Constructivist, free form, hands on education. It works for many students. This may have relevance because there are not some many things to take apart anymore. We are not on farms where things needs to fixed and children can observe, help, participate, then do it themselves. Hell, even cookies are bought prefab, at most you have to cut them. Kids do not see that if procedures are not followed, the cookies are not good. Even making a loaf of bread would benefit them. Even when I was a kid, you still had things you could solder and actually build, not just plug and play. That said, specific teaching methods for specific students is not the silver bullet for the making sure we pick out the students who are going to be tomorrows tech leader. Unless you are being very selective in the kids to get the top 1% motor skills of anyone under 10 is limited and they are not going to have a great deal of motor skills and the abstractions skills are going to be very limited. We see this in spelling bees. These involve a lot of memorization and a limited amount of abstraction. There is no cause and effect because applying the rules incorrectly does not guarantee failure. But it is an age appropriate way to predict future ability to accomplish high paid simple tasks. Likewise a Rube Goldberg machine is a great way to teach cause and effect to older kids, but again it is concrete. Because concrete is the where the kids are at. Development varies, that is why some kids can learn algebra at 10, and some can't even deal with it at 20, but when one is teaching algebra one starts with hands on concrete, and use the subject to move the student to a more abstract view. So, yes, if we are talking top students, this is a viable method to bring kids up to very high expectations by the time they are 13, but I think it might lack pedagogical validity. Like focusing on the ability to pass a multiple guess reading test. Resourceful kids will complete the task without ever learning anything.

Sorry, that's what I meant. Still relatively close. The diameter of the observable universe is about 30 to 40 billion light years. The chance of the brightest radiation source being only 2.6 BLY away is close enough to suggest some kind of anthropic principle bias in play.

The galaxy is about 2.6 light-years away. That's relatively close. That seems kind of a coincidental. A far away one would probably be detectable because it's so powerful.

If a hacker has access to accelerometer data, he/she probably has access to lots of OTHER personal info also.

With interest rates at historic lows, excess capital causes investment bubbles. The result is too much money chasing too few great deals

Time for good old fashioned taxes

Its hard to convince Americans in general to wear seat belts.

It's our God-given right to have the freedom to allow our brains to be splattered all over His Grand Creation.

That is only true if the toxic substances don't impact reproduction.

Modern take on Honeymooners: "To the moon with your job, Alice!"

Or suggests NASA workers need a vacation and a good f8ck.

At least it's not Java

So are people who think virgins are better, but it's what their market seems to want.

ACA is not "free healthcare"; it's required insurance. Very different. Sure, there are subsidies, which is fine by me when inequality is so high.

And, early retirement makes room for the next generation to work.
       

I remember doing optical experiments with calibrated light sources from 1950...They still live in 1960x

Well, they ain't russian to get anything new.

I like "Crashberry"

SSD is cheap. This is not an Apple. I just bought a stock SSD 512GB drive for 125. This would tend to indicate that once again Dell is building something that has nice looking specs but is going to have unseen bottlenecks.