Follow Slashdot blog updates by subscribing to our blog RSS feed

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror

Comment There and back again, a home-educator tale (Score 1) 378

Love this one: "The Post found no correlation between school district quality, as measured by standardized test scores, and home-schooling growth." -- as if standardized test scores *EVER* indicated anything useful (they don't). Many universities are now abandoning SAT and ACT, and none that I know of even look at the state-administered standardized tests. "Many of America's new home-schooled children have entered a world where no government official will ever check on what, or how well, they are being taught." They don't do that *in* school, really, unless some terminally litigious ass-hat finds out there's a book in the school library they don't approve of. My wife and I home-educated our son when, in the first grade, his teacher told us she didn't have time for him. We barely suggested homeschool and the school RUSHED the necessary papers to our hands like they could wait to be rid of him. He was a first grader with no developmental or behavior problems outside a typical 6-year-old kid. And that was one of the top performing schools. Eight years later, we decide to enrol in a public high school chartered by a major state university. This is another one of those so-called top-performing STEM-based education schools. It's pretty dismal. They can't keep teachers. Nutrition is a joke - I thought school lunches were bad 40 years ago -- these kids get a cold sausage patty and a PB&J. They are missing some important facilities. Communication is terrible. Some classes are given online as self-study classes with no teacher. We still have to do everything ourselves like home-school parents while putting up with all the disadvantages of having to deal with public school. So, let's not pretend this statistic is anything short of an inevitability the country has been careening towards for decades.

Comment Well, it works though (Score 1) 170

Yeah, the ad pins are a minor annoyance, and emphatically YES I wish it was easier to get street names, but the thing is, it works. Apple Maps has proved, anecdotally at least, that it's less reliable for live directions to addresses on streets that are less than 5 years old, however I can understand the user experience is probably better for just browsing a map of an area.

Comment Originality? (Score 1) 144

He almost had me, until I read this: "...regurgitating what other embodied minds have said — about the life that they've had, about love, about lying, about fear, about mortality — and just put it all together into a word salad and then regurgitate it..." Do I even need to say it?

Comment Re:Why invest in people if you can import H-1Bs? (Score 1) 399

We should make a law to send all those lazy idiots to other countries so they can work for a minimum wage while the H-1Bs are doing all the intelligent work here!

I agree - the lazy idiots like McCarthy should try working minimum wage and see how long they can afford the lavish lifestyle of their fascist despot fantasy.

Comment Late to the party again, America? (Score 1) 222

The USA are the kind of party guest who arrives three hours late and wonders why all the best booze is gone. Electricity production from coal has been close to zero for a good two years in the UK and most of Europe. It's all nuclear, wind, and ccgt - which Siemens have signed commitments to converting from natural/methane to H2-burning turbines by 2030 using offshore, wind-powered electrolysis plants. Germany, the UK, and Scandinavian nations are on-schedule to triple the number of wind turbines in the north sea - some of which are the size of the Eiffel Tower. They already produce so much power, they have to power down turbines most days. That's another of their advantages over coal - coal generators take longer to get going, and as with all combustion-type engines, a significant amount of energy is wasted. The main problem is not with wind or any other source's ability to produce. The biggest problem in power is the poor ability to store. THAT's the thing we really need to solve. If Elec storage were not so lossy you could power the entire USA with nuclear, wind, and hydroelectric. With *existing* technology, they could still power the entire USA without burning a single lump of coal.

Comment paper security (Score 1) 104

So, tell me you've never been involved in software development without saying "Never been involved in software development." This won't go beyond current SOC2 compliance. How do I know? SOC2 is already slightly beyond the limits of what's possible, the difference is made up on paper. This will just be another unenforceable paper hoop that software firms have to jump through so they can display a shiny badge on their app page.

Comment Re:I'm confused (Score 1) 95

It's just brand posturing. Meant to make big news and get tonnes of free advertising while at the same time offering nothing new of value. Basically the MS MO since the infamous IBM DOS scheme of 1980 when IBM paid them to make DOS, and then renamed it to sell as a Microsoft product with essentially $0 R&D cost. I mean, it's BRILLIANT and at the time IBM was "The Man" to whom the proverbial stick was applied whereas Microsoft was the plucky underduck.

Comment Coal is done (Score 1) 270

Relying on coal is just laziness. We have shown that wind alone is capable of completely replacing coal with the rest provided by nuclear and ccgt. Solar is nice, but is mostly just good for lessening grid demand, though it's starting to catch up. Siemens are refitting all natural gas turbines to use hydrogen by 2030, with hydrogen to be produced by offshore electrolysis plants using energy 100% supplied by offshore wind. Germany and UK are set to treble wind electrical production in the next 5 years. The new far-offshore wind turbines are as big as the Eiffel Tower with combined output measured in gigawatts rather than megawatts.

Comment Re:Why is this a problem? (Score 1) 354

Imagine that your doctor graduated based on "diversity" and not merit. Is that really who you want treating you?

Now apply this to hardware -- is that really who you want working on designing the next CPU? Someone who got in based on the color their skin and not based on their skill?

What is this nonsense -- The Verge ?

This reply betrays a belief that genetic or gender superiority is the root cause for a lack of diversity. UnknownSoldier, your comment is racist. Only 30% of Americans are white males, yet they dominate the whole tech industry. That doesn't mean white dudes are better at tech, it means white dudes try to keep everyone else out.

Slashdot Top Deals

Little known fact about Middle Earth: The Hobbits had a very sophisticated computer network! It was a Tolkien Ring...

Working...