Oh, I'd help a kid out, but I'd be careful doing it.
My son had a bunch of friends over a while ago, boys and girls. They were running in and out, playing videogames, tag, etc.
Once, when it got quiet, I looked around and found I was alone in the house with a 12 year old neighbor girl, who was playing a videogame. Everybody else had ran outside to play. Hm. I didn't want to give in to paranoia and tell her to stop playing and leave... so I went and opened the front door and all the curtains. Probably unnecessary, because the girl and her mother have always seemed reasonable, but it was still a little worrying.
Yeah, most kids are emotionally healthy enough to brush it off and go on, or even (gasp) learn from the experience. Learning to be emotionally 'tough' is a good thing, and probably not stressed enough in today's world.
But, there are a small number of kids who can't brush it off so easily, due to some convergence of psychological factors; and they're probably the ones more likely to be picked on in the first place. I'm not sure what can be done about that, other than having the parents try to stay involved and aware of what the child is going through. Sheltering kids may do more harm than good.
Hmm. I believe my son's description about what specifically happened on Friday more than I trust a general statement from you saying this can never happen. Yes, I'm sure worse behavior happens and doesn't get punished. That's the problem with subjectivity and capriciousness.
I'm not a member of the Christian right, by the way. Secular atheist, as is my son. I'm not trumpeting this as a cause, and have no desire to martyr him.
Classes have been in session for 1 week, and only one assignment has been given. He didn't fail out, it would have been impossible to fail out. And, as I stated, this just happened, and we haven't had time to look into it. I may not; he's switched into a different class, everything is ok now.
Lots of people here really seem to have a predisposition to disbelieve this. Skepticism is fine, because you don't know me or my son. I know my son, so I know that doubting what he says would be foolish.
...but this just happened. I got a phone call this morning from my son, who is a Freshman just beginning his second term in college (math/physics major).
His college requires all freshman to take three credits of social/cultural liberals arts classes focused on diversity, understanding, and rainbows. On the plus side, they focus on writing weekly research papers, which is probably a good habit for freshman to pick up.
In this specific class, the teacher was warning against the perfidious institution of sexism in places of power, and gave the evil ex-dean of harvard as an example. I happen to have had conversations about that with my son, and so when the teacher asked for open discussion, my son spoke up. He said that as he understood it, the Harvard dean was a poor example of sexism, since all he stated was that there was possibly may be some physical difference in brain development between the genders that lead to the male preponderance in hard sciences.
The teacher turned red, started to stammer, so my son stopped talking. By the end of the day, he had been notified that he had been removed from the class. Now, he's probably learned a good lesson... shut up and don't engage in free discussion in a class that encourages free discussion, until he gets a feel for the teacher's maturity. It's an unfortunate lesson, but probably necessary. I should stress that he is always polite, and always soft-spoken; there would have been nothing objectionable about his behavior.
To bring this back to topic, perhaps losing face-to-face contact and easy interactivity with the professor and other students is not really much of a loss. Except for the best teachers, most classes are no more educational than spending an hour with a textbook, and sometimes (when personalities get involved) much worse.
They are putting your info in the song without telling you. That's rude. And when that sort of stuff is done on the sly, it makes you wonder what else is in there? Is my address? Credit Card number? iTunes account #? Some super-secret tracking number? Is it going to be a problem to put it on my wife's computer now, since they are still tracking it? What if my son's friends copy all my music someday, and it ends up on a p2p network?
I just bought a new monitor. I don't expect my email address to be hidden on a slip of paper inside the case. It probably would never hurt anything if it was, but that shouldn't be done without at least notifying me, and properly shouldn't be done without my consent.
Don't forget that the FCC-Mandated digital TV switch will likely result in tens of millions of perfectly good televisions going into the trash heap this year. Legally enforced obsolescence has some side effects.
Back in, oh, probably '90, the company I was working for had dumb terminals everywhere connected to a mainframe. They had just added a messaging feature, and one supervisor was messing around with it. She tried to send a message to her group, but accidentally sent it company-wide. The message was "IF YOU CAN READ THIS, RAISE YOUR HAND."
I was supervising the call center at the time, and I saw hundreds of hands tentatively raising. The message probably went to two thousand people.
The only value Logic and Computability have is due to our experience that the universe behaves with absolute fidelity to those concepts. The universe is absolutely logical in every regard.
But growing plants are sinks; the carbon exuded by rotting matches the carbon they've incorporated into themselves over their lifetime. In the long run, everything is carbon neutral.
That's my experience. The picture quality is incredible when it works, but the signal quality is terrible, so it is more pleasant to watch analog. Ghosting and a little static is much better than a frozen screen of blocks and stuttering audio.
I have heard that after the cut-over, signal strength will increase. That's nice it it's true, but I'm not convinced it is.
But the last president wrote up a trillion dollar war and a 1.1 trillion bailout. Surely this president can squeak out a 100 billion dollar tv coupon fund?
I think that 15 million number is slightly misleading. For one thing, many households have multiple televisions, and don't necessarily have cable running to each. Those extra televisions are now worthless. I have a small portable battery-powered television, for camping; it's garbage as soon as the transition kicks in. It wouldn't surprise me if a hundred million televisions are rendered worthless/obsolete because of the transition.
Plus, this means that anybody who currently has cable will now effectively have a $50 fee in order to stop their subscription.
I would recommend that everybody should get their coupon, even if they have cable, if for no other reason than emergency preparedness. Sometimes you may need to catch a broadcast while the cable feeding to your living room is on the fritz.
The cost of the coupon program is (a) a small fraction of the profit made by auctioning off the frequencies, and (b) a small fraction of the money this is costing consumers who are being forced into upgrading.
Yes, a lot of Wiis sold to casual gamers. But do they really think hardcore gamers didn't purchase a Wii? Of course they did, to sit next to their 360. They would buy a decent game no matter what console it's for.
There is massive untapped potential for the Wii. I know the graphics are less powerful, but the Wiimote still lends itself to 1st person shooters better than any gamepad. Resident Evil proved that. And the Wii is the only console that a RTS (like Starcraft) would even be possible to be played on. Keep in mind, development costs on a AAA title for the Wii are half or less what they would be on a 360 or PS3.
But... in nearly every case, the organic item will be substantially higher priced than the non-organic equivalent. How can your food bill _not_ be effected?
I think organic farming is a fairly bad idea, at least for general adoption. Food is precious, and deliberately growing food in less efficient ways would be disastrous if it ever became commonplace. Fortunately, it's only the preoccupation of rich Westerners with disposable income. As a luxury item, there's nothing wrong with it.
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Oh, I'd help a kid out, but I'd be careful doing it.
My son had a bunch of friends over a while ago, boys and girls. They were running in and out, playing videogames, tag, etc.
Once, when it got quiet, I looked around and found I was alone in the house with a 12 year old neighbor girl, who was playing a videogame. Everybody else had ran outside to play. Hm. I didn't want to give in to paranoia and tell her to stop playing and leave... so I went and opened the front door and all the curtains. Probably unnecessary, because the girl and her mother have always seemed reasonable, but it was still a little worrying.
Yeah, most kids are emotionally healthy enough to brush it off and go on, or even (gasp) learn from the experience. Learning to be emotionally 'tough' is a good thing, and probably not stressed enough in today's world.
But, there are a small number of kids who can't brush it off so easily, due to some convergence of psychological factors; and they're probably the ones more likely to be picked on in the first place. I'm not sure what can be done about that, other than having the parents try to stay involved and aware of what the child is going through. Sheltering kids may do more harm than good.
Hmm. I believe my son's description about what specifically happened on Friday more than I trust a general statement from you saying this can never happen. Yes, I'm sure worse behavior happens and doesn't get punished. That's the problem with subjectivity and capriciousness.
I'm not a member of the Christian right, by the way. Secular atheist, as is my son. I'm not trumpeting this as a cause, and have no desire to martyr him.
OP.
Classes have been in session for 1 week, and only one assignment has been given. He didn't fail out, it would have been impossible to fail out. And, as I stated, this just happened, and we haven't had time to look into it. I may not; he's switched into a different class, everything is ok now.
Lots of people here really seem to have a predisposition to disbelieve this. Skepticism is fine, because you don't know me or my son. I know my son, so I know that doubting what he says would be foolish.
...but this just happened. I got a phone call this morning from my son, who is a Freshman just beginning his second term in college (math/physics major).
His college requires all freshman to take three credits of social/cultural liberals arts classes focused on diversity, understanding, and rainbows. On the plus side, they focus on writing weekly research papers, which is probably a good habit for freshman to pick up.
In this specific class, the teacher was warning against the perfidious institution of sexism in places of power, and gave the evil ex-dean of harvard as an example. I happen to have had conversations about that with my son, and so when the teacher asked for open discussion, my son spoke up. He said that as he understood it, the Harvard dean was a poor example of sexism, since all he stated was that there was possibly may be some physical difference in brain development between the genders that lead to the male preponderance in hard sciences.
The teacher turned red, started to stammer, so my son stopped talking. By the end of the day, he had been notified that he had been removed from the class. Now, he's probably learned a good lesson... shut up and don't engage in free discussion in a class that encourages free discussion, until he gets a feel for the teacher's maturity. It's an unfortunate lesson, but probably necessary. I should stress that he is always polite, and always soft-spoken; there would have been nothing objectionable about his behavior.
To bring this back to topic, perhaps losing face-to-face contact and easy interactivity with the professor and other students is not really much of a loss. Except for the best teachers, most classes are no more educational than spending an hour with a textbook, and sometimes (when personalities get involved) much worse.
They are putting your info in the song without telling you. That's rude. And when that sort of stuff is done on the sly, it makes you wonder what else is in there? Is my address? Credit Card number? iTunes account #? Some super-secret tracking number? Is it going to be a problem to put it on my wife's computer now, since they are still tracking it? What if my son's friends copy all my music someday, and it ends up on a p2p network?
I just bought a new monitor. I don't expect my email address to be hidden on a slip of paper inside the case. It probably would never hurt anything if it was, but that shouldn't be done without at least notifying me, and properly shouldn't be done without my consent.
My kids and I use the "Jesus/Ninja/Robot" variant.
Renee Descartes walked into a bar.
Bartender asked, "Would you like a drink?"
"I think not!" exclaimed Descartes, and disappeared.
Don't forget that the FCC-Mandated digital TV switch will likely result in tens of millions of perfectly good televisions going into the trash heap this year. Legally enforced obsolescence has some side effects.
Back in, oh, probably '90, the company I was working for had dumb terminals everywhere connected to a mainframe. They had just added a messaging feature, and one supervisor was messing around with it. She tried to send a message to her group, but accidentally sent it company-wide. The message was "IF YOU CAN READ THIS, RAISE YOUR HAND."
I was supervising the call center at the time, and I saw hundreds of hands tentatively raising. The message probably went to two thousand people.
Consumers want convenient and CHEAP. Efficiency is often cheaper (not always, though).
Check out this clown's idiotic post history and the irony of him fretting about filtering out garbage...
Please do!
Very common, unfortunately... but always posted by anonymous cowards, so it can be filtered out.
The only value Logic and Computability have is due to our experience that the universe behaves with absolute fidelity to those concepts. The universe is absolutely logical in every regard.
That is completely wrong. Having kids gives you a second, wonderful, childhood.
But growing plants are sinks; the carbon exuded by rotting matches the carbon they've incorporated into themselves over their lifetime. In the long run, everything is carbon neutral.
That's my experience. The picture quality is incredible when it works, but the signal quality is terrible, so it is more pleasant to watch analog. Ghosting and a little static is much better than a frozen screen of blocks and stuttering audio.
I have heard that after the cut-over, signal strength will increase. That's nice it it's true, but I'm not convinced it is.
But the last president wrote up a trillion dollar war and a 1.1 trillion bailout. Surely this president can squeak out a 100 billion dollar tv coupon fund?
No, congress did both.
I think that 15 million number is slightly misleading. For one thing, many households have multiple televisions, and don't necessarily have cable running to each. Those extra televisions are now worthless. I have a small portable battery-powered television, for camping; it's garbage as soon as the transition kicks in. It wouldn't surprise me if a hundred million televisions are rendered worthless/obsolete because of the transition.
Plus, this means that anybody who currently has cable will now effectively have a $50 fee in order to stop their subscription.
Which, by the way, is a succinct explanation of why socialized medicine sucks.
I would recommend that everybody should get their coupon, even if they have cable, if for no other reason than emergency preparedness. Sometimes you may need to catch a broadcast while the cable feeding to your living room is on the fritz.
The cost of the coupon program is (a) a small fraction of the profit made by auctioning off the frequencies, and (b) a small fraction of the money this is costing consumers who are being forced into upgrading.
Adult peripherals? Nintendo should realize that's a great opportunity for market penetration.
Yes, a lot of Wiis sold to casual gamers. But do they really think hardcore gamers didn't purchase a Wii? Of course they did, to sit next to their 360. They would buy a decent game no matter what console it's for.
There is massive untapped potential for the Wii. I know the graphics are less powerful, but the Wiimote still lends itself to 1st person shooters better than any gamepad. Resident Evil proved that. And the Wii is the only console that a RTS (like Starcraft) would even be possible to be played on. Keep in mind, development costs on a AAA title for the Wii are half or less what they would be on a 360 or PS3.
Please, just make some games for it. Please.
Thank you, that's handy, and obvious in retrospect (like most handy things are). I'll probably quote that to a few people.
But... in nearly every case, the organic item will be substantially higher priced than the non-organic equivalent. How can your food bill _not_ be effected?
I think organic farming is a fairly bad idea, at least for general adoption. Food is precious, and deliberately growing food in less efficient ways would be disastrous if it ever became commonplace. Fortunately, it's only the preoccupation of rich Westerners with disposable income. As a luxury item, there's nothing wrong with it.