If you believe that people should get a real job instead of an education then you've got a country of predominantly labourers and factory line workers. A dangerous route to take in a time when low skilled jobs can get outsourced to somewhere cheaper very easily. I don't think it's a simple binary get a job/or/get an education. You really want all your graduate students to leave education? you want no graduate level education in your country? Who are your entrepreneurs going to turn to when they need somebody to do the research to develop their new product? (Maybe the French, who came up with the word 'entrepreneur'?)
I am assuming you like the idea of *some* education for your nation's people as you are posting in words and can read.
"Poor babies don't want to be judged, so they stay locked in their towers..."
Most academics are very keen to engage with the public and their profession is based on critical debate so probably not scared of being judged. Trust me, most academics can argue like fury. After all, your PhD in most countries is based on a successful viva (oral defence of your work, you against experts in your field, several hours long, no breaks, going through your 300 page thesis page by page, in some cases in front of an audience) and conferences are about standing up in front of your peers and arguing your work.
More likely they see other avenues of communicating with the public to be a more profitable use of their time. Everybody's busy these days. Would you prefer to pengage with the public and communicate your work through publishing popular science books and going to sicence fairs, or in a medium where people who don't know your domain sling cheap insults at you?
As for academics not knowing the real world, give us references for your research.
My bias: just finishing PhD in my mid 40s. Been published in a couple of books, couple of journals, been to a few academic conferences. Previously worked in education in inner city schools, worked on factory production lines, being involved in alternative music festivals, travelled round the world and seen a few dozen countries. I think that counts as the real world. But this expression really puzzles me, what is this space that you think people inhabit that is not the real world? What is your definition of the 'real world'? I'd be curious to hear.
"Maybe it's time for the professors as a whole to grow the hell up." Maybe the professors are avoiding contributing until wikipedia trolls grow the hell up.
Why spend several hours of your time trying to write a careful, well referenced, measured piece if there is too high a chance that you'll come back the next day to find "u r gay" or something like that splattered all over it? Or somebody with little knowledge of your field picking a fight with you and re-writing your article without entering into measured debate before undertaking the edits? Some professors feel it's not worth the time contributing to a space that may require a lot of time fighting over for little gain. They might feel their time is better spent communicating through other media, say for example contributing to a popular science book, explaining what they are doing on their personal website, publishing in the academic media or doing talks in science festivals. Perhaps they feel the debate is of higher quality in these channels?
Other academics do publish on wikipedia though, some academics do feel it's a place they can share ideas, e.g. in community informatics. Here's looking at you Mike and Larry
You know when somebody says "the correct spelling is..." there will be a source which gives it another spelling:-)
Me, I am British, so I'll take the Oxford English Dictionary's spelling;-) (though to be fair it also offers salpetre that it notes as being a more archaic form)
saltpetre, n. Second edition, 1989; online version March 2011. ; accessed 27 March 2011. Earlier version first published in New English Dictionary, 1909.
Pronunciation:/sltpitr//--/ Forms: Also 15–18 (now U.S.) saltpeter, 15 saltpetir, saltpetur, 16 saltpetar, 15–16 saltpeeter.... Etymology: Alteration of salpetre n. after salt n.1 (see sense 5b).
1.
a. Potassium nitrate; = nitre n. 1b Chili or cubic saltpetre : sodium nitrate.
FIFA (the organisation that decides the rules for football's world cup) doesn't let world cup final games to be played in covered stadia. Might be something to do with not allowing games to be played on artificial surfaces (so you need sunlight etc), can't remember.
"Why do people demonize businesses who seek out the best and brightest and PAY them for their knowledge and skill. Perhaps because they didn't get those well paying jobs themselves."
In some cases because some people feel that businesses do not operate with high enough ethical standards and object to their ways of undertaking their work. Some people don't want to work for such companies because they don't want to contribute to their success and feel that such companies broach their personal ethical guidelines.
For example, some Christians won't work for arms manufacturers because they believe this contradicts their religious beliefs, some people won't work for Nestle because they feel Nestle's promotion of baby milk powder in countries where there is no safe water supply is unethical, some folk won't work for companies that they feel are at odds with their political beliefs.
Lots of people make choices in life that are drawn from their personal ethical and moral beliefs, not just based on envy.
Does this mean that companies will start selling IP addresses for increasing amounts of money? should I buy a block of 100 as an investment now? A bit like buying up domain names?
Over here in the UK we've pretty well shifted over to the same billion as everybody else, 10^9 rather than 10^12. Now if you (and Liberia, and Burma) would hurry up and shift over to metric measurements like the rest of us, all would be good.
"Here in Europe, people are buying masks and iodine pills." Not sure what part of Europe you are posting from, but here in the UK I've not seen anybody buying masks or iodine pills. Conversation with friends and work mates is about how terrible a disaster has happened, there is no fear that we might be affected.
Not even our most poor quality media are suggesting that people should be taking precautions.The media coverage is mostly about the terrible situation Japanese folk find themselves in. A very small part of the coverage asks whether our nuclear power plants have up-to-date safety features and politicians are discussing whether this needs to be examined.
Get some vented ear plugs. They cost more than the foam ones (about 12 quid each, I think that's about 20 USD) but are comfortable to wear, and drop the noise levels so you still get a nice balance but just cuts the high levels down a bit. Really nice, so much better than the foam freebie ones, you can chat with them in, they just drop the top frequencies a bit.
Technically, isn't the USA a republic rather than a democracy?
Mind you I am splitting hairs a bit and would be interested if somebody could give me a summary on what the difference is... (I know, I should probably just look up wikipedia...)
yup, with you on the sensible behaviour buddy. Couple of years ago I was at a small music festie in the north of Scotland and dropped into the local bands' tent with a couple of mates, both folk musicians. As a band got up on stage my friends both pulled a small box out of their pockets and completely unthinkingly popped open the boxes, reached out sound reduction plugs and popped them in their ears. One of them saw me not doing this and kindly offered her spare pair. Since then I've always taken noise reduction plugs to gigs. Got to protect what I've got left..... wish kids did the same.... but I guess we were all young n stoopid....
IANAL. But I believe if a court case happens and you lose you pay costs. Does this also happen in the USA? How much do your lawyers cost? About the same for a court case, more, less?
We actually have a system called Legal Aid which supports people on lower incomes, allows them reduced price / free legal support but the present government in all its wisdom is cutting this down to be virtually non existent. Allegedly. (covers me against being sued, right?:-) )
But it was pulling stunts like this that got the Labour party voted out at the next election. People realised they'd lost touch with reality. Not saying the current lot are any better, in fact they might be worse (hey, politicians, eh?) but at least we had the option to vote out the last lot when they got too crazy.
Not only where people are listening to the music, but also who is listening to the music.
Lots of us have been exposed to loud noises over the last 20, 30, 40 or more years. Some through our own choices (loud live gigs, nightclubs etc), and through noise that isn't our choice (living in cities, working in industrial workspaces).
Lots of us don't have perfect hearing so to be honest less than perfect sound reproduction is good enough, our hearing is too shot. No point spending thousands on a sound reproduction set up because we can't hear the difference.
I read an interesting story about the BBC maybe fifteen- twenty years ago. They were having a hard time finding sound engineers who could meet their high standards, because teenagers from the personal music generation (mid 80s onwards) had universally damaged their hearing through the volume they set their music at. Until personal mobile music came along there just wasn't the opportunity for people to damage their own hearing as a leisure pursuit in that continuous manner.
"those who receive a "free" education seldom appreciate it as much as the one who had to earn (and pay for) that education"
is a very different statement from
"I had to work for my degree. I appreciate it more than the people I have met who didn't have to work for it."
It is the former statement I objected to as it suggested you were offering a proven statement based on research across a large pool of people using a respected research methodology. My bias: I am a post doctoral researcher in education and technology at a UK university. So I am critical about such statements, I spend lots of time reading academic papers about issues like the impact of education on people's lives and their perceptions of it. Probably I should chill out as slashdot is just us all hanging out talking nonsense at the water cooler, not an academic forum...:-)
Your later statement is more of a personal opinion based on a limited informal survey (you chatting to your pals) so of course I can't comment on that. Plus you're clear there that you're offering a subjective opinion rather than a researched fact.
I think the subtext of the argument is "don't rely on another nation's tools". Not an issue if you're from the USA, but if you're not from the USA this is a bigger issue of concern. Your shipping, military, directed vehicles etc are all dependent on another government's political and military preferences. If you have a different opinion from the USA, you could be in big trouble. And you don't have a vote in how the USA wants to guide its policies.
This is one of the big reasons why the EU and Russia want to build their own GPS-like systems, they want sovereign control over satellite guidance, not to be dependent on how much the Americans like them on any particular day.
Sorry, being cheeky;-) My dad and my nieces love postcards from interesting places when I go on holiday / work abroad. My girlfriend thinks it's much more romantic when I send her a letter than when I send her a txt msg. My friends love getting birthday cards through the post and sometimes I'll find a great book and send it as an unexpected present to a good friend. It's really nice to get some personal mail through the door as well as bills and junk mail.
Probably I am old fashioned. Also in the UK the postal system, while it has its faults, still works pretty well. Cheaper to post parcels through the mail than by a courier and they'll still get there (recently I sandblasted some door locks for my brother and posted them to him, no problem, couple of quid to do so including recorded delivery, no idea how much a courier would cost).
I know, it's madness. I guess it depends on your model / philosophy of how a country should be run. Current ConDem government seems to follow the Tory line that trains should be run at a profit, they are a business. Compare to many of our European neighbours who see trains as part of the public infrastructure and to be subsidised as such.
Can't pull any figures out the hat but we definitely pay way more than a lot of other European countries for our train services. Myself, I think in the long run you're better investing in infrastructure and I believe you'll indirectly pull in profit in the long run if you have good services. Plus the current govt says we need jobs, well why not employ loads of people in building a 21st century rail infrastructure, that'll stimulate the economy. I live in a railway town and they'd love it if the government announced we need hundreds of new railway carriages built here, need to open up some mothballed steelworks and start turning out new rail lines, get loads of construction workers building improved bridges and tracks etc. People in work = people spending in shops, secondary industries benefit, end result more people working and better infrastructure. Or you could just lay off loads of people and let our trains decay to the point where you're into third world / US public infrastructure and see how that works. (rant over!:-) )
Slashdot Mirror
If you believe that people should get a real job instead of an education then you've got a country of predominantly labourers and factory line workers. A dangerous route to take in a time when low skilled jobs can get outsourced to somewhere cheaper very easily. I don't think it's a simple binary get a job/or/get an education. You really want all your graduate students to leave education? you want no graduate level education in your country? Who are your entrepreneurs going to turn to when they need somebody to do the research to develop their new product? (Maybe the French, who came up with the word 'entrepreneur'?)
I am assuming you like the idea of *some* education for your nation's people as you are posting in words and can read.
"Poor babies don't want to be judged, so they stay locked in their towers..."
Most academics are very keen to engage with the public and their profession is based on critical debate so probably not scared of being judged. Trust me, most academics can argue like fury. After all, your PhD in most countries is based on a successful viva (oral defence of your work, you against experts in your field, several hours long, no breaks, going through your 300 page thesis page by page, in some cases in front of an audience) and conferences are about standing up in front of your peers and arguing your work.
More likely they see other avenues of communicating with the public to be a more profitable use of their time. Everybody's busy these days. Would you prefer to pengage with the public and communicate your work through publishing popular science books and going to sicence fairs, or in a medium where people who don't know your domain sling cheap insults at you?
As for academics not knowing the real world, give us references for your research.
My bias: just finishing PhD in my mid 40s. Been published in a couple of books, couple of journals, been to a few academic conferences. Previously worked in education in inner city schools, worked on factory production lines, being involved in alternative music festivals, travelled round the world and seen a few dozen countries. I think that counts as the real world. But this expression really puzzles me, what is this space that you think people inhabit that is not the real world? What is your definition of the 'real world'? I'd be curious to hear.
"Until you happen to need one"
I choose to live in a society where I don't need to use or carry petards.
"Maybe it's time for the professors as a whole to grow the hell up."
Maybe the professors are avoiding contributing until wikipedia trolls grow the hell up.
Why spend several hours of your time trying to write a careful, well referenced, measured piece if there is too high a chance that you'll come back the next day to find "u r gay" or something like that splattered all over it? Or somebody with little knowledge of your field picking a fight with you and re-writing your article without entering into measured debate before undertaking the edits? Some professors feel it's not worth the time contributing to a space that may require a lot of time fighting over for little gain. They might feel their time is better spent communicating through other media, say for example contributing to a popular science book, explaining what they are doing on their personal website, publishing in the academic media or doing talks in science festivals. Perhaps they feel the debate is of higher quality in these channels?
Other academics do publish on wikipedia though, some academics do feel it's a place they can share ideas, e.g. in community informatics. Here's looking at you Mike and Larry
yup. But no more or less 'cool' than any other weapons system.
Personally I think weapons are very uncool.
You know when somebody says "the correct spelling is..." there will be a source which gives it another spelling :-)
Me, I am British, so I'll take the Oxford English Dictionary's spelling ;-) (though to be fair it also offers salpetre that it notes as being a more archaic form)
saltpetre, n.
Second edition, 1989; online version March 2011. ; accessed 27 March 2011. Earlier version first published in New English Dictionary, 1909.
Pronunciation: /sltpitr/ /--/
Forms: Also 15–18 (now U.S.) saltpeter, 15 saltpetir, saltpetur, 16 saltpetar, 15–16 saltpeeter....
Etymology: Alteration of salpetre n. after salt n.1 (see sense 5b).
1.
a. Potassium nitrate; = nitre n. 1b Chili or cubic saltpetre : sodium nitrate.
(etc.)
FIFA (the organisation that decides the rules for football's world cup) doesn't let world cup final games to be played in covered stadia. Might be something to do with not allowing games to be played on artificial surfaces (so you need sunlight etc), can't remember.
"Why do people demonize businesses who seek out the best and brightest and PAY them for their knowledge and skill. Perhaps because they didn't get those well paying jobs themselves."
In some cases because some people feel that businesses do not operate with high enough ethical standards and object to their ways of undertaking their work. Some people don't want to work for such companies because they don't want to contribute to their success and feel that such companies broach their personal ethical guidelines.
For example, some Christians won't work for arms manufacturers because they believe this contradicts their religious beliefs, some people won't work for Nestle because they feel Nestle's promotion of baby milk powder in countries where there is no safe water supply is unethical, some folk won't work for companies that they feel are at odds with their political beliefs.
Lots of people make choices in life that are drawn from their personal ethical and moral beliefs, not just based on envy.
That would be "saltpetre" not "salpetre" surely if following the UK English spelling? ;-)
(hung by your own petard?)
Does this mean that companies will start selling IP addresses for increasing amounts of money? should I buy a block of 100 as an investment now? A bit like buying up domain names?
Over here in the UK we've pretty well shifted over to the same billion as everybody else, 10^9 rather than 10^12. Now if you (and Liberia, and Burma) would hurry up and shift over to metric measurements like the rest of us, all would be good.
Come on, it's only 8 dollars / US gallon here in the Midlands. Mind you stuff always costs more in London ....
Looks like the invisible hand of the free market really dropped the ball that time....
"Here in Europe, people are buying masks and iodine pills."
Not sure what part of Europe you are posting from, but here in the UK I've not seen anybody buying masks or iodine pills. Conversation with friends and work mates is about how terrible a disaster has happened, there is no fear that we might be affected.
Not even our most poor quality media are suggesting that people should be taking precautions.The media coverage is mostly about the terrible situation Japanese folk find themselves in. A very small part of the coverage asks whether our nuclear power plants have up-to-date safety features and politicians are discussing whether this needs to be examined.
Get some vented ear plugs. They cost more than the foam ones (about 12 quid each, I think that's about 20 USD) but are comfortable to wear, and drop the noise levels so you still get a nice balance but just cuts the high levels down a bit. Really nice, so much better than the foam freebie ones, you can chat with them in, they just drop the top frequencies a bit.
Technically, isn't the USA a republic rather than a democracy?
Mind you I am splitting hairs a bit and would be interested if somebody could give me a summary on what the difference is... (I know, I should probably just look up wikipedia...)
yup, with you on the sensible behaviour buddy. Couple of years ago I was at a small music festie in the north of Scotland and dropped into the local bands' tent with a couple of mates, both folk musicians. As a band got up on stage my friends both pulled a small box out of their pockets and completely unthinkingly popped open the boxes, reached out sound reduction plugs and popped them in their ears. One of them saw me not doing this and kindly offered her spare pair. Since then I've always taken noise reduction plugs to gigs. Got to protect what I've got left..... wish kids did the same.... but I guess we were all young n stoopid....
IANAL. But I believe if a court case happens and you lose you pay costs. Does this also happen in the USA? How much do your lawyers cost? About the same for a court case, more, less?
We actually have a system called Legal Aid which supports people on lower incomes, allows them reduced price / free legal support but the present government in all its wisdom is cutting this down to be virtually non existent. Allegedly. (covers me against being sued, right? :-) )
But it was pulling stunts like this that got the Labour party voted out at the next election. People realised they'd lost touch with reality. Not saying the current lot are any better, in fact they might be worse (hey, politicians, eh?) but at least we had the option to vote out the last lot when they got too crazy.
Not only where people are listening to the music, but also who is listening to the music.
Lots of us have been exposed to loud noises over the last 20, 30, 40 or more years. Some through our own choices (loud live gigs, nightclubs etc), and through noise that isn't our choice (living in cities, working in industrial workspaces).
Lots of us don't have perfect hearing so to be honest less than perfect sound reproduction is good enough, our hearing is too shot. No point spending thousands on a sound reproduction set up because we can't hear the difference.
I read an interesting story about the BBC maybe fifteen- twenty years ago. They were having a hard time finding sound engineers who could meet their high standards, because teenagers from the personal music generation (mid 80s onwards) had universally damaged their hearing through the volume they set their music at. Until personal mobile music came along there just wasn't the opportunity for people to damage their own hearing as a leisure pursuit in that continuous manner.
"those who receive a "free" education seldom appreciate it as much as the one who had to earn (and pay for) that education"
is a very different statement from
"I had to work for my degree. I appreciate it more than the people I have met who didn't have to work for it."
It is the former statement I objected to as it suggested you were offering a proven statement based on research across a large pool of people using a respected research methodology. My bias: I am a post doctoral researcher in education and technology at a UK university. So I am critical about such statements, I spend lots of time reading academic papers about issues like the impact of education on people's lives and their perceptions of it. Probably I should chill out as slashdot is just us all hanging out talking nonsense at the water cooler, not an academic forum... :-)
Your later statement is more of a personal opinion based on a limited informal survey (you chatting to your pals) so of course I can't comment on that. Plus you're clear there that you're offering a subjective opinion rather than a researched fact.
anyhow, probably should take it too seriously eh?
I think the subtext of the argument is "don't rely on another nation's tools". Not an issue if you're from the USA, but if you're not from the USA this is a bigger issue of concern. Your shipping, military, directed vehicles etc are all dependent on another government's political and military preferences. If you have a different opinion from the USA, you could be in big trouble. And you don't have a vote in how the USA wants to guide its policies.
This is one of the big reasons why the EU and Russia want to build their own GPS-like systems, they want sovereign control over satellite guidance, not to be dependent on how much the Americans like them on any particular day.
Sorry, being cheeky ;-) My dad and my nieces love postcards from interesting places when I go on holiday / work abroad. My girlfriend thinks it's much more romantic when I send her a letter than when I send her a txt msg. My friends love getting birthday cards through the post and sometimes I'll find a great book and send it as an unexpected present to a good friend. It's really nice to get some personal mail through the door as well as bills and junk mail.
Probably I am old fashioned. Also in the UK the postal system, while it has its faults, still works pretty well. Cheaper to post parcels through the mail than by a courier and they'll still get there (recently I sandblasted some door locks for my brother and posted them to him, no problem, couple of quid to do so including recorded delivery, no idea how much a courier would cost).
"those who receive a "free" education seldom appreciate it as much as the one who had to earn (and pay for) that education"
- prove your statement please: facts, references, etc.
I know, it's madness. I guess it depends on your model / philosophy of how a country should be run. Current ConDem government seems to follow the Tory line that trains should be run at a profit, they are a business. Compare to many of our European neighbours who see trains as part of the public infrastructure and to be subsidised as such.
Can't pull any figures out the hat but we definitely pay way more than a lot of other European countries for our train services. Myself, I think in the long run you're better investing in infrastructure and I believe you'll indirectly pull in profit in the long run if you have good services. Plus the current govt says we need jobs, well why not employ loads of people in building a 21st century rail infrastructure, that'll stimulate the economy. I live in a railway town and they'd love it if the government announced we need hundreds of new railway carriages built here, need to open up some mothballed steelworks and start turning out new rail lines, get loads of construction workers building improved bridges and tracks etc. People in work = people spending in shops, secondary industries benefit, end result more people working and better infrastructure. Or you could just lay off loads of people and let our trains decay to the point where you're into third world / US public infrastructure and see how that works. (rant over! :-) )