the nuclear tests, probably to determine what the radiation would do to them. There didn't appear to be a significant understanding of the dangers radiation posed, and many of the service men didn't see any negative effects until long after the tests.
That's good advice. I bet having a group to help you out makes a big difference. I can be rather competitive too, so having a person/people around to compare myself against drives me as well. Hard part about that is I have a difficult time joining a group doing something if I'm not already good at it.
I also understand your point about not starting things, but it never seems to work out for me. I've gotten better (I think) over the years, but a new deal always comes up. That's probably my biggest motivation for figuring out a way to discipline myself more. I can be tremendously productive when I focus on something. The trick is getting that focus.
"Sure we worked on socialization: once a month I would take them in the bathroom and steal their allowance."
That's funny, but very true. I think one of the biggest lessons we learn in the school environment is how to deal with adversity. Life isn't always fair and nice. Being naive doesn't always get you far. I think it can be good to deal with bulleys and mean kids in a controlled environment.
FWIW, her kids are some of the nicest most well-adjusted young people I know (and that includes one who is autistic.)
I never said that the home schooled kids I new weren't nice and 'well-adjusted' is a very broad term. All of the kids I knew just didn't get along with their peers as well as others around them. A little shy, somewhat introverted and didn't know how to react with the 'real world'.
How old are these 'young people' you know? Sometimes if you aren't a peer to the person they seem to be doing well, but don't fit into their own social group.
So be careful making generalizations like this.
I didn't make a generalization. If you read my post I was referring to the adults the I personally know who were home schooled as children. That's fairly specific. There are always exceptions, and there are socially inept kids that come out of public schools.
Hmm... didn't know that about the sizes - seems strange, but I can take your word for it.
Bottom line is $78 is $78. If we are talking about a $150 to $228 approximate price difference, that's still a 50% increase. Fairly significant in my mind.
But anyone with determination will easily pass a broadcast flag.
Exactly. This is typical political hoopla. They will pass a law about the broadcast flag. The hardware manufacturers will implement it. Five minutes later there will be a firmware hack to disable it and we will be right back where we started.
OTOH, there is always the scenario where the MPAA gets the broadcast flag implemented and TV ratings continue to drop because it's even MORE difficult to watch the decent shows on TV. It's crazy. There is this mentality that we should only be able to watch what they want us to when they want us to. It's becoming continually more obvious that people are not interested in sitting in front of the TV 8 hours a night. TV broadcasters better get with it or they will be left behind.
Here's the thing. It's simple economics. Who buys these high end video cards that are used in PVRs and such? Geeks or manufacturers making PVRs. If the end user can't make recordings using these cards they won't sell very well. It is in the hardware manufacturer's best interest to do whatever it takes to keep their sales up. If they are going to lose sales because of the flag they definitely won't enable it unless forced to by law or other means.
The only group that the broadcast flag benefits are the content owners themselves. Unless they can put legal or economic pressure on the broadcasters and hardware manufacturers there is no motivation for anyone to use the broadcast flag.
But as generalized computer monitors - and in that I'm including common applications such as design or photographic work - LCD's work as well or better than CRT's and good ones don't cost much more, if any
The good ones don't cost much more, but the cheap ones do. I can buy a cheap 19" CRT for half or less than the price of a comperable 19" LCD. For a generalized computer monitor my primary concern is size. I don't want to pay more money for a smaller monitor.
For something like becoming a concert pianist, my theory is that you have to have an extrordinary amount of desire to do that task.
Good point, and that probably wasn't the best example.
Once I hit graduate school, I couldn't care less about playing bass. Instead, I got bit by the programming bug and instead wanted to do *that* with all my free time.
That right there is exactly where I think I differ from a standard 'geek'. Most people I know that are really good at something (music, programming, whatever) get completely absorbed by that thing. My personality tends to be much more diverse. Sure, I'm a good Network Admin, probably better than average, but I don't spend all my free time writing scripts and hacking an OS. I have projects around the house that I start (and don't finish), cars I work on, spend a lot of time at the gym, watch movies, find new music, whatever. My focus gets spread over a much broader spectrum and as a result I don't ever get to the level I want in any one area.
Home-schooling seems to be a better and better idea all of the time
Perhaps, but like I said, every kid I knew that was homeschooled had a very difficult time adjusting to society as an adult. To my way of thinking, the social skills are probably more important than the education. Look at the people who are most successful in our world. They aren't generally the best educated people, but they are usually the most socially successful. A person can be a genius, but if they can't get along with people tey lose much of their effectiveness. Sure, there are examples like Einstein, Edison, Hawking, Greenspan, Cheney, whoever, but unless you are just a super genius who's staggering intellect outweighs your social backwardness you are out of luck.
Personally, I would rather have a child that could function well in our society than have one that is massively intellectually superior. I remember several years ago a friend of mine told me he saw some video footage of Bill Gates at a conference. One of the richest men in the world at a large industry conference and he was sitting alone eating a hamburger. I would rather be an average joe and have friends around me.
Your time on Earth is limited, so why waste it on things that you find boring, especially when the only reason for doing them is to satisfy someone else?
I understand your point, but definitely don't agree. I have found that, for me personally, I sometimes can't do 'the things that I want' because I don't have the discipline to follow through on these things.
For example, say I wanted to be a concert pianist (I don't, but let's say I did). Playing an instrument is a skill that requires a significant amount of time and practice to learn. This practice is not always fun. I would probably never accomplish this goal for two reasons:
I would lose focus and decide I wanted to learn to skateboard, take up woodworking, try scuba diving, whatever before I got very far.
I would not have the discipline to follow through on the practice. It would get boring and I would just quit. Go play a game, watch TV, whatever...
Unfortunately, everything in life can not be learned and mastered in a short period of time. Often I have such a scattered approach to life all of my goals suffer. I just want the ability to control my focus and be more self-disciplined. Then I have more control over my life to do what I want to do.
Like you said, our time on Earth is limited. I think we should be as efficient as possible about using it. If we can focus on one particular goal, complete it and move on with our life, we will have more time to do the things that we want to do.
Regarding #2 there, I have a question: why isn't firearm usage and safety taught in schools?
Two reasons, current social unacceptability and liability. I have a friend who is a Jr. High teacher. He used to teach a gun safety class, but in recent years having a firearm at a school is completely out of the question. Many people are ridiculously afraid of firearms and will not tolerate their children being near them. On top of that, I'm sure insurance companies won't even think about letting most schools have a firearm anywhere near the students.
That's funny. When I was growing up with computers in the 80's, there was TONS of Freeware,
Really? When I was growing up in the 80's me and my friends were using programs to break the encryption on all of the proprietary software. IIRC, software companies used to actually try to copy protect the media. We used to have more fun cracking the copy protection than actually playing the games we cracked.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe I just have my head in the sand, but I haven't seen people on /. claiming that "[Europe] always have everything better than [America]" or that "Europe is perfect". I don't mean to sound rude, but you do sound like you are creating a mythical enemy for the purpose of ranting.
I see a lot of bad attitude about America no Slashdot. Not too many people claim that "Europe is perfect", but there is a significant attitude that Americans are just bumbling, selfish, uneducated idiots.
Reminds me of a conversation I had recently. We were talking about alcohol abuse in the US especially among college students. The person I was talking to made the statement that it's much more socially unacceptable to get drunk in Europe. I said "What about all those fans at the 'football' games that get drunk and act like idiots?". She said "That's just the UK". "OK, what about the Russians and Poles? They are renowned for their drinking. I have a friend that is a Russian immigrant and he's told us about some of their three day parties.". She said "Well, that's Eastern Europe".
Seems like when people refer to the sophistication and culture of Europeans it refers to some random part of Western Europe that no one can quite pinpoint. I think Chris Rock summed up the whole craziness quite nicely:
"You know the world's gone crazy when the best rapper's white, the best golfer's black, the tallest basketball player is Chinese, a Swiss holds the American cup, Germany doesn't want to go to war, France is accusing us of arrogance, and the US' three most powerful people are named Bush, Dick, and Colon." -Chris Rock
Not only that, but C) how long before your local library becomes like Blockbuster, requiring a credit card to check out a book, charging you ridiculous late fees when appropriate, calling you and asking where their books are. I just don't think this is a path we want to start down with the public library system. Fingerprints may be a little ridiculous, but getting money involved in the system doesn't seem like a good way around it.
BEDEVERE: Tell me, what do you do with witches? VILLAGER #2: Burn! CROWD: Burn, burn them up! BEDEVERE: And what do you burn apart from witches? VILLAGER #1: More witches!
the tax should be significant and should make the consumer think hard about whether they really need a new computer.
Problem is, when you start doing that it no longer becomes a Free Market. You have actually influenced the market and encouraged consumers not to buy when they wanted to. This results in lower sales, lower revenue for tech companies, lower wages, etc... which isn't good for the entire economy. The trick here is to figure out a way to encourage consumers and manufacturers to recycle all of this old electronic equipment while mimizing the negative impact on the market.
And if manufacturers carry the direct burden, they will also have the desire to lower disposal costs.
Also, it would give the manufacturers incentive to make items reusable. Might help push us away from this idea that electronic devices are just 'disposable'.
Well, actually a LOT happens when you throw the computer/monitor (or television) in the Dumpster in California.
You aren't kidding. Sounds highly expensive. So, what happens if I bag the monitor first so the instpectors can't see if it's an electronic device or just a run of the mill body part.
As a consumer and taxpayer, do I want to pay more AND inconvenience myself?
Yeah, recycling programs can be a joke. 10 years ago the town I grew up in implemented a recycling program. They had municipal trash pickup which you were automatically billed for each month with your water bill and whatever else they felt like charging you for. On top of that, they sent out these little plastic tubs to everyone to sort their recycleable items into. Everything that wasn't put in to one of the tubs had to be put in a special, city supplied, trash bag, or in a trash back that had a special sticker on it. These special bags/stickers could be purchased for $1.00 each. So, any resident had to pay twice to have any garbage hauled away that didn't fit into the glass/plastic/newspaper bins, and the city doesn't allow any independant trash haulers, so everyone pays. The glorious part of this is that when the program was first started they didn't have any facilities to actually recycle any of the sorted items, so they just put them in the landfill anyway.
One, like you say, there are more than just 2 motivations for searching the net.
There are tons of motivations for searching the net, but almost everything can be broken down to either shopping or "not shopping" (they call it research, but I'm not sure that name always applies), even Entertainment. If I'm looking for free naked pictures of Vanessa Marcil, star of Las Vegas, I put the slider on Research. If I want to pay for naked pictures I move it to Shopping.
The slider approach is nice because you can regulate where you want to be. Say I'm researching a new product I want to buy, maybe a moped. Initially I can search for mopeds based purely on 100% research. Later, I can set the slider on "72% info and 28% shopping" so I get sites that are mostly informative, but also may have some price listings. Finally, I can slide all the way over to 100% shopping and purchase the item.
This is a topic I've thought about for some time. Always thought I ought to build a search engine that would filter out all the stupid shopping sites, but never could figure out how to get away from the 'all or nothing' aspect of just having two categories. Problem is many sites that are selling a product are also highly informative, maybe even more informative than a site that is not selling said item. If a search engine filtered out all of the shopping sites arbitrarily, the informational aspect might suffer as well. With a variable slider the user is put in control of what they want to find. I think it's rather ingenious.
Yet I can almost always tell you which of two movies I prefer.
Really? I can't. Much easier for me to rate them on a scale, like NetFlix. Of course Netflix just proves people are morons because the only movies that get rated well are the cheesy mainstream crap. Good, unique, Indie stuff doesn't usually make the cut.
The other thing I don't like about the A or B method is what if both movies are good (or bad). Which did you like better, "Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle" or "Without a Paddle". Ummm.. neither, they both suck, but if I pick A or B one of them has to get a positive rating.
If anything, home schoolers have the opportunity to have more and better social exposure than the denizens of our school systems.
Better, perhaps. More, absolutely not. The only social exposure during the 6 or so hours of daily school time most homeschooled kids are going to get is from the parent that schools them. Even classroom time at school is a social interaction. They are in a setting with other people, both their peers and teachers. When I was in elementary school we had art, music, PE. I was probably in contact with at least 5 or 6 adults weekly during the school day, pluss the 20 or so kids in my class and the 20 or so in the class next door.
This also neglects that large number of kids who "socialize" this way at school but are isolated once they get home.
Neglects? I don't see how. Kids that are isolated at home will be isolated if they are in a public/private school, or if they are homeschooled. I actually grew up that way. We lived on a farm just far enough from town to be very isolated when we weren't at school. I don't think it did wonders for my social development, but I can't imagine how much worse it would have been if I had been homeschooled.
And then there's the all too common harassment, bullying, cliques, peer pressure, etc, etc, etc.
This may come as a shock, but cliques, peer pressure and bullying are all part of life. Whenever you are around a group of your peers these things show up. Sure, as we get older the cliques become country clubs, the peer pressure becomes 'keeping up with the Joneses' and the bullying is all done by the State Patrol, but it's still there. I don't belive that sheltering children from these at an early age is beneficial. Actually, I think elementary school is a good time to learn do deal with these, mostly because it's not a static environment. Maybe Joe was a bully last year, but over the summer Billy grew three inches. Or maybe Sally was an outcast last year, but this year she became an early bloomer and all the boys are interested in her. I think most people get to experience a variety of different roles and situations in a public school and these opportunities are harder to replicate in a homeschool.
Sorry, any problems home schoolers have with socializing has little if anything to with their bypassing the shark pool.
Shark pool, huh? Funny. That 'shark pool' is made up of the same individuals that the kids are going to have to deal with at college, in the business world, at the DMV, where ever.
Don't get me wrong, I think our education system is a disaster. I just don't know what the right answer is. Our society has evolved into this odd situation where how hard you work and how brilliant you are is not nearly as important as how you deal with other people. Any possible improvement we can make to a child's social skillset is going to be much more beneficial than any educational boost we can give them. Again, out of the 10 or so homeschooled kids I've known as adults, none of them benefitted socially from all the extra time they spent with their Mom.
Did a little searching myself and it appears that we are on the traditional opposite sides of this issue. Most of the studies saying homeschooling is good comes from the homeschooling camps. Most of the naysayers are teachers and administrators (which I am not). Doesn't look like there is anyone unbiased studying the issue and it is difficult issue to study anyway. Bottom line, I don't like it and wouldn't do it. Not sure what I will do when I have kids, but I won't homeschool them.
I don't buy it....how the hell do you negotiate a price at a place like Wal-Mart
Hey, I don't make the news I just report it. Students in the class claimed they would get a manager to negotiate with them and sometimes they could actually succeed.
Heck, if you live the continental United States there's probably a Wal-Mart within 5 minutes of your location. Go down there and try it. Report back on the results. You don't have to buy it, you can confirm for yourself.
But in reality most prices for goods and services are negotiable and we probably don't have the same williness to pay.
When my sister was in college one of her professors had his students go into a local retail store and attempt to negotiate a price. It is amazing how often you can renegotiate a price at a store like Wal-Mart. Most people would never even try, but the students in this professor's class were often successful.
I assume that the western researchers also knew of the dangers of radiation, since even Marie Curie had suffered from radiation poisoning.
Well, you would have thought, but in high school we watched a documentary about the Navy sailors at Bikini Atoll. The Navy had men swim around in the water after the nuclear tests, probably to determine what the radiation would do to them. There didn't appear to be a significant understanding of the dangers radiation posed, and many of the service men didn't see any negative effects until long after the tests.
That's good advice. I bet having a group to help you out makes a big difference. I can be rather competitive too, so having a person/people around to compare myself against drives me as well. Hard part about that is I have a difficult time joining a group doing something if I'm not already good at it.
I also understand your point about not starting things, but it never seems to work out for me. I've gotten better (I think) over the years, but a new deal always comes up. That's probably my biggest motivation for figuring out a way to discipline myself more. I can be tremendously productive when I focus on something. The trick is getting that focus.
"Sure we worked on socialization: once a month I would take them in the bathroom and steal their allowance."
That's funny, but very true. I think one of the biggest lessons we learn in the school environment is how to deal with adversity. Life isn't always fair and nice. Being naive doesn't always get you far. I think it can be good to deal with bulleys and mean kids in a controlled environment.
FWIW, her kids are some of the nicest most well-adjusted young people I know (and that includes one who is autistic.)
I never said that the home schooled kids I new weren't nice and 'well-adjusted' is a very broad term. All of the kids I knew just didn't get along with their peers as well as others around them. A little shy, somewhat introverted and didn't know how to react with the 'real world'.
How old are these 'young people' you know? Sometimes if you aren't a peer to the person they seem to be doing well, but don't fit into their own social group.
So be careful making generalizations like this.
I didn't make a generalization. If you read my post I was referring to the adults the I personally know who were home schooled as children. That's fairly specific. There are always exceptions, and there are socially inept kids that come out of public schools.
Hmm... didn't know that about the sizes - seems strange, but I can take your word for it.
Bottom line is $78 is $78. If we are talking about a $150 to $228 approximate price difference, that's still a 50% increase. Fairly significant in my mind.
But anyone with determination will easily pass a broadcast flag.
Exactly. This is typical political hoopla. They will pass a law about the broadcast flag. The hardware manufacturers will implement it. Five minutes later there will be a firmware hack to disable it and we will be right back where we started.
OTOH, there is always the scenario where the MPAA gets the broadcast flag implemented and TV ratings continue to drop because it's even MORE difficult to watch the decent shows on TV. It's crazy. There is this mentality that we should only be able to watch what they want us to when they want us to. It's becoming continually more obvious that people are not interested in sitting in front of the TV 8 hours a night. TV broadcasters better get with it or they will be left behind.
Here's the thing. It's simple economics. Who buys these high end video cards that are used in PVRs and such? Geeks or manufacturers making PVRs. If the end user can't make recordings using these cards they won't sell very well. It is in the hardware manufacturer's best interest to do whatever it takes to keep their sales up. If they are going to lose sales because of the flag they definitely won't enable it unless forced to by law or other means.
The only group that the broadcast flag benefits are the content owners themselves. Unless they can put legal or economic pressure on the broadcasters and hardware manufacturers there is no motivation for anyone to use the broadcast flag.
But as generalized computer monitors - and in that I'm including common applications such as design or photographic work - LCD's work as well or better than CRT's and good ones don't cost much more, if any
The good ones don't cost much more, but the cheap ones do. I can buy a cheap 19" CRT for half or less than the price of a comperable 19" LCD. For a generalized computer monitor my primary concern is size. I don't want to pay more money for a smaller monitor.
Who does not check their voice-mail every time they get home?
Me. I got rid of my home phone. Only use my cell now so I can check my voice mail anytime.
For something like becoming a concert pianist, my theory is that you have to have an extrordinary amount of desire to do that task.
Good point, and that probably wasn't the best example.
Once I hit graduate school, I couldn't care less about playing bass. Instead, I got bit by the programming bug and instead wanted to do *that* with all my free time.
That right there is exactly where I think I differ from a standard 'geek'. Most people I know that are really good at something (music, programming, whatever) get completely absorbed by that thing. My personality tends to be much more diverse. Sure, I'm a good Network Admin, probably better than average, but I don't spend all my free time writing scripts and hacking an OS. I have projects around the house that I start (and don't finish), cars I work on, spend a lot of time at the gym, watch movies, find new music, whatever. My focus gets spread over a much broader spectrum and as a result I don't ever get to the level I want in any one area.
Home-schooling seems to be a better and better idea all of the time
Perhaps, but like I said, every kid I knew that was homeschooled had a very difficult time adjusting to society as an adult. To my way of thinking, the social skills are probably more important than the education. Look at the people who are most successful in our world. They aren't generally the best educated people, but they are usually the most socially successful. A person can be a genius, but if they can't get along with people tey lose much of their effectiveness. Sure, there are examples like Einstein, Edison, Hawking, Greenspan, Cheney, whoever, but unless you are just a super genius who's staggering intellect outweighs your social backwardness you are out of luck.
Personally, I would rather have a child that could function well in our society than have one that is massively intellectually superior. I remember several years ago a friend of mine told me he saw some video footage of Bill Gates at a conference. One of the richest men in the world at a large industry conference and he was sitting alone eating a hamburger. I would rather be an average joe and have friends around me.
I understand your point, but definitely don't agree. I have found that, for me personally, I sometimes can't do 'the things that I want' because I don't have the discipline to follow through on these things.
For example, say I wanted to be a concert pianist (I don't, but let's say I did). Playing an instrument is a skill that requires a significant amount of time and practice to learn. This practice is not always fun. I would probably never accomplish this goal for two reasons:
- I would lose focus and decide I wanted to learn to skateboard, take up woodworking, try scuba diving, whatever before I got very far.
- I would not have the discipline to follow through on the practice. It would get boring and I would just quit. Go play a game, watch TV, whatever...
Unfortunately, everything in life can not be learned and mastered in a short period of time. Often I have such a scattered approach to life all of my goals suffer. I just want the ability to control my focus and be more self-disciplined. Then I have more control over my life to do what I want to do.Like you said, our time on Earth is limited. I think we should be as efficient as possible about using it. If we can focus on one particular goal, complete it and move on with our life, we will have more time to do the things that we want to do.
Regarding #2 there, I have a question: why isn't firearm usage and safety taught in schools?
Two reasons, current social unacceptability and liability. I have a friend who is a Jr. High teacher. He used to teach a gun safety class, but in recent years having a firearm at a school is completely out of the question. Many people are ridiculously afraid of firearms and will not tolerate their children being near them. On top of that, I'm sure insurance companies won't even think about letting most schools have a firearm anywhere near the students.
That's funny. When I was growing up with computers in the 80's, there was TONS of Freeware,
Really? When I was growing up in the 80's me and my friends were using programs to break the encryption on all of the proprietary software. IIRC, software companies used to actually try to copy protect the media. We used to have more fun cracking the copy protection than actually playing the games we cracked.