Comment Re:Or, and just hear me out... (Score 1) 190
Tell that to the framers, who feared a large standing army and thus wrote the 2nd amendment. We currently have the most impressive standing army that the world has ever known.
Tell that to the framers, who feared a large standing army and thus wrote the 2nd amendment. We currently have the most impressive standing army that the world has ever known.
Obviously I was not quoting gross. Microsoft's is over 65%, and headed downward. In 2010 it was around 80%!
I wish you were right, but suspect you are wrong. The 2nd amendment was essentially abandoned after the Whiskey rebellion highlighted the ineffectiveness of the militias, and the British burning DC to the ground finished it off. They never bothered to repeal it.
Well, they've already become AAPL - their margins are almost identical at around 20%. But that is down from the roughly 30% margins they enjoyed over the last 5 years. And the trend is downward. A pessimist might look and see them trending towards Samsung's 12% margins if they insist on ramping up their hardware business.
I agree that it is hard, but we've had over a hundred years of public education to figure this out. I suspect some combination scoring from peers, parents, and administration along with maybe some test scores. We have to do something, and that is why I don't push too hard against the standardized testing - despite the obvious flaws, at least they are trying to affect change. It should be completely routine to lay off the bottom performing teachers in a district each year or so. Tiny districts are exceptions, of course - but most of your cities and suburban schools would stand to benefit.
I'd agree with you if we weren't actively lightening our fleet through uniform, nationwide CAFE standards, and if crash statistics didn't show a long-term, continuous reduction in automobile deaths.
Also, when comparing diesel and gasoline you need to account for the energy density advantage of diesel. This is around 12%, depending on the ethanol content of the gasoline. So now it is 37MPG vs 47MPG. Still impressive, but not as crazy and now it passes the sniff test.
They are taking on more and more hardware business. This is a much less profitable venture than they had before, so I don't expect things to be as rosy as you seem to. It is very hard to maintain the profit margins that they are accustomed to. Wall Street has given them a huge boost over the last year, but remember that comes after 10 years of no movement, and they still aren't anywhere near their highs during the dot-com bubble.
Still, the layoffs show that they are serious and PC sales have finally stabilized. While I am not a stockholder, I think you are right to be bullish in the short term.
Again, I completely agree. But I refuse to support throwing more money at the problem until they fix the systemic issues. If we are buying iPads while lacking pencils, this is just plain stupid and we need to address the stupidity. We already spend more per pupil than any other country in the world, and more in constant dollars than at any time in our history. More money will not fix anything.
I'm convinced that the teachers union is hell-bent on protecting bad teachers. Heck, they even oppose methods to try and measure teacher performance. Don't get me wrong - I'm not firmly on the side of the people who want to base teacher pay on standardized tests. But any interest which ignores the need to routinely purge the bottom of the barrel is clearly self interested at the expense of my kids. I therefore oppose simply throwing more money at the problem, since I feel it would be ineffective until the underlying structural problems are dealt with.
As an aside, I don't understand the approach that most unions take. Their position would be much stronger if they made their membership stronger. Culling the herd should not be such a cursed concept. Hard working union members should be incensed when slackers hitch on for the ride. Instead we see an institutional protection of the weakest members.
That's as maybe but we have Healthcare that is FREE at the point of delivery.
That's not quite true for dental work, but the price is capped, so you'll typically pay £18.50 to see a dentist, £50.50 if you need something done, or £219 if you need something serious. It's only free if you qualify for extra assistance, which is automatic if you are under 18, under 19 (25 in Wales) and in full-time education, on income support or similar.
but I certainly don't stand around in the grocery store like a retard.
It sounds like you have at least the entire table memorized through 9x9. I think some schools go to 12x12, but that is a minor detail.
I'm gonna double quote you here:
I know this isn't true, because I sure as hell don't have most of the table memorized.
Earlier:
I made no specific effort to memorize a huge table of calculations. Instead, I *naturally* memorized the results of calculations that I saw often. 8*8 = 64. I saw such things often, so I memorized them naturally.
So do you have 8*8 memorized or don't you? I find it hard to fathom how you could see 8*7 and not immediately think "56". Can you provide an example of your thought process? That would allow me to understand what you are suggesting as an alternative and allow me to consider that my kids would be better off having that instead.
But that's their choice.
As kids get older, sure, they make more and more choices. But at the age of 8 when they learn multiplication tables, they have very few choices. The need to learn how to read, full stop. They need to learn basic arithmetic, full stop. These are essential life skills - as critical as learning about appropriate social interaction.
But I would say that using a calculator really doesn't take that much time
If you need a calculator to do 30% off, then I feel sad for our public education system. This is the reason that grocery stores get away with selling larger bottles for a higher price per ounce than the smaller bottles. Liquid Tide, I'm looking at you... If everyone spent 2 weeks rote memorizing these allegedly pointless tables when they were 8, we wouldn't have such shenanigans.
"Look! There! Evil!.. pure and simple, total evil from the Eighth Dimension!" -- Buckaroo Banzai
