I somehow think this is a problem that came before NCLB (2002). I'm pretty certain that NCLB was trying to fix the public schools, which implies that the problem went back significantly before NCLB.
I hope driving games aren't a great intro to get them to understand basic driving principles...
I'm one of those incredibly stupid, ignorant, Bible believing Christians, but I don't even think anything considered "scientific" should really have it's basic intro as a game... it seems like it'd be far to ambiguous, too subjective, etc.
There's a vast difference between a science class and a "general idea" view of something. The "general idea view" of something isn't something I feel like my tax dollars should be paying to teach, let alone paying to have a kid play a game.
I'm fairly certain, even in my ignorance and stupidity:)... I could give the general idea and basic evolutionary principles to a kid in less than several weeks. If you're only playing the game for 30 minutes, then I fail to see how it's "video game based." Actually, I fail to see, really, the point at all. It's not scientific (since when is a computer game part of the scientific method?) and it's not necessarily accurate (do all evolutionists agree that spore is How It Happened?). Even a video or something would be better.
Are games bad? No. Do they teach things? Yes. Do I think they belong in schools as a substitute for more... traditional ways of teaching? No. Do I think the current public school system is good? Far from it. Actually, I'm one of those "public school kids are awful" people. I don't think this new video-game-based idea will be much better.
Students may also play the evolution-inspired video game "Spore," but they get equally serious time with digital tools ranging from Maya 3D modeling to Adobe Flash.
In a public school? 3D modeling in 6th grade? Is that an elective (electives in 6th grade?), or what? I really fail to see how educational games and teaching 3D modeling is going to help the problem of kids not getting a good education in rather basic things like language and grammar.... and why inoculate them with Flash and Maya, since I'm on slashdot... why not, oh I don't know, Blender?
I am thinking more the difference between, say, jazz trumpet and classical trumpet. You can use the same horn, but different playing style, and sometimes different techniques. Definitely a different sound is desired...
Of course, a lot of it has to do with education... but a lot of education has to do with what your philosophy of life is.
For example... more recently, it seems, individualism has been raised to an incredibly high pedestal. It no longer really matters what others think, as long as you think you're doing the right thing. It doesn't matter what your parents teach you; in fact, your parents really don't know anything. It doesn't matter how well you do in school, as long as you are popular and have "social skills." It doesn't matter how you succeed in your line of work, as long as you think you do well. It doesn't matter what kind of art you produce, as long as it's "self expression." It doesn't really matter what you learn, as long as you LIKE learning it.
With that sort of prevailing pop-culture attitude/philosophy, how CAN scientific endeavors thrive? There's no reason to look or learn about science. It's just some other guy's research, why would I want to read about it? Why should I care?
There IS a correlation between some historical scientific figures and their philosophy of life. For example, some believed in a Creator, and that had a great deal to do with their philosophy of science, and thus gave them a reason to pursue it. That's just one example, there are examples of completely atheistic scientists too, I suppose.
Short version: if your philosophy of science (which comes from your philosophy of life) gives you no reason to pursue scientific endeavors (including "education") then why should I expect you to do so?
And, at least in the US, when our schools promote a rather distinctly weak philosophy of life and philosophy of science, when the schools are more interested in "educating" with political and social agendas instead of actual useful educations..
I actually came from a homeschooling situation and then went to a public junior college for a year or two. I learned far more before high school than most of my junior college peers knew... and not just in scientific subjects, but things like grammar and vocabulary. As for what I missed socially and politically... yes, I did miss out on some things. Like drugs and learning that wearing pants such that you have to hold them up with one hand is "cool." And learning that treating girls like sex objects is a good thing to do. And learning that lying and cheating is the way to succeed and get an education... or at least get through high school. Somehow, these kids were in "college," presumably "graduated" from high school, and didn't even know what an "adjective" or "adverb" was... let alone how to do simple algebra or what in the world an ion is.
I think there's something wrong with a lot of our philosophy... philosophy of education, of science, of life... and it distinctly shows up in schools. It seems that the ones I saw in my limited public school experience that succeeded were of two kinds. The first: they came from a family that promoted (or required) a different philosophy. The second: they were older people that realized what a failure the philosophy they had or their family had, and were now working to fix it by finishing their education and actually working hard and learning. I very much respected the older (30s and 40s) students in my classes because I knew they were likely having a harder time than I was (had children, had full time jobs, etc) but were still dedicated to doing it. I didn't particularly respect the normal-aged college students that didn't care about learning and just didn't want to get an F, because then they'd have to take the class over again (what a drag!)...
So, all this means is: try it before you buy it. Many retail stores have display models of netbooks these days. Try using it before you spend $300+ on it. I tried three models before getting one for my sister. On one, I could not type more than a few words on the keyboard without hitting the enter key, which was in a weird spot... or something like that. On another, it didn't look too great. I settled for the third. The touchpad buttons are too stiff, but other than that it's been working great. Would *I* want to use one? No, not personally.
at least, 334 people died after taser shocks between 2001 and 2008.
Let's see other stats, too. How many of those people were armed? How many people died from police guns? How many times was the taser used? A random stat from an opponent of tasers is not going to help anything, probably, more than a random stat from an advocate of tasers...
I'm actually curious about what you'd suggest though. I'm not a troll, I'm just sarcastic.... hehe.
Yes, physical violence is something police have to be extremely careful about. And gun usage. Even just holding the gun. Tasers get a free pass? I kinda doubt that, but I'll believe it if you show me where it says that police using tasers are exempt from police brutality accusations...
"People get Tasered for merely asking questions." Yes, most people that get tasered are innocently standing there, hands in the air, asking how the weather is. I'm not saying you can't use it to abuse power or that abuse of power doesn't happen. But that happens with all other forms of weapons. Including fists and handcuffs. So is the issue the taser or is the issue the policeman's abuse of power? I don't see how taking away a less-lethal weapon is going to help.
OK, so let's make some policies about using tasers. I'm fine with that. Limiting the ability of police's abuse is fine with me. On the other hand, I'd rather not make it, as seems to be popular, something like... if a policeman touches his taser and his suspect is unarmed, it is police brutality....
It's a pretty difficult issue, and I don't think the fix is simply to toss the taser and remove guns from policemen (which some have advocated), nor are simple "policies" going to fix it. That will, at best, just fix the police report for those police that want to abuse the power they have. On the other hand, if criminals (like, say, Garrido) can serve what, 10 out of his 57 years, and then get a Get Out of Jail Free card... well, maybe we should start thinking about punishing criminals as strictly as we want to punish police, too. I get tired of the sympathize-with-criminals while complaining-about-police news... not everyone is a criminal, and not all police are power abusers. I see just as much "badness" in letting a criminal out of jail easily as not punishing an abusive policeman...
I'm curious. What do you suggest police use? Here is your criteria:
It has to be quick.
It has to more or less immobilize.
It apparently cannot have any negative effects?
It cannot even have the potential of killing someone.
It cannot come from "science."
Slightly tongue in cheek and sarcastic, of course. I realize police brutality exists. Civilian brutality does, too... and so far, all the police that I have met have been pretty good citizens and good police men. The brutal police make the news, not the other ones. So, what exists for a police to use that is capable of immobilizing a suspect (let's assume he's dangerous and he's running around a crowd of people and they need to immobilize him *now* to prevent harm to innocent bystanders). Guns work well, but that's significantly more lethal than a taser. Tasers appear to work quite well, but there is a chance of killing the person (less of a chance with a gun though). It has to be something that doesn't affect anyone else (e.g., some sort of spray wouldn't work)...
Frankly, I'm glad there ARE police. Bad ones definitely exist, but it appears that they are far fewer than the good ones. Bad civilians exist, too... probably more, proportionately, than bad police. And they don't care if the weapon THEY use is non-lethal...
Yeah, Microsoft certainly can't use a common word ending like "plex" for its own gain, that's stealing. Google clearly had a the creative idea. Nobody came up with any other "plex" based names before Google... like megaplex, supaplex, Com Plex, Plex...
You do? I go to google and search for "safari." Or just type it into a browser's bar and let it search for me. But I'll humor the idea for a minute. What if I wnat to know about the iTouch? I'll go to http://www.apple.com/itouch. Nope, page not found. http://www.apple.com/nano? No.../ipod? ah-ha!... it redirects me to/itunes. That makes sense. If I want to know about the iTouch, I should have gone to/itunes!... ??
IMO, nobody uses anything more than the top level domain and possibly subdomains. At least, most people. At least, most people that would be actually interested in the usability of the main page... who goes to "microsoft.com" to look for a random Microsoft Office plugin? Google is where most people go.
I phrased it wrong. I meant to put quotes around it. i.e., "Apple's site is better than Microsoft's. I wonder why?" In other words, the article was setting out to show why they had the conclusion they already had, not to actually gather a conclusion from an objective set of standards.
Just for argument's sake, the critique of what the "turn off" button should have been is ridiculous. There should only be one "off" button? Basically, he assumes a ton... like you don't want to have to choose between power off, log off, and sleep... that you shouldn't have to choose between sleep and hibernate... etc.
My desktop computer presumably has the ability to sleep and hibernate but due to some weird BIOS stuff, it doesn't work well. In fact, it messes up the BIOS systems. I'm sure glad I'm able to tell Windows to power off and NOT sleep/hibernate.
Not saying the Vista version is good... but seriously, the critique of narrowing it down to one button is stupid and shortsighted and presumes you have the latest hardware, don't need to save power, etc.
Fadeyev remarks that Apple has remained consistent in their approach for many years and uses the home page as an âoeadvertising boardâ. The âoemain ad at the top is hugeâ while the rest of the page has just a few items and lacks any content âoemaking the decision of where to go next easierâ.
Yet, later on, Tim Anderson criticizes Microsoft, saying it's too hard to get past all the marketing. So Apple gets brownie points for having an advertising-board-style main page with little content, and Microsoft gets dinged for having too much marketing and too little content. Hm.
To me, the entire article strikes me as having been written this way: Apple's site is better than Microsoft's. I wonder why?
Slashdot Mirror
I somehow think this is a problem that came before NCLB (2002). I'm pretty certain that NCLB was trying to fix the public schools, which implies that the problem went back significantly before NCLB.
Spore actually presents the creationist viewpoint in a silly and satirical fassion
Hm. I fail to see why that should be in schools, then.
I hope driving games aren't a great intro to get them to understand basic driving principles...
I'm one of those incredibly stupid, ignorant, Bible believing Christians, but I don't even think anything considered "scientific" should really have it's basic intro as a game... it seems like it'd be far to ambiguous, too subjective, etc.
There's a vast difference between a science class and a "general idea" view of something. The "general idea view" of something isn't something I feel like my tax dollars should be paying to teach, let alone paying to have a kid play a game.
I'm fairly certain, even in my ignorance and stupidity :) ... I could give the general idea and basic evolutionary principles to a kid in less than several weeks. If you're only playing the game for 30 minutes, then I fail to see how it's "video game based." Actually, I fail to see, really, the point at all. It's not scientific (since when is a computer game part of the scientific method?) and it's not necessarily accurate (do all evolutionists agree that spore is How It Happened?). Even a video or something would be better.
Are games bad? No. Do they teach things? Yes. Do I think they belong in schools as a substitute for more ... traditional ways of teaching? No. Do I think the current public school system is good? Far from it. Actually, I'm one of those "public school kids are awful" people. I don't think this new video-game-based idea will be much better.
Students may also play the evolution-inspired video game "Spore," but they get equally serious time with digital tools ranging from Maya 3D modeling to Adobe Flash.
In a public school? 3D modeling in 6th grade? Is that an elective (electives in 6th grade?), or what? I really fail to see how educational games and teaching 3D modeling is going to help the problem of kids not getting a good education in rather basic things like language and grammar.... and why inoculate them with Flash and Maya, since I'm on slashdot... why not, oh I don't know, Blender?
My mistake. You can tell I don't particularly like either one. :)
I am thinking more the difference between, say, jazz trumpet and classical trumpet. You can use the same horn, but different playing style, and sometimes different techniques. Definitely a different sound is desired...
Just make sure you like fish, preferably sushi.
That's more of a fiddle player's song. No difference in the instrument, necessarily, but definitely a difference in the player/technique.
no one will be able to use the government systems anymore.
Or maybe the government will change the way it "finds" web developers to make "bids."
Of course, a lot of it has to do with education... but a lot of education has to do with what your philosophy of life is.
For example... more recently, it seems, individualism has been raised to an incredibly high pedestal. It no longer really matters what others think, as long as you think you're doing the right thing. It doesn't matter what your parents teach you; in fact, your parents really don't know anything. It doesn't matter how well you do in school, as long as you are popular and have "social skills." It doesn't matter how you succeed in your line of work, as long as you think you do well. It doesn't matter what kind of art you produce, as long as it's "self expression." It doesn't really matter what you learn, as long as you LIKE learning it.
With that sort of prevailing pop-culture attitude/philosophy, how CAN scientific endeavors thrive? There's no reason to look or learn about science. It's just some other guy's research, why would I want to read about it? Why should I care?
There IS a correlation between some historical scientific figures and their philosophy of life. For example, some believed in a Creator, and that had a great deal to do with their philosophy of science, and thus gave them a reason to pursue it. That's just one example, there are examples of completely atheistic scientists too, I suppose.
Short version: if your philosophy of science (which comes from your philosophy of life) gives you no reason to pursue scientific endeavors (including "education") then why should I expect you to do so?
And, at least in the US, when our schools promote a rather distinctly weak philosophy of life and philosophy of science, when the schools are more interested in "educating" with political and social agendas instead of actual useful educations..
I actually came from a homeschooling situation and then went to a public junior college for a year or two. I learned far more before high school than most of my junior college peers knew... and not just in scientific subjects, but things like grammar and vocabulary. As for what I missed socially and politically... yes, I did miss out on some things. Like drugs and learning that wearing pants such that you have to hold them up with one hand is "cool." And learning that treating girls like sex objects is a good thing to do. And learning that lying and cheating is the way to succeed and get an education... or at least get through high school. Somehow, these kids were in "college," presumably "graduated" from high school, and didn't even know what an "adjective" or "adverb" was... let alone how to do simple algebra or what in the world an ion is.
I think there's something wrong with a lot of our philosophy... philosophy of education, of science, of life... and it distinctly shows up in schools. It seems that the ones I saw in my limited public school experience that succeeded were of two kinds. The first: they came from a family that promoted (or required) a different philosophy. The second: they were older people that realized what a failure the philosophy they had or their family had, and were now working to fix it by finishing their education and actually working hard and learning. I very much respected the older (30s and 40s) students in my classes because I knew they were likely having a harder time than I was (had children, had full time jobs, etc) but were still dedicated to doing it. I didn't particularly respect the normal-aged college students that didn't care about learning and just didn't want to get an F, because then they'd have to take the class over again (what a drag!)...
So, all this means is: try it before you buy it. Many retail stores have display models of netbooks these days. Try using it before you spend $300+ on it. I tried three models before getting one for my sister. On one, I could not type more than a few words on the keyboard without hitting the enter key, which was in a weird spot... or something like that. On another, it didn't look too great. I settled for the third. The touchpad buttons are too stiff, but other than that it's been working great. Would *I* want to use one? No, not personally.
at least, 334 people died after taser shocks between 2001 and 2008.
Let's see other stats, too. How many of those people were armed? How many people died from police guns? How many times was the taser used? A random stat from an opponent of tasers is not going to help anything, probably, more than a random stat from an advocate of tasers...
I'm actually curious about what you'd suggest though. I'm not a troll, I'm just sarcastic.... hehe.
Yes, physical violence is something police have to be extremely careful about. And gun usage. Even just holding the gun. Tasers get a free pass? I kinda doubt that, but I'll believe it if you show me where it says that police using tasers are exempt from police brutality accusations...
"People get Tasered for merely asking questions." Yes, most people that get tasered are innocently standing there, hands in the air, asking how the weather is. I'm not saying you can't use it to abuse power or that abuse of power doesn't happen. But that happens with all other forms of weapons. Including fists and handcuffs. So is the issue the taser or is the issue the policeman's abuse of power? I don't see how taking away a less-lethal weapon is going to help.
OK, so let's make some policies about using tasers. I'm fine with that. Limiting the ability of police's abuse is fine with me. On the other hand, I'd rather not make it, as seems to be popular, something like ... if a policeman touches his taser and his suspect is unarmed, it is police brutality....
It's a pretty difficult issue, and I don't think the fix is simply to toss the taser and remove guns from policemen (which some have advocated), nor are simple "policies" going to fix it. That will, at best, just fix the police report for those police that want to abuse the power they have. On the other hand, if criminals (like, say, Garrido) can serve what, 10 out of his 57 years, and then get a Get Out of Jail Free card... well, maybe we should start thinking about punishing criminals as strictly as we want to punish police, too. I get tired of the sympathize-with-criminals while complaining-about-police news... not everyone is a criminal, and not all police are power abusers. I see just as much "badness" in letting a criminal out of jail easily as not punishing an abusive policeman...
Fists can be lethal, too.
Fists might just have some negative effects.
I'm curious. What do you suggest police use? Here is your criteria:
Slightly tongue in cheek and sarcastic, of course. I realize police brutality exists. Civilian brutality does, too... and so far, all the police that I have met have been pretty good citizens and good police men. The brutal police make the news, not the other ones. So, what exists for a police to use that is capable of immobilizing a suspect (let's assume he's dangerous and he's running around a crowd of people and they need to immobilize him *now* to prevent harm to innocent bystanders). Guns work well, but that's significantly more lethal than a taser. Tasers appear to work quite well, but there is a chance of killing the person (less of a chance with a gun though). It has to be something that doesn't affect anyone else (e.g., some sort of spray wouldn't work)...
Frankly, I'm glad there ARE police. Bad ones definitely exist, but it appears that they are far fewer than the good ones. Bad civilians exist, too... probably more, proportionately, than bad police. And they don't care if the weapon THEY use is non-lethal...
again ... or for once or now and then perhaps?
I take it you don't play musical instruments (with sheet music) a whole lot. :)
This comment is worded exactly as intended. Any application of lame "Fixed that for you" jokes will be "dealt with."
Fixed that for you.
(period inside the quotation marks)
Must be cloud based. Talking to servers on the clouds takes a lot longer, as clouds are farther away than earth-based servers.
I'm more at risk of somebody going through my trash.
There's a reason people buy paper shredders.
Yeah, Microsoft certainly can't use a common word ending like "plex" for its own gain, that's stealing. Google clearly had a the creative idea. Nobody came up with any other "plex" based names before Google... like megaplex, supaplex, Com Plex, Plex...
www.microsoft.com/office -> office online
www.microsoft.com/office2007 -> office 2007.
www.microsoft.come/zune -> ...
they all appear to work as well. I fail to see how this is a point for apple :)
You go to apple.com/safari [apple.com]
You do? I go to google and search for "safari." Or just type it into a browser's bar and let it search for me. But I'll humor the idea for a minute. What if I wnat to know about the iTouch? I'll go to http://www.apple.com/itouch. Nope, page not found. http://www.apple.com/nano? No... /ipod? ah-ha! ... it redirects me to /itunes. That makes sense. If I want to know about the iTouch, I should have gone to /itunes! ... ??
IMO, nobody uses anything more than the top level domain and possibly subdomains. At least, most people. At least, most people that would be actually interested in the usability of the main page... who goes to "microsoft.com" to look for a random Microsoft Office plugin? Google is where most people go.
I phrased it wrong. I meant to put quotes around it. i.e., "Apple's site is better than Microsoft's. I wonder why?" In other words, the article was setting out to show why they had the conclusion they already had, not to actually gather a conclusion from an objective set of standards.
What is "it" ? The summary clearly says full screen YouTube videos. I thought - could be wrong - those were all flash based...
Just for argument's sake, the critique of what the "turn off" button should have been is ridiculous. There should only be one "off" button? Basically, he assumes a ton... like you don't want to have to choose between power off, log off, and sleep... that you shouldn't have to choose between sleep and hibernate... etc.
My desktop computer presumably has the ability to sleep and hibernate but due to some weird BIOS stuff, it doesn't work well. In fact, it messes up the BIOS systems. I'm sure glad I'm able to tell Windows to power off and NOT sleep/hibernate.
Not saying the Vista version is good... but seriously, the critique of narrowing it down to one button is stupid and shortsighted and presumes you have the latest hardware, don't need to save power, etc.
Fadeyev remarks that Apple has remained consistent in their approach for many years and uses the home page as an âoeadvertising boardâ. The âoemain ad at the top is hugeâ while the rest of the page has just a few items and lacks any content âoemaking the decision of where to go next easierâ.
Yet, later on, Tim Anderson criticizes Microsoft, saying it's too hard to get past all the marketing. So Apple gets brownie points for having an advertising-board-style main page with little content, and Microsoft gets dinged for having too much marketing and too little content. Hm.
To me, the entire article strikes me as having been written this way: Apple's site is better than Microsoft's. I wonder why?