Friday, June 11, 2004
Ironing for dummies
Spanish researchers in Navarre have come up with a hi-tech answer to the most tedious household chore. A human-shaped dummy, called the Dressman, irons shirts by pumping itself up with hot air and blow-drying them. It joins lawn-mowing and vacuum-cleaning robots in the growing array of expensive machines designed to take the drudgery out of housework. The Dressman went on sale in Germany and Spain in January for €900.
Funny thing, I can think of something else that tries to iron out problems by pumping itself up with hot air!
Spanish researchers in Navarre have come up with a hi-tech answer to the most tedious household chore. A human-shaped dummy, called the Dressman, irons shirts by pumping itself up with hot air and blow-drying them. It joins lawn-mowing and vacuum-cleaning robots in the growing array of expensive machines designed to take the drudgery out of housework. The Dressman went on sale in Germany and Spain in January for €900.
Funny thing, I can think of something else that tries to iron out problems by pumping itself up with hot air!
Parental separation affects one in four Australian children
Nearly a quarter of children in Australia experience the separation of their parents by the age of 15 - up from 7 per cent 50 years ago - according to a new report noted in Family Edge. Previous research based on divorce statistics put the proportion at 15 per cent, but new data on the living arrangements of more than 12,000 children and 7700 households suggests an estimate of 23.5 per cent, says the report, The Changing Living Arrangements of Children, 1946-2001.
Written by Professor David de Vaus of La Trobe University and Dr Matthew Gray of the Australian Institute of Family Studies, the report also shows the number of children born to married couples has dropped from 98 per cent to 72 per cent from 1946 to 2001, while the number of children born to cohabiting, unmarried parents has jumped from zero to 16 per cent.
The proportion of children born to single mothers has also increased - from 2.6 per cent between 1946 and 1955 to 6.5 per cent in 2001. And the number of children who will live with their lone mother due to parental separation by the age of 15 has doubled from 9 per cent to 18 per cent for the same period. These children spend an average of six years living solely with their mothers.
Nearly a quarter of children in Australia experience the separation of their parents by the age of 15 - up from 7 per cent 50 years ago - according to a new report noted in Family Edge. Previous research based on divorce statistics put the proportion at 15 per cent, but new data on the living arrangements of more than 12,000 children and 7700 households suggests an estimate of 23.5 per cent, says the report, The Changing Living Arrangements of Children, 1946-2001.
Written by Professor David de Vaus of La Trobe University and Dr Matthew Gray of the Australian Institute of Family Studies, the report also shows the number of children born to married couples has dropped from 98 per cent to 72 per cent from 1946 to 2001, while the number of children born to cohabiting, unmarried parents has jumped from zero to 16 per cent.
The proportion of children born to single mothers has also increased - from 2.6 per cent between 1946 and 1955 to 6.5 per cent in 2001. And the number of children who will live with their lone mother due to parental separation by the age of 15 has doubled from 9 per cent to 18 per cent for the same period. These children spend an average of six years living solely with their mothers.
Skip this if you can't stand Rugby
New Zealand's national pastime is picking who is going to win the next Rugby test, and then explaining the next day why they got it wrong.
I should be prudent, and rest on my laurels after getting the result of the Super 12 final absolutely right (when four other Super 12 captains got it wrong).
But that would be cowardly. So: England to win by a narrow margin in a fairly dour struggle tomorrow night, but the All Blacks to turn the tables the following week.
New Zealand's national pastime is picking who is going to win the next Rugby test, and then explaining the next day why they got it wrong.
I should be prudent, and rest on my laurels after getting the result of the Super 12 final absolutely right (when four other Super 12 captains got it wrong).
But that would be cowardly. So: England to win by a narrow margin in a fairly dour struggle tomorrow night, but the All Blacks to turn the tables the following week.
The first casualty of war is truth
In times of war, we are highly dependent on the news media to tell us what's going on. Unfortunately, the media is not without its biases and many doubt that they are giving us the 'whole story.'
Bert Kinzey is a former Army officer who became an expert in military aviation. Included in his publications was a book about the Gulf War shortly after it ended in 1991. While the book's primary focus was on the air war, much of it also addressed the news coverage of the war.
Kinzey says there were two big losers during that war; Iraq and the news media.
Kinzey has recently written a further critique of the media, particularly CNN in relation to its coverage of the war in Iraq. It's been doing the rounds like a chain letter, sometimes being modified in the process. A verified version of the letter can be found here.
Kinzey says CNN's lies and inaccuracies are even more common than they were in 1991. Their bias is also beyond belief. "While everyone, including news organizations, have their own bias, it is neither professional nor honest to concentrate almost exclusively on one side of an issue, particularly one so important as this. To do so presents an inaccurate and dishonest view of what is actually happening, and this does not allow viewers to form informed and valid opinions."
In times of war, we are highly dependent on the news media to tell us what's going on. Unfortunately, the media is not without its biases and many doubt that they are giving us the 'whole story.'
Bert Kinzey is a former Army officer who became an expert in military aviation. Included in his publications was a book about the Gulf War shortly after it ended in 1991. While the book's primary focus was on the air war, much of it also addressed the news coverage of the war.
Kinzey says there were two big losers during that war; Iraq and the news media.
Kinzey has recently written a further critique of the media, particularly CNN in relation to its coverage of the war in Iraq. It's been doing the rounds like a chain letter, sometimes being modified in the process. A verified version of the letter can be found here.
Kinzey says CNN's lies and inaccuracies are even more common than they were in 1991. Their bias is also beyond belief. "While everyone, including news organizations, have their own bias, it is neither professional nor honest to concentrate almost exclusively on one side of an issue, particularly one so important as this. To do so presents an inaccurate and dishonest view of what is actually happening, and this does not allow viewers to form informed and valid opinions."
Educational gobbledegook
In the cultural battle, language is crucial. Many government departments have so fine-tuned their bureaucratic language that it's virtually impossible for ordinary readers to understand what's being said. The root problem is found in what is known in academic circles as post-structuralism. In simple terms, post-structuralism holds that all meaning is socially constructed - there is no objective reality, truth or 'big picture', but rather, dynamic forces of change and personal and group meaning only.
Few government departments can match the style and rhetoric of the Ministry of Education and the following is an extract from its recent Best Evidence Synthesis series. "Quality Teaching for Diverse Students in Schooling" (p. 1):
Quality teaching is defined as 'pedagogical practices that facilitate for heterogeneous groups of students their access to information, and ability to engage in classroom activities and tasks in ways that facilitate learning related to curriculum goals'. The term 'teaching' is used for simplicity but the term 'pedagogy' is also used throughout the synthesis. The wider focus on pedagogy ensures a broad consideration of the range of ways in which quality teaching is accomplished, for example, through culturally inclusive and pedagogically effective task design, through managing resource access for diverse learners, through equipping students with skills for self-regulation, and through training students in specific peer teaching strategies... High achievement for diverse groups of learners is an outcome of the skilled and cumulative pedagogical actions of a teacher in creating and optimising an effective learning environment.
And we wonder why kids are not learning!
In the cultural battle, language is crucial. Many government departments have so fine-tuned their bureaucratic language that it's virtually impossible for ordinary readers to understand what's being said. The root problem is found in what is known in academic circles as post-structuralism. In simple terms, post-structuralism holds that all meaning is socially constructed - there is no objective reality, truth or 'big picture', but rather, dynamic forces of change and personal and group meaning only.
Few government departments can match the style and rhetoric of the Ministry of Education and the following is an extract from its recent Best Evidence Synthesis series. "Quality Teaching for Diverse Students in Schooling" (p. 1):
Quality teaching is defined as 'pedagogical practices that facilitate for heterogeneous groups of students their access to information, and ability to engage in classroom activities and tasks in ways that facilitate learning related to curriculum goals'. The term 'teaching' is used for simplicity but the term 'pedagogy' is also used throughout the synthesis. The wider focus on pedagogy ensures a broad consideration of the range of ways in which quality teaching is accomplished, for example, through culturally inclusive and pedagogically effective task design, through managing resource access for diverse learners, through equipping students with skills for self-regulation, and through training students in specific peer teaching strategies... High achievement for diverse groups of learners is an outcome of the skilled and cumulative pedagogical actions of a teacher in creating and optimising an effective learning environment.
And we wonder why kids are not learning!
Thursday, June 10, 2004
Untangling the web
I thought it would be good to put aside the weightier matters of the world for a moment, and pass on what I hope are some helpful tips on searching the Internet for useful information (seeing it's my job).
Tip 1: Chances are, you use Google as your main search engine. If so, download the Google Toolbar (unfortunately, this only works with Internet Explorer, which is a disappointment). The Toolbar allows you to enter search requests without going first to the Google site, which saves time. It also blocks pop-up ads, and makes the coffee. (Okay, I'm working on the latter.)
Tip 2: Also related to the Google Toolbar. When you do a general search at Google, it only brings a small number of pages from any given web site. The Toolbar allows you to drill down into the site even further, by doing a "site search". I have often located items this way that were not found in a general search, sometimes not even located using the site's own search engine (if it has one).
Tip 3: To narrow down the number of results and improve the probability of a good "hit", enclose your search terms in parentheses ("). That way, Google searches on the exact phrase. You can have it search on several phrases or terms at once.
Tip 4: If you place a tilde (~) mark in front of a word, it will also search on words which have a similar meaning. Eg, if you type ~street, it will also search for "road", etc.
Tip 5: Even the best search engine catalogues less than a third of all the pages on the Internet. This is because a huge resource is available only through databases. Eg, all the world's library catalogues are in databases, and a Google search won't find any of them. You can find an astonishing amount of material by visiting a library and delving into its database. (Try the Smithsonian Institute, for instance.)
Tip 6: Many of the world's major newspapers and journals allow access to their archives only by subscription. There is a way around this, however. In New Zealand, nearly all libraries now offer what are called "Premium Databases" through their Internet sites. Through these, you can look at issues of just about every journal you can name. AND IT'S FREE, YIPPEE! All you need is your library card number and a PIN number. This particularly useful, for instance, in the case of newspapers belonging to the INL Group, which means most NZ dailies (including The Press, Dominion-Post, etc). The Stuff web site, where they reside, allows access to only the last 24 hours stories. But you can find the stories in the NewsText section of the library premium databases. Incidentally, I have to commend the NZ Herald, which has a very good search engine for its archives, and allows you to search back for yonks.
Tip 7: It is very easy to forget the location of a good web page that you came across. Use the "Favourites" or "Bookmarks" feature of your browser to store these (it doesn't matter if you have hundreds of them - just keep them well organised by category), and you'll come up smiling every time.
Tip 8: Again, this one is only available via Internet Explorer, much the pity. IE allows you to save web pages in a special archive format, which keeps all the information (including graphics) in place. When you want to save a page for later reference, choose File Menu/Save As/ and under file type choose "Web Archive, single file (*.mht)". Make sure you save the file to an easily found location on your computer's hard drive. To view the page later, simply double click on it.
Tip 9: Turn your computer off. Get a life!
I thought it would be good to put aside the weightier matters of the world for a moment, and pass on what I hope are some helpful tips on searching the Internet for useful information (seeing it's my job).
Tip 1: Chances are, you use Google as your main search engine. If so, download the Google Toolbar (unfortunately, this only works with Internet Explorer, which is a disappointment). The Toolbar allows you to enter search requests without going first to the Google site, which saves time. It also blocks pop-up ads, and makes the coffee. (Okay, I'm working on the latter.)
Tip 2: Also related to the Google Toolbar. When you do a general search at Google, it only brings a small number of pages from any given web site. The Toolbar allows you to drill down into the site even further, by doing a "site search". I have often located items this way that were not found in a general search, sometimes not even located using the site's own search engine (if it has one).
Tip 3: To narrow down the number of results and improve the probability of a good "hit", enclose your search terms in parentheses ("). That way, Google searches on the exact phrase. You can have it search on several phrases or terms at once.
Tip 4: If you place a tilde (~) mark in front of a word, it will also search on words which have a similar meaning. Eg, if you type ~street, it will also search for "road", etc.
Tip 5: Even the best search engine catalogues less than a third of all the pages on the Internet. This is because a huge resource is available only through databases. Eg, all the world's library catalogues are in databases, and a Google search won't find any of them. You can find an astonishing amount of material by visiting a library and delving into its database. (Try the Smithsonian Institute, for instance.)
Tip 6: Many of the world's major newspapers and journals allow access to their archives only by subscription. There is a way around this, however. In New Zealand, nearly all libraries now offer what are called "Premium Databases" through their Internet sites. Through these, you can look at issues of just about every journal you can name. AND IT'S FREE, YIPPEE! All you need is your library card number and a PIN number. This particularly useful, for instance, in the case of newspapers belonging to the INL Group, which means most NZ dailies (including The Press, Dominion-Post, etc). The Stuff web site, where they reside, allows access to only the last 24 hours stories. But you can find the stories in the NewsText section of the library premium databases. Incidentally, I have to commend the NZ Herald, which has a very good search engine for its archives, and allows you to search back for yonks.
Tip 7: It is very easy to forget the location of a good web page that you came across. Use the "Favourites" or "Bookmarks" feature of your browser to store these (it doesn't matter if you have hundreds of them - just keep them well organised by category), and you'll come up smiling every time.
Tip 8: Again, this one is only available via Internet Explorer, much the pity. IE allows you to save web pages in a special archive format, which keeps all the information (including graphics) in place. When you want to save a page for later reference, choose File Menu/Save As/ and under file type choose "Web Archive, single file (*.mht)". Make sure you save the file to an easily found location on your computer's hard drive. To view the page later, simply double click on it.
Tip 9: Turn your computer off. Get a life!
Wednesday, June 09, 2004
Turning school into a psychiatric clinic
There's growing concern in some quarters about the tendency for schools to become a place where professionals must deal with growing populations of children struggling with mental and emotional disorders, and social risk.
Writing in the pages of the Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Nursing, a group of Oregon scholars and government officials express deep concern over the way that "the numbers of school children diagnosed with or at high risk for mental and emotional disorders are increasing," and they characterize as "alarming" the numbers of public-school children "at risk for negative socioemotional outcomes." The Oregon investigators note that nearly 21% of children between the ages of 9 and 17 now manifest symptoms of "a diagnosable mental or addictive disorder" and that as many as 9 million more school-age children are believed to be experiencing "serious emotional disturbances without receiving the help they need." "These mental health problems," remark the authors of the recent article, "seriously impede students' ability to acquire academic skills and social competence."
In explaining the rising tide of psychological distress among school children, the Oregon officials focus on "stressful family environments," environments that make children "four times as likely to have high levels of behavioral and emotional problems." Where do the Oregon scholars find the "stressful family environments" that foster emotional and psychological problems? These scholars begin their analysis of these environments with a telling statistic: "In 1999, 28% of children under age 18 lived with a single parent."
Predictably enough, when compared to married peers, single parents are "more likely to report aggravation - frequently feeling frustrated and stressed by the experience of caring for their child" and are more likely to suffer from "poor mental health" themselves.
All too often, the Oregon scholars point out, single parenthood shows up in an ugly tangle of problems: "Children living in poverty tend to have difficulty in school," the investigators write, "experience maltreatment, and live in single-parent families with the attendant difficulties."
(Reported at the World Congress of Families site)
There's growing concern in some quarters about the tendency for schools to become a place where professionals must deal with growing populations of children struggling with mental and emotional disorders, and social risk.
Writing in the pages of the Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Nursing, a group of Oregon scholars and government officials express deep concern over the way that "the numbers of school children diagnosed with or at high risk for mental and emotional disorders are increasing," and they characterize as "alarming" the numbers of public-school children "at risk for negative socioemotional outcomes." The Oregon investigators note that nearly 21% of children between the ages of 9 and 17 now manifest symptoms of "a diagnosable mental or addictive disorder" and that as many as 9 million more school-age children are believed to be experiencing "serious emotional disturbances without receiving the help they need." "These mental health problems," remark the authors of the recent article, "seriously impede students' ability to acquire academic skills and social competence."
In explaining the rising tide of psychological distress among school children, the Oregon officials focus on "stressful family environments," environments that make children "four times as likely to have high levels of behavioral and emotional problems." Where do the Oregon scholars find the "stressful family environments" that foster emotional and psychological problems? These scholars begin their analysis of these environments with a telling statistic: "In 1999, 28% of children under age 18 lived with a single parent."
Predictably enough, when compared to married peers, single parents are "more likely to report aggravation - frequently feeling frustrated and stressed by the experience of caring for their child" and are more likely to suffer from "poor mental health" themselves.
All too often, the Oregon scholars point out, single parenthood shows up in an ugly tangle of problems: "Children living in poverty tend to have difficulty in school," the investigators write, "experience maltreatment, and live in single-parent families with the attendant difficulties."
(Reported at the World Congress of Families site)
Tuesday, June 08, 2004
A gay old hui?
Bishop Hui Vercoe, newly installed as the head of the Anglican Church in New Zealand, has caused a minor storm with his comments in the Weekend Herald.
Bishop Hui is not happy about rampant homosexuality, particularly in the church. He puts this down to his cultural heritage as much as to Biblical injunctions.
But it seems that Bishop Hui doesn't know his own culture, going by the reaction. He's even accused of "endangering young people".
I suspect that the homosexual lifestyle endangers young people a darn sight more than Bishop Hui's comments ever will. When you look at the health statistics alone, homosexual practices are not conducive to a long life (but in this PC world you are supposed to embrace any lifestyle, no matter what the consequences).
Bishop Hui Vercoe, newly installed as the head of the Anglican Church in New Zealand, has caused a minor storm with his comments in the Weekend Herald.
Bishop Hui is not happy about rampant homosexuality, particularly in the church. He puts this down to his cultural heritage as much as to Biblical injunctions.
But it seems that Bishop Hui doesn't know his own culture, going by the reaction. He's even accused of "endangering young people".
I suspect that the homosexual lifestyle endangers young people a darn sight more than Bishop Hui's comments ever will. When you look at the health statistics alone, homosexual practices are not conducive to a long life (but in this PC world you are supposed to embrace any lifestyle, no matter what the consequences).
