Posts by Rich of Observationz
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Hard News: Te Reo Māori in schools:…, in reply to Chris Waugh,
People finishing high school should know the basics of academic writing
For sure. (Although bear in mind that a percentage of people leaving high school would have trouble reading a newspaper, and a majority cannot calculate a weekly wage based on an annual salary).
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Hard News: Te Reo Māori in schools:…, in reply to ,
(threadjack alert!)
Do any chemists reckon you could cleave off the extra benzene rings from Pukateine and get 1-3-benzodioxole?
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What percentage of school students will end up in a role where they author academic papers in the sciences? One in a thousand?
There's a fallacy in education policy that, because most policy-makers have postgraduate qualifications, everything should be geared to the needs of the tiny minority that will go on to postgrad study.
Most people will never go near an academic paper, and for them the purposes of teaching science involve developing literacy and numeracy through working with interesting subject matter, as well as gaining an overall understanding of the scientific method. Secondary to that is preparing those students who will take science or engineering at degree level with the skills to commence university.
All of that can be done in any language you choose. I believe the NZ science curriculum, at least up to year 11, is fully supported in Te Reo.
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Hard News: Te Reo Māori in schools:…, in reply to Bart Janssen,
attempts to teach science in a language that other than English annoy me
So Chinese and German children shouldn't learn science until their English skills are up to understanding books and lessons in Natures Own Language?
Besides, education is holistic. Learning science (or any subject) isn't just about enabling those taking the subject at university to have an expected level of knowledge. All subjects build numeracy and literacy (if taught properly) and learning science in Te Reo is a good vehicle to help pupils with an interest in science learn Maori (as well as to help those focused on Te Reo to learn science).
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Has any paywall ever succeeded on non-professional content?
(The FT and Wall St Journal have charged for their content since forever (late 80's?) but they have a large pool of people (over a million) that need to see it for their work).
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Hard News: Friday Music: Good ideas and grumbles, in reply to Samuel Scott,
Why don't Taupo/Whanganui/New Plymouth/Hamilton/Tauranga/Rotorua all have 150 capacity venues run by enthusiastic music heads
Went to Napier for the weekend a while ago and the only thing on was a covers band playing in a 50-capacity bar down by the waterfront.
The problems of those places go deeper than a lack of live music. No university and a lack of interesting jobs means that most people who can leave at 18 do so and don't come back until retirement. So you're left to some degree with old people, bozos and thugs. Which in turn creates problems for bars (not to mention increased licensing restrictions. Councils have now started identifying areas, such as Newtown, as having a collective drinking problem and forcing their bars to close early. Next thing, it'll be fencing them off).
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Hard News: Friday Music: Good ideas and grumbles, in reply to Ian Jorgensen,
I dont think illegal downloading of music has any negative effect on the music scene
My based on nothing much theory is that there's been a shift in perceptions of value. When people bought physical records and CDs, there was an acceptance that $20 or whatever was a fair price for a tangible item. For a download, people aren't prepared to pay anything like as much. This has also happened in software and will happen in books, I think.
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I'm sure this isn't actually how the collecting system works, but I've always understood that every time the All Blacks score a try Jordan Luck makes a dollar.
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Hard News: Auckland's future: Keep calm,…, in reply to Chris Waugh,
Pudong. It's a fairly standard modern airport, one huge terminal, lots of expensive shops, fair selection of restaurants, just a lack of cash machines (in international airside, I was transiting).
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Hard News: Auckland's future: Keep calm,…, in reply to Chris Waugh,
I almost never line up and change money, anywhere. Just take it out of a machine on a card. Not sure if that would work with a Chinese bank though. I was in Shanghai airport for a few hours once and there was only one ATM in the whole place.