"relative speeds...are certainly present and noticeable at far lower velocities e.g. atomic clocks on Concord, GR corrections to GPS satellite clocks etc. Physics professor speaking here :-)." - Roger W Moore

http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=523464&cid=23083626

"Everything is funny. Some things just aren't funny to you." - AC

http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=441794&cid=22300386

"You should use your moderator points to determine if comments are interesting, etc. Not to upvote crap you agree with in the most childish digg-style possible. By validating the parent poster's simplistic and stupid attacks, you're fueling the fire.

Mitt Romney isn't being attacked for his view on drugs: he's being attacked for being a republican. Everyone knows it. Hillary's view on the War on Drugs is identical. Obama actually talks about ramping up the War on Drugs. But they aren't republicans so they aren't subject to the same level of attack.

...I'm not even a republican, and I'm getting sick of this crap. Every election year I have to listen to trolls validate each other's existence while hating huge segments of society. For whatever reason (likely Bush's fumbling presidency), Slashdot leans left, so Romney's embracing of technology is seen as an invitation to attack." - Moonpie Madness

http://politics.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=432182&cid=22206250

"Personally, I'd be happy to let the religious folks gather round their altars and sing Hosannahs to their invisbile sky daddy, but unfortunately, that's not enough for them. They need to inflict their beliefs, whether on abortion, or stem cell research, or contraception use, or whatever, on all of us. Why should I trust somebody who closes their eyes to basic scientific fact to make decisions rooted in science that might affect me?" - Lurker2288
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=415294&cid=22005842

"First of all, your arguing against inference. Have you ever seen an electron? Did you ever see your great-great-great-great-grandparents? Did you ever meet anybody that spoke Proto-Indo-European? No, but you can infer these things from the evidence. As to evolution, of course you can observe it. We have nylon-digesting bacteria now when nylon didn't even exist before the 1930s." - MightyMartian
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=415294&cid=22005844

"If you want to send your kids to private school, that's your right. That doesn't mean that you get to take funds away from public schools." - Conspiracy_Of_Doves

http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=415294&cid=22005270

Yes, yes it does. If a person is unsatisfied or does not morally support a program or business, they should not be forced to pay for it and perpetuate something they will never use. When public schools finally get the message that their curriculum is so pathetic that the vast majority of parents wish to stop sending their children there, maybe .. just maybe because of dire financial pressure, will they get their act together.

It wouldn't be hard, now, to improve public schools, but it would require moving back the curriculum approximately four years. Eighth graders should not be having trouble with math problems like "-2 + -5". They should not be confused about which ocean is between North America and Europe. They should not be writing at a second grade level.

Administrators and school boards are simply more interested in PR, passing along students who are full year grade failures, and not really ever dealing with serious, repetitive behavior problems. They could care less about what's being taught (unless it's time for the yearly test) and they couldn't care more about how many times you send Young Frankie down to the office for the upteenth offense. (That's the teacher's problem after all.)

I say this as a current public school teacher. Public schools, as they are now, are detriments to our society as a whole. They are a black hole of funding and a student's worst nightmare. Public schools are filled with apathetic, under-EDUCATED teachers who want nothing more than to get their yearly raise and bitch about how they'd rather be doing something else, but they're not talented enough for it.

As long as public schools continue to be funded by the bottomless wallet of taxes, they will continue to fester. Administrations will continue to latch onto ridiculous, time-wasting fads like PLCs as the newest savior of education without every having the slightest thought about the actual material being taught or the standards being enforced. NO... these schools need not become centers of religion. NO... character education is NOT the right course of action. NO... $8 Billion dollars spent on technology, for which teachers who can't even comprehend how to make a table in Word, is not the answer.

Just increase your expectations. That's it, folks. That's IT.

"Well, they're now the proud owners of
network-solutions-hates-non-whites.com
our-ceo-jacks-off-to-goatse.com
batman-touched-my-junk-liberally.com"
-Malevolent Tester

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=410854&cid=21958492

"The real issue is, 9/11 won't happen again. As a country, we've learned our lesson about "just sit tight and wait" when it comes to plane hijacking. Box cutter? You best have a flamethrower next time, because me and everyone in business class are going to beat you to death with our laptops as soon as you start trying to wave that piddly crap in our faces. Akbar Macbook, Bitch!" - SatanicPuppy

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=353633&cid=21273977

"I think, therefore I am an Atheist." - sig of amokk

"Religious fanatic G.W.Bush has killed 100 times more people than religious fanatic Osama Bin Laden." - sig of Nicolas MONNET

Ironically, the rest of his post talked about hyperbolic statements.

"Variation in pricing is a good thing, if the variation reflects demand for the product. You wouldn't expect to have to pay the same for an ersatz coffee maker as for a Krups; so why would you expect to have to pay the same for the Bavarian Radio Orchestra as for Karajan?" - Petrushka

http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=323299&threshold=3&commentsort=0&mode=nested&cid=20924431

I am an eighth grade English teacher. While I have certain requirements as to which concepts to teach, thankfully I have no strict requirements on how I should go about this. This means that so long as I am teaching literary analysis and writing skills, the topic of those activities is always flexible. As much as I love my subject and believe in the value of skillful writing, I also believe that there is a terrible lack of interest in the sciences and maths among students in general. In some sense, I believe the English classroom to be a support subject for the others classes at this grade level. At my school, the average science classroom has time for labs and note taking, but reading and writing on the subject (beside textbooks) is usually limited. Math is in a similar situation. They have time to learn a concept and practice, but not to linger on possibilities.

Therefore, I have two questions for the readers of Slashdot. Which books/shows/movies caused a curiosity towards theses subjects when you were young and what suggestions do you have to incorporate these subjects into writing?

"How many times have I lost a potential job from an employer who called a University to find out I never graduated. What a load! they should obviously by law only be allowed to take what I say about it.

Give me a break." - Richthofen80
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=237549&cid=19412781

"What I remind best is, that once I gathered [Battlestar Galatica] was an SF, I thought how unbelievably stupid it was that the man entering was dressed exactly as a contemporary yuppie/businesman of today and he was wearing a *tie*. A tie, for gods' sake! Only a T-shirt with 'nike' on it could have been more ludicrous. They're living thousands of lightyears away, have superiour technology, have not had any contect with earth for thousands of years, and he's wearing a goddamn tie? And every other prop is exactly like what you get at walmart?

... "The best SF-film ever, was bladerunner; at least there, SF was an integral part of the film. Not because of flashy spaceships or technology shown (though at least they did made it seem as if you were watching eastenders), but because they explored the question of what it meant to be human, when does a machine become human, what ethics could be followed in the future, etc." - N3wsByt3 [emphasis mine]
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=229267&cid=18584761

"You don't have to buy anything, just walk up to a representative sample of people who think that global warming is anthropogenic and say, "actually I think it's probably just a natural cycle." The shock, hostility and downright hatred you will come across will very quickly render claims of death threats highly believable." - ajs
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=226173&cid=18318501

"This is the kind of crap that has been going on for the last 5 years or longer. If you don't believe him, all you have to do is to look back at ANY Slashdot article on global warming in the last 5 years to see an incredible amount of vitriol and hate directed at those like myself who are highly skeptical of "Global Warming" as a man-made phenomena. We are called "Deniers", fools, idiots, trolls, tools, apologists for "big oil", ignorant, and any number of insults that you can imagine. Our intelligence is derided, our ability to research and think critically is questioned and our honesty is doubted. We are treated much like those who "insult Islam" are treated by Muslims. With disrespect, derision, and hatred. That some of the eco-religious would choose to "take it to the next level" with death threats is NOT SURPRISING AT ALL." - d3ac0n
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=226173&cid=18318913

And a well rounded post:
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=226173&cid=18319185

In my own experience, my objections and reasons have had me labeled as having "the same thinking process as Creationists". Nice.

Ah ha...

"My personal experience leads to the opposite conclusion. We may be wired to follow the logic we understand or are taught. If we are taught how to think rationally and scientifically, then belief in God is vulnerable to rational analysis." - TechyImmigrant

http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=225110&cid=18229860