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Comment "More importantly, it seems like...." (Score 1) 700

by darrint (#48978959) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Pros and Cons of Homeschooling?

More importantly indeed.

It's good that you are putting aside the debate and focusing on your own situation.

Homeschooling is a huge time commitment. It's a defining lifestyle choice. It can work well or not. I know because I've seen and done both.

If you are correct, and I'll come back to that in a minute... if you are correct about your wife not wanting to let go, that in my experience does not work out well for the kids. In my experience it leads to a lack of independence in the kids. I've seen kids who were so carefully managed that the only control they had over their own lives was when they were misbehaving. It escalated as they got older.

On the other hand I've also seen kids who enjoyed their homeschool/co-op school lifestyle and thrived in it.

We married and planned on homeschooling. But (much longer story short) after awhile we realized that we hated homeschooling. It was clear that we and our children would be better off making the best of our community schools, in spite of their reputation. This has worked out well for us. And yet I know other families who still homeschool and are doing fine.

So first of all, this is a decision for you and your wife to make. It's like deciding what state to live in. Florida isn't objectively better than Arizona in any meaningful way. (We could discuss it on slashdot though.) The outcome will be what you make of it.

Which brings me to the real point. You did really well in school. You thrived. Your success today is largely based on your education.

Your wife is bringing a very different perspective to the decision.

I advise you to put aside your preconceived notions about why your wife thinks this way.

You and your wife must be an extraordinary people. Otherwise, why would people who chose such different life paths have managed to meet and get married? Yet, a puzzle, you aren't on the same page on schooling your children. Investigate.

I also advise you to look at what attracts you to your wife, and look at this disagreement you have about homeschooling, and see them as related. Look at this as some kind of anomaly to study. Get to know your wife better. Come from the perspective that she is awesome so this must be awesome too, if I only knew.

Happy hunting.

Comment Re:Rich people don't like to go slow? (Score 1) 650

by darrint (#40642381) Attached to: Will Speed Limits Inhibit Autonomous Car Adoption?

Roads are something we all own and have a right to. So it hope it remains possible to manually drive a car on them, if for no other reason than for transportation during emergencies.

However, everyone here seems to assume that an auto-car has a driver in the driver's seat. Why exactly?

In my auto car I will turn the driver's seat around and talk to people. Or I'll sit in the passenger seat so I have lap room to do some work on the way to work. I may not even be in it. My car will drop me off at the front door of my office. I don't care where it parks. It can go fill up or charge somewhere far away from my office. It can go run errands for me to pick up stuff I bought online and/or rent itself out to make deliveries or taxi for awhile.

In fact, we may have destroyed the mass market for individual car ownership.
Movies

WTO Awards Caribbean Country Right to Ignore US Copyright 460

Posted by Zonk from the virtual-pirate-league-arrr dept.
The WTO's recent ruling on Antigua's complaint against the US over the banning of online gambling resulted in a payment to the island nation much less than they asked for. It appears, though, that this payment was just part of the WTO's compensation package for Antigua/Barbuda. Via Kotaku, the Hollywood Reporter notes that the Caribbean country can now freely ignore US copyright laws - legally. This dispensation is apparently limited to some $21 million a year. "The WTO often takes decisions awarding trade compensation in cases where one nation's policies are found to break its rules. But this is only the second time the compensation lets one country violate intellectual property laws. In this case, Antigua will -- in theory -- be allowed to distribute copies of American DVDs, CDs and games and software with impunity. 'That has only been done once before and is, I believe, a very potent weapon,' Antigua's lawyer Mark Mendel said. 'I hope that the United States government will now see the wisdom in reaching some accommodation with Antigua over this dispute.'"
Power

Toshiba Builds Ultra-Small Nuclear Reactor 683

Posted by samzenpus from the a-reactor-in-every-home dept.
DeusExCalamus writes "Toshiba has developed a new class of micro size Nuclear Reactors that is designed to power individual apartment buildings or city blocks. The new reactor, which is only 20 feet by 6 feet, could change everything for small remote communities, small businesses or even a group of neighbors who are fed up with the power companies and want more control over their energy needs."
The Matrix

Can Time Slow Down? 444

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the there-is-no-spoon dept.
Ponca City, We Love You writes "Does time slow down when you are in a traffic accident or other life threatening crisis like Neo dodging bullets in slow-motion in The Matrix? To find out, researchers developed a perceptual chronometer where numbers flickered on the screen of a watch-like unit. The scientists adjusted the speed at which the numbers flickered until it was too fast for the subjects to see. Then subjects were put in a Suspended Catch Air Device, a controlled free-fall system in which 'divers' are dropped backwards off a platform 150 feet up and land safely in a net. Subjects were asked to read the numbers on the perceptual chronometer as they fell [video]. The bottom line: While subjects could read numbers presented at normal speeds during the free-fall, they could not read them at faster-than-normal speeds. 'We discovered that people are not like Neo in The Matrix,' Eagleman said. 'The answer to the paradox is that time estimation and memory are intertwined: the volunteers merely thought the fall took a longer time in retrospect'."
Space

Submission + - Voyager 2 finds solar system's shape is 'dented' (reuters.com)

Submitted by
Selikoff
Selikoff writes: "NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft has found that our solar system is not round but is "dented" by the local interstellar magnetic field of deep space, space experts said on Monday. The data was gathered by the craft on its 30-year journey into the edge of the solar system when it crossed into a sweeping region called the termination shock, they said. It showed that the southern hemisphere of the solar system's heliosphere is being pushed in or "dented." Voyager 2 is the second spacecraft to enter this region of the solar system behind Voyager 1, which entered the northern region of the heliosheath in December 2004."
Businesses

Non-Competes As the DRM of Human Capital 193

Posted by kdawson from the free-flow-of-people-and-ideas dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Techdirt has an interesting look at how non-compete agreements are like DRM for people, doing just as much damage to innovation as DRM has done to the entertainment industry. It includes links to a lot of research to back up the premise, including some studies showing that Silicon Valley's success as compared to Boston's can be traced in part to the fact that California does not enforce non-compete agreements."
Music

DoJ Sides With RIAA On Damages 469

Posted by kdawson from the banding-together-with-bullies dept.
Alberto G writes "As Jammie Thomas appeals the $222,000 copyright infringement verdict against her, the Department of Justice has weighed in on a central facet of her appeal: whether the $9,250-per-song damages were unconstitutionally excessive and violated the Due Process Clause of the Constitution. The DoJ says that there's nothing wrong with the figure the jury arrived at: '[G]iven the findings of copyright infringement in this case, the damages awarded under the Copyright Act's statutory damages provision did not violate the Due Process Clause; they were not "so severe and oppressive as to be wholly disproportioned to the offense or obviously unreasonable."' The DoJ also appears to buy into the RIAA's argument that making a file available on a P2P network constitutes copyright infringement. 'It's also impossible for the true damages to be calculated, according to the brief, because it's unknown how many other users accessed the files in the KaZaA share in question and committed further acts of copyright infringement.'"
Businesses

Large Tech Companies Moving Beyond the Cubicle 345

Posted by kdawson from the what-would-dilbert-do dept.
statemachine writes in with a story from Silicon Valley about how Intel and Cisco, among other companies, are experimenting with cubeless, open, and unassigned seating. "Beginning this month, [Intel] will set up three experimental work sites. Open areas, comfortable armchairs, extra conference rooms and tables where people can plop down with laptops will replace the ubiquitous cubes that have been standard issue for decades. Each morning, Intel employees will log onto the corporate network using wireless connections. Their phone numbers will follow them. White boards that employees use to sketch out business plans and project strategies will be outfitted with electronics so drawings and plans can be transferred to laptops and e-mailed to colleagues. 'People feel much more comfortable coming up to me. It's more of a friendly atmosphere,' Cisco senior manager Ted Baumuller said. 'I hope I never have to go back to cubes.'"
The Military

USAF Launch Supersonic Bomb Firing Technology 257

Posted by samzenpus from the drop-it-like-it's-hot dept.
coondoggie writes "Boeing and the US Air Force today said they have tested new technology that for the first time will let military aircraft launch bombs from aircraft moving at supersonic speeds. Researchers from Boeing Phantom Works and the Air Force Research Laboratory used a rocket sled in combination with what researchers called "active flow control" to successfully release a smart bomb known as MK-82 Joint Direct Attack Munition Standard Test Vehicle (JDAM) at a speed of about Mach 2 from a weapons bay with a size approximating that of the U.S. Air Force B-1 bomber, Boeing said. Active flow control is a tandem array of microjets upstream of the weapons bay that, when fired reduces the unsteady pressures inside the bay and modifies the flow outside to ensure the JDAM munition travels out of the bay correctly."
Technology

The Biggest Roadblocks To Information Technology Development 280

Posted by Zonk from the bumps-in-the-road dept.
ZDOne writes "ZDNet UK has put together a list of some of the biggest obstacles preventing information technology from achieving its true potential, in terms of development and progress. Microsoft's stranglehold on the desktop makes the list, as does the chip-makers' obsession with speed. 'There is more to computing than processor speed -- a point which can be easily proven by comparing a two-year-old PC running Linux with a new PC buckling under the weight of Vista. Shrinking the manufacturing process to enable greater speed has proven essential, but it's running out of magic ... What about smarter ways of tagging data? The semantic web initiative runs along these sorts of lines, so where is the hardware-based equivalent?'"
Games

Jack Thompson Facing Disbarment Trial 258

Posted by Zonk from the facing-the-music dept.
pwizard2 writes "Gamepolitics reports that controversial Miami attorney Jack Thompson faces the start of an ethics trial this morning, a process which could ultimately see him disbarred. The review board has set aside the entire week to hear details on the case. 'Over the weekend, Thompson turned to the Florida Supreme Court in an apparent effort to block this morning's trial from moving forward. In one court filing Thompson asserted that he was willing to accept a 90-day suspension of his license to practice law. The embattled attorney claimed that such an offer had been on the table, but that the Florida Bar was now seeking his permanent disbarment.'"
Biotech

Femtosecond Laser Shatters Viruses 154

Posted by kdawson from the like-a-soprano-with-crystal dept.
wattrlz writes "In a development reminiscent of nineteenth century pseudo-science, the father-son team of Kong Thon and Shaw Wei Tsen recently demonstrated that the tobacco mosaic virus can be destroyed in vitro by nano-scale mechanical resonant vibrations induced by repeated ultra-short pulses from a laser. The total energy required is reportedly far below the threshold for human tissue damage and the technique should generalize to human pathogens. Cleaning stored blood is one obvious application."
Data Storage

Ubuntu May Be Killing Your Laptop's Hard Drive 419

Posted by kdawson from the saving-power-at-what-cost dept.
wwrmn writes "There's a debate going on over at bugs.launchpad.net on whether it's the Ubuntu, BIOS, hard-drive manufacturer, or pick-any-player's fault, but Ubuntu (and perhaps any OS) may be dramatically shortening the life of your laptop's hard drive due to an aggressive power-saving feature / acpi bug / OS configuration. Regardless of where the fault lies or how it's fixed, you might want to take some actions now to try to prevent the damage."

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