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| Ok, so there’s good news and there’s bad news. On the bright side, as you may have noticed, the U.S. has some of the most advanced technology on Earth. Unfortunately, however, we’re naturally the country who is most reliant on advanced technology. That means we’re ridiculously vulnerable to cyber-attacks, and it sure sounds like a situation badder than kung fu Hell. A motivated nerd could basically shut America down electronically, were he to develop the tools, and align with a set of like-minded, radical friends.
Remember when Russian hackers punched Georgia’s digital nuts in 2008, as part of that little slap fight of a war they had. It wasn’t on a huge scale, but it was definitely noticed by the U.S. intelligence community. Having a President who knows that computers are more than just “them little YouTube boxes” probably helped. |
Sad but true: A lot of Americans can’t even turn on a computer. Sure, that might sound stupid to you, a physically attractive, intelligent blog follower. But the numbers never lie, unless you’re a banker or something. Computer literacy is rapidly becoming one of the most important skills one can possess in order to contribute positively to our society. It’s right up there with driving and throwing a perfect spiral. The problem is so pervasive that it’s spawned a new term, “Digital Divide,” to describe the gap between the people with computers and the skills to use them and the people without.
At first we thought Digital Divide was just Brooklyn’s best new electro-folk trio, but it turns out this concept has long been applied to intellect and financial status. This is a little different. This time… (dramatically removes sunglasses) it’s about national security. |
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Posts Tagged ‘Education’
LESS CYBER WAR. MORE COMPUTERS 101.
Friday, April 9th, 2010by Uncle Peterstain
LESS IDIOCY. MORE LEARNING.
Tuesday, March 30th, 2010by Dimebag Darrell
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| Let’s face it: this country is (sadly) rife with less education and more idiocy. Just last week, the free daily, amNewYork, wrote of how one-quarter of our high school juniors and seniors “misidentified Adolf Hitler.” One of the most vile people this world has known is just another name (or some dude that got screwed over by Microsoft) to one out of every four American 17-year-olds. You might think that “schooled” adults with degrees and mortgages would fare much better, but a recent look at trends on Google showed that searches for “Assburgers Syndrome” peaked a day after Parenthood – a primetime drama with a married couple that has a son with Asperger’s – debuted on NBC. Depressing, isn’t it? | Here at the home office, we’re big baseball fans, and some of us are stats geeks. While such a tidbit may be uninteresting to most, it does serve to prove a point. You see, the objective analysis of baseball through statistical measures, or sabermetrics, isn’t something that is taught in school, or readily learned without some effort. We simply discovered an interest in the subject and “educated” ourselves. What is most disturbing about the average uneducated American is that he or she possesses a complete and utter disinterest in learning something on their own. It seems to us that people look at education not as an exercise in personal enrichment, but rather a chore, or a necessary evil to pass an exam. Sad, but true. | |||
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LESS EDUCATION. MORE REDACTION.
Monday, March 29th, 2010by Uncle Peterstain
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| After deftly and succinctly touching on religion last week, we figured it was high time we addressed education. If you ask us, education is key to being like, all smart and stuff. It’s true; look it up if you can even read this. That’s why our collective feathers got so ruffled when we read a story about the “different” history that Texas is trying to invent with its new public school textbooks. It seems as though they only want to teach what they like, or believe, or find righteous. Whatever they want to call it, we call it just plain wrong. | No, no, this piece has nothing to do with awful war movies from Brian De Palma. We’re talking about the combining of separate stories and turning them into one cohesive statement. Here’s an example: Say we edited the Bible into one big story and punched it up a bit with some action of our own; it would be The Holy Redaction. As fun as that could be, the threat of things being lost in translation looms large. Surely “pay attention to the details” has its own PowerPoint in the freshman orientation at Redactor State University, right? That’s day one stuff. | |||
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LESS HIGHER LEARNING. MORE SCHOOL OF ROCK.
Thursday, February 4th, 2010by The Angry Young Man
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| We’re all for higher learning, but let’s face it, languishing in the classroom for over 15 years (including college) can be tedious, tiresome, and downright dull. Few things are worse than dragging yourself out of bed for a lecture and quiz on the Civil War, Algebra, or some overrated literary classic (cough, Jane Eyre, cough). At least there’s coffee. Making matters worse for our youngsters is that they’re woefully ignorant of the painful fact that life only gets worse after graduation. | Forget hitting the snooze button before Philosophy 101. Instead, why not leap out of bed and take advantage of your God-given right to rock the F*ck out?! It’s true. Every now and again, we all NEED to play hooky from the College of Knowledge and enroll in the School of Rock! Drop those book bags, let the Yellow Bus whiz right on by, and prepare to Get the Led Out. Break out the Guns N’ Roses cassettes, because it’s time to strap on your air guitar and get strumming. | |||
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