Here's a pretty honest report on the state of our nation's education, or, rather, LACK of education when it comes to science.
Don't cast all the blame on our underfunded schools. Also give some jeers to the anti-science Talibangelicals trying to destroy public education and to the media who someone ALWAYS gets science wrong.
So basically, fund the schools, take the Luddites out to the woodshed and deal with them, and promote science instead of just making stuff up.
Easy, no?
Granted, apparently Bing is actually useful and a decent search engine. I wouldn't really know as my history with Microsoft search has been awful. And no, I'm not a knee-jerk Microsoft basher; I've just been burned repeatedly to give such reviews much creedence.
So, basically, I use either Google or Yahoo for searching stuff. At least, I used to. Apparently, since Yahoo has some bills to pay off, they are joining forces with M$ and will soon be using the Bing search engine instead of their own useful one.
I guess this only leaves me using Yahoo for email and fantasy sports playing. Boo!
I love GeekDad. Basically, it's a Wired blog for the parental set.
One of today's entries dealt with how to correct the misinformation regarding the moon landings. Namely, how to show your kids that, yes, they did happen.
This is pretty easily proved, but there are so many things out there that either well-meaning Luddites or evil Talibangelicals try to debunk using flawed logic. The same nitwits that refute the Theory of Evolution have no issues with the Theory of Relativity because they want a nuke plant in every ghetto and a MIRV hitting every country populated by brown people.
Just saying. Keep it up GeekDad!
More cool facts about the Apollo 11 mission from National Geographic.
Also, just for fun, the history of the Lunar Lander game, which has also existed in some form or another for the past 40 years. Here is a link to a fun and hard recent version of the game.
NPR has been running a series tied to the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing. A couple of high points have been an interview with Buzz Aldrin and a story on the hopefully accidental erasure of the original Apollo 11 tapes.
Also of interest is a backup speech that Nixon would have used if the landing had befallen some form of disaster. Pretty chilling but good that even Tricky Dick had a backup plan, something we haven't seen in a president for the majority of this decade.
Wired had a rollup of related Apollo 11 news, some of it new to most of us.
I like technology. I like books.
Scratch that. I love books. Want to know why? Because once you own a book, it's your's. Not the bookstore's. Your's.
Want to know why I don't have a Kindle and just have some ebooks I use Microsoft Reader for?
This is why. Turns out a publisher decided not to offer electronic editions of George Orwell, so Amazon rushed full steam ahead and deleted Orwell's books from it's customer's Kindles.
Um, kiss my ass Amazon.
Ironically, they picked Orwell, who, of course was so focused on the ills of censorship and totalitarian rule.
I have both 1984 and Animal Farm on my shelf at home and you can find an electronic edition of the former here. For Animal Farm you may be out of luck on a legal e-book option.
I love this cheeky write-up on Monticello. It has been about 18 years since I did the tour there but it was such a fascinating place. I can't wait to drag Gabriel there someday.
Remember when this country had big dreams and didn't settle for less?
Remember when we didn't check on focus groups or gave a shit what lobbyists told us?
Remember when big business just sucked it up and did the damn job?
THAT and a dose of hope and optimism got us to the moon. Not GOP whining and fear tactics.
Learn from this, be amazed of what we used to be able to accomplish in this country, and let's try to regain our glory.
For some reason, I read random how-to articles. I've got a couple email related ones to share with you today.
For your consideration, here is one related to better email etiquette, which you have to admit is probably something we ALL need a refresher on.
The other is strictly tied to Google Mail, which I use a lot, and comes in a series of tips at increasing levels of difficulty.
Give them a look. You'll probably learn a few things you can put to use right away.
