Word: using
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Dates: during 2000-2000
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...Obscure machinery. What was the last time you used a cheese grater, a hand-whisk, an egg-boiler, an espresso-maker, a milk-frother, a pressure-cooker? The delights of modern engineering never cease to amaze me. Having lived with only microwaves, hot plates, refrigerators and plastic utensils, I find myself constructing elaborate meals (nine-story cakes, boiled eggs and espresso with frothy milk) to use as many of these marvels in three days as possible...
Second, there is something about attending class that makes learning the material more interesting and attractive. A student loses out on the ability to ask questions when the lecture is watched from behind a screen. It is true that students who skip lecture will use the video to learn the material. But students who choose to miss class would miss class whether the lecture is broadcast or not. The decision to sleep through a class does not depend on whether that class is videotaped. Students know that they can get the notes if they miss class; by having the class...
However, there are potential distractions in the dorm room that do not exist at the library. Roommates, Napster, phone calls and visitors can all contribute to a difficulty in fully appreciating the lecture. Headphones can help alleviate this problem, and with the use of the pause button, parts of the lecture will not be lost. Along the same lines, the broadcast lecture easily accommodates a pause for bathroom breaks, and allows students to replay parts that are confusing or which they don't understand...
...United States uses more energy per capita than any other country in the world. Though we constitute only 5 percent of the world's population, we use up 23 percent of the energy consumed in the entire world for one year. Energy is the most fundamental foundation of our society: Without it, our lives would quite literally come to a standstill. Underlying this absurdly disproportionate use of energy lies the assumption that we are entitled to unlimited use at affordable prices. California's case this year, for example, provides ample evidence of the power that this assumption holds over...
First, our assumption of unlimited energy at affordable prices is environmentally untenable and unjust in economic terms. Given current technology, the use of that much energy is absolutely unsustainable. Moreover, our use is almost perversely unjust when one considers that rural residents in much of the developing world accumulate cow dung to burn for fuel in their homes while we waste an extremely precious resource...