You may be suffering from seasonal affective disorder (SAD). Short winter days mean less sunlight. Look up light therapy. I suffer from the opposite problem. On long summer days it gets dark so late I can't get enough sleep before it gets bright again. I tried blacking out the windows but them my wife gets depressed.

The real world need for sponges is far greater than the need for people who have been taught how to learn but can't prove it. If you're teaching someone how to learn how can you know if you have succeeded? How does someone prove that they can learn without actually answering any questions? How can a student prove he can retain knowledge without retaining any?

My first day at school was in 1958. With pop quizzes and weekly progress tests in all 5 classes I imagine we spent a cumulative 1 hour a day in testing. Without testing how do you know if a child is learning? I took a semester of college classes in 1997. Each class was four hours a week with the fourth hour spent in testing.

My exposure to today's education system is a daughter who teaches college English and a son in his junior year of college. From what I see even though actual education spending has doubled or even tripled over the last fifty years the education system in more about teachers pay and students rights with little thought given to actually educating the average student.

It seems like the US education system is following the US police and military systems in being totally out of control, self serving, and doing more harm than good while also being hideously expensive. The end of the world might not be televised but it will be online, I'll be watching.

It was the teachers first computer class and she wasn't prepared. After the first semester I dropped out and went back to my old job. But I felt validated in that I could do college work. I taught my 23 year old son, he builds his own gaming rigs and I'm tech support for my wife. Full time job.

In 1997 at the age of 45 I decided to take C++ programing classes at my local community collage. This neck beard kid comes in and kicks everyone's ass. It was a prerequisite class for his major. The teacher hated my programs. They worked but weren't fancy enough. His had animations and sounds when the exercise was only to add a column of numbers. I never did figure how to make a recursive function work.

In all fairness I had been using and programing my own computer since 1981 so I lorded over the kids in the fundamentals of computing class.

My wife would type www.google.com into the address bar. I showed her how to use the Firefox search bar. Now she types google.com into the search bar. (face palm).

Oh great, another plot line to add to my collection. At 18 children have to pass stringent tests to be allowed to live and enter society, at least those who were not eliminated at 5 in the first culling. Some who don't think they can pass the test escape into the wastelands and part of the entrance test is capturing escapees. Of course the whole thing is televised. No, it's nothing like The Hunger Games.

Of course there are the parents of doomed 5 year olds who hide their children and then all the escaped undesirables who have grown up and are trying to fight the system, oh my, a trilogy. Excuse me, I have some best sellers to write. Movie rights are extra. I also claim copyright.

45 years ago my parents moved to a farm 3 miles from the end of electrical and phone service. The power company ran power to the house we built and to the three irrigation wells that had been using gasoline powered pumps for no charge. On the other hand the phone company charged us $3000 to extend the phone line and we had to pay $50 a month for the next ten years. With inflation that was almost $80,000 to go 3 miles.

Let's expand the medallion limited business model. Food stores, restaurants, clothing stores, plumbers, electricians, programers. Union hiring halls can do the same thing for common laborers. Consumers will be assured that everything they can afford to buy will be the best.

Alcohol has no effect on me aside from feeling like I'm wearing three overcoats. I had no friends who drank and didn't take my first drink until I was 30. That and it tastes nasty so no, none for me thanks.

My rural community in north Florida is getting city water. While it stops 2 km from my house the ground well site is there and more power poles and three phase current are being ran to the site. With the upgraded feeder lines my power no longer flickers with every lightning strike. If something is important the power will stay on.

We have a saying in the South, "So long, don't let the screen door hit you in the butt on the way out".

I guess those doctors who put me on disability were right. I have driven heavy equipment and farm trucks since I was 16. Two months ago I herded a 20 ft Uhaul down I-4 through Orlando, I just find it very stressful. Thank God for GPS.

How about old people? At 62 my driving skills and vision have diminished. I hate trying to drive in traffic. My parents live 25 miles out in the country, driving themselves to the doctor's and supermarket is getting dangerous. In the US an aging rural population is in danger because of their isolation. We old people like our independence and fixed incomes make moving too expensive. Another joy of the twenty-first century.

Fortunately they refused my offers to help program them.