This law is clearly designed to curb critical voices and free speech, although it has yet to be approved by parliament."
That's one interpretation, yes, and in fact a good one. Nevertheless, it shouldn't be there. Linking to a blogger with strong opinions about the issue is one thing, but could we at least avoid biased summaries? The summaries are supposed to be about news, not opinion. If I wanted one-sided views, I'd read Digg.
Give us the story, facts-only. Let us decide if it's an assault on free speech. Allowing the reader to come to that conclusion on their own is far more powerful and effective.
I'm guessing links to articles with different opinions would be too much to ask for.
Shortly after this story broke, it was announced that Federal Offices were raided by an Austrian Cyborg who repeatedly shouted "My domain will be back!". The identity of the intruder is currently under investigation.
Not only does it contain IM, photo-sharing and other similar applications, but it also comes preinstalled with the funeral services for when the applications die.
Hopefully, they will release a Windows Live mortuary sometime soon to make the package even more complete.
I haven't been keeping up on the Apple rumor mill, so I have a question. Is this October update supposed to be for just the ordinary MacBooks or for the MacBook Pro as well?
I know a new version of each was released just a couple weeks ago - October seems a bit soon.
Floss at school would be tremendously useful. Kids everywhere are told to "Brush after every meal", but if they eat at school, how do they get the necessary tools? Since we can't expect the kids to bring a toothbrush every day, providing floss will go a long way to better, brighter teeth!
I agree with you about the importance of good ally AI. To tell the truth, I really don't notice enemy AI a whole lot, irrespective of whether its good or bad. In games with bad ally AI (ie, most of them), however, it sticks out like a sore thumb.
The very best friendly AI I've ever seen is in Star Wars: Republic Commando. Your three teammates really seem human, and they're actually an asset in a firefight. In nearly every game, I find myself protecting the AI more than I find them helping me. One of the things I love about RC is that, if I get killed, my AI buddies can actually finish the fight and revive me on their own.
I agree completely - the default wiki search needs major, major work. If they get this search software working and add it to Mediawiki, it'll be a major improvement. As a standalone search engine, however, I don't see the point.
What's the advantage of having user-editable search results? Anyone can submit sites to Google already. I don't know the exact statistics, but I'd imagine that most sites that aren't complete trash end up getting accepted - my site is a jumble of code I put together to learn PHP and MySQL, and looks like something out of 1995. It got included just fine. Therefore, the only difference this search engine would have is the inclusion of Google's rejects.
Then we have the editing. Don't get me wrong - I'm a big fan of Wikipedia and believer in the "everyone can edit" system. Nevertheless, I really don't see how free editing can be useful in a search engine. I remember back when Google was first released, one of the things that made it so special is that none of the results were placed by hand. Other search engines placed higher-paying customers at the top (I have no idea if they still do that - I never use anything but Google these days) and consequently the results tended to have problems. User-editing will likely have an even worse affect, with people putting sites that don't belong on top before those that do.
Yes, there will be the community to catch that, but there's a major difference between an encyclopedia and a search engine. In an encyclopedia, there is a limited number of articles, and each one is about a very specific subject matter. There are an infinite number of search possibilities, and very few of them describe only one thing. For example, I'm a big fan of Heroes. Therefore, I go to the search engine and edit the search for "Mr. Bennet" (one of the characters) to list some sites about him before everything else. Then my evil clone, swd09, comes along. He is a big fan of Pride and Prejudice, and changes my edit to list sites about Mr. Bennet from Pride and Prejudice before everything else. I then change it back, and an edit war begins. In an encyclopedia, it could eventually be settled by virtue of the fact that an article is about one or the other. If someone tries to put information about Mr. Bennet from Pride and Prejudice in the Heroes article, it's clear that they're in the wrong. In a search engine, though, how can anyone say whether Mr. Bennet from Heroes or Mr. Bennet from Pride and Prejudice is more important? There's no way to come to a true consensus. To solve the problem, the administration will have to put its foot down and arbitrarily decide, and we end up with a non-user edited system without the neutrality of an algorithm.
I feel fairly confident that given a curriculum (and I guess the education credits needed to qualify me to do so) I could teach science or algebra to a bunch of 16 year olds or show them how to construct a thesis Knowledge of a subject does not make someone a good teacher. I've known some teachers that are incredibly skilled at what they teach and, if they were to simply transfer that information to their students, everyone would be very happy. These same teachers, however, can't teach worth beans. They try, and they try (or sometimes not), but they never get the message across.
Getting teachers that know what they're teaching is only half the battle - getting teachers that can actually make the students understand and not regurgitate is something that's even harder.
So, the Oracle at Delphi is taking over the Sun itself? With all the drugs she takes to get those "divine truths", there's no telling what she'll do with the thing - Global Warming here we come!
Schools should have the ability to intervene, but only when the parent option has failed. If a school notices that one of their students is bullying another off of school grounds and disrupting the student's learning, then they should call the parents of both kids. It's then up to the parents of the offending kid to get him (or her) to stop. That's the ideal world. But this world certainly isn't ideal.
hile that would work much of the time, there are some pretty pathetic parents out there - parents who won't care or who actually encourage that kind of behavior ("It's all part of growing up"). The parents of the victim, of course, have absolutely no control over the offender (unless they lived in Texas, in which case they would just go over and shoot the son-of-a-*****), and so nothing can be done. This is where the school comes in. It does have power over the offender, and by now the offender is becoming a major disruption to the learning environment. If the parents aren't doing anything, it's the schools duty to step in. If the bullying happened on-campus, of course, then the school should always be able to step in. On campus, it's god.
Think about the big, grown-up person version of this: an adult is facing "bullying" via the internet from someone that they know IRL. It gets so bad that they can no longer get their job done. The first step, of course, is to contact the offender, and tell him (or her....then again, all women on the Internet are men, so that point's moot) to stop. Of course, this doesn't always work, and there's nothing that the victim can do to stop it himself. Instead, the next step is to either file a lawsuit or contact the police. The courts and the police are the adult version of the school in this case - they intervene when the victim has exhausted every other option that he can do on his own.
Slashdot Mirror
If this lawsuit succeeds, does that mean students won't have to take notes anymore?
This may be the first fair use lawsuit where college students actually support the person suing!
I thought this was going to be about the GNU version of Duke Nukem Forever. When's that coming out?
This law is clearly designed to curb critical voices and free speech, although it has yet to be approved by parliament."
That's one interpretation, yes, and in fact a good one. Nevertheless, it shouldn't be there. Linking to a blogger with strong opinions about the issue is one thing, but could we at least avoid biased summaries? The summaries are supposed to be about news, not opinion. If I wanted one-sided views, I'd read Digg.
Give us the story, facts-only. Let us decide if it's an assault on free speech. Allowing the reader to come to that conclusion on their own is far more powerful and effective.
I'm guessing links to articles with different opinions would be too much to ask for.
Zonbu
That looks like it has most everything you want.
Underpaid Teachers want to fight!
Underpaid Teachers sent out Empty Wallet!
Go! Meowth!
Foe's Empty Wallet used Debit Card!
Foe's Debit Card is overdrawn!
Meowth used Payday!
Picked up $$$!
Foe's Empty Wallet's Absorb Taxes absorbed the money!
Giovanni: The teachers have been paid. Now, I shall take over the world!
Shortly after this story broke, it was announced that Federal Offices were raided by an Austrian Cyborg who repeatedly shouted "My domain will be back!". The identity of the intruder is currently under investigation.
I was expecting an article about how the game ends, and was prepared to make an epic post about a bunch of dots...
The article stole my joke!
Not only does it contain IM, photo-sharing and other similar applications, but it also comes preinstalled with the funeral services for when the applications die.
Hopefully, they will release a Windows Live mortuary sometime soon to make the package even more complete.
It looks like there's also a kiosk mode feature, which seems perfect for this purpose.
How many Alberto Gonzaleses does it take to change a lightbulb?
One, but he'll end up doing it multiple times because he can't recall doing it before.
I haven't been keeping up on the Apple rumor mill, so I have a question. Is this October update supposed to be for just the ordinary MacBooks or for the MacBook Pro as well? I know a new version of each was released just a couple weeks ago - October seems a bit soon.
Floss at school would be tremendously useful. Kids everywhere are told to "Brush after every meal", but if they eat at school, how do they get the necessary tools? Since we can't expect the kids to bring a toothbrush every day, providing floss will go a long way to better, brighter teeth!
I agree with you about the importance of good ally AI. To tell the truth, I really don't notice enemy AI a whole lot, irrespective of whether its good or bad. In games with bad ally AI (ie, most of them), however, it sticks out like a sore thumb. The very best friendly AI I've ever seen is in Star Wars: Republic Commando. Your three teammates really seem human, and they're actually an asset in a firefight. In nearly every game, I find myself protecting the AI more than I find them helping me. One of the things I love about RC is that, if I get killed, my AI buddies can actually finish the fight and revive me on their own.
I agree completely - the default wiki search needs major, major work. If they get this search software working and add it to Mediawiki, it'll be a major improvement. As a standalone search engine, however, I don't see the point.
What's the advantage of having user-editable search results? Anyone can submit sites to Google already. I don't know the exact statistics, but I'd imagine that most sites that aren't complete trash end up getting accepted - my site is a jumble of code I put together to learn PHP and MySQL, and looks like something out of 1995. It got included just fine. Therefore, the only difference this search engine would have is the inclusion of Google's rejects.
Then we have the editing. Don't get me wrong - I'm a big fan of Wikipedia and believer in the "everyone can edit" system. Nevertheless, I really don't see how free editing can be useful in a search engine. I remember back when Google was first released, one of the things that made it so special is that none of the results were placed by hand. Other search engines placed higher-paying customers at the top (I have no idea if they still do that - I never use anything but Google these days) and consequently the results tended to have problems. User-editing will likely have an even worse affect, with people putting sites that don't belong on top before those that do.
Yes, there will be the community to catch that, but there's a major difference between an encyclopedia and a search engine. In an encyclopedia, there is a limited number of articles, and each one is about a very specific subject matter. There are an infinite number of search possibilities, and very few of them describe only one thing. For example, I'm a big fan of Heroes. Therefore, I go to the search engine and edit the search for "Mr. Bennet" (one of the characters) to list some sites about him before everything else. Then my evil clone, swd09, comes along. He is a big fan of Pride and Prejudice, and changes my edit to list sites about Mr. Bennet from Pride and Prejudice before everything else. I then change it back, and an edit war begins. In an encyclopedia, it could eventually be settled by virtue of the fact that an article is about one or the other. If someone tries to put information about Mr. Bennet from Pride and Prejudice in the Heroes article, it's clear that they're in the wrong. In a search engine, though, how can anyone say whether Mr. Bennet from Heroes or Mr. Bennet from Pride and Prejudice is more important? There's no way to come to a true consensus. To solve the problem, the administration will have to put its foot down and arbitrarily decide, and we end up with a non-user edited system without the neutrality of an algorithm.
So, the Oracle at Delphi is taking over the Sun itself? With all the drugs she takes to get those "divine truths", there's no telling what she'll do with the thing - Global Warming here we come!
Can I use it to make me that father of Anna Nicole Smith's baby?
Schools should have the ability to intervene, but only when the parent option has failed. If a school notices that one of their students is bullying another off of school grounds and disrupting the student's learning, then they should call the parents of both kids. It's then up to the parents of the offending kid to get him (or her) to stop. That's the ideal world. But this world certainly isn't ideal.
hile that would work much of the time, there are some pretty pathetic parents out there - parents who won't care or who actually encourage that kind of behavior ("It's all part of growing up"). The parents of the victim, of course, have absolutely no control over the offender (unless they lived in Texas, in which case they would just go over and shoot the son-of-a-*****), and so nothing can be done. This is where the school comes in. It does have power over the offender, and by now the offender is becoming a major disruption to the learning environment. If the parents aren't doing anything, it's the schools duty to step in. If the bullying happened on-campus, of course, then the school should always be able to step in. On campus, it's god.
Think about the big, grown-up person version of this: an adult is facing "bullying" via the internet from someone that they know IRL. It gets so bad that they can no longer get their job done. The first step, of course, is to contact the offender, and tell him (or her....then again, all women on the Internet are men, so that point's moot) to stop. Of course, this doesn't always work, and there's nothing that the victim can do to stop it himself. Instead, the next step is to either file a lawsuit or contact the police. The courts and the police are the adult version of the school in this case - they intervene when the victim has exhausted every other option that he can do on his own.