Blog

Don’t just doodle over arts education

This is a response to “Arts education a good investment” [Opinion, April 19].

As a volunteer at the Bellevue Arts Museum, I get to work with teens in the Teen Docent Program and see firsthand how art could make a difference in the lives of our young people.

Not only do they learn about art and the technique of making art, but they learn how to talk about the many subjects art addresses, from the environment, wars, politics, travel, different cultures and the world in general. They learn through artist eyes to look more closely at these subjects and what they mean.

Art teaches them to be interested in and speak to subjects outside of their own worlds.

— Barbara Vynne, Bellevue

Away with the math coaching

In the op-ed “Seattle school district, teachers should embrace bold ideas” [April 17], the authors claim research shows that highly effective teaching includes “a focus on different cultural learning styles.” They also advocate “expanded mentoring and coaching programs.”

In education circles, we constantly hear “research shows ….” Oftentimes, such statements are essentially false. I can cite considerable research that shows that the “learning-styles” approach to education is bunk.

What research supports the authors’ claims?

We should eliminate the math-coaching positions we already have. Seattle school district math coaches are used to promote “inquiry-based instruction,” which has been an utter failure in our schools for the last 15 years or so.

I do not want to be “coached” to teach ineffectively. If the coaches are such wonderful teachers, put them back in the classroom. Putting more resources into such useless undertakings makes no sense at all.

— Ted Nutting, Seattle

Build schools, not jails

Strained finances at our schools across state, while we spend millions of dollars on correctional facilities makes me question our priorities. In the United States, we put a higher percentage of our population in jail than any other civilized country. It is long past time that we find another, smarter alternative.

If we do not fund the education of our children, we will need more prisons in the future. A good education is a good way to reduce crime.

Students who graduate with the knowledge and skills to get good jobs are far less likely to commit crimes. Schools need money to give that good education.

It is appalling to see all the news regarding the decline of our educational system and the lack of funds in our schools. If we do not invest in our kids’ futures now, we will pay for it later. We will see far more of an impact on crime if we use our tax dollars on education and other necessary services than we will by any amount spent building more prisons and incarcerating more people.

— Sam Donaghe, Steilacoom

Bank and bust?

I must take issue with the April 18 column, “Avoiding financial meltdown” [Opinion], which argued that insolvent banks must be rescued with tax money to prevent their insolvency from spreading to other banks.

The column compared allowing a bank to fail with allowing a fire in a building to burn itself out and possibly spread to other adjacent buildings. This analogy, however valid it may appear, is faulty. The spread of a fire from one building to another would normally not be the fault of the owner of the other building — not so with one bank failure spreading to another bank.

A bank that maintains 100 percent reserves against demand deposits and avoids borrowing short and lending long should not be brought down during any financial panic. The failure of one bank would touch off other bank failures only if those other banks have also mismanaged their depositors’ money.

This would imply banks are undermining economic prosperity and should be taken over by their depositors.

The column’s bailout prescription for failed banks, far from being a long-term corrective measure, would keep them in a special privileged class of businesses that are shielded from market discipline, continuing to promote unsound practices.

— Mark Warner, Bellevue

While it’s easy for those of us in the thick of it to simply “know” that the eventual domination of plug-in vehicles and hybrids is a foregone conclusion, what we pundits conclude is essentially irrelevant (yes, that does represent an existential crisis of sorts). Truly, in the end it comes down to what the average person ultimately accepts.

And if a recent survey by Capital One Auto Finance (done in honor of Earth Day) is any guide, plug-ins and hybrids are not just a passing fad with fully 78% of U.S. consumers now sure that they are here to stay.

(more…)

Nothing wrong about having experience

The Harvard-Yale Alumni Club, better known as the Supreme Court of the United States, is faced with a dilemma: What sort of person should replace Judge John Paul Stevens when he retires? [“Stevens says he’ll decide soon on retiring,” News, April 4.]

The religious makeup of the club after Stevens leaves will be eight Catholics and two Jews. Because of this, it is unlikely that either a Jew or a Catholic will be considered. That is unfortunate because religion should never be a factor in choosing a judge.

The most important criterion should be who has the broadest experience in the practice of law, but I doubt that quality will even be considered. Factors such as religion, which law school someone attended, vacancies in lower federal courts and politics will matter far more.

If one uses logic to figure out the next appointment, then one would figure that the nod would go to a Protestant, lower-circuit federal judge.

I hope that does not happen.

Why not select a lawyer from a private practice, who has actually worked for a living and not lived off the government? Why not appoint someone who lives west of the Appalachian Mountains, who worships the laws of the United States, attended a public law school, tried and won cases in the U.S. Supreme Court?

In short, why not nominate a person with experience? I know it would be novel, but maybe — just maybe — such a person would become a great judge. There is nothing wrong about having experience.

— Harry Foster, Freeland

Mindset on profit margins unhealthy for the economy

We should have known that ignorance and stupidity did not create the mortgage debacle that brought down the nation’s economy [“SEC says Goldman Sachs misled investors,” page one, April 17].

The ethical void that could have led Paulson & Co. to profit by betting against homebuyer is the same one that could propel investors to buy Goldman Sachs now. Who cares if the company is corrupt? There’s money to be made. If that is all we, the public, care about — making money — then a corrupt economy is what we deserve.

Until we begin basing investment decisions not only on companies’ profit potential, but on their honor and contributions to humanity as well, we will not experience a true recovery.

— Edie Lau, Poulsbo

Down, but not out. Continuing their European vacation that began on Germany on Vodafone and O2, the Palm Pixi and Pre Plus are on their way to le Gai Paree. This morning, French carrier SFR is announcing that they’ll be launching both handsets within the next month.

Their online spot should have’m by April 27th, while their meatspace outlets will be stocking them up for a May 11th launch. Look for’em on the shelves between the berets, escargot, and other French stereotypes for €99 for the Pre Plus and €29 for the Pixi Plus. Viva la aging smartphones!

El Ford Fiesta ha logrado sobrepasar al Volkswagen Golf en ventas en Europa, después de que el coche de Volkswagen dominó por un año las listas de ventas. El Fiesta ha vendido 68.630 unidades del Fiesta en los mercados europeos, un apreciable 25,8% más que en febrero.

El Golf logró vender 56.845 unidades, un 18% más, mientras que el Renaut Clio fue tercero con 31.606 unidades. La primera posición en marzo del Fiesta, hace que también se coloque como líder en el primer trimestre con 140.496 matriculaciones.

Para más datos, el nuevo Fiesta superó al Volkswagen Golf por el impulso logrado en las ventas hechas en el Reino Unido (con un incremento del 14,7%), e Italia (con un aumento del 87%), donde además el 57% de los Fiestas vendidos (11.251) fueron los modelos impulsados por GLP.

La lista se completó en marzo con el Opel Corsa con 41.724 unidades (+2,8%), el Peugeot 207 con 40.895 unidades (+3,8%), el Ford Focus con 39.661 unidades (+14,2%) y el Opel Astra, 39.121 unidades y un importante crecimiento en porcentaje con respecto a datos anteriores.

Vía | Jato Dynamics

Foto | Prueba del Ford Fiesta 1.6i Sport

(Photo: Getty Images)

For years, nutrition advice could be summed up something like this:
If you like eating or drinking (fill in the blank), it’s bad for you.
Health experts blacklisted sugar, butter, chocolate, coffee, alcohol,
and eggs.

The Grim Reaper, it seemed, doubled as tiramisu cake. So we
abstained from these forbidden foods or flagellated ourselves while
indulging in them. No longer!

Researchers have found that these foods
are less sinful than we thought and, in some cases, can actually provide
health benefits. Plus, eating real foods in moderation is better for you and the planet than
eating processed imitations.

Find out what makes these “bad” foods not so bad after
all.

1. Butter is (sometimes) better
We all know that butter isn’t good for us. But, according to the
scientists at Harvard Health Publications, a little butter isn’t so bad
and is actually better than stick margarines.

Margarine was thought to
be heart-healthy because, unlike butter, it doesn’t contain cholesterol
or saturated fat. But the common process to convert liquid oil into
margarine by adding hydrogen atoms creates harmful trans fats that, like
butter, increase bad cholesterol in the blood while decreasing the good
kind.

The hydrogenation is essential to create the stick margarine, but
many of the soft margarines in tubs are now made with fewer or no trans
fats and some health experts recommend those over butter. As for the
overall fat and calorie content, it’s a tie–neither will do your
waistline any favors, so use them sparingly.

Learn how to make your own butter here.

2. A good egg
Nutritional experts had long maligned eggs because they are high in
cholesterol, but more recent research revealed that saturated fat — not
cholesterol — poses the greatest risk. Plus, eggs provide protein, iron,
and lutein, a nutrient that helps stem age-related eyesight decline.
(Spinach and other leafy greens are also good sources of lutein.)

The
American Dietetic Association considers eating eggs in moderation a
healthy habit and suggests removing some of the egg yolks to reduce fat
and cholesterol. For example, in a recipe that calls for two whole eggs,
the association recommends substituting with two egg whites and one
whole egg.

Read about organic eggs here.

3. The case for coffee
Forgoing coffee was like a badge of honor in health nut circles, but not
any longer. Recent studies have refuted caffeine’s link to heart
disease, cancer, and high blood pressure. In addition, health experts
now tell us that filling up our mugs has health benefits.

According to
the American Medical Association, regular coffee drinkers are less
likely to have type II diabetes, and their caffeine habit may reduce the
risk of developing colon cancer, liver disease, and Parkinson’s disease.
Researchers have also seen a reduced risk of dementia among people who
drink three to five cups of coffee a day.

Read more about making your
coffee green: Coffee, Good and Green.

4. Sweet sin or simply sugar?
Cane sugar earned a bad rap, sparking a move to replace it with
everything from honey to concentrated fruit juice. Studies show that the
substitutes are no better than the real deal. Whatever the original
source, consuming too many of these sweet simple carbohydrates can cause
health problems like obesity, type II diabetes, and tooth decay. Yet,
cane sugar can be part of a healthful diet in reasonable quantities.

The
World Health Organization recommends limiting added sugar to 10 percent
of daily calorie intake. And as for the new pariah, high fructose corn
syrup, the nutrition gurus say that it’s probably no better or worse
than all the rest. Although food marketers are taking advantage of the
public’s negative perception of high fructose corn syrup, experts say
that consumers shouldn’t be fooled by the new marketing techniques.

In terms of your health, it’s the calories that count.

5. A drink a day
For a long time, science was lockstep with Puritan thinking, shunning
all alcohol. But within the last few years, there has been a growing
body of evidence that alcohol in small amounts is associated with better
health.

Experts believe that having a few drinks a week may reduce your
risk of coronary heart disease and stroke. Studies indicate that red
wine in particular has positive benefits. Rich in antioxidants,
including resveratrol, red wine may help prevent clogged arteries.

Be
warned, though, while it’s tempting to embrace the more-is-better
philosophy, three plus drinks a day will up your risk of liver, mouth,
breast, and throat cancer as well as memory loss. Experts recommend one beverage a day for women and two
for men.

Not exactly a night on the town, but a glass of syrah with
dinner. Not bad!

6. Dispelling the chocolate myth
For ages it seems, parents and health professionals said that chocolate
makes us pimply, rots our teeth, and offers no health benefits. Au
contraire. Chocolate is chock full of minerals and has some of the same
antioxidants found in fruits and vegetables that ward off disease,
particularly heart disease.

Unlike gummy and caramel candies, chocolate
doesn’t stick to your teeth causing cavities. And don’t try to blame
chocolate for blemishes; researchers have found no correlation between
the two. In fact, the antioxidants may improve the appearance of your
skin by combating inflammation from free radicals.

Look for dark
chocolate that contains at least 70 percent cocoa — the higher the cocoa
percentage, the more healthy flavanol antioxidants it contains. (Tea,
grapes, blueberries, and cranberries are also high in flavanols.) The
label should also say non- or lightly alkalized or non-dutch processed.

An even better way to get your flavanol fix is with natural cocoa
powder; when converted into chocolate bars, the cocoa beans lose some of
their antioxidants. Plus, chocolate is a mood-booster, increasing serotonin
in the brain.

Now that you know the truth about these gustatory pleasures, stay calm.
Resist the urge to stock up on all the goodies you have been missing.
Remember that nutritionists, researchers, and doctors universally agree
that moderation is the key. Drink a few cups of coffee, but don’t down
the whole pot. Savor a few squares of chocolate, but try not to make
eating the whole bar a habit.

And go ahead, order that piece of tiramisu
every once in a while. It won’t kill you.

More from Care2

• 12 Foods With Super-Healing Powers
• Dangers of Diet Soda
• 10 Surprising Reasons to Drink More Water
• Eat This to Lower Cholesterol by 10 Percent
• 13 Foods That Fight Pain 

Check out Yahoo! Green on Twitter and Facebook.

The New York-based Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights has written a letter to all Connecticut legislators on the controversial issue of extending the civil statute of limitations in cases of sexual abuse.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue, who is well known from appearances on Larry King Live and other national cable television shows, sent a letter that states:

“Dear Connecticut Legislator:

“Some Catholics who support H.B. 5473, the bill that eliminates the statute of limitations for cases of sexual abuse, are falsely positioning themselves as being a legitimate competitor to the voice of the bishops. No group has irresponsibly assumed this mantle of authority more than Voice of the Faithful.

“To be sure, lay Catholics have a right to speak to all public policy issues that touch on the affairs of the Catholic Church. But no lay Catholic organization has the right to portray itself as a substitute to the canonical authority of the bishops. That is what Voice of the Faithful has done.

“In its recent letter to you, Voice of the Faithful unjustly condemns the bishops for seeking to “mislead, mischaracterize and spin the facts in an effort to preserve their temporal, rather than spiritual, authority.” In doing so, it not only goes well beyond the pale for even a dissident Catholic organization–it betrays an animus so vile as to rival the antics of rank anti-Catholics.

“Voice of the Faithful is not only financially bankrupt (a reflection of its abysmally low membership), it has shown itself to be morally bankrupt as well. Unlike loyal lay Catholic sons and daughters who support the palpable reforms made by their bishops, those who support this group have never found a reform worth cheering. In other words, nothing the bishops can ever do is enough to satisfy them.

“The Catholic League respectfully asks that you weigh the real-life concerns of the bishops regarding the draconian implications of this bill. And we ask that you not be distracted by those who harbor an agenda of their own.”

The bill was passed, 23 to 20, by the legislature’s judiciary committee. The full General Assembly might debate the bill by the state-mandated deadline of May 5, but no date has been announced for a debate.

There are multiple links on the issue in Susan Campbell’s blog today at http://blogs.courant.com/susan_campbell/2010/04/more-invective-against-a-conne.html

You don’t have to look very far to find a multi-million pound industry supported by the scantiest of scientific evidence. Take “brain-training”, for example. This fledgling market purports to improve the brain’s abilities through the medium of number problems, Sudoku, anagrams and the like. The idea seems plausible and it has certainly made bestsellers out of games like Dr Kawashima’s Brain Training and Big Brain Academy. But a new study by Adrian Owen from Cambridge University casts doubt on the claims that these games can boost general mental abilities.

Owen recruited 11,430 volunteers through a popular science programme on the BBC called “Bang Goes the Theory”. He asked them to play several online games intended to improve an individual skill, be it reasoning, memory, planning, attention or spatial awareness. After six weeks, with each player training their brains on the games several times per week, Owen found that the games improved performance in the specific task, but not in any others.

That may seem like a victory but it’s a very shallow one. You would naturally expect people who repeatedly practice the same types of tests to eventually become whizzes at them. Indeed, previous studies have found that such improvements do happen. But becoming the Yoda of Sudoku doesn’t necessarily translate into better all-round mental agility and that’s exactly the sort of boost that the brain-training industry purports to provide. According to Owen’s research, it fails.

All of his recruits sat through a quartet of “benchmarking” tests to assess their overall mental skills before the experiment began. The recruits were then split into three groups who spent the next six weeks doing different brain-training tests on the BBC Lab UK website, for at least 10 minutes a day, three times a week. For any UK readers, the results of this study will be shown on BBC One tomorrow night (21 April) on Can You Train Your Brain?

The first group faced tasks that taxed their reasoning, planning and problem-solving abilities. The second group’s tasks focused on short-term memory, attention, visual and spatial abilities and maths (a set that were closest in scope to those found in common brain-training games). Finally, the third group didn’t have any specific tasks; instead, their job was to search the internet for the answers to a set of obscure questions, a habit that should be all too familiar to readers of this blog. In each case, the tasks became more difficult as the volunteers improved, so that they presented a constantly shifting challenge.

After their trials, all of the volunteers redid the four benchmarking tests. If their six weeks of training had improved their general mental abilities, their scores in these tests should have gone up. They did, but the rises were unspectacular to say the least. The effects were tiny and the third group who merely browsed for online information “improved” just as much as those who did the brain-training exercises (click here for raw data tables).

By contrast, all of the recruits showed far greater improvements on the tasks they were actually trained in. They could have just become better through repetition or they could have developed new strategies. Either way, their improvements didn’t transfer to the benchmarking tests, even when those were very similar to the training tasks. For example, the first group were well practised at reasoning tasks, but they didn’t do any better at the benchmarking test that involved reasoning skills. Instead, it was the second group, whose training regimen didn’t explicitly involve any reasoning practice, who ended up doing better in this area.

Owen chose the four benchmarking tests because they’ve been widely used in previous studies and they are very sensitive. People achieve noticeably different scores after even slight degrees of brain damage or low doses of brain-stimulating drugs. If the brain-training tests were improving the volunteers’ abilities, the tests should have reflected these improvements.

You could argue that the recruits weren’t trained enough to make much progress, but Owen didn’t find that the number of training sessions affected the benchmarking test scores (even though it did correlate with their training task scores). Consider this – one of the memory tasks was designed to train volunteers to remember larger strings of numbers. At the rate they were going, they would have taken four years of training to remember just one extra digit!

You could also argue that the third group who “trained” by searching the internet were also using a wide variety of skills. Comparing the others against this group might mask the effects of brain training. However, the first and second groups did show improvements in the specific skills they trained in; they just didn’t become generally sharper. And Owen says that the effects in all three groups were so small that even if the control group had sat around doing nothing, the brain-training effects still would have looked feeble by comparison.

These results are pretty damning for the brain-training industry. As Owen neatly puts, “Six weeks of regular computerized brain training confers no greater benefit than simply answering general knowledge questions using the internet.”

Is this the death knell for brain training? Not quite. Last year, Susanne Jaeggi from the University of Michigan found that a training programme could improve overall fluid intelligence if it focused on improving working memory – our ability to hold and manipulate information in a mental notepad, such as adding prices on a bill. People who practiced this task did better at tests that had nothing to do with the training task itself.

So some studies have certainly produced the across-the-board improvements that Owen failed to find. An obvious next step would be to try and identify the differences between the tasks used in the two studies and why one succeeded where the other failed.

Reference: Nature http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature09042

Volkswagen is thinking seriously about greener public transport options and an important step is the showcasing of the Milan Taxi concept at the Hanover Trade Show. The Taxi concept targets space optimization and all eco-friendly options which could make such taxis popular in big cities like NY and Moscow.

The Taxi concept has a single sliding door that opens to the pavement side. The door extends partly into the roof and slides forward to the point of reaching the A pillar. The Milan Taxi is reflective of VWs future design elements including the elimination of the radiator grille and the incorporation of a transparent crossbar between the headlights. Also, there are two eight-inch touch screens on each for the passengers and the driver. We expect this concept to turn real somewhere in 2013.

If you’re an American BlackBerry user, chances are you pay for, or don’t pay for, your BlackBerry in one of two ways. The first group comprises enterprise users who get devices from their companies. The second covers BIS users, the large majority of which sign two-year contracts when purchasing their devices. This allows customers to take advantage of subsidies which can reduce the price of a BlackBerry from $500 down to around $200 — or even less for older models. There exists one other group, though it represents a small fraction of American BlackBerry users: prepaid. This might make you wonder if a prepaid BlackBerry is right for you.

(more…)

Palm has now officially announced the details for its webOS launch on Société Française du Radiotéléphone. As foretold, the Palm Pre Plus and Palm Pixi Plus phones will be available on April 27 on SFR’s online store (www.sfr.fr) and on May 11 in all SFR stores and in retail.

Frank Esser, SFR chairman and chief executive officer, said, “SFR is extremely proud to be the first operator to launch Palm webOS smartphones in France. This alliance comes within the scope of our strategy to provide the best user experience for mobile Internet and the widest range of smartphones to our customers.”

“We are excited to bring the Palm webOS experience to France for the first time so SFR customers can benefit from the unique ability to use natural gestures to switch easily between multiple open applications and always stay up to date,” said Jon Rubinstein, Palm chairman and chief executive officer. “With the choice of the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus phones, customers across France can stay connected so they never miss a thing.”

The hardest part of creating a mobile application is getting it onto a network and working with a myriad of devices. It’s one of the reasons so many like developing applications for Apple. Even if you don’t agree with its process, it’s clear, the capabilities of the device are powerful, and you’re only creating an app for one device.

Apple is not the only company to launch an “app store;” such launches have come from more than 20 other providers all over the world. Getting in on that action requires adhering to a variety of different processes and business models. For example, with Verizon developers just pay for bandwidth; the carrier has no stake or market interest in the applications. Conversely, SK Telecom first verifies that applications work and don’t hurt their system or devices, then takes a 30 percent share on all application sales and charges developers an annual development fee.

Confusing? That’s just the start of it. Alcatel-Lucent has some mini case studies in “App stores and developer programs everywhere: What is the right application enablement approach for you?” (PDF) that explain the processes of four different providers.

To entice participation across the developer to service provider environment, Alcatel-Lucent just launched new API bundles that have revenue generation built in. By giving access to network services, the APIs act like a ready-to-go app store for all developers and service providers. Find out more at Alcatel-Lucent’s Application Enablement Developer Platform and Program.

Click here to view all Alcatel-Lucent posts.

Bill Jordan’s recent iPad purchase turned nightmarish, in one of those delightfully grotesque ways that local news affiliates thrive on: a thief grabbed his shopping bag, tugging so hard that he took most of Jordan’s little finger with him. Gross. More »

Neanderthals were using jewelry like ancient Yankees caps before Homo sapiens arrived, and hominids had kitchens and workshops nearly a million years ago.

Cloud computing is quite the buzzword these days. Both Google and Microsoft have acknowledged its importance and have introduced multiple cloud related services over the past year. However, neither of them are the owners of the world’s largest cloud network. No, it is not Amazon either. According to the ReadWriteWeb, it is Conficker.

Conficker controls 6.4 million computer systems in 230 countries, more than 18 million CPUs and 28 terabits per second of bandwidth. Among the legitimate entities, Google is the largest, followed by Amazon. Google is made up of an estimated 500,000 systems, 1 million CPUs and 1,500 gigabits per second (Gbps) of bandwidth.

Conficker was first spotted in 2008 and quickly went on to become one of the most notorious worms in the history. It was not the most dangerous worm ever seen. However, the lengths to which it went to avoid detection and disinfection made it remarkable.

Conficker remains an enigma. Thanks to the massive botnet under its control, Conficker can unleash havoc, if it ever wishes to. Yet, to this day, it has remained largely silent. It is quite possible that Conficker became too large for its own good and the intense spotlight madethe entire operation too risky for the owner.

Don’t miss these Related Posts:

• How To Remove Conficker Worm?
• Conficker – One year Later
• Conficker Removal Tool: Stinger
• Gladinet Adds Cloud Backups For Google Docs Documents
• Panda Cloud Antivirus 1.0 Available for Free Downloads

Join Techie Buzz on Your Favorite Social Networking Sites

• Become a Techie Buzz fan on Facebook
• Follow Techie Buzz on Twitter

Simply amazing how quickly the Goldman Sachs (GS) news is being ignored by this market.

In addition to stocks putting in another up day, here’s the VIX, which after a brief one day spike is quickly going back into the snooze zone.

Join the conversation about this story »