You argue that the price of oil is less in the USA (based on a nominal exchange rate) because of its high GDP per capita and then use a PPP based GDP per capita calculation to back it up?
You're funny.
No. I'm GGxP said that the US is only 4% of the population and uses 25% of the world's oil. I pointed out that we have the largest economy in the world (or second if you count the EU as a single country) so it makes sense that we would use the most energy. Granted, we could be more efficient, but stop bitching that US uses more energy than Afghanistan, for example, because we produce more and live better lives than most countries that use less.
It should also be pointed out that the US is world's third largest oil producer. We just use much more than we produce. In order to fix this, the US must produce more AND use less. Personally, I would see nothing wrong with increasing production and taxing it to fund alternatives research. Unfortunately, neither side favors this. The left doesn't want to produce more and right doesn't want to tax it.
Whatever. Number 5 according to the World Bank and number 8 according to the CIA World Factbook.
The think with Kuwait is that the majority of the population is made up of immigrant labor. I don't know if these sources figure the Bangladeshies, Pakistanies, and other immigrants into the equation.
THIS site would disagree. Granted, the US is number 7, but only two European counties come in before that. Most of the countries in the top 7 are large oil exporters such as Qatar, Kuwait and the UAE.
I was going to say - if I only payed $5.00 a gallon I'd throw a party. Right around $8.50 (give or take based on the exchange rate) a gallon is what I consider normal.
I assume you realize that your high gas prices are the result of high taxation and not natural market forces. You live in a democracy, right? Maybe you should do something about your own high gas prices rather than criticizing those of us that do. Unless, of course, you like paying more, then good for you. Stop berating those of us who like to pay less.
In Europe we already pay around €1.60 per litre, which is almost $9 per gallon. Get over yourselves America. You are 4% of the world population using 25% of it's oil. There's your problem right there.
Well, our 4% of the population has the largest GDP per capita than anyone else in the world. In other words, yeah, we use the most energy, but we also produce the most stuff with that oil.
Has something changed, because Network Manager allowed user control over connecting to WLAN back in... er... 10.0 I think, or one of the 9. series. By default, in fact. I remember it annoyed me and it was uninstalled in short order, but it worked.
Personally, I'm not sure. I have not done wireless on Linux in quite some time and since I'm usually the only user on whatever system I'm using, meaning I set it up, I don't think twice about having to type in passwords. Being part of the sudoers group means I type my own password. It only becomes a problem when something like the file manager tells me that it does not have the permissions to eject the CD and doesn't know to ask for a my password. The sad part is that I am actually in the "root" group! What other group do I need to be part of? CDROM? Disk? Dbus? I don't know. I'll add myself to all of them and see if that takes care of the issue.
Now, imagine if this were a notebook and I was giving this to our sales rep to give a presentation at a potential customer's site.
Back to wireless, here is Torvald's post:
I first spent weeks arguing on a bugzilla that the security policy of requiring the root password for changing the timezone and adding a new wireless network was moronic and wrong.
I think the wireless network thing finally did get fixed, but the timezone never did - it still asks for the admin password.
And today Daniela calls me from school, because she can't add the school printer without the admin password.
Whoever moron thought that it's "good security" to require the root password for everyday things like this is mentally diseased.
So here's a plea: if you have anything to do with security in a distro, and think that my kids (replace "my kids" with "sales people on the road" if you think your main customers are businesses) need to have the root password to access some wireless network, or to be able to print out a paper, or to change the date-and-time settings, please just kill yourself now. The world will be a better place.
If I understand correctly this in effect would be giving that user root priviledges. I think his complaint was that an ordinary task like adding a printer required that level of priviledge, not that it was inconvinient to do. It sounded like he wanted to administer his childs laptop without giving them free reign over it.
He was also a bit pissed that you need the root password to connect to a new wifi hot spot. Could imagine the network admin's nightmare of having to give the root password to a salesman trying to give a presentation on the road?
I had the same problem with my Fedora 16 (XFCE Spin) box needed the root password to eject a CD. It really sucked that my file manager couldn't do it unless I ran it as root. I don't even know what the file manager's name to run as root and I shouldn't have to. Of course it was no big deal for me to type in "sudo eject cdrom", but I wouldn't expect the average user to know that. Besides, I shouldn't have to add standard users to the sudoers group just so they can swap a friggin CD out!
(leading to a world where hackers, tablet users, and grandma can all get along).
And that's the problem. When I'm on a tablet, I want a tablet interface. When I'm on a desktop, I want a DESKTOP interface.
Stop trying to make one interface to rule them all. When I can use a keyboard and mouse on a tablet, I'll consider having a desktop interface. Until then, KEEP THEM SEPARATE!
If you are referring to the three cases HBO highlighted, two of those were found to be unrelated to fracking. The third, of course, was an issue and that land owner was compensated, probably quite well. As for the other two, it turns out that their water wells were drilled through three coal beds and contain NATURALLY occurring gas.
Sources? A serious request has I haven't seen anything that has ever mentioned alternative theories to the source of the gas in the water.
Certainly. HERE is an NPR article explaining the whole debate. As we all know, NPR is a right wing outfit that is in the pocket of big oil. Except, they are not. Here is an excerpt:
Some worry fracking fluid will leak out of a well and contaminate aquifers. In fact, a recent draft EPA study about water pollution in Pavilion, Wyo., does make that link. Fracking wastewater has also spilled and contaminated surface water.
But fracking does not put methane into tap water. Tap water blow torches, as seen in the documentary film Gasland, result from methane migration. Such movements of gas may or may not be related to drilling. But they do not result from fracking. And that’s an important distinction to make.
HERE is something describing the problem in 1983, before any friggin' fracking ever started.
Of course, you also have to have your BS detector on the most sensitive setting. Take this quote:
A study released Monday by five Duke University scientists found that drinking water wells near gas extraction sites had on average, 17 times higher levels of methane gas than wells that weren’t.
Um... maybe that's because there is no gas in the area, there will be no drilling. Of the places where they are NOT drilling, how many of those had as much natural gas in the ground as the places where they were drilling? Of course, that's not in the study, but common sense doesn't get grant money, doesn't get professors published and doesn't make headlines.
Also, note your sources. Anything called "CleanWater.org" is going to be against fracking. For that matter, I'm willing to bet these guys are against all forms of energy with the exception of wind or solar. To be fair, there are sites like NaturalGasAmerica.com (or whatever) that will do the same thing, but the tree-huggers outnumber them 10-1.
THIS looks interesting, but I don't have the time to view it right now.
From my research, it appears that NPR is right. Fracking may contaminate deep ground water. This is obvious since it is pushing high pressure water deep under ground (duh). Will that have any effect on wells, which are not terribly deep? Most of the time, no, but it is possible. This is why it's important to know the chemical makeup that the frackers are using. As long as it's not toxic, it shouldn't be a problem. But understand that even if they were pumping the cleanest, purest, distilled water into the ground, the environmentalists would oppose it. I've actually seen it happen here in Central Texas.
A school wanted to use river water, which comes out of the ground at a chilly 50 degrees F, to cool the air conditioning evaporators around campus. This would save a fortune in electricity bills for the school, use much less energy, which is green, and would allow the school to stop using the chemical mix they were using to cool the evaporators now. The cost would be that the water would be returned to the river downstream about one degree warmer. There were protests non stop for years. People would carry signs saying "Don't let SWT Kill the River!!!" Now, again, SWT was doing the environmentally conscious th
30% of our natural Gas production in the US comes from fracking. Producing energy is not completely safe no matter what method you use.
Nice straw man, but nobody's saying it should be "completely safe." There's a wide array of values between completely safe and deliberately ignoring what may be catastrophic environmental damage to satisfy a year or two of energy demand. Call me when your tap water is flammable and taking a shower presents a risk of explosion.
On second thought, don't bother.
If you are referring to the three cases HBO highlighted, two of those were found to be unrelated to fracking. The third, of course, was an issue and that land owner was compensated, probably quite well. As for the other two, it turns out that their water wells were drilled through three coal beds and contain NATURALLY occurring gas.
So, the way I see it, yeah, this could be a problem, but it appears that the system is taking care of itself. As for the two that drilled through the coal beds, I would be on the phone with the gas companies saying, "Hey, you guys missed some over here! Come get it and pay me." Provided I owned the mineral rights, of course.
I disagree. These are shot on a sunny day in a desert of objects that are not moving or are moving very slow. Show me a shot of dogs playing in doors at night with no more light that you would get from ceiling fan light fixture (say, four CFL bulbs). When that picture is good, I'll agree.
Also, look at these pics at 100%. I can see pixels! I shouldn't see pixels when viewed at 100%. My old Sony Mavica wouldn't show pixels when viewed at 100 percent and it had a maximum resolution of 640x480 and wrote to floppy disk!
That will allow higher iso settings, better low light pictures, etc.
That is what I want to see. I'm tired of having to turn on every light in my house and open all the blinds to get a good picture on my child doing whatever it is that she may be doing. And even then, if she is moving at all, it's going to come out blurry. Most of the time, I give up and go grab the DSLR and take the picture that way, but it certainly doesn't help when I'm on the road.
I want good, clear, low-light pictures of objects that were moving when the photo was taken. I simply don't think that is possible with a lens that is the diameter of a pencil.
The samples I've seen from this camera are out door shots in a friggin desert! I want indoor shots of a dog running taken with the window blinds closed, flash off, and no more light than what you would get from a standard lamp with a 15 watt CFL. When this shot is clear and bright, I'll buy that phone for the camera.
I should also add that I will be conducting my own experiments in my basement with a neutrino cannon, flashlight and stop watch. If I see anything interesting, I'll post the results here.
If you want anything done right, you have to do it yourself!
Sorry, but they have found two errors already. I'm not going to buy extremely outlandish claims with two known failures already throwing off the results.
Sorry, CERN, but you need to pick up the workmanship before you can be taken seriously.
However, I think that "performance" should not be based solely on how well the students do this year, but should be based on the level of improvement shown from last year and how much they have learned since the beginning of this year. In other words, if your students perform at 40% national average, that may seem like the teacher sucks. But if those same students were at the 15% level last year, the teacher should be commended.
Actually, the better teachers should be stacked with a bunch of loser students. It's harder to teach those kids. The honor roll kids can handle the crappy teachers because these students tend to be self motivating.
building a new school or renovating an old one will takes years to decades of fighting over the tax revenues to pay for it.
Sorry, I cut off my own quote:
Stop sending kids to schools based on where they live, but actually give parents a choice as to where the students go and fund the schools accordingly.
You have *got* to be joking. You honestly think that schools can be increased in size automatically? I invite you to come to reality, where building a new school or renovating an old one will takes years to decades of fighting over the tax revenues to pay for it.
Really? Because in the reality I live in, when a school gets over crowded, they bring in these things called "temporary buildings" to serve as classrooms. They can be put up in less than a month and taken down in even less time. These are in place until a permanent structure is built to house the students, although, sometimes, it takes so long to build the additions that the temp building feel permanent.
Of course, that's in MY reality. I can't speak for the one you live in where there is only one solution to any given issue.
And yes, the well off families fill up good schools. This is because in most of America school revenue is tied to local taxes, primarily property. Live in a rich area, your school gets more resources, so you are getting first pick based on where you live. Sadly, this is somewhat of a zero sum game- read The Darwin Economy to see why it doesn't work very well in the long run.
Yeah, that's why I said in my original post:
Stop sending kids to schools based on where they live...
That's kinda the whole basis for my point. If you miss it, the whole thing falls apart.
The solution isn't that clear cut. In Florida (at least where I lived), we were allowed to choose any school we wanted for the child, so long as it was within their little district/area. What ended up happening is the more well off families filled the new, nice, "good" schools and all of the children with broken/criminal/poor families populated the one or two schools that were left at the end. Your solution may solve YOUR problem in your head, but it completely ignores any ramifications of such an act.
Why would the "well off" families fill the good schools up? Was there a bidding process so that the highest bidder got first pick?
Either way, in your district, they should increase the capacity of the "good" school (number of classrooms, not increase per class size) and start cutting classes from the poorer schools. First, this will increase the availability of the better school, allowing more students to attend. Next, Once enough of the teachers from the poorer school get fired, the remaining ones might start looking for ways to increase performance.
However, I think that "performance" should not be based solely on how well the students do this year, but should be based on the level of improvement shown from last year and how much they have learned since the beginning of this year. In other words, if your students perform at 40% national average, that may seem like the teacher sucks. But if those same students were at the 15% level last year, the teacher should be commended.
Job performance? How is evaluating how students perform akin to how well a teacher taught their subjects? Using a standard car analogy, i guess we can relate car accidents to how well the road repair crews are doing their job, correct?
You can't force students to learn. Until they devise a methodology for injecting knowledge directly into their brains the best teacher in the world cannot teach students who do not want to learn.
Because if a teacher taught a subject well, on average, the students in that teacher's class will perform better than a teacher who just assigned a chapter and tested on it. Every class will have losers in it. Those students were probably losers last year and will be losers next year. All of that is taken into consideration on evaluations. It's when a teacher takes one of those losers and makes him want to learn that the average goes up. Its when the bulk of the class responds to a teacher's methods that the average goes up. When a teacher does a good job, the whole class average goes up, whether there are losers in the class or not.
Tough rocks. A few shitty teachers made life a living hell for one of my kids so pardon me if I'm not on the worship-the-teacher bandwagon.
Why *shouldn't* they live under the same thumb they so firmly implant on their students?
In other words, let the good teachers be unfairly judged along with the bad ones. That surely creates the incentive needed to ensure the quality of educators children deserve.
No! You letting the good teachers show they are good teachers so that they may get rid of the crappy ones.
The teachers unions should take a page from this: Don't ruin the education or the credibility of all teachers for the sake of a few - embrase performance review and become a part of it
And the problem comparing autoworker unions and teacher unions is the lack of competition public education faces. If unions bring down an auto company, the company fails, or at least it is supposed to if it does not get federal funding. Education is going to get public money no matter what. For that matter, the worse they do, the more money they get. How many times have we heard, "The schools are failing. We must increase funding and pay teachers more!"?
The answer is to increase competition. Stop sending kids to schools based on where they live, but actually give parents a choice as to where the students go and fund the schools accordingly. The voucher program was an attempt to do this and has worked very well where it has been tried. It even leveled the playing field for kids who could never afford to go a private school. Of course, the teacher's unions rapidly opposed this and pulled out all the stops. The main argument was that it would cut funding to public schools. To which I answer, So? It may cut funding to PUBLIC schools, but it also cut the number of students. It did not cut funding to education, however, and all the kids still received an education. Not just any education, but the education the parents wanted them to receive while still meeting guidelines.
It is cold here in the winter time so kids cannot go out much.
If you can't understand the flaw in your logic, and you don't find issue with what you're saying, humanity is definitely doomed - especially if people like you are the majority.
When the high for the week is -5 Fahrenheit, children probably should not be playing outside much.
Slashdot Mirror
You argue that the price of oil is less in the USA (based on a nominal exchange rate) because of its high GDP per capita and then use a PPP based GDP per capita calculation to back it up?
You're funny.
No. I'm GGxP said that the US is only 4% of the population and uses 25% of the world's oil. I pointed out that we have the largest economy in the world (or second if you count the EU as a single country) so it makes sense that we would use the most energy. Granted, we could be more efficient, but stop bitching that US uses more energy than Afghanistan, for example, because we produce more and live better lives than most countries that use less.
It should also be pointed out that the US is world's third largest oil producer. We just use much more than we produce. In order to fix this, the US must produce more AND use less. Personally, I would see nothing wrong with increasing production and taxing it to fund alternatives research. Unfortunately, neither side favors this. The left doesn't want to produce more and right doesn't want to tax it.
Kuwait is at #12 in the list you linked.
Whatever. Number 5 according to the World Bank and number 8 according to the CIA World Factbook.
The think with Kuwait is that the majority of the population is made up of immigrant labor. I don't know if these sources figure the Bangladeshies, Pakistanies, and other immigrants into the equation.
You are a liar, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita shows the US at around 10 or lower. But then, you quote Reagan, I suspect facts and figures just enrage you.
THIS site would disagree. Granted, the US is number 7, but only two European counties come in before that. Most of the countries in the top 7 are large oil exporters such as Qatar, Kuwait and the UAE.
I was going to say - if I only payed $5.00 a gallon I'd throw a party. Right around $8.50 (give or take based on the exchange rate) a gallon is what I consider normal.
I assume you realize that your high gas prices are the result of high taxation and not natural market forces. You live in a democracy, right? Maybe you should do something about your own high gas prices rather than criticizing those of us that do. Unless, of course, you like paying more, then good for you. Stop berating those of us who like to pay less.
In Europe we already pay around €1.60 per litre, which is almost $9 per gallon. Get over yourselves America. You are 4% of the world population using 25% of it's oil. There's your problem right there.
Well, our 4% of the population has the largest GDP per capita than anyone else in the world. In other words, yeah, we use the most energy, but we also produce the most stuff with that oil.
Has something changed, because Network Manager allowed user control over connecting to WLAN back in ... er ... 10.0 I think, or one of the 9. series. By default, in fact. I remember it annoyed me and it was uninstalled in short order, but it worked.
Personally, I'm not sure. I have not done wireless on Linux in quite some time and since I'm usually the only user on whatever system I'm using, meaning I set it up, I don't think twice about having to type in passwords. Being part of the sudoers group means I type my own password. It only becomes a problem when something like the file manager tells me that it does not have the permissions to eject the CD and doesn't know to ask for a my password. The sad part is that I am actually in the "root" group! What other group do I need to be part of? CDROM? Disk? Dbus? I don't know. I'll add myself to all of them and see if that takes care of the issue.
Now, imagine if this were a notebook and I was giving this to our sales rep to give a presentation at a potential customer's site.
Back to wireless, here is Torvald's post:
I first spent weeks arguing on a bugzilla that the security policy of requiring the root password for changing the timezone and adding a new wireless network was moronic and wrong.
I think the wireless network thing finally did get fixed, but the timezone never did - it still asks for the admin password.
And today Daniela calls me from school, because she can't add the school printer without the admin password.
Whoever moron thought that it's "good security" to require the root password for everyday things like this is mentally diseased.
So here's a plea: if you have anything to do with security in a distro, and think that my kids (replace "my kids" with "sales people on the road" if you think your main customers are businesses) need to have the root password to access some wireless network, or to be able to print out a paper, or to change the date-and-time settings, please just kill yourself now. The world will be a better place.
If I understand correctly this in effect would be giving that user root priviledges. I think his complaint was that an ordinary task like adding a printer required that level of priviledge, not that it was inconvinient to do. It sounded like he wanted to administer his childs laptop without giving them free reign over it.
He was also a bit pissed that you need the root password to connect to a new wifi hot spot. Could imagine the network admin's nightmare of having to give the root password to a salesman trying to give a presentation on the road?
I had the same problem with my Fedora 16 (XFCE Spin) box needed the root password to eject a CD. It really sucked that my file manager couldn't do it unless I ran it as root. I don't even know what the file manager's name to run as root and I shouldn't have to. Of course it was no big deal for me to type in "sudo eject cdrom", but I wouldn't expect the average user to know that. Besides, I shouldn't have to add standard users to the sudoers group just so they can swap a friggin CD out!
(leading to a world where hackers, tablet users, and grandma can all get along).
And that's the problem. When I'm on a tablet, I want a tablet interface. When I'm on a desktop, I want a DESKTOP interface.
Stop trying to make one interface to rule them all. When I can use a keyboard and mouse on a tablet, I'll consider having a desktop interface. Until then, KEEP THEM SEPARATE!
Aaaaaand cue Gnome bashing
Any time now.
No, bash is still fine.
If you are referring to the three cases HBO highlighted, two of those were found to be unrelated to fracking. The third, of course, was an issue and that land owner was compensated, probably quite well. As for the other two, it turns out that their water wells were drilled through three coal beds and contain NATURALLY occurring gas.
Sources? A serious request has I haven't seen anything that has ever mentioned alternative theories to the source of the gas in the water.
Certainly. HERE is an NPR article explaining the whole debate. As we all know, NPR is a right wing outfit that is in the pocket of big oil. Except, they are not. Here is an excerpt:
Some worry fracking fluid will leak out of a well and contaminate aquifers. In fact, a recent draft EPA study about water pollution in Pavilion, Wyo., does make that link. Fracking wastewater has also spilled and contaminated surface water.
But fracking does not put methane into tap water. Tap water blow torches, as seen in the documentary film Gasland, result from methane migration. Such movements of gas may or may not be related to drilling. But they do not result from fracking. And that’s an important distinction to make.
HERE is something describing the problem in 1983, before any friggin' fracking ever started.
Of course, you also have to have your BS detector on the most sensitive setting. Take this quote:
A study released Monday by five Duke University scientists found that drinking water wells near gas extraction sites had on average, 17 times higher levels of methane gas than wells that weren’t.
Um... maybe that's because there is no gas in the area, there will be no drilling. Of the places where they are NOT drilling, how many of those had as much natural gas in the ground as the places where they were drilling? Of course, that's not in the study, but common sense doesn't get grant money, doesn't get professors published and doesn't make headlines.
Also, note your sources. Anything called "CleanWater.org" is going to be against fracking. For that matter, I'm willing to bet these guys are against all forms of energy with the exception of wind or solar. To be fair, there are sites like NaturalGasAmerica.com (or whatever) that will do the same thing, but the tree-huggers outnumber them 10-1.
THIS looks interesting, but I don't have the time to view it right now.
From my research, it appears that NPR is right. Fracking may contaminate deep ground water. This is obvious since it is pushing high pressure water deep under ground (duh). Will that have any effect on wells, which are not terribly deep? Most of the time, no, but it is possible. This is why it's important to know the chemical makeup that the frackers are using. As long as it's not toxic, it shouldn't be a problem. But understand that even if they were pumping the cleanest, purest, distilled water into the ground, the environmentalists would oppose it. I've actually seen it happen here in Central Texas.
A school wanted to use river water, which comes out of the ground at a chilly 50 degrees F, to cool the air conditioning evaporators around campus. This would save a fortune in electricity bills for the school, use much less energy, which is green, and would allow the school to stop using the chemical mix they were using to cool the evaporators now. The cost would be that the water would be returned to the river downstream about one degree warmer. There were protests non stop for years. People would carry signs saying "Don't let SWT Kill the River!!!" Now, again, SWT was doing the environmentally conscious th
I just want to see what's "updated" about Inner Light. That was by far the best ST episode.
30% of our natural Gas production in the US comes from fracking. Producing energy is not completely safe no matter what method you use.
Nice straw man, but nobody's saying it should be "completely safe." There's a wide array of values between completely safe and deliberately ignoring what may be catastrophic environmental damage to satisfy a year or two of energy demand. Call me when your tap water is flammable and taking a shower presents a risk of explosion.
On second thought, don't bother.
If you are referring to the three cases HBO highlighted, two of those were found to be unrelated to fracking. The third, of course, was an issue and that land owner was compensated, probably quite well. As for the other two, it turns out that their water wells were drilled through three coal beds and contain NATURALLY occurring gas.
So, the way I see it, yeah, this could be a problem, but it appears that the system is taking care of itself. As for the two that drilled through the coal beds, I would be on the phone with the gas companies saying, "Hey, you guys missed some over here! Come get it and pay me." Provided I owned the mineral rights, of course.
Some sample pics, apparently:
http://cdn.conversations.nokia.com.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Archive2.zip
They look OK, and amazing for a phone.
I disagree. These are shot on a sunny day in a desert of objects that are not moving or are moving very slow. Show me a shot of dogs playing in doors at night with no more light that you would get from ceiling fan light fixture (say, four CFL bulbs). When that picture is good, I'll agree.
Also, look at these pics at 100%. I can see pixels! I shouldn't see pixels when viewed at 100%. My old Sony Mavica wouldn't show pixels when viewed at 100 percent and it had a maximum resolution of 640x480 and wrote to floppy disk!
That will allow higher iso settings, better low light pictures, etc.
That is what I want to see. I'm tired of having to turn on every light in my house and open all the blinds to get a good picture on my child doing whatever it is that she may be doing. And even then, if she is moving at all, it's going to come out blurry. Most of the time, I give up and go grab the DSLR and take the picture that way, but it certainly doesn't help when I'm on the road.
I want good, clear, low-light pictures of objects that were moving when the photo was taken. I simply don't think that is possible with a lens that is the diameter of a pencil.
The samples I've seen from this camera are out door shots in a friggin desert! I want indoor shots of a dog running taken with the window blinds closed, flash off, and no more light than what you would get from a standard lamp with a 15 watt CFL. When this shot is clear and bright, I'll buy that phone for the camera.
Quoting ArcherB:
> "I should also add that I will be conducting
> my own experiments in my basement with a neutrino cannon,
> flashlight and stop watch. If I see anything interesting,
> I'll post the results here."
Actually, if you get any results, please put them in the first post so everyone can see them.
If I get any interesting results, I'll post them yesterday.
I should also add that I will be conducting my own experiments in my basement with a neutrino cannon, flashlight and stop watch. If I see anything interesting, I'll post the results here.
If you want anything done right, you have to do it yourself!
Sorry, but they have found two errors already. I'm not going to buy extremely outlandish claims with two known failures already throwing off the results.
Sorry, CERN, but you need to pick up the workmanship before you can be taken seriously.
This is from another post of mine:
However, I think that "performance" should not be based solely on how well the students do this year, but should be based on the level of improvement shown from last year and how much they have learned since the beginning of this year. In other words, if your students perform at 40% national average, that may seem like the teacher sucks. But if those same students were at the 15% level last year, the teacher should be commended.
Actually, the better teachers should be stacked with a bunch of loser students. It's harder to teach those kids. The honor roll kids can handle the crappy teachers because these students tend to be self motivating.
building a new school or renovating an old one will takes years to decades of fighting over the tax revenues to pay for it.
Sorry, I cut off my own quote:
Stop sending kids to schools based on where they live, but actually give parents a choice as to where the students go and fund the schools accordingly.
You have *got* to be joking. You honestly think that schools can be increased in size automatically? I invite you to come to reality, where building a new school or renovating an old one will takes years to decades of fighting over the tax revenues to pay for it.
Really? Because in the reality I live in, when a school gets over crowded, they bring in these things called "temporary buildings" to serve as classrooms. They can be put up in less than a month and taken down in even less time. These are in place until a permanent structure is built to house the students, although, sometimes, it takes so long to build the additions that the temp building feel permanent.
Of course, that's in MY reality. I can't speak for the one you live in where there is only one solution to any given issue.
And yes, the well off families fill up good schools. This is because in most of America school revenue is tied to local taxes, primarily property. Live in a rich area, your school gets more resources, so you are getting first pick based on where you live. Sadly, this is somewhat of a zero sum game- read The Darwin Economy to see why it doesn't work very well in the long run.
Yeah, that's why I said in my original post:
Stop sending kids to schools based on where they live...
That's kinda the whole basis for my point. If you miss it, the whole thing falls apart.
The solution isn't that clear cut. In Florida (at least where I lived), we were allowed to choose any school we wanted for the child, so long as it was within their little district/area. What ended up happening is the more well off families filled the new, nice, "good" schools and all of the children with broken/criminal/poor families populated the one or two schools that were left at the end. Your solution may solve YOUR problem in your head, but it completely ignores any ramifications of such an act.
Why would the "well off" families fill the good schools up? Was there a bidding process so that the highest bidder got first pick?
Either way, in your district, they should increase the capacity of the "good" school (number of classrooms, not increase per class size) and start cutting classes from the poorer schools. First, this will increase the availability of the better school, allowing more students to attend. Next, Once enough of the teachers from the poorer school get fired, the remaining ones might start looking for ways to increase performance.
However, I think that "performance" should not be based solely on how well the students do this year, but should be based on the level of improvement shown from last year and how much they have learned since the beginning of this year. In other words, if your students perform at 40% national average, that may seem like the teacher sucks. But if those same students were at the 15% level last year, the teacher should be commended.
Job performance?
How is evaluating how students perform akin to how well a teacher taught their subjects?
Using a standard car analogy, i guess we can relate car accidents to how well the road repair crews are doing their job, correct?
You can't force students to learn. Until they devise a methodology for injecting knowledge directly into their brains the best teacher in the world cannot teach students who do not want to learn.
Because if a teacher taught a subject well, on average, the students in that teacher's class will perform better than a teacher who just assigned a chapter and tested on it. Every class will have losers in it. Those students were probably losers last year and will be losers next year. All of that is taken into consideration on evaluations. It's when a teacher takes one of those losers and makes him want to learn that the average goes up. Its when the bulk of the class responds to a teacher's methods that the average goes up. When a teacher does a good job, the whole class average goes up, whether there are losers in the class or not.
Tough rocks. A few shitty teachers made life a living hell for one of my kids so pardon me if I'm not on the worship-the-teacher bandwagon.
Why *shouldn't* they live under the same thumb they so firmly implant on their students?
In other words, let the good teachers be unfairly judged along with the bad ones. That surely creates the incentive needed to ensure the quality of educators children deserve.
No! You letting the good teachers show they are good teachers so that they may get rid of the crappy ones.
The teachers unions should take a page from this: Don't ruin the education or the credibility of all teachers for the sake of a few - embrase performance review and become a part of it
And the problem comparing autoworker unions and teacher unions is the lack of competition public education faces. If unions bring down an auto company, the company fails, or at least it is supposed to if it does not get federal funding. Education is going to get public money no matter what. For that matter, the worse they do, the more money they get. How many times have we heard, "The schools are failing. We must increase funding and pay teachers more!"?
The answer is to increase competition. Stop sending kids to schools based on where they live, but actually give parents a choice as to where the students go and fund the schools accordingly. The voucher program was an attempt to do this and has worked very well where it has been tried. It even leveled the playing field for kids who could never afford to go a private school. Of course, the teacher's unions rapidly opposed this and pulled out all the stops. The main argument was that it would cut funding to public schools. To which I answer, So? It may cut funding to PUBLIC schools, but it also cut the number of students. It did not cut funding to education, however, and all the kids still received an education. Not just any education, but the education the parents wanted them to receive while still meeting guidelines.
It is cold here in the winter time so kids cannot go out much.
If you can't understand the flaw in your logic, and you don't find issue with what you're saying, humanity is definitely doomed - especially if people like you are the majority.
When the high for the week is -5 Fahrenheit, children probably should not be playing outside much.