I don't have any mod points, but someone please mod this way up.
My wife and I are both teachers, and the number one problem we run into is parent apathy and/or values. All the folks in this discussion blaming teachers don't know what the hell they're talking about. It's not our training, it's not our unions, it's the parents. Parent who commute 2 hrs each way just to put food on the table don't have time to sit down with their kid and help with homework, let alone instill in the child the VALUE of doing the homework. Parents are either too busy chasing a dollar or chasing tail (look at the high divorce rate) or playing WoW or whatnot...to teach their children manners, respect, and the value of education.
So, take the average middle school child. He sees on TV and in magazines the high value we place on athletes and whores (Paris Hilton, etc) and pimps and gangsters (watch a movie, any movie), he sees how lavishly they live and the coin they make..... Compare that to the teacher he sees every day wearing crappy clothing because we can't afford any, he sees the crappy car we drive, pictures of the crappy homes we live in.... If there's no moderating influence at home, there simply will be no respect for teachers and education in general. Of course that directly translates into receiving a poor education.
But go ahead, blame us teachers who could all be making better money in the private sector but opt not to in order to try and make a better world.
I use Google Voice in conjunction with Gizmo on my PC, and it works brilliantly for free, cell-phone free calling. So I guess now we need a Gizmo app to complete the circuit, no?
I have Kodak's Easyshare EX811, one of their earlier models, and like some of the above posters, it's simply shocking how poor the firmware is in the device. It's a real near miss. The tech is there, the hardware is there, but the software feels like shackles on the user. Surely there are folks smarter than I in the open source community who've come up with their own, better firmware. I tried to Google some, but came up empty.
"...screeners get a narrow exception to the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches, strictly to keep weapons and explosives off planes, not to help police enforce other laws."
Hmm. Does this means it's ok now to carry my blow in my pocket when I fly home to visit the folks during Xmas? I'm tired of carrying it...up there.
"Relatively little is known about Nomura's jellyfish, such as why some years see thousands of the creatures floating across the Sea of Japan on the Tsushima Current, but last year there were virtually no sightings."
The purpose of welfare is to keep the poor poor, and thus ensure that there will always be jobs for Socialist politicians, who can offer to solve the problem.
This is arguably the single stupidest thing I've ever read on Slashdot. Ugh. Congrats on such an acclaim.
Though Aliens was fun, Alien is far superior a film since it was a true Sci-Fi/Horror experience. If they can recapture that slow, moody fear of the first film, I'm in! But the second I see explosion after explosion and excessive gunplay in any trailer, I'm out.
I've tried the past week fews in beta to like this game, but it's just not happening. Here's why:
-the graphics are too "cutesy." Everything has a soft glow to it, from the login screen to the actual environments. Even the Asmodean (sp?) lands feel too Hello Kitty-ish.
-the mobs are also "cutesy." Wheres the menace? Killing cute little bunny-bear hybrids isn't very viscerally exciting.
-the combat animations are apocalyptic. My dagger hits a mob and things EXPLODE! Wow, what happen when I'm level 20 and I hit a mob with my dagger? The nearby village detonates?
-the sounds effects are "cutsey." When you click on damn near anything, you hear a little "twinkle" effect. From NPC givers to loot, I constantly hear Mario gathering stars. (Oh, not to mention the choral music in the beginning which is simply dreadful and music I think I heard 10 years ago in a Final Fantasy game).
-the battle/combat sounds are hilariously bad. Every time my female scout take damage, I hear a 5 yr old child scrape her knee. Again, where's the grit, the menace, where's the fact that I'M FIGHTING, not picking flowers?
Sorry, but these are all deal-breakers. You can add a good story onto this (which btw, I didn't see), you can add flying onto this (nothing new here, AO let you do this, what, almost 10 years ago?), you can add PvP on top of this (what, to hear LOTS of 5 yr old girls scraping their knees)...but the game will still look and sound the same.
There is almost NOTHING I liked about UO, EQ, DAOC, AO, AC, WoW, you name it, there is almost NOTHING aesthetically in common in Aion with those great games of the past
No thanks, Aion, I outgrew Link and Mario and Princess Peach's cuteness 20 years ago.
Yep. It's amazing folks can kid themselves into thinking Mario and Sonic were actually superior to the games we play today. Sorry, it's simple nostalgia.
So, we're supposed to just take the word of a former KGB operative-turned journalist that what he wrote in his notebooks is historical truth? Sorry, till a Western historian gets access to the KGB archives (I personally know a couple who have) and publishes their results in a peer-review, Western historical journal, I won't believe a word I read.
Pres. Obama should have given her some modern World History texts to help the Queen understand that the very institution of monarchy is a dated and now worthless concept.
How's the battery life of an iPod touch running Stanza? The Kindle can last weeks, no?
I'm considering the same alternative, and am curious if the Kindle's battery life and Whispernet are worth it.
"When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not go free as male slaves do."
--Exodus 21:7
Condoning the selling of one's daughter into slavery, grooovy.
"Both thy bondmen, and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, [shall be] of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids."
--Leviticus 25:44
Condoning the possession of slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A friend of mine
claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians.
"Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day there shall be to you an holy day, a sabbath of rest to the LORD: whosoever doeth work therein shall be put to death."
--Exodus 35:2
Guess I'll just pop into Target on a Sunday and smite all the employees.
"[On the other hand], all creatures in seas and rivers that do not have fins and scales, whether they are small aquatic animals or other aquatic creatures, must be avoided by you."
--Leviticus 11:10
Hmmm, guess that those eating shrimp at the Red Lobster should also be smote!
"Do not cut off the hair on the sides of your head. Do not shave off the edges of your beard."
--Leviticus 19:27
DAMN! I just shaved. Guess I have to smite myself.
"The hare shall be unclean to you although it brings up its cud, since it does not have a true hoof. The pig shall be unclean to you although it has a true hoof which is cloven, since it does not chew its cud. Do not eat the flesh of any of these animals. [At this time] do not touch their carcasses, since they are unclean to you."
--Leviticus 11:6-8
Damn, guess all the NFL quarterbacks need smiting!
Yes, I should have been more clear. I was transitioning into the notion that we in America are constantly doing the same thing at our colleges and universities (I see it all the time at my college), but I, erm, kind of skipped over the transition, heh. Sorry.:)
As a professional educator, I find this type of class simply shameful pandering. It's no wonder we Americans are some of the least educated people in the industrialized world, wasting our time trying to make learning fun and cool! *facepalm*
Folks, please, I know many of you love Star Wars and Star Trek, but please, let them die. They were good in their heyday, but they've long since lost their appeal.
Science-fiction is about pushing the envelope, it's about seeing the world through a very different pair of glasses than the ones you're wearing now. It's about creativity and freshness.
There's NOTHING creative or fresh about the Star Trek and Star Wars IPs anymore.
Let them die so we can change glasses, consume some new content, and come back around to appreciating the one thing that makes humans so damn interesting: their ability to imagine.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't have any mod points, but someone please mod this way up.
My wife and I are both teachers, and the number one problem we run into is parent apathy and/or values. All the folks in this discussion blaming teachers don't know what the hell they're talking about. It's not our training, it's not our unions, it's the parents. Parent who commute 2 hrs each way just to put food on the table don't have time to sit down with their kid and help with homework, let alone instill in the child the VALUE of doing the homework. Parents are either too busy chasing a dollar or chasing tail (look at the high divorce rate) or playing WoW or whatnot...to teach their children manners, respect, and the value of education.
So, take the average middle school child. He sees on TV and in magazines the high value we place on athletes and whores (Paris Hilton, etc) and pimps and gangsters (watch a movie, any movie), he sees how lavishly they live and the coin they make..... Compare that to the teacher he sees every day wearing crappy clothing because we can't afford any, he sees the crappy car we drive, pictures of the crappy homes we live in.... If there's no moderating influence at home, there simply will be no respect for teachers and education in general. Of course that directly translates into receiving a poor education.
But go ahead, blame us teachers who could all be making better money in the private sector but opt not to in order to try and make a better world.
Emmerich is one of the worst directors in contemporary cinema. Please, the PTB need to keep him as far away from Foundation as humanly possible.
I use Google Voice in conjunction with Gizmo on my PC, and it works brilliantly for free, cell-phone free calling. So I guess now we need a Gizmo app to complete the circuit, no?
I have Kodak's Easyshare EX811, one of their earlier models, and like some of the above posters, it's simply shocking how poor the firmware is in the device. It's a real near miss. The tech is there, the hardware is there, but the software feels like shackles on the user. Surely there are folks smarter than I in the open source community who've come up with their own, better firmware. I tried to Google some, but came up empty.
The reason nobody's mentioned UFOs yet is because whatever it was originated from the Earth.
No, the reason nobody's mentioned UFOs yet is because this phenomenon was spotted over Norway, not Arkansas.
Bazinga!
"...screeners get a narrow exception to the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches, strictly to keep weapons and explosives off planes, not to help police enforce other laws."
Hmm. Does this means it's ok now to carry my blow in my pocket when I fly home to visit the folks during Xmas? I'm tired of carrying it...up there.
"Relatively little is known about Nomura's jellyfish, such as why some years see thousands of the creatures floating across the Sea of Japan on the Tsushima Current, but last year there were virtually no sightings."
Godzilla had the munchies?
"Oh Maggie, Maggie what did we do?"
I, too, blame Thatcher. Her legacy still stands strong. *sigh*
The purpose of welfare is to keep the poor poor, and thus ensure that there will always be jobs for Socialist politicians, who can offer to solve the problem.
This is arguably the single stupidest thing I've ever read on Slashdot. Ugh. Congrats on such an acclaim.
Though Aliens was fun, Alien is far superior a film since it was a true Sci-Fi/Horror experience. If they can recapture that slow, moody fear of the first film, I'm in! But the second I see explosion after explosion and excessive gunplay in any trailer, I'm out.
Religious nuts who believe in the necessity of an Armageddon/Apocalypse/Second Coming/End of Days are infinitely more dangerous than any robot.
I've tried the past week fews in beta to like this game, but it's just not happening. Here's why:
-the graphics are too "cutesy." Everything has a soft glow to it, from the login screen to the actual environments. Even the Asmodean (sp?) lands feel too Hello Kitty-ish.
-the mobs are also "cutesy." Wheres the menace? Killing cute little bunny-bear hybrids isn't very viscerally exciting.
-the combat animations are apocalyptic. My dagger hits a mob and things EXPLODE! Wow, what happen when I'm level 20 and I hit a mob with my dagger? The nearby village detonates?
-the sounds effects are "cutsey." When you click on damn near anything, you hear a little "twinkle" effect. From NPC givers to loot, I constantly hear Mario gathering stars. (Oh, not to mention the choral music in the beginning which is simply dreadful and music I think I heard 10 years ago in a Final Fantasy game).
-the battle/combat sounds are hilariously bad. Every time my female scout take damage, I hear a 5 yr old child scrape her knee. Again, where's the grit, the menace, where's the fact that I'M FIGHTING, not picking flowers?
Sorry, but these are all deal-breakers. You can add a good story onto this (which btw, I didn't see), you can add flying onto this (nothing new here, AO let you do this, what, almost 10 years ago?), you can add PvP on top of this (what, to hear LOTS of 5 yr old girls scraping their knees)...but the game will still look and sound the same.
There is almost NOTHING I liked about UO, EQ, DAOC, AO, AC, WoW, you name it, there is almost NOTHING aesthetically in common in Aion with those great games of the past
No thanks, Aion, I outgrew Link and Mario and Princess Peach's cuteness 20 years ago.
Try slacker.com, not sure if it works outside the US.
Yep. It's amazing folks can kid themselves into thinking Mario and Sonic were actually superior to the games we play today. Sorry, it's simple nostalgia.
So, we're supposed to just take the word of a former KGB operative-turned journalist that what he wrote in his notebooks is historical truth? Sorry, till a Western historian gets access to the KGB archives (I personally know a couple who have) and publishes their results in a peer-review, Western historical journal, I won't believe a word I read.
Does Charter have any kind of opt-out policy on this? They've been doing it to me for YEARS now in SoCal.
"...independent former Russian republic of Tatarstan..." Someone needs a basic lesson in geography and contemporary world politics.
Pres. Obama should have given her some modern World History texts to help the Queen understand that the very institution of monarchy is a dated and now worthless concept.
How's the battery life of an iPod touch running Stanza? The Kindle can last weeks, no? I'm considering the same alternative, and am curious if the Kindle's battery life and Whispernet are worth it.
"When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not go free as male slaves do." --Exodus 21:7 Condoning the selling of one's daughter into slavery, grooovy. "Both thy bondmen, and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, [shall be] of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids." --Leviticus 25:44 Condoning the possession of slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. "Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day there shall be to you an holy day, a sabbath of rest to the LORD: whosoever doeth work therein shall be put to death." --Exodus 35:2 Guess I'll just pop into Target on a Sunday and smite all the employees. "[On the other hand], all creatures in seas and rivers that do not have fins and scales, whether they are small aquatic animals or other aquatic creatures, must be avoided by you." --Leviticus 11:10 Hmmm, guess that those eating shrimp at the Red Lobster should also be smote! "Do not cut off the hair on the sides of your head. Do not shave off the edges of your beard." --Leviticus 19:27 DAMN! I just shaved. Guess I have to smite myself. "The hare shall be unclean to you although it brings up its cud, since it does not have a true hoof. The pig shall be unclean to you although it has a true hoof which is cloven, since it does not chew its cud. Do not eat the flesh of any of these animals. [At this time] do not touch their carcasses, since they are unclean to you." --Leviticus 11:6-8 Damn, guess all the NFL quarterbacks need smiting!
I've hidden a geocache inside my room(s) starting at http://www.lively.com/dr?rid=-8673303648343481619 It's part of a geocaching.com puzzle cache you can see at: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=089d9a0e-5747-48d8-aedb-ebb8d284e57a
Yes, I should have been more clear. I was transitioning into the notion that we in America are constantly doing the same thing at our colleges and universities (I see it all the time at my college), but I, erm, kind of skipped over the transition, heh. Sorry. :)
As a professional educator, I find this type of class simply shameful pandering. It's no wonder we Americans are some of the least educated people in the industrialized world, wasting our time trying to make learning fun and cool! *facepalm*
Folks, please, I know many of you love Star Wars and Star Trek, but please, let them die. They were good in their heyday, but they've long since lost their appeal.
Science-fiction is about pushing the envelope, it's about seeing the world through a very different pair of glasses than the ones you're wearing now. It's about creativity and freshness.
There's NOTHING creative or fresh about the Star Trek and Star Wars IPs anymore.
Let them die so we can change glasses, consume some new content, and come back around to appreciating the one thing that makes humans so damn interesting: their ability to imagine.
Kremlin in Moscow