Like always, it's not about whether anybody is "home" or "public" or "private" schooled, but the methods employed when teaching. "Teaching" doesn't just happen in the classroom, but throughout a person's lifetime. We don't stop learning when we graduate from school. So bringing a kid out to interact with other kids also is a teaching method, just like reading to them, giving them arts and crafts to do, or having them help out with the family business.
The only difference between "home," "private", and "public" schools is that there's a great deal of variation in the former and a very small amount of variation in the latter. Varied teaching method produce varied results. Less varied teaching methods produce more consistent results. Both can be either good or bad. But for the home schooled kids, a bad teacher would ruin one kid, whereas for the private school, a bad school would ruin one school's worth of kids, and for the public school, a bad district would ruin a whole neigborhood of kids. But the flip-side is also true.
When? When in living memory did the majority of young people actually respect their elders?
In Asian cultures, especially those influenced by Confucian values, this has, and still is the norm. It's western (read: American) influence that's causing things to swing in the other direction.
Otherwise, I agree with the latter half of your post. The students aren't getting dumber. The education system is getting worse.
Thus proving the point of the article that problem solving (reproducing a blank line using the easily-accessible characters on a keyboard) is a rare skill.
What do you think lobbyists do when they wine and dine your representative?
This is the same thing without the wining and dining--that we know of. For all we know, they could put forth this document, and then the lobbyists would only have to point back to it while they wine and dine.
My point is that the two things are orthogonal. This proposal is about what Verizon and Google wants to do. The role of the lobbyist is to convince elected representatives to support this proposal.
There's a couple of missing links, but it's pretty definitive that humans share a common ancestry with every other living organism on this planet.
Unless both this planet and the "original" human planet were "seeded" from one common source. In which case, it would account for both the missing link and the similarities.
For example, if mammal and reptiles evolved separately on different planets but from one cambrian source, and mammals were introduced to this planet as a part of a migration process from one planet to this one that spanned 50 or so million years with humans as the last part of this migration, it's possible.
Unlikely, and ruled out using Occum's razor, but possible nonetheless.
You can't create something new without destroying something old.
It's a fundamental rule of nature. You can't build a new building without destroying the thing that was once on the piece of land the new building is supposed to be. You can't create new engineering techniques if your old ones are sufficient for your needs. Now, the new thing may not necessarily be better. But without destroying the old and creating the new, you'd hardly be able to know.
War just accelerates the destruction process. It's like the occasional forest fire. It brings about great tragedies on an individual level, but it's probably not a bad thing on a larger, longer scale. After all, natural selection itself is a constant state of warfare. Certainly, taking warfare over the top may be a bad thing. But humans are a very resiliant species, as adept at surviving as rats and cockaroaches. I doubt that short of the sun ballooning into a red giant and swallowing the planet, we'd be threatened as a species.
As individuals, we like to live comfortably, peacefully, without worry. But what's good for the individual has time and again, shown not necessarily good for the whole. A bit of worry, a bit of discomfort, these are the things that drive progress.
As an example, if we lived under the constant threat of nuclear winter and MAD, we'd be better prepared collectively should a supervolcano blow in our lifetime. As you've no doubt seen, without the threat of nuclear winter, we'd otherwise use those same resources only to increase our level of comfort. That's not just how human beings work, but nature itself. If there's no selective pressure, then even the undesirable traits get propogated among a population, and when the selective pressure returns (or a similar one appears), the entire population dies off.
What you just said sounds really nice--only, that argument doesn't actually work in RL (real life).
GP was playing devil's advocate, but it's the reality of the situation. People can indeed be fundamentally divided using the two orthogonal dimensions: the have and have nots; and the want and want nots. And the majority of the people fall somewhere in the the have not and want quadrant.
Which means that the majority's not really thinking of their successive generations (especially those who do not have direct successors), only of themselves, what they don't have but want.
The only people who think the way you think are the ones who want not. But out of those, the only people capable of making a different are the ones who have.
A democracy gives every individual an important something, which is a voice or say. So the people under a democracy automatically have a bit more than those who don't. But since most people fall into the category of want anyway (regardless of whether they have), it doesn't really matter in the end.
How about learning how to repair electronics and doing it on your own?
I mean, there's plenty of people who're more than willing to repair their car on their own, irrespective of whether they actually know what they're doing or not.
Some things are actually worth the price. For example, the manufacturer's auto parts fit better, last longer, and run better than your typical 3rd party OEM part. A $100 bookcase from Ikea is not going to compare to something made from solid oak. The Model M isn't just a fancy name for a keyboard.
But when it comes to designer stuff, it's like a set of Monster cables. The presence of $5 cables that are functionally equivalent is just an indicator of what the cables are actually worth. Those companies that make $5 cables may drive Monster out of business, but that's their own fault for keeping their prices so high.
And the "data" is a joke, considering how many users block the very same tools used to gather the data. But I'm not interested in how many people come to the site. I'm more interested in what they have to say. And out of all the sites out there, I think Slashdot's users still have the most interesting (informative, and insightful) things to say. Sure, there are other niche sites where the users know more about a particular topic. But here, there's guaranteed to be at least one expert in every topic, sometimes even several with differing opinions.
I think the reporter has it backwards. NYT is struggling to find relevancy. Slashdot, on the other hand, is as relevant as it was 10 years ago, this in spite of the sudden explosion of users to the internet.
Only what's hip and popular is represented well in web commerce. Classical music, being this obscure genre of music that nobody really listens to anymore, gets marginalized. There's just not enough demand to justify trying to negotiate with the publishers to offer any more than lip service. If you want a particular piece (or movement thereof) that's relatively popular, most places may have some obscure recording. But if you're looking for a particular performance, which classical music aficionados tend to do more often than not, you're shit outta luck.
The demographics are just too different. Most people who regularly listen to classical music go to concert halls more often than they buy recordings. It's still the preferred method, though it gets incredibly expensive for decent seats. And those who do buy and listen to recordings are more likely that type that purchases records to play on their high-fidelity system rather than CDs. Besides which, a lot of (arguably the best) recordings remain unreleased (for private use), or were released only in vinyl form.
I hate to say it, but it's probably easiest to buy the CD online through Amazon or Arkivmusic (both of which have a small selection for downloading too) or some other online CD retailer, and hit the brick and mortars, especially used CD stores, for the obscure, older, and quite likely out of print stuff.
The form of digital distribution that has the largest selection would probably be torrents or some other means of equally dubious legality.
I know people pushed for buying their products at some point in time, but I attribute that to their monopoly position and the relative ease of integration between their products (or the lack thereof between their and a competitor's product) more than any real goodwill. There have been, and still are, fanatics, but I can't imagine they were ever the norm.
As for the antitrust element, it wouldn't be difficult to incorporate privacy features that required the users to manually turn on (but stays on). I think as long as it's not on by default, and it's not discriminating the Microsoft ad networks from everybody else's, there's no basis for antitrust action against them. But as I'm neither lawyer or the PotUS, I can't say for certain what actually would happen.
This is just another symptom inherent in most large companies: self-cannibalization. But it also opens the market up for smaller players that lack such reservations, should there be demand for the feature.
You keep using that phrase. I don't think it means what you think it means.
An advanced degree is effectively your post grade-school degree, not exclusively your Ph.D. How much did you pay to get your B.S.? What about your M.S.? The only reason why your doctorate is free is because you're expected to do research to raise the prestige of your school, and to teach. But what of med or law school?
You are spreading bad information. GP provides research-based information, and anecdotes are the best you have to counter it with? And I'm not even going to start on the mods who put you to +5, who can't even tell what a proper counter argument to a research-backed statement (it's not anecdotes, for those wondering). To put it quite frankly, your situation is not representative of the situation of college grads. I raise your anecdote with mine, which pretty much is that everybody I know (which is comprised of my various acquaintances and friends from elementary school to college) that graduated with a bachelors and not a trust fund baby came out with some amount of debt. Even the people I know who went to Cooper Union where tuition is free graduated with debt, albeit a very, very small amount. It's actually a smart thing, because they're actually starting their credit rating early without need for signing up for a credit card.
Your examples are even more ridiculous. A TA position rarely, if ever at all, covers the entirety of tuition. Being an RA only covers room and board. Of course, you don't have to pay for room and board. But there's still the majority of tuition you have to pay. And that's anecdotal too, but so is yours. But I'll be willing to bet that among the private and large institutions my assessment is more accurate, while your assessment is possibly accurate for smaller public institutions.
Just because you don't know anybody who leaves school (I'm assuming your fellow Ph.D. candidates, though from context, you very well could be talking about your time getting your Masters) with debt doesn't mean the majority of the students currently in the U.S. higher education system are not in some form of debt. Your parents may be able to afford your undergraduate tuition, with possibly your help, but that's more likely the exception. Not to mention that the guy who's dressed nice and has a sports car and a boat is merely an elaborately disguised straw man.
Slashdot Mirror
At least when it sprouts out of the top of your head, there'll be free watermelon for the whole family!
Like always, it's not about whether anybody is "home" or "public" or "private" schooled, but the methods employed when teaching. "Teaching" doesn't just happen in the classroom, but throughout a person's lifetime. We don't stop learning when we graduate from school. So bringing a kid out to interact with other kids also is a teaching method, just like reading to them, giving them arts and crafts to do, or having them help out with the family business.
The only difference between "home," "private", and "public" schools is that there's a great deal of variation in the former and a very small amount of variation in the latter. Varied teaching method produce varied results. Less varied teaching methods produce more consistent results. Both can be either good or bad. But for the home schooled kids, a bad teacher would ruin one kid, whereas for the private school, a bad school would ruin one school's worth of kids, and for the public school, a bad district would ruin a whole neigborhood of kids. But the flip-side is also true.
When? When in living memory did the majority of young people actually respect their elders?
In Asian cultures, especially those influenced by Confucian values, this has, and still is the norm. It's western (read: American) influence that's causing things to swing in the other direction.
Otherwise, I agree with the latter half of your post. The students aren't getting dumber. The education system is getting worse.
Maybe they weren't taught any method and they had to get creative.
I see a lot of hamburgers and french fries in these students' futures.
Thus proving the point of the article that problem solving (reproducing a blank line using the easily-accessible characters on a keyboard) is a rare skill.
Yeah, but they could also be British.
Dose that make your exploits 0-day?
What do you think lobbyists do when they wine and dine your representative?
This is the same thing without the wining and dining--that we know of. For all we know, they could put forth this document, and then the lobbyists would only have to point back to it while they wine and dine.
My point is that the two things are orthogonal. This proposal is about what Verizon and Google wants to do. The role of the lobbyist is to convince elected representatives to support this proposal.
There's a couple of missing links, but it's pretty definitive that humans share a common ancestry with every other living organism on this planet.
Unless both this planet and the "original" human planet were "seeded" from one common source. In which case, it would account for both the missing link and the similarities.
For example, if mammal and reptiles evolved separately on different planets but from one cambrian source, and mammals were introduced to this planet as a part of a migration process from one planet to this one that spanned 50 or so million years with humans as the last part of this migration, it's possible.
Unlikely, and ruled out using Occum's razor, but possible nonetheless.
You can't create something new without destroying something old.
It's a fundamental rule of nature. You can't build a new building without destroying the thing that was once on the piece of land the new building is supposed to be. You can't create new engineering techniques if your old ones are sufficient for your needs. Now, the new thing may not necessarily be better. But without destroying the old and creating the new, you'd hardly be able to know.
War just accelerates the destruction process. It's like the occasional forest fire. It brings about great tragedies on an individual level, but it's probably not a bad thing on a larger, longer scale. After all, natural selection itself is a constant state of warfare. Certainly, taking warfare over the top may be a bad thing. But humans are a very resiliant species, as adept at surviving as rats and cockaroaches. I doubt that short of the sun ballooning into a red giant and swallowing the planet, we'd be threatened as a species.
As individuals, we like to live comfortably, peacefully, without worry. But what's good for the individual has time and again, shown not necessarily good for the whole. A bit of worry, a bit of discomfort, these are the things that drive progress.
As an example, if we lived under the constant threat of nuclear winter and MAD, we'd be better prepared collectively should a supervolcano blow in our lifetime. As you've no doubt seen, without the threat of nuclear winter, we'd otherwise use those same resources only to increase our level of comfort. That's not just how human beings work, but nature itself. If there's no selective pressure, then even the undesirable traits get propogated among a population, and when the selective pressure returns (or a similar one appears), the entire population dies off.
What you just said sounds really nice--only, that argument doesn't actually work in RL (real life).
GP was playing devil's advocate, but it's the reality of the situation. People can indeed be fundamentally divided using the two orthogonal dimensions: the have and have nots; and the want and want nots. And the majority of the people fall somewhere in the the have not and want quadrant.
Which means that the majority's not really thinking of their successive generations (especially those who do not have direct successors), only of themselves, what they don't have but want.
The only people who think the way you think are the ones who want not. But out of those, the only people capable of making a different are the ones who have.
A democracy gives every individual an important something, which is a voice or say. So the people under a democracy automatically have a bit more than those who don't. But since most people fall into the category of want anyway (regardless of whether they have), it doesn't really matter in the end.
Unfortunately, the chicken died several years back...
How about learning how to repair electronics and doing it on your own?
I mean, there's plenty of people who're more than willing to repair their car on their own, irrespective of whether they actually know what they're doing or not.
Assuming that there are no vehicles in between the lanes, the bus suffers no congestion even when the other vehicles do.
Some things are actually worth the price. For example, the manufacturer's auto parts fit better, last longer, and run better than your typical 3rd party OEM part. A $100 bookcase from Ikea is not going to compare to something made from solid oak. The Model M isn't just a fancy name for a keyboard.
But when it comes to designer stuff, it's like a set of Monster cables. The presence of $5 cables that are functionally equivalent is just an indicator of what the cables are actually worth. Those companies that make $5 cables may drive Monster out of business, but that's their own fault for keeping their prices so high.
No kidding. I laughed when I read that.
And the "data" is a joke, considering how many users block the very same tools used to gather the data. But I'm not interested in how many people come to the site. I'm more interested in what they have to say. And out of all the sites out there, I think Slashdot's users still have the most interesting (informative, and insightful) things to say. Sure, there are other niche sites where the users know more about a particular topic. But here, there's guaranteed to be at least one expert in every topic, sometimes even several with differing opinions.
I think the reporter has it backwards. NYT is struggling to find relevancy. Slashdot, on the other hand, is as relevant as it was 10 years ago, this in spite of the sudden explosion of users to the internet.
Only what's hip and popular is represented well in web commerce. Classical music, being this obscure genre of music that nobody really listens to anymore, gets marginalized. There's just not enough demand to justify trying to negotiate with the publishers to offer any more than lip service. If you want a particular piece (or movement thereof) that's relatively popular, most places may have some obscure recording. But if you're looking for a particular performance, which classical music aficionados tend to do more often than not, you're shit outta luck.
The demographics are just too different. Most people who regularly listen to classical music go to concert halls more often than they buy recordings. It's still the preferred method, though it gets incredibly expensive for decent seats. And those who do buy and listen to recordings are more likely that type that purchases records to play on their high-fidelity system rather than CDs. Besides which, a lot of (arguably the best) recordings remain unreleased (for private use), or were released only in vinyl form.
I hate to say it, but it's probably easiest to buy the CD online through Amazon or Arkivmusic (both of which have a small selection for downloading too) or some other online CD retailer, and hit the brick and mortars, especially used CD stores, for the obscure, older, and quite likely out of print stuff.
The form of digital distribution that has the largest selection would probably be torrents or some other means of equally dubious legality.
I think that about sums up the uncertainty principle in a nutshell, for those who don't know the specifics of QM.
Imagine the consequences of Mozart suing Beethoven over the first 3 stanzas of Beethoven's First Piano Sonata.
Or for that matter, if copyright had dissuaded Beethoven from creating his Ninth Symphony.
Some of history's greatest pieces of music would never have been...
It depends then on the terms of the lease, i.e. what's written on the contract.
Did they ever have the users' goodwill?
I know people pushed for buying their products at some point in time, but I attribute that to their monopoly position and the relative ease of integration between their products (or the lack thereof between their and a competitor's product) more than any real goodwill. There have been, and still are, fanatics, but I can't imagine they were ever the norm.
As for the antitrust element, it wouldn't be difficult to incorporate privacy features that required the users to manually turn on (but stays on). I think as long as it's not on by default, and it's not discriminating the Microsoft ad networks from everybody else's, there's no basis for antitrust action against them. But as I'm neither lawyer or the PotUS, I can't say for certain what actually would happen.
This is just another symptom inherent in most large companies: self-cannibalization. But it also opens the market up for smaller players that lack such reservations, should there be demand for the feature.
I'd say there is some uncertainty around that principle.
Advanced degrees
You keep using that phrase. I don't think it means what you think it means.
An advanced degree is effectively your post grade-school degree, not exclusively your Ph.D. How much did you pay to get your B.S.? What about your M.S.? The only reason why your doctorate is free is because you're expected to do research to raise the prestige of your school, and to teach. But what of med or law school?
You are spreading bad information. GP provides research-based information, and anecdotes are the best you have to counter it with? And I'm not even going to start on the mods who put you to +5, who can't even tell what a proper counter argument to a research-backed statement (it's not anecdotes, for those wondering). To put it quite frankly, your situation is not representative of the situation of college grads. I raise your anecdote with mine, which pretty much is that everybody I know (which is comprised of my various acquaintances and friends from elementary school to college) that graduated with a bachelors and not a trust fund baby came out with some amount of debt. Even the people I know who went to Cooper Union where tuition is free graduated with debt, albeit a very, very small amount. It's actually a smart thing, because they're actually starting their credit rating early without need for signing up for a credit card.
Your examples are even more ridiculous. A TA position rarely, if ever at all, covers the entirety of tuition. Being an RA only covers room and board. Of course, you don't have to pay for room and board. But there's still the majority of tuition you have to pay. And that's anecdotal too, but so is yours. But I'll be willing to bet that among the private and large institutions my assessment is more accurate, while your assessment is possibly accurate for smaller public institutions.
Just because you don't know anybody who leaves school (I'm assuming your fellow Ph.D. candidates, though from context, you very well could be talking about your time getting your Masters) with debt doesn't mean the majority of the students currently in the U.S. higher education system are not in some form of debt. Your parents may be able to afford your undergraduate tuition, with possibly your help, but that's more likely the exception. Not to mention that the guy who's dressed nice and has a sports car and a boat is merely an elaborately disguised straw man.
Maintaining them, on the other hand, is orthogonally related.
Code in hex. If you know what you're doing, you can't possibly go wrong there.
Of course, if you don't know what you're doing, then good luck, because you'll need it!