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Comment I doubt it will sell well (Score 1) 99

I have been at companies that make engineered wood products. In this case think of a 4"x12" wooden I-beam. This isn't all they made, but they were pretty much in the wood I-beam business. They were as strong, or stronger, than identically sized solid wood and significantly less expensive.

That said, it is very rare to see a wood I-beam in construction. The reason was simple. People who wanted a big piece of wood wanted it to look a certain way. People who didn't want wood didn't want wood, nothing was changing that either.

As in other ventures, I hope the best for them. I am sure they will find some clients. That said, I do not expect to see it start a revolution.

Comment Re:The bosses need more money (Score 1) 100

You are describing the early boomer MBAs'. They were permitted to strip mine anywhere that money could be found. Further, the WWII and silent generation were willing to step back and let the, at the time, young generation "drive the car."

In retrospect, everyone can see that it was a mistake.

At this point, MBAs' are not being given, and don't expect, the keys (to keep the metaphor consistent).

As I expect you can surmise, I do indeed have an MBA, so do several other teachers in the Title 1 (education jargon for "poverty") district that I work in. I am not going to say that it is the most common degree among middle school teachers, but I can assure you that it is pretty common here. Considering my deficits, without it I wouldn't have gotten this job. To teach at the high school I went to, in a different district, but also Title 1, it is pretty clear that I would need a doctorate.

The reality is that most of the jobs the early boomers landed in were closed up tight before Gen X came knocking at the door

Comment MBA is a college degree, not a job tile (Score 4, Interesting) 100

A lot of people seem o think the MBA is a job title. Some position in the company where the best occupant is someone who is equally clueless and heartless.

The reality is that it is a broadly applicable degree. That said, the silver spoon nepotism poster children frequently pursue an MBA and really do have no other redeeming qualities. The problem isn't the MBA, it is that they have no meaningful background to understand the companies and people that they destroy in the pursuit of the fleeting god of "perpetual growth" and "increasing revenues."

Comment Yet another Biden Victory (Score 4, Informative) 314

The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, signed into law by President Biden, ended the law that prohibited Medicare from negotiating drug prices. This act allows Medicare to negotiate prices for certain drugs covered under Medicare Part D (starting in 2026) and Part B (starting in 2028), something it was previously barred from doing.

Comment Re:Community hotspots (Score 1) 101

Just throwing this out there, but unless you're sure where your network-connected drones and robots are sourced from and where they "call home" to, it's not an irrational policy to not allow that stuff. Some of the cheaper crap does phone home to some China-based server infrastructure, sometimes over VPN tunnels to get around basic filtering. Do you know what's being passed on to those servers?

Firstly, the issue is not the drones, which, by the way, I got from a Department of Defence grant. They didn't just provide the money; they purchased the hardware. The hardware was then given to me as I completed the class on how to teach students how to use the drones and robots.

The issue is a paranoid lockdown of services. This is in response to a post that said,

I guess the schools will just have to setup facilities in poorer neighborhoods who's wifi will spillover and pay for it with erate funding.

Your post fails to answer the question of why the administration is permitted to use the "staff" network, but teachers have to use our own data plan for our required smartphones and other connected devices.

Finally, your post seems to be an echo of a fear in the 1970's, when microwave ovens were starting to show up in homes. Some people were very concerned that the Russians (the bad guy of the time) were listening to our conversations through the microwave oven. Yes, there was a case of Russian listening to conversations using microwave, however, it was a very specific case and had nothing to do with ovens.

My father was a radio communication engineer for one of the largest counties (population, not size) in the United States at the time. He told me that he had given up on trying to point out that it was not possible for technical reasons. Instead, he asd a simple question, "Why do you think the Russians would want to listen to you in your kitchen, and do you think they have the resources to monitor every kitchen in the United States?"

Finally, I have spent more time living and working in PR China. By that I am talking about years the had just edged into the double digits when I left; yes, teaching is a bit of a "near retirement" gig. I can assure that there is little at this middle school that would interest the Chinese.

Comment Re:Community hotspots (Score 5, Interesting) 101

Not likely. I am a teacher and while we are required to have connected devices, we are not allowed to use the school's wi-fi.

That's right, we are expected to use our own data to do work when there is a fully functioning wi-fi system in the building. All of the students are connected to the "student" wi-fi using the district-issued Chromebooks. The administration uses the "Staff" wi-fi, which the teachers are not permitted to access.

The really annoying part is that I got a grant for a bunch of drones and robots. I have the hardware, but I can not use them because the district IT department is adamant that nothing under teacher control is to be connected to the wi-fi.

Comment From a limited perspective, this makes sense (Score 1) 218

It makes perfectly good sense if you think of it from a hostile agent perspective.

As we ban foreign films. . . sure, we create a bit less mind space for outside of the US. However, that is just a side feature. The real opportunity is for other countries to retaliate by banning US films. This diminishes the 'Soft Power" that the US gains from these exports.

The real test of this theory, or any other, is its predictive power. If it can be used to make a prediction about what a hostile agent will do on something that Trump hasn't addressed yet. Then, wait to see if he does it.

But yes, from a limited perspective, this makes sense.

Comment The research doesn't help (Score 2) 213

I have been doing quite a bit of reading and am considered my district's best resource on this topic. Most of the research papers came out in the early 2010s'. Since then, they have been slowing.

The problem is what to do with the information. Several papers use throw-away lines like "use gender aware/specific pedagogies [teaching methods]." The problem is that there are almost no gender aware/specific pedagogies. The OECD has A, as in singular, paper on the issue, as it applies to male students, and literally hundreds of papers on the topic as it applies to female students.

When I have spoken on the topic, it gets a handwaving response and the sure to be said form of "well, we need to be doing something to help the girls." Then there is the implication that it is unmanly to seek, or provide help to boys. This is perpetuated and seen in the failure of young men to seek assistance in their college years.

I looked at working on this on my EdD, but there is a dearth of resources in the What to do about it" column.

Comment The interest rate shouldn't be hardcoded (Score 1) 163

The idea of limiting credit card interest rates is not a bad one, but I question the wisdom of hard-coding a number, any number.

Indexing tends to make for laws that remain more relevant. Considering that she is proposing 10% at a time that the prime rate (PR) is 7.5%, that puts her target between 1.25*PR and 1.5*PR.

There may be a cause for discussing the exact multiplier, but things like this should be linked to some index.

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