With WHAT? The problem is that poor schools already can't compete even with regulatory pressure to help them. They need MONEY. If they had money, they wouldn't have the problem they are having. The poorer neighborhoods are already at huge disadvantage to Elrous' "Whitey McRichkid" schools. If they have to 'compete' on a flat playing field, exactly what would they bring to the table?
Once the MET research is completed, we hope that school districts will work with teachers and their unions to create fair and reliable evaluations that reward teachers who are effective and identify and help those who need to improve.
How many times have people tried this? How many different answers do we need anyway?
If you can come up with a non preposterous mechanism for your work to cure Cancer / HIV / Tuberculosis or Rush Limbaugh you've got a chance. Otherwise, not so much. Bonus points for being able to patent something. Extra bonus points if Facebook can use it.
Dunno about the Bad Astronomer, but *my* conclusion is that everyone would be better served if "Fair and balanced" news reporting and "Right WIng Nutjob witch hunt" programs were shifted off channels like Fox and and onto some vacant UHF channel licensed in Waco, Texas. I disagree with censorship, but I also disagree with mixing regular news and wacked out conspiracy theorists on the same channel.
Then Fox can work on resurrecting Firefly and we will all be saner.
'Cept that we don't HAVE a mass driver yet. Let's build one (even a teeny little one) before we start using it as a mission critical bit of infrastructure.
Uh, no. It's not certain at all. They've been working on it for a long time. No plane just yet. They've made some progress but it is a long, long way from 'working'.
You have a funny idea about engineering. You seem to think if they build it, it will work. The current NASA missions are based on tech from the 1940's and 50's. It's taken them that long to be sure they work and to get the kinks out. Yes, the newer commercial companies can work off the shoulders of giants, but that does not imply or guarantee success.
You might want to see one of those projects actually achieve a significant fraction of their test program before getting all wound up.
We've seen nearly a 50% drop in the price of a barrel of oil, and only about a 2% drop in the price of gasoline. During that same period, the cost of refining fell too. If the price of oil were to double tomorrow, the price on the pumps would jump $2/gal by Sunday morning.
No you haven't. What you've seen is a 50% drop in futures contracts for West Texas Intermediate (WTI) which means very little in terms of actual crude or product supply. News outlets like to brandish these numbers about because they move around a lot (so the world is ending at least weekly) and because it's simple.
But it doesn't mean much. Unless you are a mid US oil refinery.
I personally consider this one of the most dangerous innovations of the (still young) century.
We humans already have built-in bias, and plenty of it.
True, but think of what life was like in Ye Ancient Thymes - you were lucky if you got a foreign newspaper that was less than a month old. Unless you were royalty or very well to do, you did not interact with a large circle of people. You never had a chance of finding out there were furries in the world./b/ was just a brief bout of nausea in some schizophrenics brain after a particularly bad meal.
While most people won't avail themselves of it, there are more options to 'expand your mind' than ever. Even barring recreational pharmaceuticals.
That said, I do, as an example, keep news.google.com open in my browser. Not because I rely on (even partially) for my "source" of news, but because I can keep abreast of what does interest others (a small, but occasionally informative reward). Serendipitous discoveries are best found elsewhere.
It's OK, you can tell us about your LIndsey Lohan crush.
Mercury is only used as a preservative in vaccines, they can make them without it (either on the spot for use right away [most vaccines are used on mass in a short period of time anyways] or with a safer preservative).
The days of William Jenner taking cowpox pustules and putting them on people have long gone. Vaccines are hard to make, require quite a bit of pre planning and are often used in places without refrigerators. Cheap, effective preservatives are key.
Yes, in older kids. The pertussis (whooping cough) component of childhood vaccines wears off after a while (and was never 100% to begin with). This, combined with increasing numbers of non immunized children and the fact that the CDC gets wound up about pertussis* makes outbreaks fairly common.
Fun fact: the newer tetanus vaccines have pertussis vaccine in them so adults might quit being the reservoir of the disease. It tends to cause a much milder illness in adults so they don't get treated and it can be contagious for weeks.
*Because it's treatable and highly contagious and fairly dangerous to infants.
Thimerosal has already been phased out or banned outright in most of the world. In Russia, they found direct links to increased rates of serious mental health issues and instituted a strict ban on the stuff.
If that were true, one would suspect that we would see a similar problem in the US since Thiomersal has been used for decades. We should see increasing amounts of mental illness, stupidity and general batshit craziness.
Still, it's part of the way there. Even if you don't think it is due largely to atmospheric CO2 increases created by burning fossil fuels, if you admit it's real then you need to go to the next step of determining what are the likely outcomes.
And if you don't like those outcomes (basically, increased competition for decreasing resources which tends to trigger wars and such), you have to start thinking about how you can mitigate those outcomes.
Plenty of time left to keep the head in the sand, but it's getting warmer down there and a might more uncomfortable.
The ONLY thing Apple has ever done is push the trend towards good graphics.
No, they've done quite a bit more. They pushed an end product that was well thought out and (mostly) finished. Not the slapped together Dell garbage with extra weird buttons on the keyboard that don't actually do something. (Mostly) adhered to human interface guidelines.
Apple has really raised the bar in terms of people's expectations of how high tech things work. That is the one striking thing that other manufacturers don't get. They think they can take a tablet, slap some sort of GUI on it, make some half assed 'store' and sit back. They just don't go the extra mile.
Is Apple perfect at it? Hardly. Personally, I don't buy an Apple product until at least the second, and preferably the third, revision. They make really stupid decisions at times. But they do manage to put some nice stuff together. It's more than just good graphics, more than just rounded rectangles.
I get the distinct impression that the generic Slashdot user doesn't want to pay for anything. They should be able to make most objects out of recycled Linksys routers and old televisions with a pair of pliers and a soldering iron given to them by their father in fifth grade. Clothes are recycled from various dumpsters or Goodwill stores. Coffee comes from... well, you don't want to know that.
Slashdot Mirror
And I, for one, welcome simplistic, populist answers to complex questions.
Beats the hell out of thinking.
Make them compete.
With WHAT? The problem is that poor schools already can't compete even with regulatory pressure to help them. They need MONEY. If they had money, they wouldn't have the problem they are having. The poorer neighborhoods are already at huge disadvantage to Elrous' "Whitey McRichkid" schools. If they have to 'compete' on a flat playing field, exactly what would they bring to the table?
Once the MET research is completed, we hope that school districts will work with teachers and their unions to create fair and reliable evaluations that reward teachers who are effective and identify and help those who need to improve.
How many times have people tried this? How many different answers do we need anyway?
That's easy.
If you can come up with a non preposterous mechanism for your work to cure Cancer / HIV / Tuberculosis or Rush Limbaugh you've got a chance. Otherwise, not so much. Bonus points for being able to patent something. Extra bonus points if Facebook can use it.
Dunno about the Bad Astronomer, but *my* conclusion is that everyone would be better served if "Fair and balanced" news reporting and "Right WIng Nutjob witch hunt" programs were shifted off channels like Fox and and onto some vacant UHF channel licensed in Waco, Texas. I disagree with censorship, but I also disagree with mixing regular news and wacked out conspiracy theorists on the same channel.
Then Fox can work on resurrecting Firefly and we will all be saner.
There, that's better.....
'Cept that we don't HAVE a mass driver yet. Let's build one (even a teeny little one) before we start using it as a mission critical bit of infrastructure.
Why exactly is Skylon cheaper? It still looks like chemicals (H2, O2) to me, just in the form of a space plane instead of a vertical take-off rocket.
It could be reused. It's SSTO (single stage to orbit) so no expensive Big Ugly Booster.
It also doesn't work just yet, they're making baby steps on the engine. It's a nice idea, but I wouldn't buy any tickets just yet.
Likewise, it is certain that Skylon will work.
Uh, no. It's not certain at all. They've been working on it for a long time. No plane just yet. They've made some progress but it is a long, long way from 'working'.
You have a funny idea about engineering. You seem to think if they build it, it will work. The current NASA missions are based on tech from the 1940's and 50's. It's taken them that long to be sure they work and to get the kinks out. Yes, the newer commercial companies can work off the shoulders of giants, but that does not imply or guarantee success.
You might want to see one of those projects actually achieve a significant fraction of their test program before getting all wound up.
who uses it anymore? anybody with a lick of sense twitters, facebooks and buzzes their status & important messages to friends.
Sez 'AdultFilmProducer' who, I would imagine, stays a bit to the side of mainstream business workflows.
I way didn't want to trade ounces of geese crap for tons of space crap on my car.
I tell you what. You can have your stupid fucking geese back. We'll take the satellite.
We've seen nearly a 50% drop in the price of a barrel of oil, and only about a 2% drop in the price of gasoline. During that same period, the cost of refining fell too. If the price of oil were to double tomorrow, the price on the pumps would jump $2/gal by Sunday morning.
No you haven't. What you've seen is a 50% drop in futures contracts for West Texas Intermediate (WTI) which means very little in terms of actual crude or product supply. News outlets like to brandish these numbers about because they move around a lot (so the world is ending at least weekly) and because it's simple.
But it doesn't mean much. Unless you are a mid US oil refinery.
OK, one satellite falling down every once in a while might be chalked up to physics. This must be a directed attack!
Where is Bruce Willis when we need him?\
(Did I get that right?)
I personally consider this one of the most dangerous innovations of the (still young) century.
We humans already have built-in bias, and plenty of it.
True, but think of what life was like in Ye Ancient Thymes - you were lucky if you got a foreign newspaper that was less than a month old. Unless you were royalty or very well to do, you did not interact with a large circle of people. You never had a chance of finding out there were furries in the world. /b/ was just a brief bout of nausea in some schizophrenics brain after a particularly bad meal.
While most people won't avail themselves of it, there are more options to 'expand your mind' than ever. Even barring recreational pharmaceuticals.
That said, I do, as an example, keep news.google.com open in my browser. Not because I rely on (even partially) for my "source" of news, but because I can keep abreast of what does interest others (a small, but occasionally informative reward). Serendipitous discoveries are best found elsewhere.
It's OK, you can tell us about your LIndsey Lohan crush.
Give it a break, it's only an Apple product....
(Confused Trekki) "Beam Me Up" ................... "Please install the latest version of iCloud and try again"
(Siri)
What we really need are some Jawas.
Do you have any idea what you are talking about?
Mercury is only used as a preservative in vaccines, they can make them without it (either on the spot for use right away [most vaccines are used on mass in a short period of time anyways] or with a safer preservative).
The days of William Jenner taking cowpox pustules and putting them on people have long gone. Vaccines are hard to make, require quite a bit of pre planning and are often used in places without refrigerators. Cheap, effective preservatives are key.
Yes, in older kids. The pertussis (whooping cough) component of childhood vaccines wears off after a while (and was never 100% to begin with). This, combined with increasing numbers of non immunized children and the fact that the CDC gets wound up about pertussis* makes outbreaks fairly common.
Fun fact: the newer tetanus vaccines have pertussis vaccine in them so adults might quit being the reservoir of the disease. It tends to cause a much milder illness in adults so they don't get treated and it can be contagious for weeks.
*Because it's treatable and highly contagious and fairly dangerous to infants.
Thimerosal has already been phased out or banned outright in most of the world. In Russia, they found direct links to increased rates of serious mental health issues and instituted a strict ban on the stuff.
If that were true, one would suspect that we would see a similar problem in the US since Thiomersal has been used for decades. We should see increasing amounts of mental illness, stupidity and general batshit craziness.
Oh, wait ....
Still, it's part of the way there. Even if you don't think it is due largely to atmospheric CO2 increases created by burning fossil fuels, if you admit it's real then you need to go to the next step of determining what are the likely outcomes.
And if you don't like those outcomes (basically, increased competition for decreasing resources which tends to trigger wars and such), you have to start thinking about how you can mitigate those outcomes.
Plenty of time left to keep the head in the sand, but it's getting warmer down there and a might more uncomfortable.
He may have been an asshole.
You, apparently, still are.
The ONLY thing Apple has ever done is push the trend towards good graphics.
No, they've done quite a bit more. They pushed an end product that was well thought out and (mostly) finished. Not the slapped together Dell garbage with extra weird buttons on the keyboard that don't actually do something. (Mostly) adhered to human interface guidelines.
Apple has really raised the bar in terms of people's expectations of how high tech things work. That is the one striking thing that other manufacturers don't get. They think they can take a tablet, slap some sort of GUI on it, make some half assed 'store' and sit back. They just don't go the extra mile.
Is Apple perfect at it? Hardly. Personally, I don't buy an Apple product until at least the second, and preferably the third, revision. They make really stupid decisions at times. But they do manage to put some nice stuff together. It's more than just good graphics, more than just rounded rectangles.
No, it's Picasso and maybe a bunch of other artists. But Jobs stole that quote (or borrowed it depending on your view of him).
Where's Michael Kristopeit when we need him?
We just need to channel him away from slashdot users to foreign affairs commentary.
Screw Micheal, we need Dr. Bob! Only by treating subluxations can we cure China!
I get the distinct impression that the generic Slashdot user doesn't want to pay for anything. They should be able to make most objects out of recycled Linksys routers and old televisions with a pair of pliers and a soldering iron given to them by their father in fifth grade. Clothes are recycled from various dumpsters or Goodwill stores. Coffee comes from... well, you don't want to know that.