What's wrong with education?

This guy has some very valid points...



...but how to fix it?

Ideas?

You've never heard it told this way before

The story of Jonah from Corinth Baptist Church on Vimeo.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Genealogy Humor

Disappearing car door

Let me know if you see any of these around town! Pretty cool!

But what if I don't want any cookies?

Google's Chrome browser is a very efficient browser for surfing the web. It's safe, speedy, auto updating and does just about everything I need it to. Or it did...

With the latest update they removed the ability to determine white sites are able to leave cookies. Well, that's not entirely true, but they certainly made it a lot harder to control. When I surf, I generally dislike allowing cookies unless it is required for the functionality of a site that I trust. Until recently Chrome allowed me to set all sites to prompt me for permission to leave a cookie. I'd get the alert and depending on the site, either allow all for that site, or block all for that site. As I was surfing, when I encountered a new site, I'd click a YES or a NO and that was it. It was a small extra step, but something that I felt gave me a little extra control over privacy (or the illusion of).

Now, Google has changed the options to allow all cookies or block all cookies (or "local content" as they're calling it). They allow you to set exceptions for sites as you want, but you have to go into the options menu a couple of steps and add them manually. A bit of a nuisance. Actually, enough of a nuisance that I bet they're counting on people not bothering. That's a pitty. Buzz on the Internet is that people are talking about abandoning Chrome over this one feature. I'm not sure I'm to that point yet, but I must say that this is definitely the first negative thing I've got to say about Chrome.

Google is known for making things better for us, before we even think of it. In this case I think that they over stepped the duty.

I'm hoping that Google will listen to posts like this one and all the others in the help forums, etc and give us back some control.

Women...

... are like stars -- there are millions out there, but only one can make your dreams come true.
--- Anon

I'm glad I caught my star!

Ain't that the truth...

Duct tape is like The Force. It has a light side and a dark side, and it holds the universe together.
--- Katie Hanson

Do you believe?

Do you believe in the possible of the impossible?
--- Anon

Remember...

To the world you're just one person, but to one person you could mean the world.
--- Anon

Do what you're told!

Apparently, most of us will just do what we're told without questioning. For little kids, in their parent's protection, that's the best advice. In general, parents know better and act on their kid's behalf to keep them safe and train them in cultural norms. As this video shows though, most of us never break out of that paradigm and continue to blindly follow though there is no obvious reason. We are a nation of sheep, not shepherds. We have become a nation of followers and not of leaders. We live in a [psuedo-]democracy, and yet all of that is erased if we let someone else tell us how to vote. We need to break out of the yes-men style of business, and education, and finance, and invention and ask ourselves, and those that are telling us what to do..."Why?" If the answer given does not make sense, do not follow. Find a new path and lead.

People Watching Plus from Rune Madsen on Vimeo.

OK, now that I've said that... How do we do it? We have spent decades if not millenia getting our nation to where it is today. How do we turn it around? How do we change the culture embedded in our companies, our communities, our schools to let the norm be game changing and not the exception? How do we foster the atmosphere where people aren't afraid to raise their hand and ask questions, or to suggest something different, if not better, without being knocked back down into the same rut that the rest of us are in? How do we encourage people to break from the pack, find new ground and then settle and secure it? We've trained, or allowed ourselves to become so risk adverse that this great nation of ours is falling behind in every measurement imaginable - patents, wealth, health, freedom, and all of the rest.

I don't have the answer. I'm stuck behind the same financial obligations that most of the rest of you are. If I had no debt, no need to spend my time making money to pay off that debt, more time to think and act outside of the box, I'd like to think that I could be more productive to society. Maybe not, but it's a vicious circle. How I tall until I'm out from under financial control of the norm?

Got some ideas on how to fix this mess? Let me know.

Thank you!

What am I missing?

Nothing apparently.

It's been a really busy time around the house recently. One consequence is that I've not spent any time in front of the TV. Not that that's a bad thing, but I admit that it's a little different.

I used to love watching TV. I'd find TV shows that I thought sounded interesting, set them up to record on the DVR, and then when the kids and wife went up to bed, I'd sit back in the recliner and play catch up -- or try to anyway. Things got a little out of hand and I started falling behind. So I picked the show that I liked least and removed the DVR series recording.

Then I fell further behind, so I removed another. Then another. Then I finally just stopped removing them with the intention that when I did feel like watching something, there should be something there to watch.

But I've never gotten back to watch anything. Things some up -- homework to check or help with (though I love that my wife does most of this before I get home), chores to do, this and that... Time just slips away.

As the kids are back in school, there is no "screen time" (TV, or computer) during the week to avoid the temptation for them to rush through homework too quickly, so that removes the lead in to me watching it more when they go to bed.

A couple of months ago I was really geeked about a couple of shows, but I can't even tell you if they're still on or have already been cancelled. There is not a single show that I watch regularly right now. I still have the TV on in the background upstairs at night, but for the most part I don't pay any attention to it. I watch a few family shows with the kids on the weekend when time allows, but that's it. And I am surprisingly OK with that. I thought there would be some withdrawal or something.

We still record the stuff for the kids (a few cartoons and Disney shows and science shows that they like) and my wife (Grey's, etc), but I've pretty much given up...

And I'm OK with that.