Obama Wants Broadband, Computers Part of Stimulus 901
damn_registrars writes "President-elect Barack Obama announced in his radio address that his administration's economic stimulus package will include investing in computers and broadband for education. 'To help our children compete in a 21st century economy, we need to send them to 21st century schools.'
He also said it is 'unacceptable' that the US ranks 15th in broadband adoption." No doubt with free spyware and internet filtering. You know... for the kids.
According to the article... (Score:5, Informative)
Since I know that most of you don't RTFA and the summary is lacking that point, I figured I'd point it out.
Re:Failure is the only possible result (Score:3, Informative)
Re:why? so humans can move forward. (Score:5, Informative)
No offense, but if you think that you can do Math on a calculator, your arguements for better education are kinda weakened. Calculators (yes even graphing ones) are a way to get around the tedium of simple arithmetic, a way to skip past the dark ages and get to the meat of critical, logical thinking.
I think that was his point. Teaching them to hit buttons on a calculator isn't math. Giving them a computer isn't learning.
For fuck's sake. (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0883617.html [infoplease.com]
Please shut up. You have no clue what you're talking about. It's almost like you need an education. While education is part of the doctrinal system, the reality is that you have more chance of success at whatever you're doing whether the degree gets you a foot in the door or if you meet other people in your field and develop relationships. Even without all that, you typically make more money with a higher education. These facts escape you because you are too lazy to learn before speaking.
Almost every single technological breakthrough has occurred where? In government or university research labs funded by the state. You would not be typing on a computer and sending a message through the internet without it. The Human Genome Project was a government research program. Every time you take a flight you're riding in a modified bomber, researched with government funds.
So with all due respect, shut the fuck up. Really. Your ignorance is the problem, not spending money on education.
Re:School is a great way to waste time and money. (Score:3, Informative)
Public school never helped anybody.
Ridiculous. You honestly think that every single person who went through the public school system is no better off than if they had received no education at all?
I went to a private elementary school, public high school, and public university. The public university was by far the most useful of the three. The other two are on roughly equal footing as "somewhat decent". They both wasted enormous amounts of time but they did provide some useful things in return.
Re:No. (Score:3, Informative)
IMO, this is exactly the issue. We should figure out our education problem before we spend money and put more distractions into the schools. Yes, distractions. If you can't READ and you graduate from high school, having a computer isn't going to help you. And, by the way, paying a bureaucratic school system more money isn't going to help education either. Nor is making homeschooling illegal (California has been trying for a long time), making it harder for private schools, putting even more emphasis on arts, music, etc.
And, by the way, this coming from a homeschooled, private schooled, music and computer science major. I was very involved in music and even I think that arts/music/sports/extra-curricular activities are way too focused on in schools.
Oh, and we should start flunking kids that get to their senior year of high school and can't read. A high failure rate in a grade is better than a high passing rate of ignorant students. Stop making excuses for the kids and actually expect them to learn. After that, maybe we can talk about putting in broadband and computers.
This is an excellent basis for the future (Score:3, Informative)
Installing advanced broadband in schools and hospitals is similar to a plan being implemented in Canada for rolling out advanced broadband nationwide. (By advanced broadband, I mean gigabit or better, bidirectional.)
Connecting public facilities provides an infrastructure that can later be extended to homes and small businesses. New York State, under a project that involved Cornell University, either studied or actually implemented a multi-school-district network that allows enriched and advanced courses to be taught remotely that could not be justified for an individual school.
Broadband installation in hospitals enables telemedicine, in which expert remote consultation is available for difficult cases, and lays the groundwork for installing an advanced hospital information system network. Such a network would cut costs and improve performance in medicine. I've been told there are two excellent hospital information systems in existence, one developed by Kaiser and the other developed by the Veterans Administration and available as open source software.
Finally, someone is listening to what has been discussed for many years and is working to get it done.
Re:Failure is the only possible result (Score:1, Informative)
No, YOU'RE an idiot :-)
Re:Don't confuse the issue. (Score:4, Informative)
Well said. Also thinks are not as bad as claimed.
"the US ranks 15th in broadband adoption.""
You know that saying about lies, damn lies, and statistics? This is an example of lying with statistics. The United States is not some podunk little nation like Korea, but a continent-spanning nation that takes 3 days to drive across, and therefore it makes sense to compare like-to-like:
(1) Russian Federation - 6.9 megabit/s ...
(2) European Union - 6.2
(3) United States - 6.1
(4) Canada & Australia - 4.4 (tie)
(5) China - 2.1
.
The U.S. is only slightly behind its Russian/European neighbors, and significantly ahead of its Canadian, Australian, and Chinese neighbors. That is not a bad position to be. By the way I got these stats from speedtest.net which is based upon actual measurement of the users, and therefore not distorted.
Re:China (Score:4, Informative)
But the Taiwanese may still pass the jobs to China.
After all they have lots of factories in China[1].
[1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/1181993.stm [bbc.co.uk]
Re:Failure is the only possible result (Score:3, Informative)
Well, viewed generously, not until fairly late in the 1929-1933 recession, in the immediate wake of the 1929 crash he didn't do much, in 1930 he favored fairly moderate federal stimulus while asking state and local government to provide more stimulus, later he tried more significant stimulus (though still focussed on direct aid to capital with some public works), but the recession that started in 1929 didn't turn around until after Roosevelt began truly massive stimulus combined with more aggressive bank regulation to restore confidence in institutions. (Though, at least arguably, the more significant stimulus of the Hoover attempted toward the end, did play a big role, since the trough wasn't far into Roosevelt's efforts.)
One might expect that people now would prefer not to have a four year recession that even another four subsequent years of strong top-line growth will still leave overall conditions so bad that it'll be called a "depression".
They will probably never learn that because nothing so simple is true. Whether government spending has a stimulative effect or not depends on whether the spending is in an area where the funds will have a higher velocity in the domestic economy than wherever the funds were taken from (whether taxed, borrowed, or transferred from other government spending.)
If wealthy Americans have a low marginal propensity to spend, and are investing largely overseas, then taxing them and spending on labor intensive projects in the domestic economy that have their own economic utility and where most of the workforce will have a high marginal propensity to spend on goods that are supplied domestically (at least in the immediate sense, e.g., at retail) is likely to have a stimulative effect. Even more stimulative, if economic conditions have driven down direct foreign investment in US private capital markets, is borrowing money from abroad for the same purpose.
OTOH, taxing people with a higher marginal propensity to spend and transferring funds to Americans with a lower marginal proposenity to spend (as, in effect, the massive bank bailouts with little control on use have done) is exactly the opposite of stimulative.
Re:Failure is the only possible result (Score:4, Informative)
The Hoover Dam was first proposed, by Hoover, granted, in 1922 [wikipedia.org]. His predecessor as President, Calvin Coolidge, signed the bill authorizing it in 1928; it was never a depression recovery project per se, the money had already been allocated before there was a Depression.
Contra [wordpress.com] Amity [nytimes.com] "You're all a bunch of whiners [washingtonpost.com]" Shlaes [nytimes.com], who's work has been effectively discredited by anyone who cared to think about it for five minutes.
Mexico (Re:China) (Score:3, Informative)
Most? Really? I don't think so... An immigrant construction worker I read about recently (in Economist, I think), was making $1000 per week, sending $600 per month to his wife and children back home. Hardly "most".
(Because of the economic downturn, according to the article, the guy's last transfer was only $100.)
Would you be able to substantiate your statement? Thanks...
Re:China (Score:3, Informative)
Re:China Ohio (Score:3, Informative)
The reason Korea has such rapid broadband is because it's like one giant city. You too could have Korean-like broadband if you moved to a major city (or tech center) like Seattle, L.A., New York, Philadelphia, or Boston. Even here in suburban PA I have access to 100 megabit/s broadband via comcast.
Dude, I live in Silicon Valley. I tried to get 5 Mbs, but it wasn't supported, even though I live close to a major business district. I could spend a ton and get Comcast service (it would cost because I have no desire to get cable TV) but I don't believe that they really provide 100 Mbs reliably. If you do, I have a Nigerian prince who needs your help.
And even if it were true, premises fiber is more than 10 times that fast.
Speaking of which, I'm really tired of the density argument. The Seoul region is pretty dense, but not that dense. It has 20 million people in 2,000 square miles. Compare the New York/Newark agglomeration, which has 19 million people in 3,000 square miles. Almost as many people in 1 1/2 times the area. Is that enough to account for such a huge difference in fiber penetration? I don't think so.
Re:China Ohio (Score:3, Informative)
Re:China (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Don't confuse the issue. (Score:3, Informative)
Most of population in US is concentrated in fairly compact settlements along the two coasts. They have higher population density than most of European countries.
Yet.... Still lagging behind.
Re:No. (Score:3, Informative)
There is this kid i know going back to school for his diploma and the questions are so ridiculously easy. I could have passed them in 3rd grade and i'm a high school dropout.
One part was the difference between a mountain, a valley and a plain. This is the bar being set for your children? You've gotta be f***ing s***ing me!
Please, Please, Please people tell government in california to stay out of our schools. The "results" they want are stats, not smart children.
Re:Public transport (Score:3, Informative)
It's not as easy as you think...
For example, in my native city (in Russia) various providers at first tried to lay down their own cables. But it soon proved that very often there's just no capacity in the cable canalization and no way to dig new channels.
So they worked out agreement - all providers have equal access to a shared core network and exclusive 2-year access to the cables they lay down themselves.
It worked out just fine in the end...
repeat (Score:2, Informative)
Didn't we already give large wads of cash to the private sector for a backbone that never materialized?
Re:Getting back to basics doesn't require $$ (Score:4, Informative)
As for computers, even as a CS major we used shared computer labs. Most schools today already have enough PCs spread around classrooms to make a substantial computer lab or two, and any PC older than 5 years old is perfectly good for both tasks, and are being given away for free everywhere.
Agreed. My high school got brand new HP computers with new LCDs nearly every year while I was there. The entire network was locked down, no roaming accounts (yes it was all Windows), a terrible content filtering system (I disagree it is necessary! Give up already), and hardly enough space on the server for all those 'Windows Movie Maker' projects (120 GB). Half the time, students had no idea how to use WMM so they saved their work as a project, never encoded it, tried to bring it around and found out that does NOT work. The school taught no concepts which I had already learned (in this case, video encoding and what it does). Secondly, the school was a big Microsoft proponent as the classes it taught were almost all for Microsoft products, and the ONLY time they used free software was when they needed audio-editing software and could not find anything good that was cheap but also good. They chose Audacity (I give credit for this move). Schools generally do not trust free software as they do not think it will be quality software. THAT is a big problem. So they stick with licensing Windows (usually through a volume licence), Office (same as above), and all the rest of their software. What browser did the teacher have students use for what should be called 'HTML class'? IE, of course. Sure, MS gives incentives as always but parents need to understand the implications of being locked into MS software, which they never will because they have Windows at home, at work, everywhere nearly. Maybe even their phone and their console (Xbox/Xbox 360).
If it were up to me, would have been desktops (for things like multimedia) and terminals (for small tasks like web browsing and typing documents) all connected to a Linux server with a large hard drive. That is cheaper than buying new PCs every year for literally no reason (the old computers were fine, what's not is running Windows).
Also, if schools want to prevent students from running their games (EXEs), run Linux and do not install Wine.
Re:Why arent we just given everything? (Score:3, Informative)
Ahhh yes, Grade D .... Edible (for human consumption) ... that was the label for the chicken at the dorms. Seriously! My parents wouldn't believe me.
Re:China (Score:2, Informative)
40% of americans already do not pay income taxes. The only taxes they pay are payroll taxes. (SS medicare...)
Re:not to mention (Score:3, Informative)
Strangely enough almost all furniture in the us (IKEA exempted) is made here in the US. Commerical furniture is one of those strange animals that even with cheap gas it's cheaper to build it here and ship it straight from the manufacturer to the final location than it is to mass produce in china, warehouse and distribute. Certian types of banquet and folding chairs are imported, but imports don't even have 50% of the market here. Something to think about next time you're sitting at the doctor's office, at the DPS, school or church.
Interesting you should mention windows - there's actually an active sit-in for a vinyl window plant in chicago right now. I know there's at least one vinyl window factory in washington state still active - my friend's dad owns it. Plywood is also produced locally in most cases. There are some rare hardwood plywood veneers made in china and india but most residential building materials (not including fasteners) are still produced here in the US.