#Angel card reading training in Mumbai | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

techniciansquad · 4 years ago

Text

ELECTRICIAN NEAR ME- What is an Electrician?

An electrician is a tradesman specializing in electrical wiring of buildings, transmission lines, stationary machines, and related equipment. Electricians may be employed in the installation of new electrical components or the maintenance and repair of existing electrical infrastructure. Electricians may also specialize in wiring ships, airplanes, and other mobile platforms, as well as data and cable lines.

When we refer to, “electricians,” we’re talking about tradespeople that install and repair wiring found in buildings and the various electrical systems found within them, including HVAC, security, lighting and computer network systems.

Today’s electricians can be divided into four main categories:

Residential Electricians – These electricians work in home dwellings that can range from single-family houses to large apartment complexes.

Commercial Electricians – Work sites can include office buildings, retail outlets, schools, hospitals, and industrial facilities that do not involve high-voltage. These electricians install and repair electrical systems found in existing commercial buildings, new construction, and renovation projects.

Industrial Electricians – These electricians perform maintenance and installation of electrical components and machinery found in industrial settings. This may include working with high-voltage electricity at industrial manufacturing locations.

Low Voltage Electricians – As their name implies, these electricians are involved with low-voltage systems that primarily include voice, data, and video (VDV) networks and systems. Inside the industry you may hear these professionals referred to as VDV electricians or Voice-Data-Video electricians. Their work typically focuses on phone lines and fiber optic cable repair and installation in any setting where these materials are used.

You will find that some states combine some of these classifications. For example, some states may combine residential and low voltage into one category. Others may combine commercial and industrial electricians into one category.

In addition to classifying electricians by role, they can be further subdivided into three additional categories based on experience and training:

Apprentice – These electricians-in-training work under the supervision of an experienced professional for a number of years before they reach the journeyman level

Journeyman – This status is awarded once an electrician completes their apprenticeship and is judged by a state-approved authority as being competent in their trade

Master – Master electricians are defined as those with years of experience as journeymen who have demonstrated high-level competence through a state-approved exam

As you might have guessed, each state’s electrician licensing regulatory agency defines the parameters and scope of duties for each of these levels.

A Historical Perspective on Electricians

Even though man didn’t master electricity until the 1880s – the time that saw the first central power stations – we’ve certainly understood its brute force since prehistoric times. In fact, many of the most important gods of mythology were those with the power to wield electricity in the form of lightning. While there may have been some close calls along the road to discovering how to make electricity work for humankind, it wasn’t until around 1600 that significant steps towards understanding electromagnetism were made. It was then that the English astronomer William Gilbert made the first recorded in-depth study of static electricity. At that time he found the best way of creating static electricity was by rubbing a cloth against amber, introducing the word “electro” to the English language, which is Greek for amber.

Finally, during a thunderstorm in 1752, Benjamin Franklin did his key-on-the-kite experiment that we all learned about in grade school, and with several other important figures of the day, major inroads were made towards mastering electricity. By 1875, the first electricians installed the first municipal street lighting system in Los Angeles, followed by Paris three years later. Even then those electricians still had somewhat of a divine nature.

Also of interest to note, up until about 1884 there was vigorous competition between the widespread adoption of alternating current (AC) or direct current (DC). Had it not been for the invention of the first transformer that year perhaps all of our houses today would be powered by direct current?

Fast-forward to the present and you find that most people take electricity for granted. However that doesn’t diminish the importance of electrician’s one iota.

ABOUT TECHNICIAN SQUAD

TECHNICIAN SQUAD - A best group in providing home services. - Someone who is good at everything. Literally EVERYTHING. Twenty year ago, my father start working as a plumber. Today, we are not just providing you the plumbing services but also we provide you Home services, Appliances repairs, Utility services, Lifestyle services, Beauty services, Medical services, Repair & Maintenance, and local service experts, local bill payments, and a local marketplace for shopping, right to your home or where you want us to. With a large service provider base, on-time services, flexible pricing, and service guarantee, TECHNICIAN SQUAD ensures timely service, best price, and best service. We provide option to pay by COD, from your E-wallets, or by online payments like Internet banking, Credit cards or Debit cards You can also do local shopping on the TECHNICIAN SQUAD app. We have a wide variety of cakes, flowers, home-made pickles and squashes, clothing, and leather accessories from your favorite vendors in your city Our services include,

Home Maintenance: Electrician, Plumber, Handyman, Carpenter, Painter, AC Mechanic, Gardener, Pest Control Cleaning Services: House Cleaning, Laundry, Ironing, Dry cleaning, Car wash, Car Detailing, Carpet wash, Sofa wash, Curtain wash Home Appliance Repairs: Computer, Laptop, Tablets, Mobile Phones, Air Conditioner, Refrigerator, Television, Microwave Oven, Gas Stove, Chimney, Washing Machine, Water cooler, CCTV, and other electronic appliances Health and Beauty Services: Beautician, Beauty Salon, Hair Care, Medical Services, Parental care, Physiotherapy, Home Nursing, Lab testing Lifestyle Services: Cake delivery, Surprise gifts, Flower delivery, Pickup and delivery, Tuitions, Packers and Movers, Event Management, Decorations, Photo Shoots Business Services: Accounting Services, Background Verification, Private Investigation, Mobile App Development, Website Development, Tax Services, Document Collection We constantly update our services, and expand our service network, so that we can provide you with more and best services Currently our services are available at the following locations, India: Delhi, Gurgaon, Noida, Ghaziabad, Faridabad, Rohtak We are coming soon to Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chandigarh, Jaipur, Chennai, Kolkata, Pune, and other major cities in India and other locations across the globe. Our mobile app may request you for access to the following, Phone and network information: TECHNICIAN SQUAD works with network data, and it also uses the mobile network for calling our customer care or service providers directly from the app, if in case you want to do that Read or write text messages: just in case the app needs to read a PIN sent by us Access to storage and media files: used only while adding a picture to your profile and some cache to make the app faster Location: Our services are location based, so switching on your location makes it easier for you and us However, please be assured that we cannot access any of your personal information or media in your phone. All the above accesses are only for the purpose of logical functioning of our services. We make sure not to share any of your personal information with any outsider. Your privacy is as important to us as ours! Uncomplicated life! Customer Care Number: +91 9911498949, +91 9911898949 Email: [email protected]

#electrician near me #electrician in rohini #electrician in my area #Technician Squad

0 notes

eversall · 7 years ago

Text

short thing written at breaks during work for @reecekinqs who is an absolute angel and waited patiently for w e e k s for me to get my head in the game. troy bolton would be disappointed in me, but it just can’t be helped. original prompt was “jace thinking simon has a partner and then jace trying to get over him by getting a partner + jealousy?” didn’t completely follow it, but here it is, me shouting into the jimon void.

fakeout (us, take two) || jace/simon, 2k+ || ao3 link soon

It’s late when Simon gets back, and Jace looks up from his research just in time to see Simon trip over the rug as he walks into Jace’s room in the Institute. He hides his tired grin behind his coffee, taking a sip and frowning when he realizes it’s gone cold and acidic.

“Thought you were going to be back for dinner.” Jace says, leaning back and crossing his arms. Simon shrugs, casting a critical eye over the books spread out across the tiny table Jace commandeered for his room, and a slow smile spreads over his face.

“You - “

“Don’t.” Jace warns.

“ - read? I didn’t know you could read.”

“God damn it, Lewis.” Jace crosses his arms and does his best to glare at Simon, which is difficult when Simon’s eyes crinkle like that as he ducks his head and tries to hide how pleased he is with himself. “That joke got old a year ago.”

“Mm, no, see that’s where you’re wrong. That joke gets old the day we’re no longer friends.” Simon says, pulling a sympathetic face. “Weird demon?”

“Some sort of serpent subspecies.” Jace says, closing some of his books. “I accidentally killed one and now I have to figure out how I did it, and where the weak spot is.” He watches curiously as Simon pokes at some of the books.”So? It’s almost midnight, were you lost or something?”

“Nah, I was just having coffee with this guy I met.” Simon says casually, and Jace frowns, about to open his mouth and ask who, when Simon beats him to it. “Eric. You don’t know him, he’s in my accounting class. We just got caught up and forgot the time.”

“Right.” Jace purses his lips, uncomfortably annoyed at the whole situation. He sort of - missed Simon, when he didn’t back for dinner. And it’s almost to be expected, that Simon doesn’t care as intensely as Jace does, but - still. It’s always feels like another blow to his heart when he’s faced with the evidence that Simon doesn’t feel the same way.

“Hey.” Simon says, bracing his hands on the table and looking at Jace. “We should get breakfast tomorrow! They’re having a deal at IHOP and I have a coupon- “

“I can’t.” Jace says quickly, his heart sinking in disappointment. “I have an early meeting with the Mumbai Institute that I have to be at.”

“Oh.” Simon’s face falls. “We haven’t hung out in so long, Jace.”

“Mm, could do without that for a bit longer.” Jace says back easily, grinning as Simon purses his lips and glares, but privately he agrees with Simon. It feels like the more he falls for the other boy, the less he sees him.

“I guess I’ll just take Eric.” Simon says thoughtfully. “I have to use up that coupon.”

“Right.” Jace agrees, trying not to sound like he thinks that's the worst idea possible. “You do that.”

The meeting with the Mumbai Institute members runs long, and when they end the call it’s almost lunch. Jace takes his phone out and types you free? meeting over, we can wander central park and get some food. Simon responds immediately.

[simon]: i can’t, uh...i think i’m on a date

He feels like he’s suddenly been doused with a bucket of cold water, the way his heart freezes in his chest and his veins turn icy. A date echoes in his head, and he blindly imagines Simon laughing with some faceless man - holding the door open for him - sending him that soft, fond look that he gets when he thinks Jace has said something clever - Simon kissing someone, leaning into it, and Jace has to watch -

He lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding and lets the grief overwhelm him for a second. It’s infuriating, because he always knew it was doomed but to see the evidence in front of him makes it cruelly real, and the last bit of his hope shrivels up and dies as he braces himself and tries to be a good friend for Simon.

[jace]: you think? haha it’s that hard for you to think?

[jace]: if you think it is, it probably is

[jace]: have fun, simon

He doesn’t wait for Simon to reply to that; instead, he turns his phone off and heads off to find someone to trains with, because if he thinks about it for a second longer he might explode.

“You’re mopey.” Maia says that night as he leans against the bar at the Hunter’s Moon. He shrugs. “You’re gonna make my bar look like a sad place, looking like someone killed your cat.”

“Your bar now, is it?” Jace mutters, running a hand through his hair. Maia rolls her eyes and then goes to serve a customer; when she comes back, she firmly shoves at his shoulder from across the bar.

“Did your precious Shadowhunters do something to you?” she exclaims, and Jace half-smiles at that.

“No,” he clears his throat, “it’s - “

The door swings open at that moment, and Simon walks through, beaming. His eyes zero in on Jace and Maia and he makes a beeline for them; Jace’s heart drops somewhere to the soles of his feet.

“ - that.” He finishes quietly, and Maia looks sharply at him before Simon bounces up, clearly excited. Jace looks away and takes a large gulp of his beer so he doesn’t have to see the good-natured excitement in Simon’s eyes. Simon lives his life in a constant state of optimism, and Jace has always soaked it in like a shivering man standing in the sun for the first time, awestruck and in love.

“You guys,” He says, sliding onto the stool next to Jace, “I went to IHOP with Eric, and then we started talking, and then we went back to his place, and then he kissed me.”

“He - he did what?” Maia asks, incredulous.

“And you’re sure he meant to kiss you?” Jace remarks snidely, and then he winces as Simon’s face crumples. Maia cuts him a sharp look, and he backtracks. “No, I uh - I didn’t mean that, fuck.”

“Right.” Simon laughs softly. He looks crestfallen. “Sure.”

“No - “ Jace places a hand on Simon’s arm and looks intently at him, trying to get him to understand. It suddenly seems urgent to make Simon understand that he’s the only person anyone would want to kiss. “Seriously, that was stupid of me. It’s been a rough day, that’s all. Tell me - tell us about Eric and your date, then.”

Simon’s eyes linger on Jace, and then he smiles, a little bittersweet but still heartfelt.

“Eric’s kind of a frat boy,” Simon begins, “but he’s really just a ridiculous nerd underneath all that who doesn’t know how to ask me out on a date….”

Jace instantly hates Eric.

He thinks it’ll go away, that Eric will go away the way most of Simon’s dates do once they realize he disappears for large chunks of time and never explains it, but Eric persists. To Jace’s horror, two weeks later he’s still getting texts from Simon apologizing for being late, but that Eric held him up.

Jace has learned more about Eric than he’s ever wanted to in the past few weeks. Eric plays basketball, Eric knows martial arts, Eric once saved a tiny stupid cat off a stupid tree -

It’s not even funny anymore. Jace thought he could do the whole letting go thing, that he’d be happy that Simon is happy, but instead - he’s miserable. Even when Simon is around, he avoids eye contact and has started to drop back into single-syllable answers. Apparently he’s more selfish than he thought, because he can’t stand the thought that he doesn’t have a chance with Simon now.

“I hate to be the smart one here,” Alec tells him one day over lunch, “but have you considered that the only reason Eric is even this lucky is because he asked Simon out? While you - didn’t.”

“Believe me, I know.” Jace says, stabbing at his salad and scowling.

He brings it up with Simon once, looks him dead in the eye and asks, “Are you happy? With Eric?” Simon laughs, shrugging easily as he pauses the Wii and looks back at Jace.

“He’s pretty cool, but I mean. I’m just starting to get to know him. I’ll see, right?” He says, his eyes searching Jace’s, and Jace nods, bumping their shoulders together and swallowing down the emotion threatening to spill over in his throat.

Simon lands in the infirmary approximately once a month, ridiculously good at jumping in front of people and saving their lives by taking the brunt of a hit.

“I’m immortal.” He reminds Jace wearily as Jace crouches outside the blood bank he carried Simon to and rips open a bag of B-positive. “It’s okay.”

“Just drink.” Jace says tightly, holding the bag to Simon’s lips and cupping the back of his neck gently so Simon can sluggishly raise his head and start to swallow some of it. “Raziel, Simon, we always end up here. You need a loyalty card to this place.”

“You know what a loyalty card is?” Simon asks dazedly. Color is flooding back into his cheeks, and the greyish tinge that settled over him when he was hit by the demon is fading.

“When are you going to let go of the idea that I’m a robot?” Jace asks softly, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth despite himself, and Simon grins and sits up, holding onto Jace’s arm for support.

“I know you’re a real boy, Pinocchio.” Simon says, winking conspiratorially. Jace shakes his head, but a warm feeling stays with him all the way back to the Institute, where he helps an exhausted Simon into his bed and then goes to leave.

“Jace.” Simon murmurs sleepily, turning on his side and blinking up at Jace with wide eyes. “This is your bed?”

Jace snorts. “Yeah.” He says. “I don’t trust you not to wander off and do something stupid if I send you back to the boathouse. I’ll be one room over, alright?” He hesitates, and sees that Simon’s about to say something, and he barrels on. “Do you want me to let Eric know?” He asks, his voice going into desperate territory. Simon blinks.

“What?”

“You said you had a sort-of date with Eric tomorrow morning.” Jace says, hating the fact that he’s obsessively paying attention to Simon’s life. “Do you want me to tell him you’re at a friends and you might be late?”

Simon blinks, frowning at Jace. “No,” He says, yawning on the word, “that doesn’t matter. Stay with me, Jace.” He says absently, already closing his eyes and snuggling into the pillows.

“You don’t want - “ Jace begins desperately, and Simon tugs hard on Jace’s wrist, his vampire strength sending Jace crashing onto the bed.

“Stay.” Simon repeats, and then he doesn’t say anything at all. By the time Jace settles and rearranges himself, Simon’s already fast asleep, his hand still holding on tight to Jace. Jace decides that he’s taking this moment for himself, Eric be damned, and he falls asleep curled on his side, facing Simon.

“Maybe I should get a date.” Jace muses to Izzy one day. She raises an eyebrow, setting her tablet aside.

“And this will help you get over Simon how?” She asks archly. Jace shrugs, looking at his last text message from Simon.

[simon]: can’t come over to beat your ass at mario kart, eric got us tickets to a movie

“I have to start somewhere.” He says, as he considers chucking his phone into the void so he doesn’t have to deal with this. “I should try to let it go, at least.”

“Yes, but - “ Izzy takes his phone from him and reads the message, squinting thoughtfully. “Jace, don’t you think you should at least let Simon make his own decision about how he feels about you?”

“He made his decision.” Jace says dully. “His decision is pretty clear.”

“I don’t know about that.” Izzy shakes her head as she hands his phone back, and it buzzes with a text from Simon. Jace looks down at it and groans and what Izzy’s sent on his behalf.

[jace]: but youd have so much more fun being beaten at mario kart by me.

[simon]: just between you and me

[simon]: yeah you’re right i would

“I gotta stop hoping.” Jace mutters to himself, even as his traitorous heart leaps at the text and the idea of going on a date with someone else wilts away in his mind.

“I heard,” Simon says, when they’re on patrol on night, “that you have a date.”

“Where did you hear that?” Jace asks, frowning as he peers through an empty doorway. “Clear.”

“I told you, there’s nothing in this building.” Simon says leaning against the wall of the warehouse they’re in. “C’mon, Jace, are you going on a date tonight? And you didn’t tell me?”

Jace isn’t, but Simon sounds surprisingly hurt about the whole thing, so he bites back the retort on the tip of his tongue that maybe if Eric wasn’t in the picture he would have told him, and says evenly, instead, “I wasn’t aware it was something that needed to be shared.”

“Shared? We’re friends, Jace, aren’t we?” Simon asks, and his face is twisting into a heartbreaking frown, and Jace sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose, turning to face Simon.

“We are, of course we are.” He says quietly. “It’s - you’re busy with your own stuff these days, Simon, it’s not like we talk about this stuff anymore.”

“Right.” Simon’s voice is subdued, his eyes dark as he searches for something on Jace’s face. “My ‘stuff’ is Eric, isn’t it.” Jace doesn’t say anything, but his mouth twists downwards, and that’s probably confirmation enough. “You don’t like him. Why?” Jace turns away, not able to face Simon down like this. “I don’t not like him.” He says instead, which is true. Eric, by himself, seems like a nice guy.

“Right.” Simon says, but he brushes his fingers across Jace’s wrist, tugs, and forces Jace to look at him. “Your opinion matters to me, Jace. You should have just said so.” Jace huffs out a laugh, preoccupied with the way Simons cold fingers seem to be burning hot where they’re touching Jace’s skin.

“Noted.” Jace says, and he takes a step back. “And I don’t have a date tonight, by the way, but it’s good to know you still fall for Izzy’s tricks.”

“How did you know she told me - Jace, you ass.” Simon exclaims as Jace snickers, and they continue moving down the hallway, but there’s something soft and hopeful in Simon’s face as he keeps sneaking glances at Jace.

Three weeks after Simon first mentions Eric, Jace has conditioned himself well enough to have an immediate surge of annoyance anytime he hears the name. So when Simon barges into Jace’s room, breathless, and starts saying “Eric - “ Jace jumps to his feet.

“Honestly, Simon,” he says wearily, “I’m tired and I just don’t want to hear it anymore. Please.”

“Hear - hear what, exactly?” Simon says, confusion flitting across his face.

“Eric.” Jace says, shaking his head. “I just - I don’t care, Simon. I really don’t.”

He brushes past Simon, who looks miserable as he leans against the doorway.

“I want you to care.” Simon half-mumbles, mostly to himself. “I broke up with him because I want you to care. And I thought you did.”

Jace stops in the hallway, frozen to the spot as he hears the words and processes them. He stiffens, and pivots slowly, staring incredulously at Simon, who looks horrified.

“What did you just say?” Jace demands hoarsely, and Simon shakes his head vigorously.

“No, no I didn’t - fuck, I didn’t mean to say that - “ He says miserably, and Jace takes a step forward, crowding Simon against the wall, his eyes dark and serious as he cups Simon’s cheek with his hand.

“Fuck Eric.” He says. “I do care. I always have.”

When they kiss, it’s like coming home, Simon’s mouth soft and insistent against his own, familiar sparks racing under his skin and lighting his nerves on fire, his body thrumming with the thought of getting to be selfish like this, for once in his life.

“You - “ Simon pulls away, his eyes open and achingly honest. “I thought for so long that you - it didn’t seem like it - “

“I was ragingly jealous.” Jace says, smoothing a thumb over Simon’s lower lip, “and if you can’t see that, you need those glasses back.” “You don’t have anything to be jealous of.” Simon mutters, and Jace sucks in a sharp breath, and has to kiss him senseless for that.

Simon loses touch with Eric, but eventually, years later, at their wedding, Jace raises his glass and winks at Simon.

“To Eric,” he says, “the man who brought Simon and I together.”

“Dick.” Simon hisses, pinching his leg sharply, but Jace shrugs, unrepentant as he sits down.

“You married this dick.” He says quietly, grinning, and Simon snort-laughs helplessly, twining their fingers together and tracing the fresh marriage rune on Jace’s wrist reverently.

“I did.” Simon says, leaning into Jace. “And I’d do it again, a thousand times.”

#jimon #jace lightwood #simon lewis #shadowhunters #i write sometimes #u guys why are words so hard #asking for a friend

159 notes · View notes

how2to18 · 7 years ago

Link

ON SEPTEMBER 12, US Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos announced what amounted to a plan to dismantle the public education system. American schools, she explained, suffer from a “mundane malaise” that denies children a future and leaves them “stuck in the 1800s using a model courtesy of Prussia,” but the days of students sitting in desks, in brick and mortar schools, with school boards and the like, are coming to an end, shortly to be replaced by market-based solutions such as vouchers and charter schools.

In Democracy’s Schools: The Rise of Public Education in America, Johann N. Neem defends the American public school system by recovering the ideals of its founders. The book provides a compelling account of how Horace Mann, Reverend William Ellery Channing, Catharine Beecher, and other antebellum advocates of the United States’s common schools brought what amounts to a liberal arts education to the nation’s children. In the face of widespread cynicism about public education, Neem reminds us that public schools can liberate children’s minds from prejudice or vocational preoccupations.

But this book may be too late. The federal government has increased its power over local schools in the last 50 years and pushed a “college and career ready” agenda that is at odds with the liberal arts. Democrats may be the last, best friend of “the system,” but they must confront the fact that it is hard to defend public education in its current configuration.

Neem is himself a product of a public school education. His family emigrated from Mumbai, India, to the San Francisco Bay Area when he was a child, and he recalls warmly the day that the teacher and students handed him a signed card after his swearing in ceremony to become a US citizen. Public schools, Neem affirms, “prepare all young people to take part in the shared life of our democracy” and “democratize access to the kind of liberal education that was once reserved for the few.”

The hero of his book is arguably the Whig politician Horace Mann, Secretary of the Massachusetts State Board of Education, and so-called father of the Common Schools movement. Mann traveled to Prussia in 1843, and in 1852 he helped Massachusetts adopt the principles of the Prussian education system.

On Neem’s account, Mann was a tireless advocate for democratizing the liberal arts and making it possible for most children to have the kind of education that was traditionally offered only to children of the elites. Mann and other reformers wanted public schools to “develop the potential of each human being” and “orient young people to higher purposes.” A society that trains children strictly for “the workshop or the field,” Mann believed, “will be disrobed of many of its choicest beauties.”

Ordinary citizens sometimes opposed education reform on the grounds that common sense and real-world experience would prepare most children for life’s challenges. Others, however, argued that reformers had an agenda that would destroy the democratic tenor of American life. Mann’s critic Orestes Brownson observed that nearly everyone on the Massachusetts Board of Education was a Whig and a Unitarian. For Brownson, Democrats and Baptists were right to be wary of a public education system that emanated from “despotic Prussia” rather than the democratic United States. Brownson was following in the footsteps of Thomas Jefferson and other early small-d democrats who wanted families and ordinary citizens, rather than bureaucrats, to control the local schools.

To his credit, Neem refuses to take sides in these early conflicts between systemic reformers and participatory democrats. On the one hand, Neem sympathizes with the reformers who thought that all American public schools should provide an education for democracy — that is, that schools should impart the skills and content necessary for children to eventually perform their role as citizens. For these top-down reformers, the state has the power and the responsibility to make democratic citizens.

But Neem gives a fair hearing to the democrats who maintain that schools should provide children an education in democracy — that is, raise them in an environment where parents, neighbors, and local educators make crucial decisions about how to raise the next generation. For these democrats, public schools must transform our country from the bottom-up, infusing democratic norms in the schools and then the rest of society.

Neem argues that the tension between the two sides — reflected in today’s argument — made education a “central issue in American politics,” and that is how it should be in a democracy.

Like Neem, I had, on the whole, a positive experience in public school. I still think often of a fourth grade teacher who asked me to play the role of Doctor Dolittle in the school play, as well as a high school librarian who often recommended the right books for me to read at the right time. If I have become an education activist in the past few years, it is mostly to protect children, but also to protect the kinds of teachers who inspire children to be their best.

But my enthusiasm for public education has waned. The Every Student Succeeds Act requires annual testing of students in grades three through eight and once in high school in English Language Arts and mathematics, and states around the country have or are planning to administer these tests on computers. Though the Every Student Succeeds Act does not specify what standards qualify as “college and career standards,” most states use some version of the Common Core. Public education around the country now means preparing for or taking online Common Core tests. This seems like a dystopia to my wife and me.

Our family has begun to home school this year so that our children can grow and learn at their own pace and so that they may do many hands on activities. In teaching our children, we follow Jean Piaget’s theory of childhood development, Maria Montessori’s pedagogy of placing children in situations where they can concentrate on completing a task, and John Dewey’s principle that education should harness a child’s interest to motivate intense study. We teach our children to read, write, and do math, of course, but we tailor the curriculum to each child in a way that is contrary to the Common Core’s expectations that all children should meet the same performance expectations at the same time.

I believe Neem and I want the same general kind of education for our children. I will continue to fight for sensible education policies and against the school choice agenda advanced by Republicans and Democrats alike. But I do not have much energy to defend the public education system as it currently exists. By entrusting distant professionals rather than local citizens to run the schools, Mann and subsequent reformers must take some responsibility for weakening popular support for public education.

Democracy’s Schools ends with a benign-sounding call to defend American public schools in whatever form they take: “We should watch over them, and reform them when they fail us. But we also depend on them. We cannot evade our responsibilities to and for them and, by extension, each other.”

The problem with this conclusion, however, is that much has transpired in public education since its formation in the antebellum period. In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act assigning the federal government a larger role in public education. Each subsequent reauthorization of the law, including the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, has ramped up federal intervention in the school system, and the Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015 requires that “all students in America be taught to high academic standards that will prepare them to succeed in college and careers.” Betsy DeVos, notably, has less interest in challenging standards-based education reform than she does in changing how public education is delivered.

Education reformers such as DeVos aren’t much different from their 19th-century counterparts — they still claim to have a plan to give all children a liberal arts education that has hitherto only been available at the finest private schools. One such reformer is David Coleman, the lead writer of the Common Core English Language Arts standards and presently the head of the College Board. According to a portrait in The Atlantic, he is “an utterly romantic believer in the power of the traditional liberal arts.” On this account, the Common Core will revolutionize education by making it possible for all children to read humanity’s greatest works of literature and nonfiction.

But the bloom is off the Common Core rose. Few people of any party actually believe that it has democratized a liberal arts education. According to one critic, it is “whittling away the democratic and human purposes of education,” claiming to prepare children for college and career, but failing to promote citizenship or learning as a good for its own sake. The Common Core has confirmed democrats’ fear that the state is primarily interested in training workers and subjects, not energetic citizens.

The critic in the above paragraph is Johann Neem. He knows that economic and political elites are transforming public education to serve their own needs. According to Neem, democrats need to defend public education at the same time as they seek to revive its founding ideals. He makes this clear in a recent op-ed: “The Founding Fathers saw freedom as the cornerstone of the nation and public schools as essential vehicles to secure it. Guided by their vision, we should work to fix America’s public schools, not abandon them.”

Nicholas Tampio is associate professor of political science at Fordham University.

The post Does Public Education Have a Future? appeared first on Los Angeles Review of Books.

from Los Angeles Review of Books http://ift.tt/2k4EpY7 via IFTTT

#Blogger

0 notes

medicmenagerie-blog · 8 years ago

Text

Late January - Game 2

BEWARE SPOILERS! If you wish to enter Pandemic Legacy completely blind, I do not recommend reading any further! There will be spoilers! And I’m not talking about the kind that go on your car!

Anyways! After a disastrous showing in our first game of Pandemic Legacy, our intrepid ‘medical’ ‘professionals’ decided to wait a week before continuing the game - during which time they learned they’d missed a crucial rule! The first game was supposed to begin with naming the characters we were playing! So without further ado, I would like to introduce the squad of intrepid heroes attempting to not fail horribly!

Sergeant Saffold, the Medic! They were a sergeant in ‘the war’, so they claimed. Don’t ask too many questions.

Dr. Meadows, the Dispatcher! When asked where she acquired her doctorate, she replied ‘Dispatcher University?’ before running off.

Alyx, the Scientist! She’s not the most skilled at her job, but she more than makes up the difference in raw enthusiasm!... so she keeps telling us.

And finally, Vedia Lupae, the Generalist! While perhaps the least capable member of the team, she shows a lot of promise and could end up being an all-star!... assuming she survives long enough. (Read - 4 damn upgrade slots.)

So. With our star team reassembled - and after making sure everyone was actually aware they didn’t have to play the same characters again despite doing so anyways - our intrepid heroes observed the board. There was a cluster of the blue disease located near Atlanta, but spread out enough that the threat of chained outbreaks was minimal. A small concentration of COdA located in Ho Chi Minh City drew the attention of Sergeant Saffold, who planted themselves firmly in the Shanghai research station alongside Dr. Meadows, while Alyx and Vedia Lupae set up shop in Atlanta. Immediately, Sergeant Saffold set out for Ho Chi Minh City, curing its ravaged population.

Just before an epidemic appeared in Chicago.

Seriously, it was the first fucking turn, and already we had three chained cities, right next to Atlanta and all prepared to outbreak. Our scientist, in an attempt to contain the situation, immediately trimmed down the disease in Chicago and Montreal, our Generalist and Dispatcher soon following suit to contain the threat in North America. However, distant Lagos became our first outbreak of the session, the city joining the list of those made unstable by disease. However, lucky draws saw several blue cards come up among the Generalist, Dispatcher, and Scientist, and the Medic was able to contain a surprisingly gentle plague of COdA in Asia and Oceania. Another epidemic came, but luckily it did not disrupt the march, and in a Parisian research station the blue disease was cured by our scientist, Alyx. Quickly abandoning Asia and Oceania to the burbling of the black disease and the still gentle COdA, a rapid campaign of eradication began, and within three turns, thanks to some lucky draws from the infection deck and a powerful use of Dr. Meadows’ dispatcher training to maneuver Sergeant Saffold through the US and Canada, the blue disease was utterly eradicated.

At about the same time we realized how few yellow and black cards we had in play, Mumbai outbroke, and Bogota nearly followed. If our generalist had not acted as quickly as she had to trim down the disease in Bogota, it would have surely begun to overrun the board. Piece by piece, the remaining cubes of the yellow and black diseases were fought back, with the multitude of blue infection cards becoming utter blanks and buying us incredible amounts of time. However, the player deck was dwindling, and time was of the essence. Lucky draws brought three yellow cards into the hands of the Medic, while also placing two yellow cards - Los Angeles and Mexico City - into the hands of our scientist. A careful exchange was arranged, the cards changing hands as epidemics continued to rise - with four epidemics played and only one left in the deck, our Generalist and Dispatcher orchestrated trades of black cards.

It was then we realized we only had to last four turns to win the game.

In a flurry of motion, cards were played, pawns were moved, and the final Epidemic card was revealed mere moments after the medic cured the yellow disease.

In a stroke of supreme luck, we had held onto One Quiet Night since the early stages of the game, and an Airlift was drawn, ready to shepherd Dr. Meadows to the Parisian research station.

As we nixed the final possible outbreak sites, watching four cards roll off the infection deck, our win seemed assured.

And then, miraculously, it was.

END GAME RESULTS

Two new unstable cities (Lagos and Mumbai)

Blue Disease Eradicated - named Nighthowler Syndrome. Two positive mutations placed on Nighthowler Syndrome.

LATE JANUARY - WON

JANUARY WIN BONUS - For each game in February, after setup is complete but before the first turn begins, we may remove one disease cube from the board and place it back in the supply.

Tune in next time to find out if removing one disease cube is worth losing two funded events!

#pandemic legacy #furries #spoilers #eat shit nighthowler syndrome #fuck you still though coda

0 notes

newstfionline · 8 years ago

Text

India is building a biometric database for 1.3 billion people—and enrollment is mandatory

Shashank Bengali, Los Angeles Times, May 11, 2017

Inside the buzzing enrollment agency, young professionals wearing slim-fitting jeans and lanyards around their necks tapped away at keyboards and fiddled with fingerprint scanning devices as they helped build the biggest and most ambitious biometric database ever conceived.

Into the office stepped Vimal Gawde, an impoverished 75-year-old widow dressed in a floral print sari. She had come to secure her ticket to India’s digital future--to enroll in the identity program, called Aadhaar, or “foundation,” that aims to record the fingerprints and irises of all 1.3 billion Indian residents.

Nearly 9 out of 10 Indians have registered, each assigned a unique 12-digit number that serves as a digital identity that can be verified with the scan of a thumb or an eye. But Gawde came to the enrollment office less out of excitement than desperation: If she didn’t get a number, she worried that she wouldn’t be able to eat.

Designed as a showcase of India’s technological prowess--offering identity proof to the poor and reducing waste in welfare programs--Aadhaar’s grand promises have been muddied by controversy as the government makes enrollment mandatory for a growing number of essential services.

Indians now need an Aadhaar number to pay taxes, collect pensions and obtain certain welfare benefits. The rapid expansion of a program that was originally described as voluntary has sparked criticism that India is vacuuming up citizens’ personal information with few privacy safeguards and creating hardship for the very people the initiative was supposed to help.

Like many Indians living in poverty, Gawde uses a ration card to purchase her monthly allotment of subsidized rice and cooking gas. But the shopkeeper told her that starting next month, he would sell to her only if she produced an Aadhaar number.

She had visited the enrollment agency three times but had yet to be approved, for reasons she did not understand. (Enrollment agents would not comment on individual cases.)

Reaching into her canvas bag, Gawde pulled out the familiar panoply of documents--ration card, voter card, electricity bill, income tax ID--that Indians use to navigate a dizzying bureaucracy. Aadhaar, she was told, would supplant all these papers.

But she had to get the number first.

“I’m nervous,” Gawde said outside the enrollment office on a sweltering morning. “I first applied three years ago and submitted all my documents, but didn’t follow up. Now that it’s becoming compulsory, I’m doing everything I can to get it.”

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who had criticized Aadhaar as a “political gimmick” before he took office, has embraced the futuristic idea of an all-in-one digital identity. His party pushed through a law last year that paved the way for a dramatic expansion of Aadhaar, allowing government entities and private businesses wide latitude to access the database, which collects not just people’s names and birth dates but also phone numbers, email addresses and other information.

Soon, as more private companies use the database, it could become difficult to open a bank account, get a new cellphone number or buy plane or train tickets without being enrolled.

Supporters say the program, which has cost about $1 billion to implement, will save multiples of that by curbing tax evasion and ensuring that welfare subsidies are not stolen by middlemen.

“Aadhaar was always meant to be an instrument of inclusion,” Nandan Nilekani, a tech billionaire and the program’s first chairman, said in an interview. “I’m really happy that the current government is completely endorsing Aadhaar and using it for a wide variety of services that will transform governance.”

Nilekani calls Aadhaar “hugely empowering” for the poor, but not long ago even he argued that enrollment should remain optional so that no Indians were prevented from accessing essential services. India’s Supreme Court agreed, ruling in 2015 that the government could not require Aadhaar for any benefit to which a person was otherwise entitled, as long as they could prove their identity by some other means.

Yet the court has stayed silent as Aadhaar creeps into every facet of Indian life, even for children.

A 12-year-old girl named Saiba is a case in point. After the girl’s grandmother passed away in their family’s ancestral village in northern India, Saiba’s mother moved her and her four siblings to a crowded neighborhood on the rough fringes of New Delhi, near a car parts market thick with the smell of grease.

When Saiba’s mother, Rani, went to the local school in April to register her for the sixth grade, administrators turned her down, saying every student must have an Aadhaar number.

But to get a number, a child usually needs a birth certificate--and like one-quarter of children born in this country, Saiba and her siblings did not have them because their village did not routinely register births.

Sitting with her mother in the cramped offices of the local advocacy group Pardarshita, above a noisy street lined with vegetable sellers, the girl puffed her round cheeks in an expression of helplessness.

“I don’t know anything about this,” said Saiba, who, like many Indians, has only one name. “I just want to go to school.”

Rakesh Thakur, a board member of Pardarshita, is trying to obtain Aadhaar numbers for dozens of children barred from Delhi schools. He called the policy “a clear violation” by the municipal government of both the Supreme Court order and India’s Right to Education Act, which guarantees every child younger than 14 free schooling.

A Twitter account called “Rethink Aadhaar” logs new instances almost daily of Indians who have suffered because scanners couldn’t read their fingerprints or because of errors in the database.

In Jawhar, a forested zone about 60 miles north of Mumbai, administrators have told local tribal communities that they will soon use Aadhaar to distribute welfare rations and school lunches. But the area lies outside cellphone range, leading residents to wonder how scanners will connect to the Internet to verify their identities.

“The idea of Aadhaar and the technology may be good, but do we have the infrastructure to make it mandatory?” said Vivek Pandit, a former lawmaker who runs a nonprofit group in the area. “The law is city-centric, and it would only lead to the social exclusion of rural India.”

This month lawyers opposing Aadhaar argued before the Supreme Court that the government could not force Indians to share their biometric data. Atty. Gen. Mukul Rohatgi countered that Indians had no constitutional right to privacy and could not claim an “absolute right” over their bodies.

Without privacy protections, activists worry that as Aadhaar numbers are linked to more and more services, intelligence agencies could use the database to more easily track Indians’ calls, travels and purchases.

“It’s become very clear that this is not a project about the poor,” said Usha Ramanathan, a lawyer and anti-Aadhaar activist. “The government’s ambitions have gotten greater over time.”

This month, the Center for Internet and Society, a New Delhi think tank, reported that federal and state agencies had published up to 135 million Aadhaar numbers--some including sensitive information such as a person’s caste and religion, or details of pension payments--on unsecured websites accessible through just a few clicks.

Pranesh Prakash, the center’s policy director, said that when Indian authorities can’t even keep Aadhaar numbers private, as the law requires, it suggests the entire database is vulnerable--particularly after sensitive information involving 22 million Americans was exposed when federal databases were hacked in 2015.

“When these kinds of leaks are happening, it’s rather foolhardy to maintain a database of 1.2 billion people’s biometrics, because once this gets breached, it becomes completely unusable,” Prakash said.

“If your PIN number or password leaks, you can change it. You can’t change your fingerprints.”

Praveen Chakravarty, a former investment banker who worked with Nilekani to launch Aadhaar, believes the lack of safeguards undermines the project’s ideals of efficiency and empowerment. He said many Indians were right to worry that Modi’s government, which has cracked down on political activists and nonprofit groups it opposes, could use Aadhaar to snoop on citizens.

“Maybe Aadhaar didn’t need to be this big,” Chakravarty said, adding that the government could simply have worked to fix inefficiencies in individual welfare programs.

“People could ask, ‘Did we need this at all?’” he said. “It’s a good question.”

For Gawde, the widow, Aadhaar remained an idea of the future. She left the enrollment agency that day empty-handed, told by a young employee that her number had not been assigned. But she retained hope that the new ID would make life easier.

“We are just poor people,” she said. “We have to trust what the government tells us.”

#India #biometric database in India #Aadhaar

0 notes