Rawr re installed the game and playing wiffout updates. WIll allocate awsome mod tomarrow. ;3 *ruffles ups*

Will check that link tomarrows.

And dun lie. You just love snuggling up to a big ol Kzinti and nibbling on a carcas that hes already nibblafieings. While watching the .... adult channels....

Not cool.

I read at least the first 2 or 3, but didnt continue beyond that.  I think at the time I couldnt get any of the later books at the local library (before the internet, Amazon, etc).  I see that there are now at least a dozen books.

Sentient species taste better...

interesting article, seth. i personally feel that is somewhat bad news.

many other countries have an education system that allows individuals to opt-out of cursory education in favor or vocational training at around age 16; in fact, we're one of the few industrialized countries without such a system. the problem of doing something like this in the US is that we tend to conflate all education with our pre-college students.

(don't take this part as me talking down to anyone, i just throught i'd put this out there for a common ground of discussion...) there are three basic kinds of education: vocational, professional, and research/academic.

• vocational or trade education focuses on giving students the tools and knowledge they will need to perform a job. such educational programs might include those to become an x-ray technician, machinist, fire fighter, etc. this is the type of education offered by institutions like DeVry or University of Phoenix.
  
• professional education is similar to vocational training in that its focused towards a job. however the jobs that require professional education usually involve a much greater level of general, abstract or theoretical knowledge. doctors need to know general anatomy and biochemistry; lawyers need to know about legal philosophies and history, market analysts need to know about economics and behavioral science, and engineers need to know about physics and such. a lot of these educational programs are in the form of advanced degrees, but it's not always necessary to have a master's or doctoral degree to enter these professions.
  
• finally, there is education oriented towards research and work in academia. this is the type of education i received. its goal is to education students to become future educators and researchers themselves, in short, student who will one day themselves help create new knowledge. there tends to be a much greater emphasis on "pure" or "book" knowledge, with much less "hands-on" type stuff here, though most disciplines will require familiarity with research in a lab, field site, archive, or other.

there can and usually is some bleeding over between these various types of education. in my own education in sociology, i learned a fair amount of information i could directly use for market research, consumer surveys, population polling, and institutional analysis. but it was overwhelmingly geared towards teaching me how to be a professor and researcher in the social sciences.

so why am i opposed to getting kids in college earlier? well, it's simple: i never had these distinctions explained to me in school. college was simply about getting into "the best." but "the best" schools are usually geared towards academic research, with a few professional degree programs. depending on an individuals personal goals, "the best" might not be the best for you. i can't speak for everyone in the US, let alone California (which is known for having a very poor cursory education system), but certainly no one ever explained this to me until after i'd started at UCSD.

that's bad enough, and if there's one thing i'd change, that would be it. however, even if kids were told how the basic education to advanced education to career path works and forks out, i'm not sure pushing them towards this stuff by age 16 would be good. most 18 year-olds aren't ready for college, in my opinion. it's hard to know what will interest you for years to come when you're that young, let alone what you might want to do with your life.

personally, if i ever have kids, i'll be encouraging them to work and travel the world for a couple years after high school. at 18, most people simply haven't experienced enough to intelligently shape their own futures. i think it's better to think of it as a phase for learning about life and oneself.

/2¢

that's interesting loup. my school district had tried to do something similar, but it was in a very low-income area and most students couldn't realistically attend the school that was best-suited for their interests. the schools were originally meant to be grouped into orientation towards future professions. one school was supposed to be oriented towards mechanical and manual work, another towards technology, another towards health sciences, and finally one towards entrance into high-profile universities. but with such limited resources, the whole program fell apart.

my particular HS was very low-performing HS, and CA itself has a very troubled pre-college education system. i was identified "gifted" at a very early age, but i wasn't accelerated through any grades (my mom worried about my social development). instead i was put into special classes and such -- which in hindsight may have been worse. skipping a grade might have afforded me the opportunity to 'fit in' with a group of slightly older kids. being singled out as special and removed from the normal class only made me more of an outsider.

in HS, pretty much all of my general ed classes were honors or advanced placement. i finished calculus in 10th grade, and i slept through or ditched most of my english classes. i was bored. i participated in a large number of extracurricular activities (academic decathlon, model U.N., student body government, a few sports, and a few other clubs) and took lots of electives. i didn't realize it at the time, but it was learning and creating, in general, that i found really fulfilling, and i simply wasn't learning much in my general ed courses.

in college i started taking upper-division classes in the spring trimester of my first year. i enrolled in "Collective Memory", a special topics course offered by the sociology department. there were about 20 people in the course, and very few lectures. people discussed readings, events, and their own ideas, work and experiences. we traded ideas and worked together to create understanding and interpret the ideas of others. i was in love. it also helped that other people in the class complimented me and my statements outside of class. it was a very encouraging and positive experience, and i continued taking upper-division courses and putting off my general education ones for the next 3 years. eventually i'd taken so many sociology classes that i pretty much had to major in the discipline. i still slacked for a while, getting C's and B's, but at some point during my 3rd year i found focus and decided to start really applying myself. i applied to the honors program in sociology and found myself conducting an 18-month field research project on the relationship between body art and self-identity in modern society. it was grueling, especially since during my 5 years there my parents separated, my mom experienced a psychotic break, my father passed away, and my brother developed a brief drug problem. but i came out of it (college, that is-not those personal trials) with a strong sense of accomplishment. i've never had that feeling from other jobs i've worked, and now that i've worked several more i know that teaching and research is where i want to, no, have to be.

it's true that i wouldn't have found that without going to college, but it's also true that i wouldn't have been so sure without the experiences i've gained since then. the thing is, i might've spent less time taking (and often dropping) totally random classes if i'd had a little more preparation for academic culture. HS taught me a few basic things and exposed me to many more, but never enough to know what my calling is. i'm not sure that would've happened with any forumlation of an education during those years. i was simply too young.

so i guess what i'm saying is that i worry that giving students the option to rush directly into a vaction/profession/life-path is that they'll do it before really knowing themselves, and be more likely to lock themselves into career fields they dislike, but also find themselves high and dry for the resources and support they'd need to change their lives' paths.

I hope the goverment will learn the problems of this system. Now I plan on spending 5 years at college learing about software developement the going out to Plymouth, Michigan so that I can work for Stardock. I've always wanted to work on Galciv 3.

heh, a very admirable goal. though one thing i'd say is that the way these things are isn't entirely the fault of the government. our general culture and especially parenting styles play a big role. most parents just bark "you need to do well in school to get into a good college to make money!"  some parents are obviously gentler than that, but others are more strict: "you have to be a doctor/lawyer/etc."

of course, it's natural for parents to want their children to succeed, and any good (or even just self-conscious) parent will say they want their children to be happy. but their notions of happiness are all too often, in my experience, are a little too... unilateral. it seems to me that a lot of parents think economic security will be enough for happiness, but i've found a lot of people are much happier with less money and a more rewarding line of work. in short, part of the problem is middle-class anxiety.

as i mentioned before, most of the "best" universities are geared towards reserach, not trade education. this is because university ranking systems are based on popular opinion among university faculty, and university faculty tend to value academic/research education most highly. considering that most people in general work very hard, it's not surprising that parents will simply say "go to the best school" without really putting more thought into the clause "...for you." it's easier and less time-consuming to look at a list and point to the highest schools on it.

i based this theory on how student attitudes have changed over the last few years. college students seem more and more to have the same attitude as HS students: "this is a chore and i don't want to be here." this isn't just my own observation; people who've been working in higher education a lot longer than i have have said the same sorts of thing. and i base my hypothesis explaining this on many of the extra comments these disenchanted students make. "i'm going to be a programmer, why do i need to learn history?" "i want to go to med school, i shouldn't have to waste my time learning about art." etc.

the thing is, the university, as a cultural institution, wasn't ever meant to be a step in career advancement. the universities of ancient greece were geared towards the pursuit of enlightenment, and that's how they remained up the last century. though the place universities occupy has changed a lot in the last hundred years, faculty still tend to favor the "englightenmen" side of things over the "career advancement" side.

so the big point is, it's no one person's fault that the system is the way it is. however, the fact that U.S. workers are falling behind other countries in terms of its workforce's education, i think, has a lot more to do with raw funding than structure. we spend a lot less on each student than most countries.

umm... what?

Over in your empire thread you were talking about baked goods on Weeds...

Hopefully there will be a Stardock New England so I won't have to travel all the way out to Michigan. It'd also be nice to have Stardock purchase Maxis from EA. If only dreams would come true.

Hopefully I can convince Stardock to keep the MV for Galciv 3,also I'd like to be in charge of the Galciv 3 forums, I have many ideas that could prevent the Glaicv 3 forums from ending up like these forums.

I dont think you will find too many people who would support that idea Seth.  At this point in your life, you would not be the right person to run the forums.  No insult intended, but that's my honest opinion.

Sentient species taste better...