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[RedKing]

I don't think the schools should teach cursive anymore. It's a waste of time. Teach the kids how to sign their own names and leave it, because that's all cursive is good for now.

My elementary school practiced us to blisters about writing in cursive, because, as they put it: "Everything after the fifth grade has to be written in cursive or it won't be accepted". Fucking liars. I have never written in cursive since, other than to sign my name, even though how to do it is seared into my mind.

FWIW, that was actually somewhat true for me, because PCs and home printers that could be measured in PPM (and not MPP like my old Okimate 10) didn't really hit critical mass until the early 90's. I still did a LOT of blue-book exam essays in college in cursive (and staggered out with claw-like cramped-up hands)

[scriver]

I couldn't write the cursive they tried to teach me in school if my life depended on it, but my own handwriting style has over time developed into some characters hanging on to each other. It goes faster to write when they flow together, after all. It's just that classical cursive characters doesn't completely look like the letters we write today, so it doesn't come natural.

As for signature, mine is just a flowing scribble somewhat in the shape of my name.

[Dutchling]

My signature is just my two initials with something resembling some more letters attached to it. It isn't cursive at all actually, although I do write it as if it was which makes it completely unreadable.

[Truean]

.... So it's come to this has it?

Cursive is faster than print writing, and while my boss' cursive looks like obscenities aliens would justifiably scream upon seeing any movie by Micheal Bay, at all, if you do it right, then it's legible and actually somewhat pretty. Many people I've seen print illegibly as well and with poor sentence structure producing incomprehensibility at best.

Moreover, writing things out by hand, is often cheaper than printing them. A ream of 500 pages of paper cost about $6.00 in bulk. At a commercial copying rate we pay about $.02 per printed page, not including the cost of the copier which can cost hundreds or thousands of dollars. your average desktop printer ink costs a lot more than toner.... Per 500 pages of notes, you save $10, and that's at the rate of $0.02 per page. It adds up over large numbers.

From a more "everyday practical" way of looking at things for most people. You had better look freaking busy at your job these days, because it seems every boss is looking to fire people to cut costs. This is an old trick and it's been used a lot: to make it look like you know what the hell you're doing when you don't, so you're not sitting there with a blank look on your face.

And that's why I think they should keep cursive.

I'll be here until they stop serving the veal, nursing throbbing hand pains and being generally snarky as usual.

Edit: Also what happens when something goes wrong and we're completely dependent upon technology. I tried to buy lunch the other day and their computer wasn't working at the register. They couldn't even make change cause they have a machine to do it. Same thing when the printer is on the fritz:
http://www.emmitsburg.net/humor/archives/computer/computer_9.htm

[penguinofhonor]

Truean has a conservative opinion, I'm not sure what to do.

Honestly, if I was really determined to save time and paper I'd learn a shorthand.

[Levi]

It would be fine if we were all supposed to learn one or the other, but the way its taught right now is pointless.  Most of the people I know can't read cursive(I certainly can't anymore), so its usefulness is kind of limited now. 

If they had just taught us as kids one writing style instead of two and we were expected to keep using it past elementary school it would be fine.

[Truean]

Truean has a conservative opinion, I'm not sure what to do.

Honestly, if I was really determined to save time and paper I'd learn a shorthand.

The funny thing about being able to see both sides of an issue is, sometimes you agree with the other side.

It would be fine if we were all supposed to learn one or the other, but the way its taught right now is pointless.  Most of the people I know can't read cursive(I certainly can't anymore), so its usefulness is kind of limited now. 

If they had just taught us as kids one writing style instead of two and we were expected to keep using it past elementary school it would be fine.

If we let our skills rust, they will.

[Realmfighter]

I have been informed my printing looks like a seven years old's presuming that child has hand tremors so I just use that for signatures.

No one's complained yet, and it's already on a few legal documents.

[Truean]

Don't use your regular email address for this unless you want them to email you about causes they want you to sign for:
http://signon.org/sign/support-the-student-loan.fb1?source=s.fb&r_by=3715985
http://hansenclarke.house.gov/sites/hansenclarke.house.gov/files/documents/1-pager%20SLFA.pdf

Student loan debt is approaching $1 Trillion in this country. It's about time we did something about forgiving some of it given that A.) the education we bought wasn't worth it, and B.) The jobs for this generation don't cover the cost of the education it took to get them.

[Frumple]

Hahaa... that kinda' puts those of us who can't consistently reproduce handwriting patterns in a bit of a hole. I write a cursive L ten times in a row and all ten will be different

Write a bloody print L ten times in a row and all ten will be different, some of them radically so. There's a reason I can't draw straight lines, bleh. Closest to a consistent habit I get with my signature is I usually (Usually) skip lowercase Is and just put a dot between the other letters, heh.

On the bright side, if there's two forged signatures involved and they actually look highly related, that's probably not me. Which... probably wouldn't help, I'unno. I guess it'd be a vaguely amusing defense, though. "Your honor, these two signatures look alike. It was obviously not me signing those documents."

[FearfulJesuit]

Paul Ryan has a new tax plan. It consists of:
-5.3 trillion in cuts, all of it to social programs, not much of it in Social Security or Medicare.
-4.3 trillion in tax cuts to wealthy people.

The senate and president will refuse to pass it, but it makes you wonder just how far this insanity can keep rolling before either they get their way and incite a revolution, or roll themselves so far right they become irrelevant.

[penguinofhonor]

But, see, it makes the budget a trillion dollars more balanced! That's the important part.

[GlyphGryph]

Well, actually, it ALSO increases military spending and some other stuff.

So it actually ends up increasing the size of the deficit.

[FearfulJesuit]

I would sincerely like to see a movie in which three people take a step into a wormhole and end up on an alternate Earth in which the collective worldview of Rick Santorum, Rick Perry, Paul Ryan, and Michelle Bachmann is, in fact, reality.

[Truean]

Paul Ryan has a new tax plan. It consists of:
-5.3 trillion in cuts, all of it to social programs, not much of it in Social Security or Medicare.
-4.3 trillion in tax cuts to wealthy people.

The senate and president will refuse to pass it, but it makes you wonder just how far this insanity can keep rolling before either they get their way and incite a revolution, or roll themselves so far right they become irrelevant.

I'd like to know when they intend to stop cutting taxes, if ever. The government is broke, so clearly we cut tax revenue...? Just like every other time and situation....
_____________________________________________________________
http://news.yahoo.com/apnewsbreak-marine-critical-obama-faces-charge-012104515.html

Every soldier knows civs get to talk politics and you don't, especially not "as a soldier." Been like that basically forever. "Armed Forces Tea Party" facebook group.... The words "Armed Forces," invokes not just "as a soldier" capacity, but the military's capacity, which is hugely forbidden. Plus, he, as an NCO (Non Commissioned Officer), is encouraging other soldiers to break longstanding pentagon policy like him.... He was nicely asked to remove the page and temporarily did. Except then:

"He said he determined he was not in violation and relaunched the page." <--- No.... You check with stationed JAG, and personnel and have someone backing you from those departments in writing before you even think about anything like this. Pretty sure he didn't. [facepalm]
____________________________________________________
http://news.yahoo.com/senate-votes-move-ahead-small-business-bill-163255609.html

So now we have even less investor protections, great.... [sigh] So companies just screwed us all over and now we're gonna let them flout the rules...? Calling it a "Small Business" doesn't make it "small business."

"....and allow smaller companies to sell up to $50 million in shares, compared with $5 million now, without filing some SEC paperwork.

So $50 Million is a small business huh?