jlc

He sounds like he made the most of life.

Jan

UHHh. I remember that - could not sleep for 3 nights. My parents blasted my elder sister out for watching it.

I think that movie is one of the reasons I am 'spider adverse'...

Jan

Those are on backorder, Sir. Could I interest you in a pair of sporty grey Peregrins?

Jan

I am soooo gunna reach right through this email and 'risk adverse' your nose! Pow!

Jan, grinning

"If it bleeds, it leads." If a man doesn't say anything cautionary, but a woman says, "that dog will bite your face" then a receptive child may be more influenced by the latter than by silence.

This is all just theoretical.

Jan

I noticed the same thing. So many ads today sell products on the basis of fear.

But have you noticed that a second group started selling love? And a third group began advertising solitary control?

Jan, does not hear many ads, but studies the one she comes in contact with

But right now, we are discussing vouchers, which is not each parent paying for their own child's education, but just a way of making schools compete for children and the profit that goes with them.

Jan

There have been researchers who have repeatedly committed fraud - and keep getting grants. One example that comes to mind is a researcher who claimed to have cloned a human. I think that was a second case of fraud on his part...

It certainly does not have to be 'stars' - I used that because it is so familiar. A numeric rating makes more sense, probably. You should be able to click on it for Details of what caused his rating to increase/decrease. I think that 'wrong' merits a one point decrease, but 'fraud' merits a 10 point decrease.

People with low scores will probably not be asked to comment very often.

Jan

Absolutely.

And the history test that everyone should have to take (to graduate HS) should be the same one a person has to pass for citizenship.

Jan

Right. Talk about it in a few months...

Jan

Good goal. I am willing to accept intermediary steps such as 'keep them out of the garden patch of business' and 'keep them out of the medicine cabinet'.

I think we need more cowboys and fewer cattle.

Jan, likes your metaphor

Yeah. I did not get that treatment, but I did go to a Catholic HS. The traditional Catholic teaching did included a lot of dross, but I think it does provide evidence that some voucher schools would accept poor and ESL students and turn out bright metal from them.

Jan

Yes. It would, wouldn't it! But I think it is just a trifle less likely.

Jan

We are finding that a lot of our traditional processes no longer work in the modern world. We need to revise these systems.

I am mentally toying with a contagious rating system. If you publish your first article and it can be replicated by independent research, you get one star. You publish your next article as a 'one star' scientist. If one of your papers gets disproven (but is not fraudulent) you get minus one star. If one of your papers is shown to be fraudulent you get minus 10 stars from your current rating.

Whenever you rate someone else's paper, your own rating is included in your assessment. The contagious aspect is retroactive, so that if you publish a fraudulent paper 5 years from now, all 34 of the papers you rated in the intervening 4 years get downgraded correspondingly. If you support a paper that is found to be fraudulent, this applies too.

This should encourage new scientists to select veterans who are not likely to be downgraded in the future and should make sure that veteran scientists know that if they support a paper that does not utilize good science, they pay the price too.

Jan

Yay! I have been watching (and studying) advances in stem cell engineering for nearly a decade. The two cell types it was most difficult to create from peripheral blood have been neural and hepatic. Now it seems that both of those are possible.

If you get autologous stem cell treatment (your own cells reconditioned) you do not need to be on immunosuppressants for the rest of your life.

Jan, (doing mycology CE this year; will have to do stem cells again 2 years from now)

This is probably not going to be a popular statement, but I think vouchers should be combined with periodic testing using universal tests like the SAT (or, what the SAT used to be...). The reason for this is that, for example, in Britain the vouchers are often used to support schools that teach such things as anti-evolutionary Muslim doctrine. I really do not care if that is what the students (and their teachers) Believe in their heart of hearts, but I do think that the students need to be able to pass a test that shows that they understand the principles behind evolution and genetics, whether or not they personally believe in it.

So: vouchers for everybody and periodic testing likewise.

Jan

Catholic schools have managed to make scholars out of poor and ESL kids for decades - maybe centuries. The nuns left many a negative mark on the youth of the world, but the concept of taking poor and illiterate and turning them into brilliant achievers has been field tested.

Jan

Well, that suits me fine and I would love to see that happen, but upon consideration I think I will have to suck it up and pay for other people's schools. Why? Because if you carry this to its logical conclusion, people who are off the grid and grow their own food should not have to pay as much for roads as we who commute do. And people who have taken vaccinations should have a lesser public health tax. etc

What is wrong with this? It requires that the government track whether I have kids, my life habits, whether I have had vaccinations...etc. Admittedly, this is the direction the gov wants to go, but I would rather not enshrine this sort of record keeping. I would actually rather pay the damn school tax and keep the gov out of my life.

Jan

Thanks for the info. I sent an alert on to my sister, who was DOD.

Jan

Have you read Old Man's War by John Scalzi? In order to join the troops of an interstellar military organization...you must be at least 65 years old. They explicitly want people with maturity and experience.

Jan
(and then they give you a new body)

I am so sorry. I am glad that it is over for you - and that you hopefully had many good years of mature reflection with your parents before senility set in.

May your dad find a fine Valhalla to linger in for a while, with some really knock-out Valkyrie maids!

Jan, agnostic
(besides which, screaming "Odin!" at someone can scare the Hel outta them.)

I agree with most of what you say. I disagree about the women's rights movement - but only in part. I think that it is not 'girls feeling that they have to do the same thing as the boys unless they have an excuse' but I DO think that the feminist movement put in increased power a group of people (women) who were more risk adverse (culturally? genetically?) and that a lot of these new social directions are the result of that.

If that is the case, and we can keep these risk adverse tendencies from being enshrined in stone, then the situation may resolve itself as more women take and survive more risks.

Jan

What color and species would you like, Sir?

Jan, wing salesman

You need a kick from a 3D printed limb?
or
You need a good news tidbit?

I am having a good time imagining a disembodied leg chasing you around the house every morning, trying to boot you in the butt.

Jan, entertained

I have always thought that direct election was better than an electoral college. I may be changing my mind.

Jan