I believe, but I'm not for certain, that developing a plan includes also coming up with new and helpful ways to do community service, not just a "here, 50 hour requirement, go have fun." That's something the Bush admin would do, I sure hope an Obama admin won't.
I also don't think its necessarily the best thing to do... perhaps he should give incentives to school districts that implement such a system but make the school districts responsible for it.
Well, the determination was made partly on what I and my co-founder have both experienced (being we're both students, freshmen in college), and additional talking we've done with both teachers and students in various types of classes. We've also done a fair amount of reading from studies about the usage of laptops/tablets in the classroom and read opinion articles like these to observe the issues.
In your case, you're one of the students who has already made that digital jump over and has all the gear you need. You, being the geek that I'll assume you are (-don't take that as an insult, I am too...), got these tools and self taught them and are self disciplined in their usage. However, most students and most schools don't have this.
While my venture is specifically interested in K12, we are interested in college too. For most classes (a ceramics class could be an exception), you have your basic necessities and then some additional tools you could be using. That's what we're focused on in our works, is creating the basics in a way that can be easily and seamlessly used in classes so that every student has access to the tools and resources they need, and with a certain degree of personalization to fit the different needs of different people.
From my position, I see two root causes why this is the problem and they could be fixed (its what my venture is working on doing). The problem with laptops most notably is the fact that they have this screen. The screen more or less creates a barrier between the person and speaker. This is not a good thing, especially not in a classroom and its also disrepsectful to the speaker. The second is laptops that are not being used for education but rather, as the article writer suggested, for Instant Messaging or other various purposes. If, theoretically, the laptop was one that was specifically designed and built for use in the classroom by students on a day-to-day basis, the problems addressed in this article would not be an issue. However, because they aren't, many times students don't have adequate tools on their laptops, the tools that are there are time consuming and hard to switch between for doing multiple things at one time, and they aren't focused on anything educationally enriching.
[promo]That's exactly what my venture, EDunuity, is working to address.[/promo]
Being bost companies have denied it already and the circumstances around it all (not to mention the fact that Microsoft and Yahoo reaching a deal from supposedly dead talks in less than 24 hours at ~$19 a share? c'mon!) lead me to believe this truly is a rumor...
but would Jerry really be missed? I mean he did make nearly everyone at Yahoo soil themselves when he sends them an e-mail that 10% of them are fired but nobody knows who, and then tells them, more or less, "have a happy weekend" smile and wink.
Very nice collection of resources for anyone, professional or amateur. This could be especially helpful when learning a new programming language or just using one that you haven't in a while.
Something I've also found helpful (when doing web scripting), is Dreamweaver's built-in syntax database that really helps speed things up as you type.
Good Article.... I completely agree with Fred's positions and beliefs in this article. I especially agree on points 1,4, and 5. In government especially, and as President of the United States, its critical that you surround yourself with intelligent people. The President is not the sole authority and there is no way one person could handle all that. It's important that you surround yourself with "the best in the business." In all fairness, it works much the same in business. As a founder/owner and CEO, its important to surround yourself at that level with qualified people to manage the technology, to manage capital, etc.
I think the title is slightly misleading but whats actually said in the article is very much true. In any early stage company, how well they fit together with not only you but the rest of the team members is just as important as what they know.
More surprising is how many investors I've talked to end up telling me that if I'm looking for people to help accomplish some of these more complex tasks that I should just outsource to India or just find a person who does know how and pay them for it. In reality, that's likely not going to solve anything and has a high potential to create more problems on down the road (not to mention if that person doesn't stay forever).
Article makes a good point. Microsoft is a colossal monster that, while not as fierce as it once was back in the age of the browser wars, still no beast to be taken lightly.
I'm reminded of pg's article about "Microsoft is Dead" (http://paulgraham.com/microsoft.html). While pg makes many good points and it is undoubtedly true that Microsoft isn't something that companies cower in fear of anymore, they are still alive and still moving forward at impressive speed. The beast may be dead, but the animal still lives. I don't believe Microsoft will be going away anytime soon. Maybe in my lifetime they'll eventually truly become a dwarf company and eventually burn out (I'm 18), but that happening soon I just can't believe is likely.
I've never really understood Facebook from the business side at all. I generally like the service they offer (generally, though it is really lacking interesting and helpful aspects) but I've never understood their thinking on business moves. They've got a very popular software platform, one of the most visited sites in the world and rising, and some how 700 people can't figure out how to make a buck.
I agree with most of the other people here... Zuckerberg promises a business plan in 3 years? What the hell? I can see having your product and company out there and be selling things or providing a service and not necessary have the business plan down and taking some time to find one that really does work well, but when you have 700 people, corporate offices, and a widely popular product/service, a business plan seems to me to be something you put at the front of the line. Not: "hmm, we'll get to it later, lets just enjoy the fame!"
Most of what goes on at Facebook could be ran by 70 really good people. That's not including investors/shareholders at all. That's 70 people that are just in charge, server/network managers, system engineers, accounting (do they need one?), and marketing. It appears Facebook got the idea that it needed to have its own in-house Microsoft Research or something.
I like the concept. If it does whats advertised and without too many bugs it sounds like something a LOT of sports buffs would like. So it looks like a good idea with a lot of potential... beyond that I have not yet tried it myself, but I intend to.
That's important to note, I know specifically that some non-major service providers (meaning: not Verizon, Comcast, etc.), sometimes don't even show you what spam you get. So, if your using a smaller service provider and you still haven't got it and its also not in your "spam box" there's likely two things that happened.
A) You didn't put your email in your profile "email" box. I would direct you to pg's post last night but its gone now.
B) Your service provider may use a special filter in front of your mailbox which means not only was it marked as spam but it was marked before it actually reached your email and just got tossed overboard in cyberspace. Though, one would expect the number of people to suffer from this problem to be small but it does happen.
What's unfortunate is if that e-mail that got lost was an invite. =C
Recession and YC Rejection.... sounds like part of some hit new rap single for Wall Street.
It's been said a lot lately as a reminder, not only by people of this community but also by pg himself in the letters and in HN comments. Don't stop doing what you love because pg and co didn't have space for it out of the estimated (no official numbers) 700 applicants that applied at the same time. PG will tell you that they aren't exactly the best at necessarily "picking the winners" and neither are most other investors.
The important thing is to move forward. As the OP shows, you don't NEED YC to be a successful and thriving business, even in troubled times. YC is a stepping stone and sure shot at opening doors that most of us have to pry open ourselves. YC != Success... YC is the beginning, but it should not be the end.
Didn't make it but we're still moving forward. I mean, its not like PG and Ycombinator is the ONLY way to make a start-up work. What about those billions of them that came before YC existed?