I'd be scared if my government viewed this the same way that you do, and thought that loading children up with hours of extra work, solely to mould them into useful potential workers, is ethically acceptable.
Actually, my government probably does think that, and it seems that anyone who's completed school does, too. The few who don't are considered to be hippies, hell-bent on destroying the economy.
Why do people become so bitter when they graduate, and think that imposing hours of homework on children who are already working hard enough just to learn about the world they're growing up in is perfectly fine, and anyone who protests is some kind of wimp?
Life isn't just for goddamn work. Not everyone works >6 hours a day. There are no straight career paths; people can do whatever they want, they're just not told that they can.
I've never attended school in the US, but going to Primary School in England was something I never associated with what's usually defined as homework. The most I had to do there was learn some spellings, practice some multiplication tables and do the occasional bit of research for a project.
Kids are under increasing stress to outdo their peers in the rush for university places. I'm feeling the pressure at A Level, and I've no doubt that kids younger than me are sick of it as well. It's not just homework, either, it's all the extra-curricular rubbish they're pushed to do in order to "stand out" from other applicants.
I'd welcome a ban on extra homework - besides what's normal for children that young, i.e. spellings and so on - until they reach Secondary School age. Give them a little bit of time to be themselves before rushing them into a world of hard work and sparse praise.
I think it's ridiculous to restrict the time they have to play when they're all so young, and we'll end up with a generation of robots if all we learn to value is grades.
It never fails to annoy me when people take snippets of theoretical psychology and redistribute them as truth. Scientists' views of which parts of the brain are responsible for which characteristics of human life change on almost a daily basis, yet phrases such as "language centre" or "mammalian brain" are constantly being used in a way that presents them as definite fact.
It seems unnecessary to incorporate impressive-sounding terms into a speech that, quite honestly, seems to be stating the obvious. Increasing or decreasing security is a response to fear; fear is an emotion and, therefore, decisions that use it as a base will not be purely rational, but will have emotional bias, like every other human decision. You don't need vague descriptions of brain "impulses", and such, to prove that.
I think the punishment should fit the individual crime. So, even if there were a way to enforce this, banning every person on the sex offender's register forced to submit their online screen names would be unjust, as some would not even have used a computer to commit the crime. The fact that they could in the future is not enough justification to ban them from using a computer in the present.
However, if the offense did take place with a strong link to the internet, or was otherwise significantly computer-based, then preventing access to computers and the internet - as is often the punishment for people convicted of things covered by the Computer Misuse Act, etc. - would be justifiable for a period of time.
This is the government that ignored the "real life" anti-war protests that took place on its doorstep; I'm not surprised they find it just as easy to ignore digital petitions.
The @googlemail addresses are too long and clumsy. I made use of a US based proxy when I signed up for my account to ensure I'd get the more succinct gmail version. Bloody Germans.
I use floppys to backup my ICT coursework at school. When all the other kids with their USB devices have gone home, my teacher sighs as he watches me formatting yet another 20p disk.
You make some good points. However, the statement "Street crime is virtually unheard of" is ridiculous. I live in the UK, and I've witnessed - and been the victim of - a significant amount of street crime in the seventeen years I've been alive.
Walking to school is safe if you're lucky enough to live in an area that's quiet (read: rich). The busiest places attract the most muggings and pickpocketings. Also, tunnels are excellent places to go if you're really itching to give someone your wallet.
Although, even considering this, I walk everywhere or catch trains, and I'm putting off learning to drive because I don't feel the need to rush around, wasting exercise oppurtunities.
From the tone of the summary, it seems that a failure to challenge the Windows monopoly - and to do so succesfully - is grounds to abandon a project you enjoy contributing to.
I use Linux because I prefer it, not because I want to spite a business. Same reason, I think, that many developers work on Linux. They like the system; they don't (all) feel the need for penguiny desktop domination.
In that example, as the background is one solid colour, it would be easy to protect it by cutting out the number and filling the space in with white. If the image doesn't have the number in it, no one can take it out.
I see that this would be harder with people's faces; there'd be a lot of headless people in photos.
Seems like readers love thinking up rare exceptions and try to make them look like valid concerns.
E.g. "What if I see a homeless man start to fall in the street near my car, reach out to stop him hitting the pavement and getting some severely disabling bruises, resulting in my hands being covered in tramp sweat, which is somewhere in the region of 99.9% alcohol? What THEN, Toyota?"
It's not such a bad concept. Maybe if there was a manual override button that initiated some kind of drunkenness test, i.e. "recite the alphabet backwards into this microphone"...
They're bound to be havens for social engineers. Those sites are full of people who are usually fairly young, almost guaranteed to click on any link they're sent - especially if from a "friend" on the site - and entirely uninterested in the workings of computers, or the internet.
People don't find these sites anymore. They go online specifically to accumulate profiles, with no knowledge of what they're doing. Of course it's going to go horribly wrong.
Hm, I went to a Montessori school when I was 3 years old, and I spent most of my time being taught the names of different shapes, letters of the alphabet, etc. Sort of contradicts your point.
I don't understand the need to simplify the interface. Are the developers assuming that the kids who'll be getting them are somehow less able to learn than kids in our home countries?
Everyone remembers their first computer, and gradually learning the possibilities, wanting to do more and more with it. Where's the oppurtunity for expanding this simple interface when they grow tired of looking at the same things?
Hopefully, one main difference between Digg and Slashdot is that the users here won't go and deliberately click the URL to watch their own account get hacked.
That my boyfriend will become enthusiastic about using GNU/Linux again. Unlikely, but a girl can dream.
Failing that, a situation where Linux developers create fluorescent green penguins, and Microsoft supports the Chinese in a battle to protect their IP, ultimately resulting in America requiring the entire corporation to be deported for supporting the communists. They relocate to that new island that appeared, only to discover that the Earth sucks it back down again hours later. Conspiracists declare that it was all intentional, designed to prevent the company from having to witness Vista's failure.
"Linux is no longer a hobbyist OS, and that day isn't far away when it becomes simple enough to be a viable alternative to Windows"
What's not simple about using Linux? People always seem to view any Linux distro as a failed attempt to emulate the current Windows UI, which isn't what it's designed to be. Any OS is simple if it's the one you've always used.
It's ironic that so many people reject Linux based on the occasional need to drop the menus and graphics in favour of the CLI, when that would logically be the "simplest" an OS could get.
I find Windows XP a pain to navigate, and never understood why so many people regard it as the easy option.
Anything can look like a "clearly obvious fact" if it supports your own opinion. God forbid that nature should contribute to unexplained and random events involving large lumps of ice, given that it's usually so predictable.
"Zurich-based Cytos, which is also developing anti-smoking and obesity vaccines"
These people are creating "solutions" for lazy people who won't take responsibility for their own lifestyles - what makes you trust them to cure flu, and not just use this as another money-making scheme?
It seems like we, the "iPod generation", can't really get anything right. If we're not like our parents were when they were young, something's obviously wrong with us and it must be corrected.
Cue the accusations of us "not caring about anything these days", or society going to the dogs. I'm sure people were once shocked to discover that their children no longer found electric lighting utterly fascinating. Or the wheel.
If you grow up with technology, you grow accustomed to it. If there are plenty of news stories about NASA's missions (which aren't even that exciting, currently), then they become every day occurences. It's not surprising in the slightest, but I'm sure someone wil decide that it indicates a greater level of uncaring for life itself, and that all modern kids are clinically depressed.
Slashdot Mirror
What age children would you target your study hall proposition at?
I'd be scared if my government viewed this the same way that you do, and thought that loading children up with hours of extra work, solely to mould them into useful potential workers, is ethically acceptable. Actually, my government probably does think that, and it seems that anyone who's completed school does, too. The few who don't are considered to be hippies, hell-bent on destroying the economy. Why do people become so bitter when they graduate, and think that imposing hours of homework on children who are already working hard enough just to learn about the world they're growing up in is perfectly fine, and anyone who protests is some kind of wimp? Life isn't just for goddamn work. Not everyone works >6 hours a day. There are no straight career paths; people can do whatever they want, they're just not told that they can.
Kids are under increasing stress to outdo their peers in the rush for university places. I'm feeling the pressure at A Level, and I've no doubt that kids younger than me are sick of it as well. It's not just homework, either, it's all the extra-curricular rubbish they're pushed to do in order to "stand out" from other applicants.
I'd welcome a ban on extra homework - besides what's normal for children that young, i.e. spellings and so on - until they reach Secondary School age. Give them a little bit of time to be themselves before rushing them into a world of hard work and sparse praise.
I think it's ridiculous to restrict the time they have to play when they're all so young, and we'll end up with a generation of robots if all we learn to value is grades.
It seems unnecessary to incorporate impressive-sounding terms into a speech that, quite honestly, seems to be stating the obvious. Increasing or decreasing security is a response to fear; fear is an emotion and, therefore, decisions that use it as a base will not be purely rational, but will have emotional bias, like every other human decision. You don't need vague descriptions of brain "impulses", and such, to prove that.
However, if the offense did take place with a strong link to the internet, or was otherwise significantly computer-based, then preventing access to computers and the internet - as is often the punishment for people convicted of things covered by the Computer Misuse Act, etc. - would be justifiable for a period of time.
This is the government that ignored the "real life" anti-war protests that took place on its doorstep; I'm not surprised they find it just as easy to ignore digital petitions.
The @googlemail addresses are too long and clumsy. I made use of a US based proxy when I signed up for my account to ensure I'd get the more succinct gmail version. Bloody Germans.
I use floppys to backup my ICT coursework at school. When all the other kids with their USB devices have gone home, my teacher sighs as he watches me formatting yet another 20p disk.
Walking to school is safe if you're lucky enough to live in an area that's quiet (read: rich). The busiest places attract the most muggings and pickpocketings. Also, tunnels are excellent places to go if you're really itching to give someone your wallet.
Although, even considering this, I walk everywhere or catch trains, and I'm putting off learning to drive because I don't feel the need to rush around, wasting exercise oppurtunities.
Even when I'm just reading posts, I'm fighting the urge to scroll or highlight words because I feel a little on edge, merely staring at the page.
I use Linux because I prefer it, not because I want to spite a business. Same reason, I think, that many developers work on Linux. They like the system; they don't (all) feel the need for penguiny desktop domination.
I see that this would be harder with people's faces; there'd be a lot of headless people in photos.
E.g. "What if I see a homeless man start to fall in the street near my car, reach out to stop him hitting the pavement and getting some severely disabling bruises, resulting in my hands being covered in tramp sweat, which is somewhere in the region of 99.9% alcohol? What THEN, Toyota?"
It's not such a bad concept. Maybe if there was a manual override button that initiated some kind of drunkenness test, i.e. "recite the alphabet backwards into this microphone"...
Nice to know they're spending their time filing for patents instead of, well, trying to use it to cure cancer.
People don't find these sites anymore. They go online specifically to accumulate profiles, with no knowledge of what they're doing. Of course it's going to go horribly wrong.
Hm, I went to a Montessori school when I was 3 years old, and I spent most of my time being taught the names of different shapes, letters of the alphabet, etc. Sort of contradicts your point.
Everyone remembers their first computer, and gradually learning the possibilities, wanting to do more and more with it. Where's the oppurtunity for expanding this simple interface when they grow tired of looking at the same things?
Hopefully, one main difference between Digg and Slashdot is that the users here won't go and deliberately click the URL to watch their own account get hacked.
That my boyfriend will become enthusiastic about using GNU/Linux again. Unlikely, but a girl can dream. Failing that, a situation where Linux developers create fluorescent green penguins, and Microsoft supports the Chinese in a battle to protect their IP, ultimately resulting in America requiring the entire corporation to be deported for supporting the communists. They relocate to that new island that appeared, only to discover that the Earth sucks it back down again hours later. Conspiracists declare that it was all intentional, designed to prevent the company from having to witness Vista's failure.
What's not simple about using Linux? People always seem to view any Linux distro as a failed attempt to emulate the current Windows UI, which isn't what it's designed to be. Any OS is simple if it's the one you've always used.
It's ironic that so many people reject Linux based on the occasional need to drop the menus and graphics in favour of the CLI, when that would logically be the "simplest" an OS could get.
I find Windows XP a pain to navigate, and never understood why so many people regard it as the easy option.
Anything can look like a "clearly obvious fact" if it supports your own opinion. God forbid that nature should contribute to unexplained and random events involving large lumps of ice, given that it's usually so predictable.
It lasted a good deal longer than any shelf I've ever put up.
These people are creating "solutions" for lazy people who won't take responsibility for their own lifestyles - what makes you trust them to cure flu, and not just use this as another money-making scheme?
Cue the accusations of us "not caring about anything these days", or society going to the dogs. I'm sure people were once shocked to discover that their children no longer found electric lighting utterly fascinating. Or the wheel.
If you grow up with technology, you grow accustomed to it. If there are plenty of news stories about NASA's missions (which aren't even that exciting, currently), then they become every day occurences. It's not surprising in the slightest, but I'm sure someone wil decide that it indicates a greater level of uncaring for life itself, and that all modern kids are clinically depressed.
Actually, there's a Blockbuster store in my town that does.