"On Monday evening, only days before an area man masturbated yet again to 3D images of Bigfoot getting a blowjob, the Senate extended the Undetectable Firearms Act."

Irrelevant bullshit is irrelevant.

In case someone is humor impaired, I feel the need to say that the previous post was a joke.

Damn, I'd gotten all the way to step 4.

Because I definitely would not want the .gov peeking in on me and finding out what I'm having for dinner or knowing that I love my family.

How do you feel about the private contractor that's doing the snooping knowing what you've had for dinner and that your wife has breast cancer and selling that information to companies who can now try to sell you miracle cancer cures? How comfortable are you with prospective employers knowing your child has autism and needs extra attention, which might possibly mean more absences from work?

Remember, most of the data collection and first-level analysis is not done by "the government" but by a private company that works for the government. And, that private company has corporate clients besides the government. How comfortable are you knowing that anyone who can afford to pay having access to all your personal communications?

And what happens that day you disagree with what the government is doing? How comfortable are you knowing that you're planning to go to a political demonstration? How comfortable are you with your boss or potential employer knowing?

How comfortable are you with a techie with anti-social tendencies having access with all your family's communication? Your wife's, your daughter's? Because who do you think is working for that private contractor who's working for the government?

The HS class for using Excell and Word is called, "Vocational Computer Applications" where I come from. In the 1990's Computer Math was the class you took for BASIC, Pascal, C, etc. Nowadays I think the curriculum is JavaScript, Python, C. In 100 years it'll probably be Neuron.Net, BizLang, and C.

I've invented other languages with the aim to be as close to the metal as possible on modern Von Neumann architectures -- It was basically C that looked different; C is a product of its environment. Only difference was that mine has an optional GC and co-routines (heap functions instead of stack functions). Interesting things computer languages, the Turing complete ones are all equivalent. However, the fundamental operations on fundamental concepts such as data field sets and arrays, lists, etc. are usually all there and the minimal abstraction for them will work something like C, because that's what it is.

Now, how would you go about teaching mathematical logic and problem solving to students? What tools would you use? Would you have them go on field trips to buildings being built and teach them engineering and construction 1st hand? Would you buy each kid an erector set and have them work out how to bridge gaps; Maybe you would have them simple solve logic puzzles using word games. Maybe you've realized that you're just presenting them a set of abstract problems and tasks that need to be solved and accomplished given a set of specific tools. Would you go out and buy all the different toolsets and construct the various problem spaces -- Or, and I mean be as condescending as possible, would you just have them do all theses things every day in a single class using computers, its simulations, and a programming language? Funny thing those logic and mathematic skills -- They're Turing complete; However, the minimal logical abstractions for them to work within is something like a computer, because that's what it is.

Keep in mind that the equivalent of tons of books can be carried as a digital knowledge reference instead of turned back in at the end of the year... Consider that if students can't call up every lesson they've ever been taught on their portable pocket computers, you've been do education wrong. Oh, they should learn with paper and pen? Why? Rocks and sand work just as well. There's a reason we use blackboards, paper, pencil, calculator, computer, laboratory, etc. instead of just the student's mind. Of course if you teach them how to code, they'll be able to port their lessons to every new system they code on.

The problem is that if you teach a kid BASIC instead of mathematics, they'll be better than the other kids at algebra.

In some schools, like in Japan, the teachers first present a problem to students before teaching them the required accepted method for solving it. For instance: Find the area of a triangle. The students break into groups and work on solving the problem. Many times the students re-invent the same equations our greatest ancient minds came up with, sometimes they come up with correct but imprecise or inefficient methods. Then the students are given the accepted knowledge with which to solve the other class / home work to ensure they know how to apply the solution to the problem space, and to grade them accordingly. Thus problem solving becomes an inherent part of all classes.

Contrast this with the USA education system where the teacher lectures about some known way to solve something then the kids practice doing so, not understanding why that's a good option or how useful the knowledge really is (no prior attempts to solve the problem to compare).

Now, I think Computer Science is a deep enough subject that it can be taught by itself, but IMO, we should actually just revise the language of mathematics to be more easily computer interpretable. Big E like symbol? Oh that's a Sigma, why not call it an iterative loop instead and teach the kids a programming language with their algebra. If one picks an existing language then the kids can immediately leverage their mathematical tools on the real world -- Thus putting to bed that #1 question kids have, "Meh, when am I ever going to use this in the real world." How about right now?

Humans are tool using creatures. If I were to preach to you about the virtues of buggy whips and have you use and demonstrate proper whip cracking form, you'd be pretty damned bored. Mathematics is the buggy whip here to the kids. If a human doesn't get to utilize the tool you're trying to teach them to use, they won't see why it's a beneficial tool to have. Want to make a flunking algebra student into an A+ student? Teach them some Unreal Script and mod a game / Teach them some JavaScript and have them create simple HTML5 games of their own. I was 8 when I learned BASIC and modded Apple IIe games by accident in the computer lab -- Learned programming without a mentor; With a mentor we can achieve great things. I've found that the flunkers are among the brightest and bored kids in the class -- They just haven't been given a problem space with which to use their tools in.

This is the Information Age. Every single profession will involve computers. Not teaching kids how to describe their problems to computers is like not teaching them how to read and write. Why in the world would anyone try to teach mathematics on anything other than the most powerful 3D graphing calculators in the world is beyond me.

Considering the crowd that WP:OWNs those committees, this comment actually leads me to think Rep. Wolf might not be a waste of oxygen.

Thirty-plus years in congress is the very definition of "waste of oxygen", no?

To understand this comment fully you must first be cloaked in darkness outdoors, under a clear night sky. After you've studied the glimmering wonders of the heavens above, then return and continue...

Now consider yourself as a creator incarnate: A great doer. Imagine yourself in the proverbial beginning, surrounded only by blackness. Then comes the order, "Let there be Light", and it's up to you, Lucifer, The Light Bringer, to unmake the dark.

Think back to those billions upon billions of Enormous Burning Stars -- You made them all and brought into the Universe more light than anyone could ever need. The job is done, and done right. You've applied space-time curvature to pool matter beyond the bonding point and invented the Gravity Furnace. All the glories of the night sky -- the colourful Nebula created by brilliant explosive Super Novae, the Black Holes around which Galaxies of Stars are wrapped, all your doing. In the heart of every Gravity Forge simple matter and energy are fused into heavier elements -- In anticipation of their use in the creation of all other things.

Imagine your most Powerful and Prestigious position in ruins: The Boss has come down with a split personality disorder and now fixates solely on a small wet rock orbiting an ordinary Star in an ordinary Planetary System of an ordinary Galaxy. Imagine your true Potential wasted as your Boss Almightily stands transfixed upon a single group of literally moronic chemical interactions he claims to have created. He's bared any further celestial intervention or creating out among the vastness of space -- Even beyond the light-speed horizon of the small blue world -- and clearly gone insane.

It's no wonder the Angels revolted -- It's no wonder Half the Angels sided with Lucifer and became angels fallen out of God's grace. Who among you wouldn't?! And then in his righteous rage, just to spite you (and prevent competition), the Great and Wise God your Boss Almighty casts you down and entraps you in the centre of the Earth! Not just any planet, THE Earth. Out of all the Billions of other Planets an arm's reach away he picks the same damned planet that his precious "people" inhabit as your prison? His mind whispers the truth that he'll whisk away the beasties and let all be destroyed one day too, so there's really no point in this ridiculous madness.

Imagine the restraint that Lucifer must exhibit. Now dubbed Satan, the "Prince of Darkness", the creator of all light in the Universe keeps his awesome power in check, only screwing with the daily lives of the pathetic beasts that roam the prison planet's surface in the most minor of ways. Content to know that in a few billion years the Earth will be consumed by the death fires of the very Star you created to give the world light.

Yeah, even if we are not talking about the rational individualistic Laveyan Satanist, you could see why some would side with Satanists against the Christian sheep herders who worship their insane God. Rumour has it, He had His chosen people kill His own Son, for Christ's sake!

The National Rifle Association gives him a A- and the American Civil Liberties Union gives him a 0%. Some other rankings include 0% from Clean Air Flow Energy, 100% from National Right to Life, 0% from the Human Rights Coalition, 17% from the National Educational Association, 5% from the League of Conservation Voters, 92% from the United States Border Control and 10% by the Alliance for Retired Americans

-0% from the Human Rights Coalition, so of course, he's co-chair of the Human Rights Commission.

Maybe the difference between what Wolf wants and Boehner is the difference between someone who's been briefed and someone who hasn't. If you've been in congress since 1981 and nobody wants you near any important committee regarding intelligence or foreign affairs, maybe there's a reason, you know?

He cares as much about "justice for the Benghazi 4" as you do. Not one bit. He wouldn't recognize justice if it crawled up his leg and bit his butt.

Yes, this is in such stark contrast to the opposing Christian world view, it can be quite startling.

Is that you, Shaft?

The best part is where he talks about how a system being "closed" is its "strength" because (gasp!) a "PC is a moving target".

If this guy didn't exist, Sony and Microsoft would have to invent him, to try to take focus off the fact that the next-gen consoles are the enemy of innovation.

In fact, they represent the opposite of innovation. Instead of games being as good as they can be, they will be only as good as their platform.

I hope Valve (or some other actual innovator) eats their lunch.

Does it have DJ Atomika on the radio?

Don't evangelicals realize that by trying to insinuate Christian dogma into government they are diminishing both their faith and their civil society?

But I guess that's to be expected when you give yourself a victim's mentality. If you listen to many evangelicals, you would think that they are the most discriminated against, put upon, beaten down minority in the entire world. You would think they have to practice their religion in secret to avoid arrest, rather than there being a church on every other street corner in America. They fight to prevent women from getting health care in private, gays from having formal relationships, children from learning science, and then cry that their rights are being violated. They've turned "Merry Christmas" into a defiant challenge instead of a wish for peace.

If the Satan of the bible existed, he'd feel right at home with this bunch.

I don't believe in any particular God, but I'm starting to like this new pope.

Likewise. I think it's refreshing to find a leader of a Christian faith that actually takes the teachings of Christ seriously.

I've never understood how you can read the New Testament and come away thinking the main thrust of Christ's teachings was anti-homosexuality, anti-abortion and pro-free market.

There's an author who refers to American Christianity as the "civil religion", because of how little it actually has to do with Christ or spirituality of any sort.