I know it's fun to rag on the 'editors' here, and kdawson is evidently a troll account (no profile, just consistent flamebait), whenever I consider ranting against them, I think of this post from the 'idle' launch:

http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=646041&cid=24603867

We all have PHBs, even /. editors. I love how they all appeared in solidarity, like the ending of a Stephen King novel.

Keep it up, we luv ya really ;-)

<unlurk>

Agreed. I never post. I hardly ever mod. But Slashdot has been an immense education for me as a tech generalist over the past 8 years (yes - took me a few years to even sign up for a uid). A couple of thoughts.

I love the js powered post-expansion. Massive improvement as I no longer have to skip about posts. Never any speed issues.

Lack of avatars + user cruft mean posts rise to the top rather than personalities. The few who I can name have it for good reason - I've actively noticed who they are through consistent quality posting: nycl, badanalogyguy, akaimbatman, clevernickname...

To paraphrase a comment above - /. is where I frequently learn from people whose general views I actively reject

To another 100k.

</unlurk>

One is never, ever required to speak to a police officer, ever. In fact, in most all situations, you are far better off if you don't.

I don't know about MA law, but if they have that one, it is unconstitutional.

I get more mod points than I know what to do with. Pretty much every week I'll get 15 mod points, then I only use 2-4 before they expire.

Kindle sure sold a lot of models really fast... I don't think we can call ebook readers dead this early in the game.

I teach an HTML class to primarily New Canadians who often have a limited grasp of English, and certainly a limited grasp of computers. Ok, I hear you all crying "Teach them the basics before you teach them HTML", but my course runs concurrent with a number of other 'starter' courses, that in theory prep them for Canadian employment.
So, I try to not patronise, and I try to not oversimplify, as that only leads to problems in week 7 or contradictions with Bob in Basic Computing, where you have to go back on your original lie (anyone remember their physics classes from age 12...complete bullshit).
What I do though is make heavy use of analogy and visual cues. I always keep class notes in a bright yellow folder, that is remarkable similar to a Windows folder icon. "This yellow thing is a folder, inside is files with information" is usually only needed once after they've renamed a folder to index.html. I also always carry a newspaper to class.

<h1> is the headline. <h2> is the subheading. This is a <p> paragraph...etc...

I've found these two tools to be the most useful teaching aids possible.