Comment Re:+5, wait what? (Score 1) 393
For synical people like myself this is funny, painfully funny. (I do not mod)
Do We Need a Longer School Year? 729
Hugh Pickens writes "Jennifer Davis writes that while summer holds a special place in our hearts: lazy afternoons, camping at the lake, warm evenings gazing at the moon, languid summers can be educationally detrimental, with most youth losing about two months of grade-level equivalency in math computational skills over the summer and students from low-income families falling even further behind. A consensus is building that the traditional nine-month school year might be a relic of the 20th century that has no place in an increasingly competitive global work force and an analysis of charter schools in New York reveals that students are most likely to outperform peers if they attend schools that are open at least 10 days more than the conventional year. What of the idea that summer should be a time of respite from the stresses of school? There are two wrong notions wrapped up in this perspective. The first is that somehow summer is automatically a magical time for children but as one fifth-grader, happy to be back at school in August, declared, 'Sometimes summer is really boring. We just sit there and watch TV.' The second mis-perception is that school is automatically bereft of the excitement and joy of learning. On the contrary, as the National Center on Time and Learning describes in its studies of schools that operate with significantly more time, educators use the longer days and years to enhance the content and methods of the classroom. 'We should expect our schools to furnish today's students with the education they will need to excel in our global society,' says Davis. 'But we must also be willing to provide schools the tools they need to ensure this outcome, including the flexibility to turn the lazy days of summer into the season of learning.'"
Comment Re:The proper way (Score 1) 206
They are my isp too, and I had the same thing happening.
Their helpdesk is the only non scripted helpdesk with a dutch isp, they take the time it takes to solve the problem, instead of playing hide and seek while blaming their customers like most other companies do.
Comment Already done... (Score 2) 206
My ISP, xs4all blocks my connection automatically when trojans or other malware starts to make outbound connections.
I know this as I am responsible for several people on this connection, one of them connected a laptop which triggered this.
When this happens all my ports are closed at the ISP and I get a notice to connect to their proxyserver so that I can download protective means.
When I solve the issue I get a checkup and after that all goes well, the ports are reconnected.
Comment I want to punch people in the face... (Score 1) 287
When they say: "We're comitted to..... blah blah...."
Comment Re:Drug test the final standard? (Score 1) 482
Hey, chear up, it's the American way...
Comment I'd vote for... (Score 2) 64
Gum 19 — star-forming region with variable star V391 Velorum
Comment Re:Art? (Score 1) 151
And then people say that we in the west are decadent...
Comment Re:Journalists? (Score 0) 252
Didn't the UK have 58 million people?
So 2 million is 0.03 percent of the population.
So most people don't care. like the grandparent says.
Comment Re:Try this on humans (Score 2) 82
It is already known that human brains make up what they miss in presented info.
With people you only have to withhold info to get them to make bad decisions
Comment Yeah, let us all hide (Score 1) 285
Yeah, let us all hide in our ghettos again, very good for the world.
While very noble, all this native translation stuff and UTF-8, what I see is that more and more people stop trying to reach out and stay in their own culture/circle.
The internet 10 years ago was much more international oriented than it is nowadays.
Comment Re:power corrupts (Score 1) 502
Wrong, the US has a winner takes all system, the people do not vote directly if they are allowed to vote at all.
There will be no coalition, ever...
Read this and be amazed: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_the_United_States
Comment Re:A patent troll public shaming. Interesting (Score 1) 278
Don't be mad at the oportunist, be mad at those that gave this oportunist leeway.
Patents and Copyrights have always been political power instruments and are used to censor, stiffle progress and to provide landgrab in the broadest sense to accomplices.
Stiffle progress is a special one, politicians are people with contol freak mindsets, they hate any sense of not being in control.
Science in perticular is constantly providing legal fronteer situations which enable others than the political class and their accomplices to be oportune.
Comment Re:A patent troll public shaming. Interesting (Score 2) 278
Besides that, it is also strategic, when Google hurts Nokia it will kill Microsoft its (only?) platform and chances to enter that market.
Comment Re:Mageia/PCLinux (Score 1) 44
PCLinux is an old fork, probably it is too far from the codebase of Mandriva.
Texstar (PCLinux' maintainer) used to be a packager for Mandriva years ago, he rpm'd a lot of applications in those days, and the packages were of exceptional quality.
