I am a thankful user of Gnuplot. As some before me mentioned, the naming history was complex. What is more important is that the developers provided - and still support - an excellent program that we may freely use under a very reasonable license.
One nice feature on many social media platforms is that one can unfollow or block people who seem to generate more heat than light in their posts. I am willing to read and interact with someone with whom I disagree as long as the discussion remains civil and productive.
Trolls have been around from the early days of the internet. I remember one student from Dartmouth that posted on many of the science newsgroups under the name Archimedes Plutonium. He continually posted that the Plutonium atom was God. This started many unproductive discussions and spammed many newsgroups. I'm sure you can imagine the flame wars... I am thankful that current social media lets me block/ignore trolls.
But you're counting on your intelligence to act as a filter. It has become very clear in the last many years that a non-insignificant percentage of the populace doesn't possess the knowledge or level of rational thought to properly evaluate what they are being fed en-mass. It's increasingly easy to exploit some people's herd mentality and lack of education to rise movements that can have significant impact. I often talk to people who suddenly spout off some random conspiracy theory because they read about it 10 times on Facebook and they lack the ability to evaluate it properly. I wholly agree that I'm not a fan of censorship but likewise I don't think private platforms have a responsibility to equally showcase what is known to be false.
It's all going to be a mess no matter how you handle it... but permitting an endemic lack of education over the last generation has brought the concept of democracy to this point. I wish there was a clearer solution.
We live in western New York. My wife teaches in a private school and my daughter teaches in a charter school. The New York State Department of Education provides standards and direct support for high functioning special needs students and transportation to/from special classes for those with greater needs. The students in these two schools take the same standardized tests as those in the public schools. My wife teaches college level classes in Physics and Calculus to high school students with oversight from a local community college.
This is a great deal for the students because they enter the college of their choice with a better background than a typical student.
Yes, like I said, private schools are not held to the same standards. They get to use public services like support for high functioning special needs students while claiming more profit off those programs. Additionally they get to pick and choose people who attend these schools- I noticed you only specified "high functioning" for those schools. A public school doesn't get to choose between "high functioning" special needs students and "low functioning" ones.
Perhaps an increased voucher for special needs students is in order.
Society is disadvantaged when intelligent students aren't allowed to achieve their fullest potential. We need programs that allow students to independently work at their own pace. We'd have a ton more 15-16 year old's attending college.
This still doesn't allay the issue that private and charter schools have the ability to simply decline to take up students that are more difficult for them to teach.
In the 1970s when my wife and I were in High School there were some gender biases. My wife (from Syracuse NY) had been cooking, cleaning, sewing, etc. because both her parents worked. She wanted to take shop instead because she was studying for the physical sciences and math. The high school administrators refused and forced her to take Home Economics. She was not pleased...
That would not surprise me. One might be able to recover the cost of the education at a state university. I suspect the return on investment would significantly lower at a private school with higher tuition. My daughter teaches at a high school with many students from lower income households. One of the exercizes the class did was to have each student pick a career that interested them. They had to find the cost of the degree and the median salary. Next they were to make a budget that for their living expenses based on that median salary, including repayment of the student loans. It was an eye-opening experience for these students.
Higher education can be a ticket to a great career. It can be a cost it takes a lifetime to repay, especially if penalties and interest accrues.
The academic route has always been a crapshoot. Most of my professors from the Chemistry Department at Florida State were still there and active when my daughter went there for a Meteorology masters decades later. The cartoonist, Jorge Cham, parodies this in the Ph.D. Comics books and movies.
One must plan a technical career carefully. I was able to get an internship at Kodak's Tennessee plant after my junior and senior years. I originally wanted to study inorganic chemistry. I worked for scientists who both were Ph.D. polymer chemists. They showed me the American Chemical Society's study on chemist occupations. 80% of chemists worked on polymers at some time during their career. I applied for both types of programs, and the UMASS Amherst Polymer Science program provided a research assistance-ship that paid my way. it was a great experience and I had a fantastic Ph.D. Advisor - who is now an emeritus professor at Rice University. I stopped interviewing after I had 5 job offers. Employment fluctuates with the economy. Some fields are more robust than others... Do your homework before rushing into a pricey program...
Yes, I understand.
Education is free in Germany. I hold a PhD. I completed my degrees with “distinction” in high paying fields, worked in investment banking, top management consulting and tech.
But honestly: if it wasn’t for like 80+h weeks straight for the past 10 years and “an increadibly lucky chance” even for me university and working in the most prestigious companies would have been a crap choice. Even without the PhD (which I was able to get done in 3 years at the top university in Germany).
I literally do not recommend university to anybody “unless they are willing to take a pay cut and understand the need to be in the top 5 percent for the next 15 years to get a shot at being as well paid as that dude doing an apprenticeship in the quality department working 35h weeks”. And again: university is free here. Not worth it really from a financial perspective for most people. Yet, the “public and political agenda is to push more people into it”
Manufacturers need to distinguish between critical updates that fix a significant error in the results or fix a security hole that could make the users system vulnerable. By contrast, feature updates should be labeled as such. This makes it easier for the user to make an informed choice to install the update.
Manufacturers seem to be hip to this which is why they bundle critical security updates with UI changes and other trash that you don't need. If not for that nobody would upgrade... it's totally backwards.
