favorite historical figure?

[peacewithoutgod]

Aitm, which costs more: the status quo, where millions of Americans have potential but aren't productive, or the cost of actual education for all?

"...some are just plain lazy"

They said that of Sir Isaac Newton when he was a student. His life story and personal description makes it clear that he was high on the autism spectrum, and like so many today who live on the spectrum and benefit so little from the one-method-fits-all education of today, he would not likely have amounted to anything if he wasn't born to wealth. Can you imagine the world today without the benefit of Newton's contributions?

[Cocoa Beware]

That mongol-turkic monster?! Killed how many milions of people again? Estimated 30 or 40 million people it said somewhere. 10 % of the world population at his time. Lol, you nutter. You just admire the power he wielded I guess. Did you read about him as kid for the first time?

Would it sound weird, if I told you there wasn't a name popped into my mind, but some series of criteria I just wanted to be filled. These games are not for me, I just suck at it. 

Thats an interesting thought, it would seem many of the most famous people in history were genocidal (too many for my liking anyways)

People like Khan, Alexander and Julius are highly thought of; yet all of these men did the kinds of things we find appalling, and when their examples are followed disaster does as well.

Sure their political and military skills are second to none, but I think those ought to be weighed against their irredeemable qualities.

[aitm]

Aitm, which costs more: the status quo, where millions of Americans have potential but aren't productive, or the cost of actual education for all?

"...some are just plain lazy"

Hey I agreed with you agreeing with me, however as I have said otherplaces, we don't have the teachers who have the ability to recognize the many differences and understand what and how to make the best use of what children possess.

Lazy? I have seen lazy people. I mean lay on the ground not even crawl lazy ass people. So it that nature or nuture?

[peacewithoutgod]

Hey I agreed with you agreeing with me, however as I have said otherplaces, we don't have the teachers who have the ability to recognize the many differences and understand what and how to make the best use of what children possess.

In my last post I suggested grouping children for classrooms taught by teachers for more general categories of learning style, a perfectly reasonable increment toward progressive improvement. Most would agree that our education system is failing, and is in dire need of new ways of reaching students. Your assessment is akin to the paleolithic clan which lives in a huge flint quarry, whose elders won't approve the use of any hunting weapons other than clubs and all-wood spears because they don't have a supply of flint weapons.

Lazy? I have seen lazy people. I mean lay on the ground not even crawl lazy ass people.

I've seen those people too, believe me. I've also seen people who aren't lazy, but get little or nothing from the existing education system.

So it that nature or nuture?

I didn't argue in favor of the tabula rasa nurturists, much the opposite. Then again, the Genetic Determinists which inspired much evil that culminated in the world wars wasn't quite right either - I would like to hope that most people today who study the mind understand that it's a bit more complicated than that. Still, there are radical groups such as the militant feminists who think they can completely reinvent our culture. Over on Patheos, I got into an argument with one of those - it quickly turned nasty, and she downright purile. She insisted it's 100% possible that a culture may evolve where men favor the wearing of pink, lacy dresses, because cultural influence is everything. When her two-year old son showed more interest in such clothing, she encouraged him to wear it in public, as if children of that age never confuse their fascination with pretty objects with the self-image which they are too young to have even contemplated.

[aitm]

Your assessment is akin to the paleolithic clan which lives in a huge flint quarry, whose elders won't approve the use of any hunting weapons other than clubs .....

Oh quit that, all I suggested is we are ill-equipped to access children as you suggest when our teachers are not educated enough. Now if you suggested a nice way to implement this grand scheme of yours then bingo. But you appear to imply we can go from 0 to 100 using a deck of flash cards.

[peacewithoutgod]

Oh quit that, all I suggested is we are ill-equipped to access children as you suggest when our teachers are not educated enough. Now if you suggested a nice way to implement this grand scheme of yours then bingo. But you appear to imply we can go from 0 to 100 using a deck of flash cards.

Funny, but I don't recall implying that at all - much the opposite, in fact. While the issue of health care in this country can be be solved quickly by the single-payer plan in light of the fact that it has been proven to work in other countries which share our cultural foundations, I believe improvements to education must progress incrementally and be tested along the way. The problem is it hasn't consistently moved forward at all.

[aitm]

Funny, but I don't recall implying that at all

And I don't recall anywhere saying the status quo was working just fine either.

[peacewithoutgod]

And I don't recall anywhere saying the status quo was working just fine either.

Fair enough.

"What we have here is a failure to communicate..."
Cool Hand Luke

[Hydra009]

Here's a lesser-known but awesome historical figure: Grace Hopper.  She invented the first compilier, came up with the idea that led to COBOL, and popularized the term debugging (a moth got stuck in a relay).

[trdsf]

Yikes, almost impossible to say, there are so many to choose from, though I should say one of them is still living: Sir Tim Berners-Lee -- just think what the Internet would look like had he patented the Web instead of opening it up.

[Marlo]

Florence Nightingale, she redefined the way hospitals are being run now.I like her courage and her determination to save countless lives.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Here's a lesser-known but awesome historical figure: Grace Hopper.  She invented the first compilier, came up with the idea that led to COBOL, and popularized the term debugging (a moth got stuck in a relay).

I was her driver one day at the North Island Naval Air Station (new supercomputer dedication) back in the late '80s. She told me that she never thought COBOL would out live her. I could hear her laugh very clearly in 1999 as Y2K panic spread through the computer industry.

[Baruch]

Management of computer systems is not as fun as inventing a new software tool/product.  Writing the first Excel program at MS might have been fun, but managing all the inexorable crappy spreadsheets with/without macros .. that is dog work.

The cost of migrating old code is prohibitive ... you have to just kill it.  The cost of replacing old code is prohibitive ... you have to just leave it to your lucky successor ;-)  COBOL will never die, it will only fade away, like the old soldier it is.

[Draconic Aiur]

Alexander the Great




He's the most interesting to me.

[Baruch]

Great folks, but you aren't saying enough of why you find X person interesting ;-)  Assuming you know why.

Did you enjoy the Oliver Stone movie on Alexander?  Did you see the YouTube on the making of that movie?