Parents can fix education

This wsj article offered findings that, instead of bad teachers and budget cuts, that "parent expectations" is number one determinant of student success.

The 2007 Michigan Dept of Education findings:

"The most consistent predictor of children's academic achievement and social adjustment are parent expectations of the child's academic attainment and satisfaction with their child's education at school. Parents of high-achieving students set higher standards for their children's eduational activities."

The article says that

"All you have to do is start insisting that your children fully appply themselves to their studies -- and commit yourself to doing your part. That means making sure they do all of their work as their abilities allow. It also means making sure everything at home stands behind these principles and supports the idea of learning."

People believe in bigfoot!

And they will believe in most anything!

The "Bigfoot" publicity stunt worked its way through Palo Alto and world media recently , confirming again that, sometimes, people just want to believe.

New York Times writer adds in 3/30/08 article that:

- Americans are as likely to believe in flying saucers as in evolution (about 30-40%)

2 billion people to speak English?

Micheal Erard in Wired magazine states:

By 2020, native English speakers will make up only  15 percent of the estimated 2 billion people who will be using or learning the language.

and that

Already, most conversations in English are between non-native speakers who use it as  common bridge

Free online photo services

There are no less than seven premiere on-line photo services:

Adobe Photoshop Express (recent entry, in beta mode)

Flickr

Photobucket

Kodak Gallery

Picasa (just added face recognition and tagging)

Shutterfly

Snapfish

How to send large video

Walt Mossberg suggests people try YouSendIt, a company which offers a free plan for files up to 100 megabytes in size.

Service can work within your browser, via a client on your computer, or via an outlook plug-in.

Rent a Blackberry for Overseas Travel

The WSJ offered a hint for overseas travellers to "rent a Blackberry" via www.cellhire.com. Cellhire rents Blackberries for $7 per day with unlimited access to emails and the web in more than 70 countries.

The device is delivered to your home in two days or less and total shipping rates are around $25.

(Another recent WSJ post warned of data theft of PDA's and laptops when travelling. With this rental option, leave the old data behind and communicate only "non-sensitive" communications.)

Avoid a one-party US government?

I have several friends who argue that we are best served by a multi-party logjam in D.C., chiefly a Republican president with a Democratic Congress or vice-versa (on the simply logic that, otherwise, the country swings way right or way left).

Two writers in the WSJ paint an even more doomsday scenario, claiming that the federal government is so large and powerful that

A unified president and Congress, can....take your money and give it to someone else, tell businesses what to produce and sell, who to hire and what wages to pay, set all commodity, wholesale, and retail prices...determine which students get slots in elite universities...Children could be required to spend the summer in government "youth" camps.