Sorry...rebellion against a high school by kids shouldn't be tolerated. Feel free to disagree, but the kids have no say. Once again, that is why they have parents.
Whatever gave you the idea that schools were democratic? The country might be a democracy, but that does no mean all the institutions within it need to be.
Yes, schools do overreact to many things. They over react to a kid having 2 chewable aspirins in his or her lunchbox. They overreact to a kid showing off his new Swiss Army knife. They overreact to people wearing stuff they don't like.
However, in this case there is clear evidence of a student disrespecting the establishment and taking action to undermine the credibility of one of the school's administrators. Whether peopel want to admit it or not, these schools need these people, and for the most part they are getting the best people they can.
Perhaps a month was excessive...I would agree with that. But, these kids are in school to learn what the school has to teach them, not to change the rules of the school. It isn't their place to do so. They are minors and generally speaking not taxpayers. They have parents to speak out for them, if the parents deem it necessary.
Also, there are ways to stand up for what's right. Who is going to say that this kid chose a path any where near the right one?
However, we are talking about the use and abuse of the constitution here, not the opinion of the British. I am not sure how this is relevant to the discussion...
Completely agreed. People are too quick to pull the lawsuit trigger in this country. The kid's parents should have given him a talking to for disrespecting the principal and accepted the suspension.
It's funny how people talk about consitiutional rights all the time, but fail to think about the spirit behind that constitution. The kid's a jerk. Maybe the kid should be made to memorize the Declaration of Independance and understand what it stood for. Then perhaps the spirit of the constitution might begin to sink in.
Yes, Co-Op students generally get the shaft in terms of doing the duties no full time person wants to do, and are certainly viewed as a way to get menial jobs done. This is unsatisfying and frustrating, I know, but it is also really valuable time. It might not seem like it, but time will tell you it was.
The first thing is that as a highschool student you are getting an early opportunity to see how the corporate environmet works. Pay attention, because it is information you will need to succeed later in life, and others you graduate college with might not have it. Second, you get a first hand glimpse of age discrimination, which is unavoidable. To the "adults" at the company, you are just kids, more likely to screw around than get things done reliably, and they will treat you as such. They might not be right, but it will happen. This is also something you can learn from and be prepared for when you are all gung-ho and thinking you are really knowledgable with a degree fresh out of college. You won't be looked at in this light until you have a wrinkle or two.
The third thing is probably your biggest benefit, and that is that you get to see a part of a real process that is necessary to get a job done or a product built. Someone has to do this job, and knowing it will be infinately beneficiary when you go to perform a higher level function pernmanantly in the same process.
At your next Co-Op, og back and see if you can get a job one step up the food chain. Be patient and you will learn a great deal. You can't change it yet, so try and work with it.
I guess the whole Hypothesis, Theory, Law progression escapes this dicussion, eh?
What would we call this, anyways? Sciences Law of Barbie Race Preference? Perhaps the Lavendar Dress Theorum.
Don't get me wrong, I am not belittling the girl. I think she put quite a bit of thought into her project. I do disagree with you that science can't prove anything, though. Just look at the law of entropy: Chaos is always increasing!
Feel free to refute...but I have Jeff Goldblum on my side;)
I agree with your points. She did exactly as you stated in forming a hypothosis and testing it.
I am wondering how "scientific" the project really is, though. It sounds almost like "Who's fries taste better, McDonalds or Burger King". If the gorl's teacher approved the project, I guess it does have a legitimate reason for being there, but it is not a provable thing.
For there to be a hero, we must have a villian...and so the super virus was born.
I guess the human intellect can't be contained from it's own curiosity and inventiveness. Sometimes I do wonder when we are going to invent something that will overtake us and be our downfall.
It will be a long time before e-books replace real ones, if ever. If for no other reason than books don't need to be powered, they will always be around. Heck, there are places in the world where paper books aren't really in yet...so e-books are very far off for them.
Think outside the more advanced nations, and the need for paper books is evidant.
I have been playing role playing games for 11 years, and they are one and all non-zero sum games. People discount these games as for freaks or crazy people that are going to go around using mideval weapons on someone or dressing up like a kook and running around manhattan scaring the locals.
The truth is that all of these games are nothing but a chance to explore your imagination. You never win, but you gain. You can lose by dying, but you can always start again. The benefit is that you think when you play, and you mostly play together as opposed to against one another.
Computer games have this as well in the form of Muds , Moos and Mushes, or games like Asheron's call. Not that most of you didn't already know that:)
Sometimes I wonder if people clamoring over the "incredibly expensive, choice free" Apple hardware have ever taken the time to see things from the corporate pov. I know...corporations are easy, but they also buy our lunches, pay our rent, give us spending money, and all that.
The simple fact is that no other platform sets up and maintains anywhere near as easily as the Mac. Give me 1000 clients and the server OS of your choice with support for Mac clients, and I can set it up faster than any other OS on the market. This will be the same with OS X. The boxes plug in and configure very easily. From a cost perspective, if you say it takes 7 minutes to unpack a mac and get it functioning on your network (this is generous...it can be done faster), and it takes hours to build a linux machine or a wintel machine, how much did you save? Non hardware related mac problems can be fixed 99% of the time in under 10 minutes, and often in under 2 minutes. They are EASY. Can the same be said for editing the registry in NT, or for fixing anything UNIX? I don't think so.
Work with all three platforms for 7 years. Then tell me what costs more. end-rant
This discussion is useful and timely, as we are investigating possible avenues for flextime.
Unfortunately, in a company of 75 employees that is basically a manufacturing plant for lower end retail advertisement there is not much payroll room for support personnel. The groupthink described above became necessitated by a very many people needing constant access to the brains of few. I imagine this is more common outside industries that are focused on technology, but instead use it to facilitate many processes.
The need for overtime hours has been ameliorated during my reign as local techie through the use of advanced graphics technologies and smarter manufacturing techniques. Still, we work in a business that keeps us constantly in touch with our clients. Contact is not limited to a select group of CSR's, but instead spread throughout the worker population. Customer contact will always triumph over flex-time. A change in manufacturing model could offer some assistance as could some more advanced communications technologies. For now, though, it is all about grinding the hours. At least it pays well:)
Take a game like Dungeons and Dragons, or White Wolf's Vampire. As long as the world stays new and interesting with fresh role-playing challenges, then the game is still fun. Complaex gameworlds can give the same benefit in a video game, sa like Asheron's Call. Keep playing, and that is the goal. Winning isn't really a part of the equation, but challenge and fun are. In other types of games, like puzzle games or first person shooters, extra complexity can exclude some people because they can't handle that complexity within the context of making the game work. In this case the extra work could make the game less fun for some.
Companies can be held responsible for the actions of their employees, if it can be proven that they failed to take reasonable steps to prevent the conduct. E-mails can be a form of harrassment, whether vulgar, sexually explicit, or threatening. While censorship is never a good thing, someone using a corporate e-mail system for any purpose can be considered to be representing that company. In that sense, corporations have a right to control what type of content is distributed over their systems.
I guess if you want to send profanity to someone, and your company has one of these systems, then you should do it on your own time. Actually, you should do it on your own time anyways...but I should also read/. on my own time...so who's kidding who;)
Re:wrong, nope, no way no how, will never happen
on
Slashdot Meets X-Men
·
· Score: 1
I must plead ignorance as to what the comic book magneto would do, but I think the Hitler Parallel goes quite well with the movie magneto, and partly because he DID try and kill that innocent 16yo. girl.
Magneto says "We're the future Charles, Not them!"
Then he tries to genetically alter a human so that they can join the Superior Race. Be made like us or die in the process. Nice. Oh, and sorry little Rogue (if only I were 16 again...Mama Mia), I'll just butcher you in the process. Its for everyone's own good, though, so be a happy little hero, would you?
Can you say Racial Supremacy Complex, and a huge, ironic Hitler parallel? There is planty to hate here. I guess people could make the arguement that good ol' Adolf was just misunderstood, but had good intentions, too!
C'mon people. He was a madman, and his only saving grace was the long time affection that Prof. X had for him.
Jon Katz, like anyone else with a loud voice in a public forum, uses his voice to perpetuate the spreading of his adgenda at every opportunity. You are correct in pointing this out, but I don't think anyone should be surprised about it.
At the risk of plot spoiling, Jon's constant references to geek oppression run very much parallel to a main theme in the movie. The interesting thing is that we (I use we so as to avoid making this a "pick on Jon Katz post") seem to use the same tactics tovocalize our feelings about geek oppression as the Senator used to facilitate mutant oppression. Unfortunately the victims of mutant terror greatly outnumber the victimized mutants, and therefore the X-men will always lose the sympathy vote.
This is all a question of perception. If we want people to understand us better, we need to change their perception of us. Crying about discrimination isn't goin to do it, but activism might.
An interesting parallel to this concept is a series of books written by Terry Goodkind, called the "Sword of Truth" series. While the books aren't the best written books and at times seem to borrow heavily from some of Mr. Goodkind's fantasy fiction writing peers, there does run a constant line of plot centering around oppressing those who employ magic. The politicians use the same tactics to stir people up against the use of magic that people in the United States use to whip up frenzy over gun control. Throw in a few buzz words, talk about danger to children (We don't want these Mutants in our schools...its just like bringing a weapon to school!) and next thing you know you have a frothing crowd of angry, frightened, and horribly mis-informed parents on your hands.
I guess the point is, Keep it up Jon, but try some new tactics because your sympathetic audience is tremendously small!
At the risk of being flamed, are you a Sack, or did you actually READ the article? I mentioned Apple because it was PART of the article, and a quite relevant part.
Sory to take up board space with this
I thought the topic was based on the article...?
on
X Windows Must Die!
·
· Score: 1
And therefore I think the mention of OSX is quite significant. Remember, regardless of the proprietary nature of one technology or another, it is the building we do on top of or parallel to those technologies that brings us forward. Apple has great ideas, and they have dumb ones. I think the point is that we need to borrow the best ideas from everywhere and use them to our advantage. Nobody is going to build a new GUI in an hour, its going to take some work. First the path needs to be flushed out, and I think this is a viable one.
Apple will have solved this problem in the next several months. OS X will have a great GUI, based on stnadards such as OpenGL, XML, and PDF technology. While this is not an open source solution, that doesn't make it a bad one.
Once upon a time the world took the GUI que from Apple Computer. Look what it did for M$. Give a little time and the Unix community can do the same with OS X. Whatever Apple does will be adaptable and maybe will give the community a few hints on what to do next.
To the statement that no original GUI work has really been done in X-Windows, I say this...re-inventing the wheel is great, but why not refine it to make it do what you want? Building iff of other people's ideas id how we humans got here, so why snub people for it.
Standards compliance and the MS anti-trust violations are really mutually exclusive IMHO. MS's anti-competitive business practices have nothing to do with the technologies they use and everything to do with HOW they use it. IE doesn't have 85% marketshare because its free, it has the marketshare because its better. Availability is not a real arguement, because everyone has the choice to go and get any one of numerous other browsers available. But why should they? IE works better!
If MS wants to develop new techs, and their browser is the only one that supports the new techs, good for them! As long as the other companies have the opportunity to provide similar or superior support, why should we shake a finger at MS for being evil. I say to the other companies (hello Mozilla) Develop Faster!! Stop slacking, because it is your inability to deliver that is limiting our choice!
I guess I compare this to the auto industry. There are many good car choices around, and if one manufacturer is ofering a better product at a competitive price, that mfr. will get the business. Simple. If a manufacturer came out with a fantastic solar powered car that performed similarly to a gas car, cost the same, and was cheaper to maintain, don;t you think people would flock to buy it? What right would the others have to cry "No Fair, they have more features!" Boo Hoo, and get to work
Rant deceased:)
There is an important difference in the "Task Set"
on
The Basics Of RAM
·
· Score: 1
Comparing the workings of a car to the workings of a computer is like comparing owning an Erector set to owning a construction company.
A car, while still a complex machine, is simple in that it had one main use...carting some person's butt from location a to location b. I suppose it can be used to store stuff, pot plants, live in, and so on, but the set is very limited.
A computer can be used to accomplish such a wide variety of tasks. Yes, they can all be boiled down to a processing of binary data, but I think it is the wide array end results that can be accomplished that make the distinction.
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry...rebellion against a high school by kids shouldn't be tolerated. Feel free to disagree, but the kids have no say. Once again, that is why they have parents.
Whatever gave you the idea that schools were democratic? The country might be a democracy, but that does no mean all the institutions within it need to be.
;) ?
What are ya...a liberal
Yes, schools do overreact to many things. They over react to a kid having 2 chewable aspirins in his or her lunchbox. They overreact to a kid showing off his new Swiss Army knife. They overreact to people wearing stuff they don't like.
However, in this case there is clear evidence of a student disrespecting the establishment and taking action to undermine the credibility of one of the school's administrators. Whether peopel want to admit it or not, these schools need these people, and for the most part they are getting the best people they can.
Perhaps a month was excessive...I would agree with that. But, these kids are in school to learn what the school has to teach them, not to change the rules of the school. It isn't their place to do so. They are minors and generally speaking not taxpayers. They have parents to speak out for them, if the parents deem it necessary.
Also, there are ways to stand up for what's right. Who is going to say that this kid chose a path any where near the right one?
Perhaps you are right on this...
However, we are talking about the use and abuse of the constitution here, not the opinion of the British. I am not sure how this is relevant to the discussion...
Completely agreed. People are too quick to pull the lawsuit trigger in this country. The kid's parents should have given him a talking to for disrespecting the principal and accepted the suspension.
It's funny how people talk about consitiutional rights all the time, but fail to think about the spirit behind that constitution. The kid's a jerk. Maybe the kid should be made to memorize the Declaration of Independance and understand what it stood for. Then perhaps the spirit of the constitution might begin to sink in.
Yes, Co-Op students generally get the shaft in terms of doing the duties no full time person wants to do, and are certainly viewed as a way to get menial jobs done. This is unsatisfying and frustrating, I know, but it is also really valuable time. It might not seem like it, but time will tell you it was.
The first thing is that as a highschool student you are getting an early opportunity to see how the corporate environmet works. Pay attention, because it is information you will need to succeed later in life, and others you graduate college with might not have it. Second, you get a first hand glimpse of age discrimination, which is unavoidable. To the "adults" at the company, you are just kids, more likely to screw around than get things done reliably, and they will treat you as such. They might not be right, but it will happen. This is also something you can learn from and be prepared for when you are all gung-ho and thinking you are really knowledgable with a degree fresh out of college. You won't be looked at in this light until you have a wrinkle or two.
The third thing is probably your biggest benefit, and that is that you get to see a part of a real process that is necessary to get a job done or a product built. Someone has to do this job, and knowing it will be infinately beneficiary when you go to perform a higher level function pernmanantly in the same process.
At your next Co-Op, og back and see if you can get a job one step up the food chain. Be patient and you will learn a great deal. You can't change it yet, so try and work with it.
I guess the whole Hypothesis, Theory, Law progression escapes this dicussion, eh?
;)
What would we call this, anyways? Sciences Law of Barbie Race Preference? Perhaps the Lavendar Dress Theorum.
Don't get me wrong, I am not belittling the girl. I think she put quite a bit of thought into her project. I do disagree with you that science can't prove anything, though. Just look at the law of entropy: Chaos is always increasing!
Feel free to refute...but I have Jeff Goldblum on my side
I agree with your points. She did exactly as you stated in forming a hypothosis and testing it.
I am wondering how "scientific" the project really is, though. It sounds almost like "Who's fries taste better, McDonalds or Burger King". If the gorl's teacher approved the project, I guess it does have a legitimate reason for being there, but it is not a provable thing.
Even if I think the answer is McDonalds...
Anybody see MI-2 (I know you have)
For there to be a hero, we must have a villian...and so the super virus was born.
I guess the human intellect can't be contained from it's own curiosity and inventiveness. Sometimes I do wonder when we are going to invent something that will overtake us and be our downfall.
Like Windows...
Interesting...but if you cheat and don't get caught, your partner never gets to the stage of feeling betrayed....and you still cheated.
I think the best rule is, if you wouldn't do it in front of your partner, then it's cheating.
It will be a long time before e-books replace real ones, if ever. If for no other reason than books don't need to be powered, they will always be around. Heck, there are places in the world where paper books aren't really in yet...so e-books are very far off for them.
Think outside the more advanced nations, and the need for paper books is evidant.
I have been playing role playing games for 11 years, and they are one and all non-zero sum games. People discount these games as for freaks or crazy people that are going to go around using mideval weapons on someone or dressing up like a kook and running around manhattan scaring the locals.
:)
The truth is that all of these games are nothing but a chance to explore your imagination. You never win, but you gain. You can lose by dying, but you can always start again. The benefit is that you think when you play, and you mostly play together as opposed to against one another.
Computer games have this as well in the form of Muds , Moos and Mushes, or games like Asheron's call. Not that most of you didn't already know that
Sometimes I wonder if people clamoring over the "incredibly expensive, choice free" Apple hardware have ever taken the time to see things from the corporate pov. I know...corporations are easy, but they also buy our lunches, pay our rent, give us spending money, and all that.
The simple fact is that no other platform sets up and maintains anywhere near as easily as the Mac. Give me 1000 clients and the server OS of your choice with support for Mac clients, and I can set it up faster than any other OS on the market. This will be the same with OS X. The boxes plug in and configure very easily. From a cost perspective, if you say it takes 7 minutes to unpack a mac and get it functioning on your network (this is generous...it can be done faster), and it takes hours to build a linux machine or a wintel machine, how much did you save? Non hardware related mac problems can be fixed 99% of the time in under 10 minutes, and often in under 2 minutes. They are EASY. Can the same be said for editing the registry in NT, or for fixing anything UNIX? I don't think so.
Work with all three platforms for 7 years. Then tell me what costs more. end-rant
This discussion is useful and timely, as we are investigating possible avenues for flextime.
:)
Unfortunately, in a company of 75 employees that is basically a manufacturing plant for lower end retail advertisement there is not much payroll room for support personnel. The groupthink described above became necessitated by a very many people needing constant access to the brains of few. I imagine this is more common outside industries that are focused on technology, but instead use it to facilitate many processes.
The need for overtime hours has been ameliorated during my reign as local techie through the use of advanced graphics technologies and smarter manufacturing techniques. Still, we work in a business that keeps us constantly in touch with our clients. Contact is not limited to a select group of CSR's, but instead spread throughout the worker population. Customer contact will always triumph over flex-time. A change in manufacturing model could offer some assistance as could some more advanced communications technologies. For now, though, it is all about grinding the hours. At least it pays well
Take a game like Dungeons and Dragons, or White Wolf's Vampire. As long as the world stays new and interesting with fresh role-playing challenges, then the game is still fun. Complaex gameworlds can give the same benefit in a video game, sa like Asheron's Call. Keep playing, and that is the goal. Winning isn't really a part of the equation, but challenge and fun are. In other types of games, like puzzle games or first person shooters, extra complexity can exclude some people because they can't handle that complexity within the context of making the game work. In this case the extra work could make the game less fun for some.
Companies can be held responsible for the actions of their employees, if it can be proven that they failed to take reasonable steps to prevent the conduct. E-mails can be a form of harrassment, whether vulgar, sexually explicit, or threatening. While censorship is never a good thing, someone using a corporate e-mail system for any purpose can be considered to be representing that company. In that sense, corporations have a right to control what type of content is distributed over their systems.
/. on my own time...so who's kidding who ;)
I guess if you want to send profanity to someone, and your company has one of these systems, then you should do it on your own time. Actually, you should do it on your own time anyways...but I should also read
I must plead ignorance as to what the comic book magneto would do, but I think the Hitler Parallel goes quite well with the movie magneto, and partly because he DID try and kill that innocent 16yo. girl.
Absolutely...and I personally find Hitler and everything he stood for to be on the hateable side!
Trying to quote as closely as I can
Magneto says "We're the future Charles, Not them!"
Then he tries to genetically alter a human so that they can join the Superior Race. Be made like us or die in the process. Nice. Oh, and sorry little Rogue (if only I were 16 again...Mama Mia), I'll just butcher you in the process. Its for everyone's own good, though, so be a happy little hero, would you?
Can you say Racial Supremacy Complex, and a huge, ironic Hitler parallel? There is planty to hate here. I guess people could make the arguement that good ol' Adolf was just misunderstood, but had good intentions, too!
C'mon people. He was a madman, and his only saving grace was the long time affection that Prof. X had for him.
Jon Katz, like anyone else with a loud voice in a public forum, uses his voice to perpetuate the spreading of his adgenda at every opportunity. You are correct in pointing this out, but I don't think anyone should be surprised about it.
At the risk of plot spoiling, Jon's constant references to geek oppression run very much parallel to a main theme in the movie. The interesting thing is that we (I use we so as to avoid making this a "pick on Jon Katz post") seem to use the same tactics tovocalize our feelings about geek oppression as the Senator used to facilitate mutant oppression. Unfortunately the victims of mutant terror greatly outnumber the victimized mutants, and therefore the X-men will always lose the sympathy vote.
This is all a question of perception. If we want people to understand us better, we need to change their perception of us. Crying about discrimination isn't goin to do it, but activism might.
An interesting parallel to this concept is a series of books written by Terry Goodkind, called the "Sword of Truth" series. While the books aren't the best written books and at times seem to borrow heavily from some of Mr. Goodkind's fantasy fiction writing peers, there does run a constant line of plot centering around oppressing those who employ magic. The politicians use the same tactics to stir people up against the use of magic that people in the United States use to whip up frenzy over gun control. Throw in a few buzz words, talk about danger to children (We don't want these Mutants in our schools...its just like bringing a weapon to school!) and next thing you know you have a frothing crowd of angry, frightened, and horribly mis-informed parents on your hands.
I guess the point is, Keep it up Jon, but try some new tactics because your sympathetic audience is tremendously small!
At the risk of being flamed, are you a Sack, or did you actually READ the article? I mentioned Apple because it was PART of the article, and a quite relevant part.
Sory to take up board space with this
And therefore I think the mention of OSX is quite significant. Remember, regardless of the proprietary nature of one technology or another, it is the building we do on top of or parallel to those technologies that brings us forward. Apple has great ideas, and they have dumb ones. I think the point is that we need to borrow the best ideas from everywhere and use them to our advantage. Nobody is going to build a new GUI in an hour, its going to take some work. First the path needs to be flushed out, and I think this is a viable one.
Apple will have solved this problem in the next several months. OS X will have a great GUI, based on stnadards such as OpenGL, XML, and PDF technology. While this is not an open source solution, that doesn't make it a bad one.
Once upon a time the world took the GUI que from Apple Computer. Look what it did for M$. Give a little time and the Unix community can do the same with OS X. Whatever Apple does will be adaptable and maybe will give the community a few hints on what to do next.
To the statement that no original GUI work has really been done in X-Windows, I say this...re-inventing the wheel is great, but why not refine it to make it do what you want? Building iff of other people's ideas id how we humans got here, so why snub people for it.
Standards compliance and the MS anti-trust violations are really mutually exclusive IMHO. MS's anti-competitive business practices have nothing to do with the technologies they use and everything to do with HOW they use it. IE doesn't have 85% marketshare because its free, it has the marketshare because its better. Availability is not a real arguement, because everyone has the choice to go and get any one of numerous other browsers available. But why should they? IE works better!
:)
If MS wants to develop new techs, and their browser is the only one that supports the new techs, good for them! As long as the other companies have the opportunity to provide similar or superior support, why should we shake a finger at MS for being evil. I say to the other companies (hello Mozilla) Develop Faster!! Stop slacking, because it is your inability to deliver that is limiting our choice!
I guess I compare this to the auto industry. There are many good car choices around, and if one manufacturer is ofering a better product at a competitive price, that mfr. will get the business. Simple. If a manufacturer came out with a fantastic solar powered car that performed similarly to a gas car, cost the same, and was cheaper to maintain, don;t you think people would flock to buy it? What right would the others have to cry "No Fair, they have more features!" Boo Hoo, and get to work
Rant deceased
Comparing the workings of a car to the workings of a computer is like comparing owning an Erector set to owning a construction company.
A car, while still a complex machine, is simple in that it had one main use...carting some person's butt from location a to location b. I suppose it can be used to store stuff, pot plants, live in, and so on, but the set is very limited.
A computer can be used to accomplish such a wide variety of tasks. Yes, they can all be boiled down to a processing of binary data, but I think it is the wide array end results that can be accomplished that make the distinction.