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Comment Flip the Curriculum (Score 1) 85

Traditionally, cursive is taught in grade school, and keyboarding is taught in middle school. These days kids have spent years developing poor keyboarding habits by the time they reach middle school.

I propose flipping the two. Teach kids keyboarding in grade school so they don't develop bad habits early. In middle school, teach cursive as an art form and work on developing unique and beautiful writing.

Comment Re:Someone has got to pay the research costs (Score 1) 274

There can be no doubt that a new drug costs of the order of a $1bn to discover, develop, TEST and distribute.

That part I understand. It's when a drug goes off patent and is still extremely expensive that I get outraged. R&D costs should be covered by that point, but the "free market" isn't doing its job.

Comment Re:With great power comes great stupidity. (Score 1) 274

Governments should just buy patent licences for these drugs and make them available to their citizens at cost. It would probably be cheaper than buying them at commercial rates.

Under current laws, the pharmaceutical company gets to name the price for the licences. I don't see this panning out.

However, patents aren't the only thing driving up drug prices. Despite being off patent, a lot of drugs are still only available from a single supplier. There needs to be more competition, but unfortunately strict government regulations pose a high barrier to entry for competitors. Reducing that barrier, perhaps through some sort of government subsidy, could be a remedy.

Comment Re:Shell game (Score 1) 42

So Frontier buys 14 states worth of customers from Verizon in 2010 for $8.6B, and now Verizon is buying that (shrunken) business back for $9.6B + $10B in debt in 2024.

These guys are business geniuses!

It was 13 states, and technically Verizon spunoff a new company called "New Communications" which Frontier purchased.

But yeah. 2010 called and it wants its Verizon back.

Comment Low WPM (Score 1) 57

I'm a touch typist, and have had people comment on how fast I can type. However, whenever I take a typing test, I clock in at 40-50 wpm.

When I started typing, my slow speed was really frustrating. However, once I reached over 40wpm, it stopped bothering me. I guess how fast my fingers move isn't the limiting factor.

Submission + - Tesla Deletes Elon Musk's "Master Plan" (yahoo.com)

Thelasko writes: Tesla has quietly pulled its 2006 "Secret Master Plan" climate manifesto from its website, as first spotted by Forbes.

The now-deleted document laid out how the Elon Musk-led company was hoping to fight climate change by electrifying cars and powering them with solar energy.

Almost two decades later, Musk's dedication to saving the environment has eroded greatly. The mercurial CEO recently even endorsed infamous climate change denier and former president Donald Trump.

During a chaotic chat on X-formerly-Twitter earlier this month, Musk told Trump "I don’t think we should vilify the oil and gas industry and the people that have worked very hard in those industries to provide the necessary energy to support the economy."

That's a far cry from Musk's 2006 promise of helping to "expedite the move from a mine-and-burn hydrocarbon economy towards a solar electric economy, which I believe to be the primary, but not exclusive, sustainable solution."

Submission + - Delta Airlines CEO Praises Apple (9to5mac.com)

Thelasko writes: While Delta continues to rely on Microsoftâ(TM)s IT infrastructure, CEO Bastian still had pointed words for the company.

When asked about Delta and Microsoftâ(TM)s relationship moving forward, he said:

        "My sense is theyâ(TM)re probably the most fragile platform within that space. When was the last time you heard of a big outage at Apple?"

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