10:37 – I’m still busy building science kits and processing orders. We were able, barely, to keep up with demand in August. We managed to ship every order without any delay. This month will be a bit easier because demand, while still high, is lower than August, when most homeschoolers are ordering stuff for the fall semester.
I’m also putting some serious thought into designing “middle school” science kits. The normal progression is “life science” (biology light) in grade 6 or 7, followed by “earth and space science”, followed by “physical science” (chemistry lite + physics lite). I don’t have a high opinion of that sequence, because I think it wastes two years of science. I think that by the end of grade 7, students should already have a good handle on the fundamentals of science, and starting in grade 8 they should begin with real “high school level” courses. High-school level earth (geology) and space science (astronomy) in grade 8, chemistry in grade 9, biology in grade 10, physics and/or an advanced biology/chemistry course in grade 11, and one or two advanced biology/chemistry/physics courses in grade 12. If I had a bright student who was destined to major in STEM, I’d devote 40% of class time from grade 8 onward to science courses–with at least half of that lab and other hands-on activities–25% to math courses, and fit the rest into the remaining 35%. I’d also have school running eight hours a day Monday through Friday, with a couple hours of homework in the evenings, and half a day on Saturdays. And I’d run it year-round, with three or four one- or two-week breaks over the course of the year.
12:39 – Brussels fears European ‘industrial massacre’ sparked by energy costs
Quixotic, indeed. With electricity costs typically twice to three times those in the US and natural gas costs four or more times those in the US, Europe can no longer compete industrially with the US and Canada. Of course, neither can Asia, nor indeed anywhere else in the world. This is already obvious in the chemical industry, where feedstock and energy costs are a major portion of total costs. Everyone is busy building new chemical plants in the US and Canada and closing down ones elsewhere. But it’s not just chemical plants. Nearly all manufacturing is heavily energy-dependent, which gives the US and Canada a huge and sustained advantage over the rest of the world. Meanwhile, Europe insists on repeatedly shooting itself in its collective feet by wasting huge subsidies on “sustainable” energy. I mean, off-shore windmills, for Thor’s sake? What idiot decided that? Germany abandoned nuclear after Fukushima, and it and the rest of the EU are busy passing “green” taxes that further hamper the ability of European manufacturers to compete. And in the one renewable-energy technology that may actually make long-term sense, solar, Europe is nowhere.
“I’d also have school running eight hours a day Monday through Friday, with a couple hours of homework in the evenings, and half a day on Saturdays.”
That sounds like a bit too much. Even the brightest students need free and unstructured time to play. When can they just be a kid?
Good grief. They’d have 14 hours a day unaccounted for on weekdays = 70 hours per week, and 44 hours unaccounted for on weekends = a total 114 hours a week or about 68% of their time unaccounted for. Teenagers need more sleep than adults, so let’s say they sleep 63 hours a week. That leaves them with 51 hours a week of personal time, or more than seven hours a day.
I don’t think solar is that practical for general energy production. The power source is completely gone from dusk to dawn, and provides a low percentage of maximum power except at mid-day. Offshore windmills are also impractical. Smaller windmills on land may or may not be practical, but at least they aren’t guaranteed to be idle every night.
Get a lot of batteries. Charge them during daytime using solar power. Use solar power to split water into O2 and Hydrogen. Get fuel cell to charge batteries using hydrogen when the sky is cloudy.
http://hydrogenhouseproject.org/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=RKNCZ7eEafU
Mr. OFD is next:
http://www.thv11.com/news/article/278849/2/107-year-old-Arkansas-man-dies-in-shootout-with-SWAT
I agree with Bob’s proposed education curriculum but only if the State is out of it completely. We should probably be setting up a continent-wide home-schooling network/community while pushing STEM really hard. We should also be developing a viable alternative currency because the fiat/dollar system is going down at some point.
“Old Europe” is mos def shooting itself in the foot; we’re doing the same thing here but differently.
I’d build thirty nuke reactors a year for the next thirty years as a minumum while also developing our own continental fossil fuel retrieval systems.
65 here today and gorgeous again; many clumps of leaves here and there turning orange and red. Forties at night with strong breeze from the south over the Lake.
Well we have the police report on that shooting of the old guy in Pine Bluff; who knows what really happened now; could also be suicide-by-police, too. Guess he was pretty lively for 107.
I doubt the cops will ever show up in force at the house with a SWAT raid; they’ll have somebody take me out with a long sniper shot, which would be way smarter of them.
We should also be developing a viable alternative currency because the fiat/dollar system is going down at some point.
Bullets. .38 / .380 / .357 / 9mm are worth five .22. .40 / .44 / .45 are worth two .38 / .380 / 9mm / .357.
There you go, dimes, nickles and pennies. We will figure out rifle cartridges and shotgun shells later.
I’d build thirty nuke reactors a year for the next thirty years as a minumum while also developing our own continental fossil fuel retrieval systems.
Can’t do that. Too many people would get employed as each reactor requires 20,000 onsite and offsite workers for 4 years.
Use solar power to split water into O2 and Hydrogen.
Very inefficient, alas.