At 40 degrees latitude, snow slides off optimally angled solar panels. Actually, conveniently, in the latitudes where snow buildup is a problem, optimal panel angling will almost always get it to slide off, and in the borderline areas (35 degree-ish), the dark coloring of the panels should help melt off the light accumulations expected (or, you could just use a little energy to heat them up on the rare occasions there is a lot of sticky snow.)
Wouldn't it be more effective to build a "solar roof" over the highway, shading motorists during the hottest parts of the day, angling the panels to maximize insolation at the latitude, and for f's sake: not having to make them sturdy enough and grippy enough to safely drive trucks on them?
How long will this roadway last, and what will be the replacement cost? I mean, if this miracle surface can stop potholes from forming, then, yeah, let's put it everywhere, but I'm not feeling like that is the case.
Money is anything but a scarce resource, it is an imaginary construct.
Then please send me all of yours, then you can dream up some more for yourself.
I'm not the one who constructs it out of imagination, that would be the government - we are talking about government programs, aren't we? Their real problems aren't a lack of money, their real problems are available resources.
We can start with a basic understanding of disease transmission, how pregnancy actually happens (yes, before formal education Catholics teenagers have some pretty whacked out ideas about that), health, nutrition, etc.
Just picture "biologically uneducated" people in the year 1100AD... I think that's a pretty good analogy for my 1999 CEO's understanding of e-mail.
Well, in the county I grew up in, first the school board built themselves a brand new, luxurious 5 story glass administration building on the river, then when they ran out of ways to pamper their politically connected administrators, they turned around and cut taxes to minimally fund the schools to the legally required student-teacher ratios. Meanwhile, I'm attending high school in a "sick" building with a flat roof, water perpetually standing on top, A/C system that recirculates mold spores in all the classrooms - no opening windows in the building. Every fall when school starts, I come down with chronic bronchitis, which "clears up" in the summer a few days after school lets out - move to Miami (not exactly a mold-free zone) for University and the chronic bronchitis is miraculously cured. Oh, and class sizes running 30+ per teacher.
Plus, even if the equipment is free - donated and installed, including all utility hookup, required ventilation, fire suppression, etc. at no cost to the school, hell - pay the school $1000/year for the privilege of being the business that donated the appliances, some administrators would reject on the sole grounds that it is tying up a classroom (and teacher) on a "non-essential" course, and then trot out the lawsuit fears as a more politically acceptable reason whenever discussing why they won't accept the gift.
Around here, they've slashed art and music to a single teacher for a 1000 student elementary school, and they've discussed cutting them out altogether.
At the Government schools that I attended, the appliances were provided by either the Manufacturers or local businesses. The same thing for other equipment, tools, and supplies. Home Ec is a great and long-term advertising tool for business
Agreed, if you live in a county where somebody gives a _hit, they can get these things for free or virtually free. But, developing the relationship between businesses and schools takes time, and administrators who don't have their head so far up their own... that they care enough to take the time to accept the free gifts, provide dedicated classroom space for them, etc.
I've attended county level school board meetings where the reps were openly hostile to local businesses, actively rejected attempts to form mutually beneficial relationships, etc. because it might be construed by their electorate as "spending more money than is absolutely required by law."
Florida absolutely has taken 100% of lottery "funds for education" and used them to reduce property taxes. It's a shifting of the burden, not an increase of funding.
Dumping $4B into the system from the federal level to address the same old stuff would just be instantaneously translated into a tax break for property owners at the county level (who fund education) and create a big bureaucratic oversight program that would still fail to prevent fraud and mis-allocation of funds.
At least with a directed program, directed into an area that is currently hardly funded at all, we can hope to see something tangible as a result of the program - and if it demonstrates value, when federal funding is tapered off the local districts can continue the programs as they make sense for their local students. Right now, the local districts aren't willing to put in the up-front costs of starting something like this.
It's not about teaching everybody to be programmers of back-end, high reliability, heavy workload, widely deployed systems.
I think it's like teaching basic biology in high school, not because we will all become brain surgeons, but because that basic knowledge helps everyone (who has a biological body...)
We all use computers and right now most people have literally zero clue as to what goes on behind the interface.
Money is anything but a scarce resource, it is an imaginary construct.
Resources are scarce resources, and from what I can see, food and cooking appliances are relatively cheaper than they have ever been. When my parents started teaching school in the 1970s, a new stove would cost them close to two weeks take home pay, and the cost of food was significantly higher (as compared to a teacher's salary) then too.
Costs money to equip a classroom with appliances and supply it with raw materials used in cooking - money that can be "put to better use" increasing test scores and such, because increasing test scores increases funding in the NCLB model - teaching people practical life skills is not rewarded.
Not every computer science student is a programmer.
Being knowledgeable about computers, how they work, how to use them, and even how to program them, isn't about training the whole world to be programmers any more than teaching basic biology is about training the whole world to be doctors. Sure, your average high school graduate today has more, and more accurate, medical knowledge than your average physician of 1000 years ago, but that doesn't mean we're all physicians today.
"Computers" are still a black art for most people, the way medical science was 400 years ago. Everybody uses computers, but mostly they're just dumbfounded when it comes to knowing what's going on inside.
Cutting traffic on the network by 75% by reducing video quality that many people don't care about is a good thing for all users who might otherwise not be able to access the network due to congestion. If it bothers you opt out, including to another provider if you feel that put out by having to change a checkbox.
Now - making this traffic free while other traffic is metered.... um, not exactly neutral.
If a secret application were found, it would be a failure - but if a secret application remains undetectable to a week long investigation by the Daily Dot, doesn't that just rate it as minimally competent?
Maybe the editor is illiterate - I certainly wouldn't discount that possibility, but this could also be a pun attempt (failed, in my opinion) playing peace against the pieces found in Fischer construction kits.
Almost any change includes good and bad aspects; ergo, almost any change is an excuse to cry 'poor me' about the pain - and conveniently forget to mention mitigating factors.
Have some hope - I've been encountering more and more people in management who actually "get it" that telling somebody in a creative position to keep their nose to the grindstone longer isn't helping anyone.
15 or so years ago, I had to stand up for an EE under my charge when my management went off on him for "just sitting around reading magazines" the last 30-40 minutes of the day. Those magazines were trade journals, and in that day and time that was how you stayed current with available technology and designed the best solutions for your problems, where today you might browse the internet. Of course, my management was the traditionalist Rush Limbaugh consuming idiot type who was mostly concerned about covering his own ass for not being able to find investors or move product - since the engineers had already delivered on their promises but he had yet to deliver on any of his...
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sumdum - summer is a season, articles have summaries.
Installed cost lower, life lower, upkeep higher, sounds like a boomer project to me: just let the kids pay for it.
At 40 degrees latitude, snow slides off optimally angled solar panels. Actually, conveniently, in the latitudes where snow buildup is a problem, optimal panel angling will almost always get it to slide off, and in the borderline areas (35 degree-ish), the dark coloring of the panels should help melt off the light accumulations expected (or, you could just use a little energy to heat them up on the rare occasions there is a lot of sticky snow.)
It's an employment project, now you can pay people to wash the road every few days.
Wouldn't it be more effective to build a "solar roof" over the highway, shading motorists during the hottest parts of the day, angling the panels to maximize insolation at the latitude, and for f's sake: not having to make them sturdy enough and grippy enough to safely drive trucks on them?
How long will this roadway last, and what will be the replacement cost? I mean, if this miracle surface can stop potholes from forming, then, yeah, let's put it everywhere, but I'm not feeling like that is the case.
Money is anything but a scarce resource, it is an imaginary construct.
Then please send me all of yours, then you can dream up some more for yourself.
I'm not the one who constructs it out of imagination, that would be the government - we are talking about government programs, aren't we? Their real problems aren't a lack of money, their real problems are available resources.
content providers that don't pay an extra fee
Calling it a discount (or free) for some, but not all, is the EXACT SAME THING as charging some and not others.
We can start with a basic understanding of disease transmission, how pregnancy actually happens (yes, before formal education Catholics teenagers have some pretty whacked out ideas about that), health, nutrition, etc.
Just picture "biologically uneducated" people in the year 1100AD... I think that's a pretty good analogy for my 1999 CEO's understanding of e-mail.
Well, in the county I grew up in, first the school board built themselves a brand new, luxurious 5 story glass administration building on the river, then when they ran out of ways to pamper their politically connected administrators, they turned around and cut taxes to minimally fund the schools to the legally required student-teacher ratios. Meanwhile, I'm attending high school in a "sick" building with a flat roof, water perpetually standing on top, A/C system that recirculates mold spores in all the classrooms - no opening windows in the building. Every fall when school starts, I come down with chronic bronchitis, which "clears up" in the summer a few days after school lets out - move to Miami (not exactly a mold-free zone) for University and the chronic bronchitis is miraculously cured. Oh, and class sizes running 30+ per teacher.
Plus, even if the equipment is free - donated and installed, including all utility hookup, required ventilation, fire suppression, etc. at no cost to the school, hell - pay the school $1000/year for the privilege of being the business that donated the appliances, some administrators would reject on the sole grounds that it is tying up a classroom (and teacher) on a "non-essential" course, and then trot out the lawsuit fears as a more politically acceptable reason whenever discussing why they won't accept the gift.
Around here, they've slashed art and music to a single teacher for a 1000 student elementary school, and they've discussed cutting them out altogether.
Test scores don't mean shit and shouldn't translate to dollars.
Whoosh; he was making the same point you are...
'zactly... scores shouldn't translate to dollars, but they absolutely do, and have for the past 12 years or so, as mandated by federal law.
At the Government schools that I attended, the appliances were provided by either the Manufacturers or local businesses.
The same thing for other equipment, tools, and supplies.
Home Ec is a great and long-term advertising tool for business
Agreed, if you live in a county where somebody gives a _hit, they can get these things for free or virtually free. But, developing the relationship between businesses and schools takes time, and administrators who don't have their head so far up their own ... that they care enough to take the time to accept the free gifts, provide dedicated classroom space for them, etc.
I've attended county level school board meetings where the reps were openly hostile to local businesses, actively rejected attempts to form mutually beneficial relationships, etc. because it might be construed by their electorate as "spending more money than is absolutely required by law."
Florida absolutely has taken 100% of lottery "funds for education" and used them to reduce property taxes. It's a shifting of the burden, not an increase of funding.
Dumping $4B into the system from the federal level to address the same old stuff would just be instantaneously translated into a tax break for property owners at the county level (who fund education) and create a big bureaucratic oversight program that would still fail to prevent fraud and mis-allocation of funds.
At least with a directed program, directed into an area that is currently hardly funded at all, we can hope to see something tangible as a result of the program - and if it demonstrates value, when federal funding is tapered off the local districts can continue the programs as they make sense for their local students. Right now, the local districts aren't willing to put in the up-front costs of starting something like this.
It's not about teaching everybody to be programmers of back-end, high reliability, heavy workload, widely deployed systems.
I think it's like teaching basic biology in high school, not because we will all become brain surgeons, but because that basic knowledge helps everyone (who has a biological body...)
We all use computers and right now most people have literally zero clue as to what goes on behind the interface.
Money is anything but a scarce resource, it is an imaginary construct.
Resources are scarce resources, and from what I can see, food and cooking appliances are relatively cheaper than they have ever been. When my parents started teaching school in the 1970s, a new stove would cost them close to two weeks take home pay, and the cost of food was significantly higher (as compared to a teacher's salary) then too.
Costs money to equip a classroom with appliances and supply it with raw materials used in cooking - money that can be "put to better use" increasing test scores and such, because increasing test scores increases funding in the NCLB model - teaching people practical life skills is not rewarded.
Not every computer science student is a programmer.
Being knowledgeable about computers, how they work, how to use them, and even how to program them, isn't about training the whole world to be programmers any more than teaching basic biology is about training the whole world to be doctors. Sure, your average high school graduate today has more, and more accurate, medical knowledge than your average physician of 1000 years ago, but that doesn't mean we're all physicians today.
"Computers" are still a black art for most people, the way medical science was 400 years ago. Everybody uses computers, but mostly they're just dumbfounded when it comes to knowing what's going on inside.
Cutting traffic on the network by 75% by reducing video quality that many people don't care about is a good thing for all users who might otherwise not be able to access the network due to congestion. If it bothers you opt out, including to another provider if you feel that put out by having to change a checkbox.
Now - making this traffic free while other traffic is metered.... um, not exactly neutral.
Calling it a "freebie" or discount doesn't change the fact that it's a preferred provider tariff scheme.
Neutrality means that everybody gets equal access, not that the really big players get to push their traffic for less.
If they are not, I'd hardly call them "editor."
If a secret application were found, it would be a failure - but if a secret application remains undetectable to a week long investigation by the Daily Dot, doesn't that just rate it as minimally competent?
Maybe the editor is illiterate - I certainly wouldn't discount that possibility, but this could also be a pun attempt (failed, in my opinion) playing peace against the pieces found in Fischer construction kits.
Almost any change includes good and bad aspects; ergo, almost any change is an excuse to cry 'poor me' about the pain - and conveniently forget to mention mitigating factors.
Have some hope - I've been encountering more and more people in management who actually "get it" that telling somebody in a creative position to keep their nose to the grindstone longer isn't helping anyone.
15 or so years ago, I had to stand up for an EE under my charge when my management went off on him for "just sitting around reading magazines" the last 30-40 minutes of the day. Those magazines were trade journals, and in that day and time that was how you stayed current with available technology and designed the best solutions for your problems, where today you might browse the internet. Of course, my management was the traditionalist Rush Limbaugh consuming idiot type who was mostly concerned about covering his own ass for not being able to find investors or move product - since the engineers had already delivered on their promises but he had yet to deliver on any of his...