I agree, and I promise you can survive and be quite all right without cursive. I am 28 years old, high school education + some college, cannot write one word in cursive. I am a victim of a thing called Duvall handwriting. It was an elementary education fad in the 80s. The idea was that kids should learn a simplified cursive that was based on printing. The printed letters were malformed in ways that left little tails into, and out of them so you could hook them together while writing.
The problem was that the teachers only know traditional cursive. So they couldn't effectively teach this new crap that was forced into the curriculum. First we were taught the crappy malformed printing and then the art of hooking the tails. The method of hooking the tails was dependent on the sequence of letters you were in the middle of. We were required to turn in our homework in this crappy cursive, and were marked down if we missed hooking some of the tails.
It was a complete failure. There were several years worth of students who couldn't write traditional cursive, and couldn't even do traditional printing! Over the years after elementary school the tails were hooked together less, and less often. Finally the tails weren't hooked together at all. After 10 years of being asked "Is that an 'R'?" when it was really a "K", my printing shifted toward a more traditional style. My handwriting is nearly unreadable to this day, and so is most of my graduating class. Out of the ones that can write well, I don't know any of them who know one bit of cursive... unless they moved here after elementary. This went on for a few years and then the school district (northshore school dist. in WA) realized their mistake and switched back to traditional.
The only time my lack of cursive knowledge has ever been an issue, is maybe 10 times when some old geezer relative sent a letter, which I couldn't read at all. I had to have my parents translate those. Other than that, I type about as fast as I can think, and I estimate I hand write only a few pages a year, usually songs I am jotting down while playing the guitar (printed), and usually those are even typed into vi on whatever keyboard I can reach
damn... didn't notice the commas didn't copy right. You would think that stuff wouldn't be a problem anymore.. I mean we can do so much with technology.... I mean, we can put a man on the moo..... oh... wait...
Dr. James Kelloway: You think it's all a couple of looney scientists, it's not! It's bigger. There are people out there, *forces* out there, who have a lot to lose. They're grown ups. It's gotten too big, it's in the hands of grown ups!
Charles Brubaker: [dividing up the first aid kit] John, you take the flint. Peter and I will split up the matches. Anybody want the gun?
Lt. Col Peter Willis: I'd shoot my foot.
Cmdr. John Walker: I'd shoot his foot.
then there is of course, my favorite:
so thereâ(TM)s this guy, see, who takes a trip to see the sights, you know, he has a real good time, anyway, he decides to call his brother, see, and, well, he asks his brother, howâ(TM)s everything at home, and his brother says, the cat died, and the guy says, you shouldnâ(TM)t tell me bad news like that, you know, not like that, you should tell me something like, well, something like the cat crawled out on the roof chasing some mice, and we had to call the fire department, and when the firemen went up to get the cat, well, the cat slipped and fell to the ground, see, and we had to take the cat to the vet, and they were going to operate on the cat, you know, but it was too late, they couldnâ(TM)t save the cat, thatâ(TM)s how you should break bad news, like that, see, so the guy says to his brother, howâ(TM)s mom, and the brother says sheâ(TM)s on the roof
look, a lot of things in the post were not true, but its not because he made it up. this is really the stuff that people think. There are many people out there that haven't done as much research on nuke tech as I have... that doesn't make them flamebait.
how dare you have a different opinion? look, I totally agree we need to be careful. I totally disagree about the level of danger involved in a properly designed and maintained nuke plant. Even though I disagree, I fail to see what makes this flamebait. fucking/.ers once again afraid of a different opinion.
I will save you all the trouble of replying to this, and do it myself.
umm... then keep your netbook hidden at all times, so that an overzealous airport security guy, who doesn't speak your language, won't decide to search your rectum for other stolen items.
I'm somewhat more impressed with the fact that he has 32 Feats of Strength.
Maybe the kids dad insisted on celebrating Festivus every year. That would explain it. The kid probably just wanted it to be over quickly, so he practiced a lot.
hi, original mims bringer upper here. I just wanted to say, IANA teacher, but I was lucky enough to have one of those great, life changing type teachers for three years of high school physics. Its my understanding that he is actually very well known among other high school physics teachers around the state and even country. He was a stickler for teaching conceptually before quantitatively, and also for the proper use of words. He would do amazing verbal gymnastics to avoid misconceptions. A frustrating example would be when studying magnetism and you were not allowed to say things like "that marble just wants to sit there", he would point out that the marble doesn't "want" anything. Or the north pole of that magnet "likes" the south pole of that one.... the magnet doesn't "like" anything, and so on.
I had the pleasure of seeing him teach his advanced second year class 2 times, once as a student and once I was in the room working an independent study, which allowed me to observe it all over again. He taught a couple of months each year about electricity. We learned a lot by making and playing with the electrophorus made of a piece of hard insulation foam, a pie plate, a styrafoam cup, and a piece of wool. We made our own leyden jars out of film canisters, foil and paper clips.
There was something that he seemed to know instinctively, which I realized the second time I watched him teach the course. The water flow analogies will make a lot of sense to a few of the students. The rest will build misconceptions based on the idea that electricity flows like water (it doesn't).
I always understood the analogy pretty well, but some were confused. For example, if students were taught one behavior of electricity and how much it was "like water" then they would start to predict that other behaviors of electricity would be "like water". At some point the analogy breaks down and people are saying "but but but, that doesn't make sense".
I had been playing with electronics since I bought my first iron at 9 or 10 years old. This left me watching other kids in the class trying to learn the stuff I thought came naturally. I could understand water analogies, but most kids in the class would nod confusedly. It finally clicked with me that the ONLY reason I understood the water analogy was that my father was a landscape irrigation contractor, and a farmer. I had been around water flowing in pipes since I could walk. I used to build crap out of the fittings and scrap pipe.
What you have to realize is that the average high school student knows nothing about plumbing. They know that they turn the knob and water comes out. For previous generations this may have been different. If you grew up a farm kid "changing the water" in the fields like I did, then you might get it. If you were very mechanical and had worked on a radiator, you might get it. But most kids these days grow up playing with electronics instead. You would be much better off explaining water flows in terms of an electricity analogy than the other way around.
Keep in mind, that in most of the systems where you think of water flowing, it only flows because of gravity. Electricity flows for a fundamentally different reason. I believe the better way to teach electricity is by teaching a simple understanding of the Bohr model of the atom. If you can ask your students to bear with you for a few minutes, and explain that the Bohr model is a good but not perfect model of the atom, just as Newtonian mechanics is a good but not perfect model. Explain to them quickly, and non boringly electrons, protons, neutrons, and the forces involved. Explain valence electrons, conductors and insulators. Then start talking about a simple electrical circuit. Explain it in terms of a flow of electrons (do NOT teach hole flow!) from negative to positive.
The water analogy does have its place, I just think teachers need to be careful if they think "I will explain it in SIMPLE terms... like water in a pipe". The behavior of water in a pipe i
I don't think I put it in my mouth, THAT time.... lol, don't you love the human brains emergency mode? where it makes sense to stick a burn into your 98.6 degree bacteria filled mouth to "cool it"
True. Point taken. Didn't mean to imply otherwise. It is only the actions of the company, not the monopoly in itself. I was just reading, figuring that someone from outside the USA might not realize that these laws do exist (especially since they are enforced so sporadically). I understand that these types of laws exist in the EU as well, but I don't know any of the details.
Slashdot Mirror
I want your newsletter sir.
For anyone familiar with the basics of unit testing but struggling to implement it in real world scenarios,
I think that all slashdot readers fall into this category....
make brawndo
I agree, and I promise you can survive and be quite all right without cursive. I am 28 years old, high school education + some college, cannot write one word in cursive. I am a victim of a thing called Duvall handwriting. It was an elementary education fad in the 80s. The idea was that kids should learn a simplified cursive that was based on printing. The printed letters were malformed in ways that left little tails into, and out of them so you could hook them together while writing.
The problem was that the teachers only know traditional cursive. So they couldn't effectively teach this new crap that was forced into the curriculum. First we were taught the crappy malformed printing and then the art of hooking the tails. The method of hooking the tails was dependent on the sequence of letters you were in the middle of. We were required to turn in our homework in this crappy cursive, and were marked down if we missed hooking some of the tails.
It was a complete failure. There were several years worth of students who couldn't write traditional cursive, and couldn't even do traditional printing! Over the years after elementary school the tails were hooked together less, and less often. Finally the tails weren't hooked together at all. After 10 years of being asked "Is that an 'R'?" when it was really a "K", my printing shifted toward a more traditional style. My handwriting is nearly unreadable to this day, and so is most of my graduating class. Out of the ones that can write well, I don't know any of them who know one bit of cursive... unless they moved here after elementary. This went on for a few years and then the school district (northshore school dist. in WA) realized their mistake and switched back to traditional.
The only time my lack of cursive knowledge has ever been an issue, is maybe 10 times when some old geezer relative sent a letter, which I couldn't read at all. I had to have my parents translate those. Other than that, I type about as fast as I can think, and I estimate I hand write only a few pages a year, usually songs I am jotting down while playing the guitar (printed), and usually those are even typed into vi on whatever keyboard I can reach
damn... didn't notice the commas didn't copy right. You would think that stuff wouldn't be a problem anymore.. I mean we can do so much with technology.... I mean, we can put a man on the moo..... oh... wait...
Dr. James Kelloway: You think it's all a couple of looney scientists, it's not! It's bigger. There are people out there, *forces* out there, who have a lot to lose. They're grown ups. It's gotten too big, it's in the hands of grown ups!
Charles Brubaker: [dividing up the first aid kit] John, you take the flint. Peter and I will split up the matches. Anybody want the gun?
Lt. Col Peter Willis: I'd shoot my foot.
Cmdr. John Walker: I'd shoot his foot.
then there is of course, my favorite: so thereâ(TM)s this guy, see, who takes a trip to see the sights, you know, he has a real good time, anyway, he decides to call his brother, see, and, well, he asks his brother, howâ(TM)s everything at home, and his brother says, the cat died, and the guy says, you shouldnâ(TM)t tell me bad news like that, you know, not like that, you should tell me something like, well, something like the cat crawled out on the roof chasing some mice, and we had to call the fire department, and when the firemen went up to get the cat, well, the cat slipped and fell to the ground, see, and we had to take the cat to the vet, and they were going to operate on the cat, you know, but it was too late, they couldnâ(TM)t save the cat, thatâ(TM)s how you should break bad news, like that, see, so the guy says to his brother, howâ(TM)s mom, and the brother says sheâ(TM)s on the roof
what a great movie...
I am not sure that it was an intentional exaggeration, somewhat misinformed, but being wrong doesn't make you flamebait does it?
look, a lot of things in the post were not true, but its not because he made it up. this is really the stuff that people think. There are many people out there that haven't done as much research on nuke tech as I have... that doesn't make them flamebait.
nuh UHH! Check my UID loser... I am in the sixdigit club!
You must be new here!
how dare you have a different opinion? look, I totally agree we need to be careful. I totally disagree about the level of danger involved in a properly designed and maintained nuke plant. Even though I disagree, I fail to see what makes this flamebait. fucking /.ers once again afraid of a different opinion.
I will save you all the trouble of replying to this, and do it myself.
I just hope this OC remix involves full on lesbian porn between Mischa Barton and Olivia Wilde
umm... then keep your netbook hidden at all times, so that an overzealous airport security guy, who doesn't speak your language, won't decide to search your rectum for other stolen items.
I'm somewhat more impressed with the fact that he has 32 Feats of Strength.
Maybe the kids dad insisted on celebrating Festivus every year. That would explain it. The kid probably just wanted it to be over quickly, so he practiced a lot.
man, I was going to respond, to give you some more crap, but then I saw your ID. Instead I suppose I must simply, bow to the ancients!
btw I just noticed that link is to THIS page not the other story you wanted http://science.slashdot.org/story/09/07/13/2342220/NASA-Has-the-Lost-Tapes
I was just thinking the same thing.. I mean it isn't as if this is the first time slashdot has ever contradicted itself, but this is s strange one!
I saw that movie! Eminem did a great job acting in that... GO B-RABBIT!
I want Tron linux. Sendmail is for suckers! I want a system where I have to throw a frisbee into a beam of light if I want to send an email to a user!
god that's funny
hi, original mims bringer upper here. I just wanted to say, IANA teacher, but I was lucky enough to have one of those great, life changing type teachers for three years of high school physics. Its my understanding that he is actually very well known among other high school physics teachers around the state and even country. He was a stickler for teaching conceptually before quantitatively, and also for the proper use of words. He would do amazing verbal gymnastics to avoid misconceptions. A frustrating example would be when studying magnetism and you were not allowed to say things like "that marble just wants to sit there", he would point out that the marble doesn't "want" anything. Or the north pole of that magnet "likes" the south pole of that one.... the magnet doesn't "like" anything, and so on.
I had the pleasure of seeing him teach his advanced second year class 2 times, once as a student and once I was in the room working an independent study, which allowed me to observe it all over again. He taught a couple of months each year about electricity. We learned a lot by making and playing with the electrophorus made of a piece of hard insulation foam, a pie plate, a styrafoam cup, and a piece of wool. We made our own leyden jars out of film canisters, foil and paper clips.
There was something that he seemed to know instinctively, which I realized the second time I watched him teach the course. The water flow analogies will make a lot of sense to a few of the students. The rest will build misconceptions based on the idea that electricity flows like water (it doesn't).
I always understood the analogy pretty well, but some were confused. For example, if students were taught one behavior of electricity and how much it was "like water" then they would start to predict that other behaviors of electricity would be "like water". At some point the analogy breaks down and people are saying "but but but, that doesn't make sense".
I had been playing with electronics since I bought my first iron at 9 or 10 years old. This left me watching other kids in the class trying to learn the stuff I thought came naturally. I could understand water analogies, but most kids in the class would nod confusedly. It finally clicked with me that the ONLY reason I understood the water analogy was that my father was a landscape irrigation contractor, and a farmer. I had been around water flowing in pipes since I could walk. I used to build crap out of the fittings and scrap pipe.
What you have to realize is that the average high school student knows nothing about plumbing. They know that they turn the knob and water comes out. For previous generations this may have been different. If you grew up a farm kid "changing the water" in the fields like I did, then you might get it. If you were very mechanical and had worked on a radiator, you might get it. But most kids these days grow up playing with electronics instead. You would be much better off explaining water flows in terms of an electricity analogy than the other way around.
Keep in mind, that in most of the systems where you think of water flowing, it only flows because of gravity. Electricity flows for a fundamentally different reason. I believe the better way to teach electricity is by teaching a simple understanding of the Bohr model of the atom. If you can ask your students to bear with you for a few minutes, and explain that the Bohr model is a good but not perfect model of the atom, just as Newtonian mechanics is a good but not perfect model. Explain to them quickly, and non boringly electrons, protons, neutrons, and the forces involved. Explain valence electrons, conductors and insulators. Then start talking about a simple electrical circuit. Explain it in terms of a flow of electrons (do NOT teach hole flow!) from negative to positive.
The water analogy does have its place, I just think teachers need to be careful if they think "I will explain it in SIMPLE terms... like water in a pipe". The behavior of water in a pipe i
I don't think I put it in my mouth, THAT time.... lol, don't you love the human brains emergency mode? where it makes sense to stick a burn into your 98.6 degree bacteria filled mouth to "cool it"
True. Point taken. Didn't mean to imply otherwise. It is only the actions of the company, not the monopoly in itself. I was just reading, figuring that someone from outside the USA might not realize that these laws do exist (especially since they are enforced so sporadically). I understand that these types of laws exist in the EU as well, but I don't know any of the details.
[...] and let's not forget the Zune.
no... seriously... lets
So many people seem to assume that monopolies are illegal[...]
in the USA it they can be. IANAL but its called antitrust law and its something that has been protecting us for almost a century now.