I am sitting in the park near our apartment and pondering just how beautiful Israel is in spring. The sun is shining and while rain is a blessing an occasional sun day is nice in winter. Israelem love kids andarewilingtoaccept alittle morenoise than a comparable american, south arican, or brit would. Israel also does quite a good job of making sure there is a parkfor the chldren (even if the grass is all dead).
I hav switched from Mandrake Linux in favor of Umbutu linux a derivitave of Debian in the few hours I have use it I can say that I am happy with it's function and so far seems less buggy than a comparable mandrake install.
Being a Zaurus 5500 power user the battery power issue comes up frequently. The internal battery is only goo for about 1.5 hours whe using a WiFi cad. When I have the new laptop brought from the US I want a AA battery pack charger for the zaurus brought over too. these trips to the park show how useful 5-6 hours of battery can be.
I hav finihd Diamond Age, whie I enjoyed the book I am unsyre why every near future gritty sci fi novel requires the sexual content. Over all it was quite good, this is yet another book I have read on an electronic reader, It is easier to get on the et and read then delete saving me the cost of paper nd book storage. The big downside for e is battery life and I am not able to read y books on shabbat.
The winds of change are blowing.
I have been reading "Diamond Age" by Neal Stephenson, and while this book is a near future earthside sci-fi novel, it really is about education.
It is a story about a world where nanotech has made most basic things free or very cheap to producein your own home with a matter compiler, like a printer, but outputs 3D objects made of basic building blocks by nano-robots (you should really Google nanotechnology if this is over your head)
One of the most valuable things in this world is intelectual property which in this story involves a young ladies primer intended for a rich girl. It is designed to teach her to think like a leader but ends up in the hands of a poor abused little girl. Now we see her being educated to be an inteligent leader.
The important points of this story are a person is sucessful because of their education wherever that comes from, scess comes from being educated to take risks.
American education is the most sucessful in the world, based on the German teaching method. Notice I say most sucessful, I use this description because it is certianly not the finest or best at creating high functioning thinkers but rather it creates a perfect balance of leaders managers and employees to push forward the economic machine of the USA.
Several things I have to consider:
Can an alternative to the current system in place in most nations be established
Does the education system including pre-school change real IQ
How can a decent alternitave education be distributed to a large audience
Can proper texts and outlines be distributed without cost (creative commons)
I hope to post further on this
