Saturday, December 30, 2006

Free goverment skills training handbooks

I was surfing through Jerry Pournelle's site. He is one of my favorite Scifi and SciFact authors. From time to time he and his readers discuss education. This time around they are pondering the difference between symbol based (mathematical) and skills based education. One of his readers pointed us to some wonderful handbooks kindly created by our goverment.

Machinist handbooks

Math, Physics, Chemistry and many others

Okay, the second is from the training programs for nuclear engineers and technicians, but that just doesn't matter as the laws of physics are pretty stable for us. Just get the Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry handbooks and you are good.

These are good solid handbooks to learn from and since we've already paid our government to create these they are free.

How many parents have said follow your dreams but have a solid skill to fall back on. Machinist is a good and so are plumber, electrician and furnace repair. These are jobs that cannot be outsourced, they have to come to your house.

Thursday, December 28, 2006

What's Up 2007:365 Days of Skywatching

This is a wonderful free guide to the night sky.

Filled with the history of astronomy, of people and their discoveries, it is worth it just for these. It helps bring astronomy down to earth.

The images are mostly of what you would see with the naked eye or with a good pair of binoculars, though there are some from very large telescopes.

=
The site seems to be down but here is a direct link that should work.
http://media.libsyn.com/media/astronomycast/365day s2007.pdf

Sunday, December 24, 2006

BBC World Service Discovery - Fessenden: King of the Radio Waves

BBC World Service Discovery - Fessenden: King of the Radio Waves: "� Reginald Fessenden
BBC World Service Discovery -
Fessenden: King of the Radio Waves
The world's first radio broadcast took place a hundred years ago on Christmas
Eve 1906.
The broadcast, a programme of live music, readings and phonograph recordings,
was transmitted to ships in the Atlantic Ocean by Reginald
Fessenden %u2013 a prolific inventor largely forgotten
by history."

This was a significant feat. Radio was first used by Tesla, but he got sucked into fighting with Edison about electricity which ended up wasting a lot of time, energy and money that could have been far better spend on invention and development. Marconi was already sending signals for quite some time, but he was using Morse's code to send information. This, however, was the start of broadcast radio as we are familiar with it today.

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

To fix US schools, panel says, start over | csmonitor.com

To fix US schools, panel says, start over | csmonitor.com: "What if the solution to American students' stagnant performance levels and the wide achievement gap between white and minority students wasn't more money, smaller schools, or any of the reforms proposed in recent years, but rather a new education system altogether?

That's the conclusion of a bipartisan group of scholars and business leaders, school chancellors and education commissioners, and former cabinet secretaries and governors. They declare that America's public education system, designed to meet the needs of 100 years ago when the workplace revolved around an assembly line, is unsuited to today's global marketplace. Already, they warn, many Americans are in danger of falling behind and seeing their standard of living plummet."

There are obviously systemic design flaws in the schools system as it stands today. There are many movies and books out there about amazing teachers changing a school, but always after the teacher leaves the school reverts to the norm. Something more substantial needs to be done.

The graphic at the end of the report is an amazing thing to behold. While it looks like there has been a recent upswing in reading scores if you work the math it is only a 3% change, that is the typical margin of error. Statistically speaking, there has been no change in reading scores over the past 20 years even with a ~75% increase the money spent on the topic.

cbs2chicago.com - Teen Expelled From School For Turning In Found Gun

cbs2chicago.com - Teen Expelled From School For Turning In Found Gun: "(CBS)
PLAINFIELD, Ill.
A 13-year-old Plainfield boy and his parents are stunned and outraged after the teen found a gun in school and turned it in to authorities, who then expelled him."

Ah the wonders of zero tolerance. Maybe they should consider the power of homeschooling.

An Online Graphing Calculator

calc5.com - online calculator with symbolic calculations and graphs

I remember paying nearly $500 for a HP 48G graphing calculator and how totally cool Graphing Calculator was on the Mac in OS 9 but it is amazing how it is now so easy to create something like this.

A Java Slide Rule



This is a cool bit of work, I've never used one but my Dad did and he even had a circular one.

Switch 101: On Windows, I used to...

Switch 101: On Windows, I used to...

If you are switching from Windows to a Mac this is a really good introduction of the changes in how things are done. for all the talk about how Windows and Mac are copying each other there are still some major thought differences between how they do things. Mac is not Windows and vice versa and this highlights some the big differences.

Saturday, December 16, 2006

Big storm pounds Pacific Northwest - Weather - MSNBC.com

Big storm pounds Pacific Northwest - Weather - MSNBC.com

This stupidity happens every year. Let's be clear on this:

Generator safety:

Generators belong outside.

A garage is not outside.

Either build a protective structure before hand or just wait until the storm is over. It would be a great idea to have a small battery bank charged up before the storm to run off of during the storm and using the generator after it is over to recharge.

Candle safety:

Tall skinny candles need to be well anchored in a solid base. If you don't have a good candelabra It is simplest to put a candle in a tall drinking glass partially filled with sand, gravel, marbles or even water.


After storm safety:

There will be a lot of people out with chainsaws, make sure they are in good condition and follow the manufactures safety instructions, and I hope you got some training and practice before hand.

There will be lots of damaged trees and homes watch for falling debris.

Use your eyes and brains before doing something. It may just save your life.

Big storm pounds Pacific Northwest - Weather - MSNBC.com

Big storm pounds Pacific Northwest - Weather - MSNBC.com

This stupidity happens every year. Let's be clear on this:

Generator safety:

Generators belong outside.

A garage is not outside.

Either build a protective structure before hand or just wait until the storm is over. It would be a great idea to have a small battery bank charged up before the storm to run off of during the storm and using the generator after it is over to recharge.

Candle safety:

Tall skinny candles need to be well anchored in a solid base. If you don't have a good candelabra It is simplest to put a candle in a tall drinking glass partially filled with sand, gravel, marbles or even water.


After storm safety:

There will be a lot of people out with chainsaws, make sure they are in good condition and follow the manufactures safety instructions, and I hope you got some training and practice before hand.

There will be lots of damaged trees and homes watch for falling debris.

Use your eyes and brains before doing something. It may just save your life.

Friday, December 08, 2006

He put down his gun to pick up a baby | The San Diego Union-Tribune

He put down his gun to pick up a baby | The San Diego Union-Tribune: "When Walsh and the Marines came to one doorway, M-4 rifles up and ready, a woman emerged from a room, holding an infant and saying, over and over again, %u201CBaby. Baby sick.%u201D
Walsh put his gun down and the woman put the baby down.
Walsh had seen bad things %u2013 as an EMT back home in St. Louis, and at war. But he told his comrades he had never seen anything like this: The child, just a few months old, looked as though her insides had been turned inside out."

The most remarkable thing about this story is not the Marines or the efforts they went through to save this baby. But that the mother knew that the American can and would help her child.

What do people really think of the Americans? This tells us more then all the thorax thumping that has been going on in the media for some time.