What Could Possibly Be Better?

There are a lot of awesome things that provide for our needs and wants in a very efficient and convenient manner. As I type this on my iPod my thoughts turn to technology. There are so many great devices and software programs out there, but people and corporations are so concerned with making money that they lock up their products and stifle advancement. Great advancements could be made, bugs could be fixed, and new features could be added. People wouldn't take advantage of this freedom of source code, etc. for negative purposes because nerdowells have already found ways to take advantage of security holes and have made viruses and worms that impact almost every computer system. In fact, with more people able to work on these systems, there would be more people to fix these security holes. Lots of people would even volunteer their time to make something many people use every day even better than it already is. Of course, maybe that would send our economy into a severe plummeting recession.

E-books should quite possible be the way of the future. Why is the Kindle so expensive? How come e-books are always so cumbersome? Why can't I search all the text in the book efficiently? Textbooks weigh so much and contain so much extraneous material... back problems are becoming more widespread, even in young children. My science textbooks, even in highschool, weighed 6-7 pounds each. Bringing textbooks to class is nearly impossible for most students. Carrying 30-50 pounds on one's back is very unhealthy. Surely someone is trying to fix this problem? Wouldn't want to put printers out of business, though.

School. Everyone wants to improve schools, though some people have less than scholastic goals in mind. Almost all children would prefer to have no homework and much shorter school days. What I would like to see, however, is a more efficient system. A lot of students, at least initially, are not self motivated. Due dates are necessary. Homework must be required. But what about those students who have begun to feel the need to accomplish everything expected of them to the best of their ability? Deadlines are smothering. People drown in due dates and get discouraged. Even the most overachieving student usually eventually gets burned out. Why can't more classes have at-your-own-pace options? Home-study isn't always the best option, but why don't teachers be more flexible with the schedules, at least for responsible students? It would be even better if lectures were, for the most part, available online in video form. Then teachers would get to spend their time helping individual students instead of wasting their time teaching the same thing year after year. We wouldn't need so many tutors if teachers had more time. Maybe students could wait to do labs until they had actually learned the material the lab was about, instead of being forced to blunder through a lab without figuring out what is going on. What is actually taught is a whole different matter, but the methods of teaching are of equal if not greater importance.

There are many more things that could be made better. This list focuses mainly on technology, specifically computers, but they are one of the most important inventions we have, in my opinion. Maybe some day someone like myself will be able to improve these things.

(please let me know if this qualifies as one of the longer posts)