As someone who lives 40 miles from the nearest walmart, I mail order just about everything I can. The cost in time and fuel doesn't even compare, I'd go broke only shopping "local"[actually "regional"] (and have little for choices) and rack up many fewer billable working hours. I run a mail-order business too (which happens to take orders by internet, phone, fax, snailmail, pigeon or dogsled).
I live on an old freight rail line. From here we still send you wheat, corn and soybeans. In the early years, it was the rails that brought most of the goods, and it was made available for pick up (or distribution) at the (very) local level. Initially, of course, you had to walk, ride your horse or drive your wagon to town (which could take a day). But it surely beat months of travel going several hundred miles overland to the nearest "real city" I'm sure. Don't ask me about the carbon footprint of these things: don't know, don't care.
Sears Roebuck was the "biggie" (probably akin to WalMart now) and their catalog + rails made availability of almost anything/everything to the hinterlands for a price. There really are "kit houses" out here that were ordered from Sears back in the day.
The internet + shipping serves in the same capacity now.
Yes, I will go "hunt down" my to-be-purchased prey in person when I can, it's way more fun and satisfying to triumphantly tote the "pelt" out of the store. But, the hunting is really boring in the more remote areas like this, most of the time. And many things (like most of the supplies I require to manufacture) aren't even available locally. Several of my suppliers that make proprietary items for me, also live in remote areas, and using the transport/ freight systems... we're able to do enough business that I only have to leave my immediate environs once a week. Once every 2-3 weeks if I choose to plan out farther. They don't need to leave home much either.
Groceries-- those I have to personally purchase. Nobody ships produce door-to-door here that I'm aware of. But if there was a firm that did for a reasonable price, I'd be using that too. (Or if the grocery 12 miles away offered delivery, I'd take them up on the offer).
I can't see how this is LESS "green".
What costs more, 25 people a day from here driving the 40 miles to town for a doc appt or a doc driving out once a week to take care of the basics of those same people in a small outreach office?
Society has gone through periods of more or less efficiency overall. In tougher times, you figure out the shipping costs WAY LESS than the fuel to get to town (in my case, I have to order from 3 different outfits with avg shipping to account for the fuel to get to town and back just once).
The cost can't be more than that for the shippers, else the shipment would cost me more than going myself. Very LARGE or weighty items, I am better off to drive a considerable distance (packing peanuts-- don't weigh much, cost a fortune for mere volume to have shipped). In this case, I can drive 200 miles, make an overnight trip if I choose, eat at a good restaurant/visit friends and end up breaking even or coming out ahead of having the same volume shipped. You just pick which deal works best in time vs. money on that score.
What the internet and shipping items by mail (especially smaller items) does is provide huge universal access to all manner of things you want (and didn't know you wanted) at what is probably the least possible cost overall. Especially if you live in a remote area. If you live in a place where you can walk around the block and examine the goods in a number of stores, having the same items shipped you could get locally wouldn't work out as neatly, no doubt.
I do buy locally whatever it is they have that I need/want. It would make things really lousy if we had NO businesses at all out here. I can get basic groceries, basic hardware and autoparts. (40 miles for a ream of paper though).
I get all this "digital" crap via cable-- and I wondered if the newer tv sets handled things more gracefully than the what I have. I'm guessing not.
I do a lot of work at my bench daily and listen to a lot of tv for background noise. It has to get really bad before I can't follow analog, but the digital stuff-- if the wind is blowing, it rains or there's sunspots or whatever, it's a continual snap crackle and pop as the signal comes on, and goes off. The sound is gone first, the picture is garbled/pixelated to various degrees, or just plain freezes or goes to black/blue screen (depending on tv). You really DO lose a lot of continuity with those outages... to the point I have to shut it off to keep from bashing it in.
I have no intention to purchase a "better tv" and no interest in directTV or similar either. From my perspective, I fail to see where this "digital" thing is an "improvement". If the message can't be followed... it's inferior. Just what I want, an important weather warning to go to blue screen....
Someone should shoot these people that come up with these concoctions for security solutions. Public flogging perhaps. This sort of thing is already in the process of being implemented for our livestock. And while a person might think this is a great idea for cattle, the USDA is also pushing for the same type of deal for horses, fish, chickens (and at one time dogs, cats etc.)
Geeks gone wild just following what does and doesn't work so far just from the technical/hardware aspects.Go look up the field tests of the equipment and such, you'll have a field day.
The fight over the NAIS implementation is especially a big deal in Washington state, I understand, as proponents there are pushing it hard. Those who will be affected by it are pushing equally hard.
The problems are more than just controlling/documenting movement of animals, its also about where and how this information will be stored and who will have access.... where does the money and personnel come from to deal with all this?
As a horse owner, it's starting to look like ultimately I won't be able to feed them without reporting it, and horses aren't even part of the typical US food supply. So while a person might find this a "necessary" thing for our food safety, the fact they're wanting to track and regulate the movement of species that are for all intents and purposes pets at this point... should give anyone cause to ponder what may be coming next. In the interest of "safety" and "anti-terrorism" of course.
Sure, they might be tech-savvy, some of our customers are. But, time and again we've invested $1k in time and sold $10 maybe. The site is not complex, just huge. The noframes text points to a site index page with direct links to everything. However, I can see cobbling up an order form catering to cell phones... that's not much hassle.
Anyway, thank you for taking the time to verify that the cell phone browsers aren't frames-savvy:) We can at least embark on making sure the noframes text is relevant...
Recently we were combing through the site logs, and noticed we indeed DID have some cell-phone access to our site. Which to me was about as weird as seeing recent access to some ancient "noframes" text that hadn't been popping up on the site logs for quite some time.
We still hand-code here... long story as to why.
Nevertheless, I was wondering if the no-frames access was related to the cell phone access? (My own access to the logs is only to the overview reports, not the full log entries, so I'm not able to determine that.)
The only reason I know the no-frames text has been viewed, is because we always put a link to a particular jumper page there that we put nowhere else, so we could tell...:) The darned site goes back to when Netscrape 3 and frames was brand-spankin new so it's pretty much an artifact at this point... but *someone* is out there still looking at it. LOL
Anyway, after noticing the cell phone accesses, I went looking to see if there was anything I needed to know or do different (I was hoping NOT) and if it was going to be worth it. I didn't find any information at all (regarding anything notable needed for cell phone access) when searching at google, so I chose to ignore it (except for making sure the no-frames text is still relevant as we go through regular maintenance...)
All I can say about html and webstuff at this point is.... MAKE IT STOP! MAKE IT STOP! lol
Wow, quite an article there-- which I don't buy. I live near/next to a sizable windfarm in Kansas (insert expected KS wind references here) and with minimal population in this county, I think I'd have heard about piles of dead birds among other things. (Pheasant season has actually been quite good this year, not that they ever fly high enough to encounter a turbine blade). I do, however, see plenty of birds (most notably hawks) on the roadside. They like to hunt by headlight at night you know... and when we figure out why the chicken crossed the road, we may have some insight as to why pheasants seem to cross only when there's oncoming traffic...
There are maintenance workers regularly driving/working around the turbines, but since the turbines are planted in farmed land... tractors and other farming equipment routinely "disturb" and "displace" the wildlife anyway. Although, this may be a different proposition in other environments.
There are 170 turbines here, and about half the time they will show up as a blip on the national weather radar--- so yeah, obviously it has an effect on the doppler and other weather detection systems.
This being Kansas, yes, those turbines are pretty ostentatious standing out there in the middle of....um... not much.
I'd rather have those turbines out there than some of the other energy-generating options. It's not like we (as a society in general) necessarily have a choice... energy sources are an issue that need to be dealt with in any number of ways to solve them. I just wish I had some farmground to lease out to them...
I have, however (since moving the kids out of the house) managed to keep lights and everything that doesn't NEED to be on, turned off-- and as a result have been saving about $75/month on my utility bill. That's simple conservation, and that is a 25-40% bill reduction (depending upon weather and season).
I first remember Pong being the rage, and then who can forget Space Invaders at the arcade, then PacMan? I remember a text game on the big college mainframe called "Adventure". When I married, my spouse came with an intellivision. Later there was a nintendo with Mario and Zelda. Super NES after that. I think my son had a PS2, an Xbox, hocked them then recently got another PS2. I got my own PS2 when my kids were in high school, so I could play FFX.
How did it work? Well my x (yup, now an x) played sometimes, and sometimes I did. The kids often watched and when they got older, (around 10 or so) they often played, particularly my son. My daughter never did get into games much, even to this day.
There were times when there'd be a lot of game-playing and somebody staying up all night on a weekend, and months or even years of no game play at all. Games cost, and there's so many other things your meager dollars need to go to. Music kind of went into that same black hole of "not enough $$ to go around" as well for quite a few years.
At this point, my son is grown, married and gone, has a son of his own. My daughter is off to college. So now that it's just me, the dog and the cat, and I live in a remote area... well, I get to do about as much gaming as I can stand, if and when I want:) My son still plays games (my daughter still has little interest). So now we're to the point that my son and I can play the same game and call each other to exchange tips and gripes since we don't live close to each other:) Finally, after all these years, I get to be the COOL mom! LOL The big gamers in this house were myself and my son. My daughter comes home from college and we do a lot of gourmet cooking:)
Still the gaming is an on/off thing for me to this day. I might sink a month or two of nights/weekends in on a big rpg or adventure game, and then the console won't be powered up for a year or more. Or, I'll get on the computer and spend a couple of weeks trying to best Civ or Caesar III still. Only if I see a game that interests me enough to check it out, will I get a new one. There's a lot out there that the subject matter does not interest me in the least, some genres I won't even go near (racing games, vampires and fps for example). Graphics have gotten more realistic and um... graphic even... and... often enough too graphic for my tastes. Too often.
I can say that there was a lot less game playing during most of the years my kids were growing up, until my son was of an age to have the typical teen interest in them. Then, I did have to monitor what games were going to be bought and which were not.
Some games can be fun to watch someone else play, others not so much. Since we never had a LOT of games here in numbers, game content overall wasn't too much of an issue. But presently I am not so sure it would be so easy to find good "family viewing" choices now that weren't annoying to the adults. I no longer have to consider such choices. But though I can now play anything I choose without fear of young eyes seeing questionable things (except for the dog maybe) I still have no personal interest in seeing some things or dealing with some subject matters in the guise of "games".
Gaming was just a "sometimes part" of life in this household, maybe like Skiing is in other families. You do some in the appropriate season, and go do other things at other times. It still is that way here. I can pull an all-nighter almost any time I want NOW, but you know... some of the "grinding" you have to do is just a horrible waste of my time at this point. Maybe fine for a teenager who doesn't have bills to pay and work to do... but I literally get bored and tired of gaming pretty fast if I glut on it at this point. Perhaps, because I can do so.
But I sure do remember times when it would have been an exquisite heaven to immerse myself into a good game for a whole night or a weekend... undisturbed... as a temporary escape.... and of cours
Gosh, I wish you would hurry up and buy something! LOL
As a mail-order retailer (or internet biz, who cares, it's all the same) I really hate having to take into account all those nickels, dimes and totally forgotten certificates.. some of which have been on the books for.... ohhh, 10 or 15 years now....
Inflation must be taking SOME toll on this...
I don't really care to profit by pocketing the money. But having to keep rolling over the info and track the details each year... is a personal pain in the neck.
The only thing is, unlike some other larger retailers, I DO know who bought that "gift certificate" (or store credit). Sometimes I lose track of them, but... I do know who the money came from. Each one is also serial coded, so if someone can give me reasonable identifying information about it, I can easily find it in the records and apply it when someone wants to use it. Even when the actual "paper" copy has long gone missing.
In the end, I'm just lazy... tired of the paperwork. On the other hand, if my customers knew after X amount of time the money would be sent to the STATE-- they'd probably take enough offense to that to actually USE the credit they have...
Yeah, and my kid just got her science project list, to which she could choose "which do people prefer, coke or pepsi" and "can people tell the difference between cheap frozen pizza and expensive frozen pizza?" The umpteen other options were equally lame to bother with, unless maybe you're 6 or 7.
Bleah. 15 yrs old and in 8th grade and these are the choices. Last year the probability stuff, mendelian inheritance and so forth with genetics with some livestock we were breeding was rejected. Before that, the laser beam stuff was given low scores because the teacher was convinced I did the work (I don't have TIME dangit!). Give the kids some credit... encourage them to THINK on their own. I don't always like what my kids end up thinking, but sometimes it is absolutely amazing that their brains can and DO work as teens and I've had enough of a school system that has dumbed down things to the point where my kids won't even be qualified to ask "ya want FRAIYS with that?"
Grrrrr. just venting. I'm just glad this will be the last year here for the 'mandatory science project' crap, and sad that I won't be able to eat any of those frozen pizzas we got for the lousy "experiment".
--rio
from the state that finally decided that evolution would be ok to present as a theory again
e-commerce sites are going to get killed by this when
more unscrupulous people figure out how easy it is to
order goods over the internet. as i said, all it takes is a name, a cc number, and a zip code.
That's all it takes when they order via phone, fax, email and snailmail. It's been this way for years. "e-commerce" doesn't make it special, just another avenue to use.
The entire concept is inherently insecure, whether it's stolen cards or stolen numbers. The problem with stolen numbers is that it can take longer before the cardholder knows it's missing and being used for nefarious purposes.
Slashdot Mirror
As someone who lives 40 miles from the nearest walmart, I mail order just about everything I can. The cost in time and fuel doesn't even compare, I'd go broke only shopping "local"[actually "regional"] (and have little for choices) and rack up many fewer billable working hours. I run a mail-order business too (which happens to take orders by internet, phone, fax, snailmail, pigeon or dogsled).
I live on an old freight rail line. From here we still send you wheat, corn and soybeans. In the early years, it was the rails that brought most of the goods, and it was made available for pick up (or distribution) at the (very) local level. Initially, of course, you had to walk, ride your horse or drive your wagon to town (which could take a day). But it surely beat months of travel going several hundred miles overland to the nearest "real city" I'm sure. Don't ask me about the carbon footprint of these things: don't know, don't care.
Sears Roebuck was the "biggie" (probably akin to WalMart now) and their catalog + rails made availability of almost anything/everything to the hinterlands for a price. There really are "kit houses" out here that were ordered from Sears back in the day.
The internet + shipping serves in the same capacity now.
Yes, I will go "hunt down" my to-be-purchased prey in person when I can, it's way more fun and satisfying to triumphantly tote the "pelt" out of the store. But, the hunting is really boring in the more remote areas like this, most of the time. And many things (like most of the supplies I require to manufacture) aren't even available locally. Several of my suppliers that make proprietary items for me, also live in remote areas, and using the transport/ freight systems... we're able to do enough business that I only have to leave my immediate environs once a week. Once every 2-3 weeks if I choose to plan out farther. They don't need to leave home much either.
Groceries-- those I have to personally purchase. Nobody ships produce door-to-door here that I'm aware of. But if there was a firm that did for a reasonable price, I'd be using that too. (Or if the grocery 12 miles away offered delivery, I'd take them up on the offer).
I can't see how this is LESS "green".
What costs more, 25 people a day from here driving the 40 miles to town for a doc appt or a doc driving out once a week to take care of the basics of those same people in a small outreach office?
Society has gone through periods of more or less efficiency overall. In tougher times, you figure out the shipping costs WAY LESS than the fuel to get to town (in my case, I have to order from 3 different outfits with avg shipping to account for the fuel to get to town and back just once).
The cost can't be more than that for the shippers, else the shipment would cost me more than going myself. Very LARGE or weighty items, I am better off to drive a considerable distance (packing peanuts-- don't weigh much, cost a fortune for mere volume to have shipped). In this case, I can drive 200 miles, make an overnight trip if I choose, eat at a good restaurant/visit friends and end up breaking even or coming out ahead of having the same volume shipped. You just pick which deal works best in time vs. money on that score.
What the internet and shipping items by mail (especially smaller items) does is provide huge universal access to all manner of things you want (and didn't know you wanted) at what is probably the least possible cost overall. Especially if you live in a remote area. If you live in a place where you can walk around the block and examine the goods in a number of stores, having the same items shipped you could get locally wouldn't work out as neatly, no doubt.
I do buy locally whatever it is they have that I need/want. It would make things really lousy if we had NO businesses at all out here. I can get basic groceries, basic hardware and autoparts. (40 miles for a ream of paper though).
I get all this "digital" crap via cable-- and I wondered if the newer tv sets handled things more gracefully than the what I have. I'm guessing not.
I do a lot of work at my bench daily and listen to a lot of tv for background noise. It has to get really bad before I can't follow analog, but the digital stuff-- if the wind is blowing, it rains or there's sunspots or whatever, it's a continual snap crackle and pop as the signal comes on, and goes off. The sound is gone first, the picture is garbled/pixelated to various degrees, or just plain freezes or goes to black/blue screen (depending on tv). You really DO lose a lot of continuity with those outages... to the point I have to shut it off to keep from bashing it in.
I have no intention to purchase a "better tv" and no interest in directTV or similar either. From my perspective, I fail to see where this "digital" thing is an "improvement". If the message can't be followed... it's inferior. Just what I want, an important weather warning to go to blue screen ....
http://www.usda.gov/nais/[National Animal Identification System]
Geeks gone wild just following what does and doesn't work so far just from the technical/hardware aspects.Go look up the field tests of the equipment and such, you'll have a field day.
The fight over the NAIS implementation is especially a big deal in Washington state, I understand, as proponents there are pushing it hard. Those who will be affected by it are pushing equally hard.
The problems are more than just controlling/documenting movement of animals, its also about where and how this information will be stored and who will have access.... where does the money and personnel come from to deal with all this?
As a horse owner, it's starting to look like ultimately I won't be able to feed them without reporting it, and horses aren't even part of the typical US food supply. So while a person might find this a "necessary" thing for our food safety, the fact they're wanting to track and regulate the movement of species that are for all intents and purposes pets at this point... should give anyone cause to ponder what may be coming next. In the interest of "safety" and "anti-terrorism" of course.
Ahhh, thanks for the heads up on getting the terms right for searches :) Thanks for the links as well.
--rio
Sure, they might be tech-savvy, some of our customers are. But, time and again we've invested $1k in time and sold $10 maybe. The site is not complex, just huge. The noframes text points to a site index page with direct links to everything. However, I can see cobbling up an order form catering to cell phones ... that's not much hassle.
:)
Anyway, thank you for taking the time to verify that the cell phone browsers aren't frames-savvy
We can at least embark on making sure the noframes text is relevant...
--rio
Recently we were combing through the site logs, and noticed we indeed DID have some cell-phone access to our site. Which to me was about as weird as seeing recent access to some ancient "noframes" text that hadn't been popping up on the site logs for quite some time.
:) The darned site goes back to when Netscrape 3 and frames was brand-spankin new so it's pretty much an artifact at this point... but *someone* is out there still looking at it. LOL
We still hand-code here... long story as to why.
Nevertheless, I was wondering if the no-frames access was related to the cell phone access? (My own access to the logs is only to the overview reports, not the full log entries, so I'm not able to determine that.)
The only reason I know the no-frames text has been viewed, is because we always put a link to a particular jumper page there that we put nowhere else, so we could tell...
Anyway, after noticing the cell phone accesses, I went looking to see if there was anything I needed to know or do different (I was hoping NOT) and if it was going to be worth it. I didn't find any information at all (regarding anything notable needed for cell phone access) when searching at google, so I chose to ignore it (except for making sure the no-frames text is still relevant as we go through regular maintenance...)
All I can say about html and webstuff at this point is.... MAKE IT STOP! MAKE IT STOP! lol
-rio
Wow, quite an article there-- which I don't buy. I live near/next to a sizable windfarm in Kansas (insert expected KS wind references here) and with minimal population in this county, I think I'd have heard about piles of dead birds among other things. (Pheasant season has actually been quite good this year, not that they ever fly high enough to encounter a turbine blade).
e /graycounty.shtml
I do, however, see plenty of birds (most notably hawks) on the roadside. They like to hunt by headlight at night you know... and when we figure out why the chicken crossed the road, we may have some insight as to why pheasants seem to cross only when there's oncoming traffic...
There are maintenance workers regularly driving/working around the turbines, but since the turbines are planted in farmed land... tractors and other farming equipment routinely "disturb" and "displace" the wildlife anyway. Although, this may be a different proposition in other environments.
There are 170 turbines here, and about half the time they will show up as a blip on the national weather radar--- so yeah, obviously it has an effect on the doppler and other weather detection systems.
http://www.aquilaenergyresources.com/aer/renewabl
This being Kansas, yes, those turbines are pretty ostentatious standing out there in the middle of....um... not much.
I'd rather have those turbines out there than some of the other energy-generating options. It's not like we (as a society in general) necessarily have a choice... energy sources are an issue that need to be dealt with in any number of ways to solve them. I just wish I had some farmground to lease out to them...
I have, however (since moving the kids out of the house) managed to keep lights and everything that doesn't NEED to be on, turned off-- and as a result have been saving about $75/month on my utility bill. That's simple conservation, and that is a 25-40% bill reduction (depending upon weather and season).
I first remember Pong being the rage, and then who can forget Space Invaders at the arcade, then PacMan? I remember a text game on the big college mainframe called "Adventure". When I married, my spouse came with an intellivision. Later there was a nintendo with Mario and Zelda. Super NES after that. I think my son had a PS2, an Xbox, hocked them then recently got another PS2. I got my own PS2 when my kids were in high school, so I could play FFX.
:) My son still plays games (my daughter still has little interest). :) Finally, after all these years, I get to be the COOL mom! LOL :)
How did it work? Well my x (yup, now an x) played sometimes, and sometimes I did. The kids often watched and when they got older, (around 10 or so) they often played, particularly my son. My daughter never did get into games much, even to this day.
There were times when there'd be a lot of game-playing and somebody staying up all night on a weekend, and months or even years of no game play at all. Games cost, and there's so many other things your meager dollars need to go to. Music kind of went into that same black hole of "not enough $$ to go around" as well for quite a few years.
At this point, my son is grown, married and gone, has a son of his own. My daughter is off to college. So now that it's just me, the dog and the cat, and I live in a remote area... well, I get to do about as much gaming as I can stand, if and when I want
So now we're to the point that my son and I can play the same game and call each other to exchange tips and gripes since we don't live close to each other
The big gamers in this house were myself and my son. My daughter comes home from college and we do a lot of gourmet cooking
Still the gaming is an on/off thing for me to this day. I might sink a month or two of nights/weekends in on a big rpg or adventure game, and then the console won't be powered up for a year or more. Or, I'll get on the computer and spend a couple of weeks trying to best Civ or Caesar III still. Only if I see a game that interests me enough to check it out, will I get a new one. There's a lot out there that the subject matter does not interest me in the least, some genres I won't even go near (racing games, vampires and fps for example). Graphics have gotten more realistic and um... graphic even... and... often enough too graphic for my tastes. Too often.
I can say that there was a lot less game playing during most of the years my kids were growing up, until my son was of an age to have the typical teen interest in them. Then, I did have to monitor what games were going to be bought and which were not.
Some games can be fun to watch someone else play, others not so much. Since we never had a LOT of games here in numbers, game content overall wasn't too much of an issue. But presently I am not so sure it would be so easy to find good "family viewing" choices now that weren't annoying to the adults. I no longer have to consider such choices. But though I can now play anything I choose without fear of young eyes seeing questionable things (except for the dog maybe) I still have no personal interest in seeing some things or dealing with some subject matters in the guise of "games".
Gaming was just a "sometimes part" of life in this household, maybe like Skiing is in other families. You do some in the appropriate season, and go do other things at other times. It still is that way here. I can pull an all-nighter almost any time I want NOW, but you know... some of the "grinding" you have to do is just a horrible waste of my time at this point. Maybe fine for a teenager who doesn't have bills to pay and work to do... but I literally get bored and tired of gaming pretty fast if I glut on it at this point. Perhaps, because I can do so.
But I sure do remember times when it would have been an exquisite heaven to immerse myself into a good game for a whole night or a weekend... undisturbed... as a temporary escape.... and of cours
Gosh, I wish you would hurry up and buy something! LOL
As a mail-order retailer (or internet biz, who cares, it's all the same) I really hate having to take into account all those nickels, dimes and totally forgotten certificates.. some of which have been on the books for.... ohhh, 10 or 15 years now....
Inflation must be taking SOME toll on this...
I don't really care to profit by pocketing the money. But having to keep rolling over the info and track the details each year... is a personal pain in the neck.
The only thing is, unlike some other larger retailers, I DO know who bought that "gift certificate" (or store credit). Sometimes I lose track of them, but... I do know who the money came from. Each one is also serial coded, so if someone can give me reasonable identifying information about it, I can easily find it in the records and apply it when someone wants to use it. Even when the actual "paper" copy has long gone missing.
In the end, I'm just lazy... tired of the paperwork.
On the other hand, if my customers knew after X amount of time the money would be sent to the STATE-- they'd probably take enough offense to that to actually USE the credit they have...
--------------
Yeah, and my kid just got her science project list, to which she could choose "which do people prefer, coke or pepsi" and "can people tell the difference between cheap frozen pizza and expensive frozen pizza?" The umpteen other options were equally lame to bother with, unless maybe you're 6 or 7.
Bleah. 15 yrs old and in 8th grade and these are the choices. Last year the probability stuff, mendelian inheritance and so forth with genetics with some livestock we were breeding was rejected. Before that, the laser beam stuff was given low scores because the teacher was convinced I did the work (I don't have TIME dangit!). Give the kids some credit... encourage them to THINK on their own. I don't always like what my kids end up thinking, but sometimes it is absolutely amazing that their brains can and DO work as teens and I've had enough of a school system that has dumbed down things to the point where my kids won't even be qualified to ask "ya want FRAIYS with that?"
Grrrrr. just venting. I'm just glad this will be the last year here for the 'mandatory science project' crap, and sad that I won't be able to eat any of those frozen pizzas we got for the lousy "experiment".
--rio
from the state that finally decided that evolution would be ok to present as a theory again
The entire concept is inherently insecure, whether it's stolen cards or stolen numbers. The problem with stolen numbers is that it can take longer before the cardholder knows it's missing and being used for nefarious purposes.