So they would be making money (or increasing value) by using my work and not paying me for it.
So, you would be happy if Google bought 1 copy of every book and then put it in their search engine? How about if they buy it used, or have a book drive and collect them for free? What if Google doesn't want to keep a copy of your book around, would you sell them the right to index it for a payment equal to your royalty on one copy?
It's pretty simple. I deserve to be paid for use of my work, in any form, in any medium.
No you don't. If someone writes a review of your book they can quote it without paying you. If someone writes a parody or a fanfic of your book you don't get paid.
You are not going to get paid by everyone who reads your book. Some people will get it from the library. Some will borrow it from friends. Some will read it in the bookstore and then put it back on the shelf. Some will buy it used. And Many will not read it at all. -- JimFive
(temporary financial crisis excepted real property goes up in value over time)
isn't quite true. Real property only goes up in value if the population(demand) is growing. In the ideal situation property price would match inflation because the real value of an acre of land doesn't change. Other property, e.g. housing, should depreciate slowly but this is covered by ongoing maintenance costs keeping the house basically at a constant real value. Property that obsolesces such as a car will depreciate faster and cannot really keep its value until it hits the bottom of the depreciation curve. -- JimFive
People ARE allowed to yell fire in a crowded theater. They are not, however, protected from the consequences of doing so. If there are no panic-induced injuries then there will be no (legal) consequences. -- JimFive
PS: I hate that particular example, a much better example of legitimate restriction on speech is that of slander or harassment.
The interesting part is the study of evolution, i.e. how the "process of evolution" could lead to such bio diversity is fascinating. There are many hypothoses as to how that happened and is happening. Most of those hypothoses are not proven
FTFY. While I agree with your sentiment, I don't think it helps to continually misuse the word theory. One of the reasons that anti-science people can continue to say "Just a theory" is because of the misuse of the term in scientific contexts. -- JimFive
That drawing my next breath is fact... well... if you think about it, that's is not fact. I could die in the middle of this sentence.
Again, correct. However, this is a common trap that faith-based (and rhetorically schooled) opponents often try to lure you into: They try to erode our foundation on predictions based on observation by falsely applying the same amount of uncertainty to every possible future.
Even more, dropping dead in the middle of a sentence does not invalidate the science behind respiration and life. There will be an explicable reason for the person dropping dead. The fact is that the prediction: "Person will take a breath" is at the end of a line of conditionals (if e doesn't get hit by a bus, if e isn't garotted by an assassin, etc.) that work out to be the same condition as inertia, "unless acted upon by a force."
Dawkins calls this "teapotism"
I believe the original teapot analogy was from Bertrand Russell. -- JimFive
As a small web developer, who do you target as your clientele, and what's you means of getting to them?
Your local government has list of businesses that are registered as a DBA (doing business as). This is basically a list of businesses that are operating under a name that is different from the name associated with their tax id. This will include you if you decide to do busines as 'kcitren Web Development'. This list contains nearly all of the local small businesses in your area along with the owners' names, contact information, and what their businesses are.
For web development check out their existing website and think about how you would improve it. If they don't have one, or it is so basic that it is worthless, then your job is pretty easy. Even if they have a nice website be sure to check the "last updated" date most places put at the bottom, if it is a couple of years old you might want to contact them anyway.
Don't denegrate their existing site. Either they know it's poorly designed in which case you sound condescending, or they don't in which case you risk offending them. Instead point out ways it could be better.
or unreasonable clients [I can't pay you but you can put it in your portfolio.
"Put it in your portfolio" is bad but payment in kind might be acceptable. Finding a way to leverage a couple hours of work into better exposure for your business can be good idea.
Also, check out the book "The 4 hour work week" from the library and read about getting rid of bad customers as well as about outsourcing your life. -- JimFive
Every quality film camera I've owned loads the film on the takeup spool upon loading, then as you take photos, it winds it back into the canister
I have never seen a camera that worked this way. Every film camera I've had, from snapshot cameras to SLRs from Nikon and Minolta have wound on to the spool and then needed to be rewound back into the canister when you had filled the roll. -- JimFive
I hate this bromide. The press is not a branch of government. The press has no duty, obligation, or accountability in regard to informing the populace about reality. The government has no obligation to allow members of the press into its procedures except insofar as they allow any member of the citizenry in. If you want an ombudsman to investigate the government then advocate for that, but don't pretend that the press can or will do it. </rant> -- JimFive
we don't want to reduce carbon emissions because it will hurt our economy
I've never understood this part of the argument. Reducing carbon emissions is going to require a huge amount of research and manufacturing to accomplish. When it is reported that this will cost "$X billion" this neglects to say that that money is economic activity.
Before someone points it out, the broken window fallacy says "breaking windows does not improve the economy" It does not say, "don't fix your windows when they are already broken". -- JimFive
Every time I go into a library I thank God they're around and think about what it would be like to try to create them now if they didn't already exist.
They would be created now in the same way they were originally. By a rich guy endowing them at the local level. The Federal government has absolutely nothing to do with it. -- JimFive
Agnosticism is a position of logic based upon a lack of evidence. Logic is more characteristic of science. I think the case can be made that agnosticism is the more scientific.
I'm going to use the definitions that were used on alt.atheism
Weak Atheism: Lack of belief in god.
Strong Atheism: Belief in no god.
Weak Agnosticism: I (we) don't know if god exists. Also ignorance.
Strong Agnosticism: It is not possible to know if god exists.
Commonly, when people say agnosticism they mean strong agnosticism. Strong agnosticism takes an epistimelogical position that there are unknowable things and that the existance of god is one of them. It says nothing about whether god exists, only about knowledge. Thus it is possible to be an agnostic atheist or an agnostic theist.
Weak agnosticism is just a statement of ignorance, it does not address the question at all.
Weak atheism, on the other hand, is the position that ignorance does not beget belief. If I don't know something then I can say "I don't know" without making a universal law out of it. Saying "I am not a believer in god" is not the same thing as saying "I believe there is no god." The primary difference between the weak atheist and the weak agnostic is that the weak atheist answers the question. -- JimFive
Not really, they're both wrong. These sentences no verb. Correct would be e.g. "350 Years of Science is now online." Unless you want to pretend that online is now a verb and say "350 years of science online now at www.royalacademy.uk." You don't want a comma there, either, or you would have no subject.
However, since this is a headline, more appropriate would be "350 Years of Science - Online" -- JimFive
No one knows the answer to this "why". It's like asking why is the Universe the way it is.
Whenever I see the question "Why?" in a scientific context I like to replace it with "What is the mechanism by which..." So the initial question of "Why does mass warp space-time?" becomes "What is the mechanism by which mass warps space-time?" That is legitimate scientific question and I'm certain it is being researched. If the reformulation doesn't make sense, as in your example of "Why is the Universe the way it is?" then the question is silly. -- JimFIve
What bothers me is that I dump my contract, they can charge me a fee, but from the letter I got, they can dump the contract at will.
My understanding is that if they change the contract then you have some amount of time (30 days?) to refuse the new terms and get out of the contract without paying any termination fees. You'll probably need to do a little research to figure out how to go about it. -- JimFive
You're equating falling sales tax revenues with a rising national debt even though there is no national sales tax. The two are entirely unrelated.
Not completely. A lot of the stimulus money ended up going to cover state budget deficits which may have been exacerbated by falling sales tax revenue. (N.B. I don't actually know if sales tax revenue is falling, if it is falling due to online sales, or if the amount of the fall is a large enough to have a real impact on state budgets relative to e.g. income tax receipts.)
--
JimFive
No it's not. Edison didn't just think, "Hey, I could put a filament in a jar and run electricity through it to make it glow" and patent that. He actually did the work to make a light bulb, and it took a lot of trial and error. It was not just a mental process, but a physical process.
Most ideas are obvious is retrospect to people who are experts in a field, but its a fallacy to believe it was obvious to those same people BEFORE they saw it.
The idea isn't at issue, the implementation is. Obvious, as related to patents, should mean that, given a statement of a problem, an expert in the field would come up with a substantially similar solution. While it is true that figuring out which problem to solve can be the hardest part of invention that is outside the scope of the patent process. -- JimFive
My question though, is why can't facebook just run a simple algorithm to test the max degrees of separation between any two people? The method described in TFA seems like a rather contrived and not-particularly-valid way to test the hypothesis. In fact, it almost feels like it's more of a publicity stunt than a real scientific study . . ..
I think the underlying purpose for FB is to get people to either a) send friend requests to people they know but haven't friended. (Increasing FBs knowledge about those people) Or b) send invites to people they know who aren't on FB (gaining a user, and knowledge for FB). The (false) incentive for the user is that it will reduce their degree of separation from the rest of the world. For this to work to FBs advantage they should send match ups that they have already determined do not have a path in their existing data. -- JimFive
At absolutly NO point is using a phone at any time regarded as approriate. All good trainers and people that know how to drive [...] know that ANY distraction while driving is not on at all.
And this is a problem with driver training. Drivers will get distracted, either by their environment or by themselves. Driver training needs to teach how to deal with distractions and regain focus, not pretend that it is a character defect if your mind drifts away from what is usually a mundane task.
Yes, using a phone while driving is distracting; so are eating, talking to passengers, or sight-seeing. Driving is the most dangerous thing most of us do on a daily basis and that familiarity breeds contempt. Most of us rarely have accidents, and when we do they are often no more than an inconvenience. In the end, for most of us, results are what matter. If we get to our destination without an accident then it was a successful trip. After we've done that a few thousand times we tend to think that we have mastered this driving thing and forget how dangerous it can be.
By the way, I disagree about keeping the radio off. I find, especially on longer trips, that a "quiet" car leads to my mind wandering more than a car with music playing. Listening to talk radio is more distracting, however (especially if you disagree with the talk). -- JimFive
In many ways, aviation communication is easier because:
all communication is flight related.
and all communication is in a standard format.
The problem with cell phones and other distractions is that they are unrelated to the task at hand. Flight communication is directly related to the task at hand. -- JimFive
I don't think the Founding Fathers intended that every man shall have free and reasonable access to pen, ink, paper, a horse, [...]
If for free one reads "Unimpeded by the government" then Yes--Yes they did.
Assuming that BART is a government entity (the transit authority where I live is) then this action clearly violates the spirit of the first amendment by being goverment interference with both speech and assembly. -- JimFive
I got it before. You don't. There are 2 statements in the 4th amendment. Paraphrased, the first statement says that any search or seizure must be reasonable. The second statement requires that warrants must be specific. Nowhere in that amendment does it say that ALL searches require a warrant.
Consider what a warrant is: an order by an authority (usually a court or government) to permit an otherwise illegal action. Thus, if an action is legal then no warrant is necessary. If a search or seizure is reasonable then it is not illegal and does not require a warrant. -- JimFive
ALL searches without a warrant are inherently unreasonable.
That is your own interpretation. There is no where in the 4th that says a warrant is required for reasonability. What it does indicate is that a warrant is proof of reasonability.
Warrantless searches should have to meet a fairly high bar: Urgent and Imminent. They should also be reviewed by the court based on What the officer knew/saw at the time of the search (ideally, without the court knowing the result of the search). The fact that "Urgent and Imminent" has turned into "Probable Cause" and that there is no review of reasonableness is a travesty. -- JimFive
We are not supposed to demonstrate logical arguments in this thread.
He's doing it right then.
In 2001, before the Bush tax cuts/refunds there was a projected Budget Surplus. This surplus should have been used to pay down some debt. (In fact, there was some concern from the Treasury and the Fed that paying down the debt too far might have adverse consequences). Instead of being good stewards by paying down some debt and saving money from those good times so that they could be used in bad times, the Bush administration and the Republican congress decided to cut a check for $300 (or was it $600?) to each tax payer. They then cut taxes to the point that there was no way to fund the government without deficit spending and proceeded to run the economy into the ground. This was amplified by the response to the 9/11 attacks that greatly increased spending with no corresponding tax increases to pay for it.
Thus, it is certainly possible for the tax base of the US to fulfill its obligations. Therefore, the idea that spending cuts are the "real" answer is wrong. The answer is a combination of tax increases (on the people that actually have money), job creation initiatives to put money into the economy (primarily infrastructure projects), and spending cuts that do not fundamentally break the social safety net that the poor and old rely on. -- JimFive
What I can't agree with is that it is Constitutional or even simply ethical for government to interfere with what are mostly going to be perfectly innocent, honest, and beneficial social relationships.
Isn't it possible that a teacher friending some students but not others would violate the Equal Protection clause, e.g. not all students are being treated equally by an agent of the government?
While, on its face, this law seems like overkill, the purpose is probably to protect the teachers, the schools and the state from accusations of bias or abuse.
Someone further up the comments mentioned that the law requires schools to have a policy that meets certain standards, the most important of which (for this discussion) is that all communications between the teacher and student (presumably outside of the classroom) must be available to the parents. Since social networking sites such as facebook allow private communications they might violate the policy--depending on what the policy eventually says. -- JimFive
I made a point of counting out change to people, and the younger ones would generally give me a 'What the hell are you doing?" look, while older customers would look pleased.
I'm no longer young, but I hate it when people count my change back. I can count the change in my hand a lot faster than you can count it into my hand. (I've usually counted it as they're pulling it out of the register anyway.)
Want to really confuse a cashier? If your total is (for example) $9.62 give them a ten and twelve cents.
I do this all the time. It is hilarious. -- JimFive
Slashdot Mirror
So, you would be happy if Google bought 1 copy of every book and then put it in their search engine? How about if they buy it used, or have a book drive and collect them for free? What if Google doesn't want to keep a copy of your book around, would you sell them the right to index it for a payment equal to your royalty on one copy?
No you don't. If someone writes a review of your book they can quote it without paying you. If someone writes a parody or a fanfic of your book you don't get paid.
You are not going to get paid by everyone who reads your book. Some people will get it from the library. Some will borrow it from friends. Some will read it in the bookstore and then put it back on the shelf. Some will buy it used. And Many will not read it at all.
--
JimFive
isn't quite true. Real property only goes up in value if the population(demand) is growing. In the ideal situation property price would match inflation because the real value of an acre of land doesn't change. Other property, e.g. housing, should depreciate slowly but this is covered by ongoing maintenance costs keeping the house basically at a constant real value. Property that obsolesces such as a car will depreciate faster and cannot really keep its value until it hits the bottom of the depreciation curve.
--
JimFive
People ARE allowed to yell fire in a crowded theater. They are not, however, protected from the consequences of doing so. If there are no panic-induced injuries then there will be no (legal) consequences.
--
JimFive
PS: I hate that particular example, a much better example of legitimate restriction on speech is that of slander or harassment.
FTFY. While I agree with your sentiment, I don't think it helps to continually misuse the word theory. One of the reasons that anti-science people can continue to say "Just a theory" is because of the misuse of the term in scientific contexts.
--
JimFive
Even more, dropping dead in the middle of a sentence does not invalidate the science behind respiration and life. There will be an explicable reason for the person dropping dead. The fact is that the prediction: "Person will take a breath" is at the end of a line of conditionals (if e doesn't get hit by a bus, if e isn't garotted by an assassin, etc.) that work out to be the same condition as inertia, "unless acted upon by a force."
I believe the original teapot analogy was from Bertrand Russell.
--
JimFive
Your local government has list of businesses that are registered as a DBA (doing business as). This is basically a list of businesses that are operating under a name that is different from the name associated with their tax id. This will include you if you decide to do busines as 'kcitren Web Development'. This list contains nearly all of the local small businesses in your area along with the owners' names, contact information, and what their businesses are.
For web development check out their existing website and think about how you would improve it. If they don't have one, or it is so basic that it is worthless, then your job is pretty easy. Even if they have a nice website be sure to check the "last updated" date most places put at the bottom, if it is a couple of years old you might want to contact them anyway.
Don't denegrate their existing site. Either they know it's poorly designed in which case you sound condescending, or they don't in which case you risk offending them. Instead point out ways it could be better.
"Put it in your portfolio" is bad but payment in kind might be acceptable. Finding a way to leverage a couple hours of work into better exposure for your business can be good idea.
Also, check out the book "The 4 hour work week" from the library and read about getting rid of bad customers as well as about outsourcing your life.
--
JimFive
I have never seen a camera that worked this way. Every film camera I've had, from snapshot cameras to SLRs from Nikon and Minolta have wound on to the spool and then needed to be rewound back into the canister when you had filled the roll.
--
JimFive
The press is the fourth branch of government
I hate this bromide. The press is not a branch of government. The press has no duty, obligation, or accountability in regard to informing the populace about reality. The government has no obligation to allow members of the press into its procedures except insofar as they allow any member of the citizenry in. If you want an ombudsman to investigate the government then advocate for that, but don't pretend that the press can or will do it. </rant>
--
JimFive
we don't want to reduce carbon emissions because it will hurt our economy
I've never understood this part of the argument. Reducing carbon emissions is going to require a huge amount of research and manufacturing to accomplish. When it is reported that this will cost "$X billion" this neglects to say that that money is economic activity.
Before someone points it out, the broken window fallacy says "breaking windows does not improve the economy" It does not say, "don't fix your windows when they are already broken".
--
JimFive
Every time I go into a library I thank God they're around and think about what it would be like to try to create them now if they didn't already exist.
They would be created now in the same way they were originally. By a rich guy endowing them at the local level. The Federal government has absolutely nothing to do with it.
--
JimFive
Agnosticism is a position of logic based upon a lack of evidence. Logic is more characteristic of science. I think the case can be made that agnosticism is the more scientific.
I'm going to use the definitions that were used on alt.atheism
Weak Atheism: Lack of belief in god.
Strong Atheism: Belief in no god.
Weak Agnosticism: I (we) don't know if god exists. Also ignorance.
Strong Agnosticism: It is not possible to know if god exists.
Commonly, when people say agnosticism they mean strong agnosticism. Strong agnosticism takes an epistimelogical position that there are unknowable things and that the existance of god is one of them. It says nothing about whether god exists, only about knowledge. Thus it is possible to be an agnostic atheist or an agnostic theist.
Weak agnosticism is just a statement of ignorance, it does not address the question at all.
Weak atheism, on the other hand, is the position that ignorance does not beget belief. If I don't know something then I can say "I don't know" without making a universal law out of it. Saying "I am not a believer in god" is not the same thing as saying "I believe there is no god." The primary difference between the weak atheist and the weak agnostic is that the weak atheist answers the question.
--
JimFive
Not really, they're both wrong. These sentences no verb. Correct would be e.g. "350 Years of Science is now online." Unless you want to pretend that online is now a verb and say "350 years of science online now at www.royalacademy.uk." You don't want a comma there, either, or you would have no subject.
However, since this is a headline, more appropriate would be "350 Years of Science - Online"
--
JimFive
No one knows the answer to this "why". It's like asking why is the Universe the way it is.
Whenever I see the question "Why?" in a scientific context I like to replace it with "What is the mechanism by which..." So the initial question of "Why does mass warp space-time?" becomes "What is the mechanism by which mass warps space-time?" That is legitimate scientific question and I'm certain it is being researched. If the reformulation doesn't make sense, as in your example of "Why is the Universe the way it is?" then the question is silly.
--
JimFIve
What bothers me is that I dump my contract, they can charge me a fee, but from the letter I got, they can dump the contract at will.
My understanding is that if they change the contract then you have some amount of time (30 days?) to refuse the new terms and get out of the contract without paying any termination fees. You'll probably need to do a little research to figure out how to go about it.
--
JimFive
You're equating falling sales tax revenues with a rising national debt even though there is no national sales tax. The two are entirely unrelated.
Not completely. A lot of the stimulus money ended up going to cover state budget deficits which may have been exacerbated by falling sales tax revenue. (N.B. I don't actually know if sales tax revenue is falling, if it is falling due to online sales, or if the amount of the fall is a large enough to have a real impact on state budgets relative to e.g. income tax receipts.)
--
JimFive
All invention is a mental process.
No it's not. Edison didn't just think, "Hey, I could put a filament in a jar and run electricity through it to make it glow" and patent that. He actually did the work to make a light bulb, and it took a lot of trial and error. It was not just a mental process, but a physical process.
Most ideas are obvious is retrospect to people who are experts in a field, but its a fallacy to believe it was obvious to those same people BEFORE they saw it.
The idea isn't at issue, the implementation is. Obvious, as related to patents, should mean that, given a statement of a problem, an expert in the field would come up with a substantially similar solution. While it is true that figuring out which problem to solve can be the hardest part of invention that is outside the scope of the patent process.
--
JimFive
My question though, is why can't facebook just run a simple algorithm to test the max degrees of separation between any two people? The method described in TFA seems like a rather contrived and not-particularly-valid way to test the hypothesis. In fact, it almost feels like it's more of a publicity stunt than a real scientific study . . . .
I think the underlying purpose for FB is to get people to either a) send friend requests to people they know but haven't friended. (Increasing FBs knowledge about those people) Or b) send invites to people they know who aren't on FB (gaining a user, and knowledge for FB). The (false) incentive for the user is that it will reduce their degree of separation from the rest of the world. For this to work to FBs advantage they should send match ups that they have already determined do not have a path in their existing data.
--
JimFive
At absolutly NO point is using a phone at any time regarded as approriate. All good trainers and people that know how to drive [...] know that ANY distraction while driving is not on at all.
And this is a problem with driver training. Drivers will get distracted, either by their environment or by themselves. Driver training needs to teach how to deal with distractions and regain focus, not pretend that it is a character defect if your mind drifts away from what is usually a mundane task.
Yes, using a phone while driving is distracting; so are eating, talking to passengers, or sight-seeing. Driving is the most dangerous thing most of us do on a daily basis and that familiarity breeds contempt. Most of us rarely have accidents, and when we do they are often no more than an inconvenience. In the end, for most of us, results are what matter. If we get to our destination without an accident then it was a successful trip. After we've done that a few thousand times we tend to think that we have mastered this driving thing and forget how dangerous it can be.
By the way, I disagree about keeping the radio off. I find, especially on longer trips, that a "quiet" car leads to my mind wandering more than a car with music playing. Listening to talk radio is more distracting, however (especially if you disagree with the talk).
--
JimFive
In many ways, aviation communication is easier because:
all communication is flight related.
and all communication is in a standard format.
The problem with cell phones and other distractions is that they are unrelated to the task at hand. Flight communication is directly related to the task at hand.
--
JimFive
I don't think the Founding Fathers intended that every man shall have free and reasonable access to pen, ink, paper, a horse, [...]
If for free one reads "Unimpeded by the government" then Yes--Yes they did.
Assuming that BART is a government entity (the transit authority where I live is) then this action clearly violates the spirit of the first amendment by being goverment interference with both speech and assembly.
--
JimFive
I got it before. You don't. There are 2 statements in the 4th amendment. Paraphrased, the first statement says that any search or seizure must be reasonable. The second statement requires that warrants must be specific. Nowhere in that amendment does it say that ALL searches require a warrant.
Consider what a warrant is: an order by an authority (usually a court or government) to permit an otherwise illegal action. Thus, if an action is legal then no warrant is necessary. If a search or seizure is reasonable then it is not illegal and does not require a warrant.
--
JimFive
ALL searches without a warrant are inherently unreasonable.
That is your own interpretation. There is no where in the 4th that says a warrant is required for reasonability. What it does indicate is that a warrant is proof of reasonability.
Warrantless searches should have to meet a fairly high bar: Urgent and Imminent. They should also be reviewed by the court based on What the officer knew/saw at the time of the search (ideally, without the court knowing the result of the search). The fact that "Urgent and Imminent" has turned into "Probable Cause" and that there is no review of reasonableness is a travesty.
--
JimFive
We are not supposed to demonstrate logical arguments in this thread.
He's doing it right then.
In 2001, before the Bush tax cuts/refunds there was a projected Budget Surplus. This surplus should have been used to pay down some debt. (In fact, there was some concern from the Treasury and the Fed that paying down the debt too far might have adverse consequences). Instead of being good stewards by paying down some debt and saving money from those good times so that they could be used in bad times, the Bush administration and the Republican congress decided to cut a check for $300 (or was it $600?) to each tax payer. They then cut taxes to the point that there was no way to fund the government without deficit spending and proceeded to run the economy into the ground. This was amplified by the response to the 9/11 attacks that greatly increased spending with no corresponding tax increases to pay for it.
Thus, it is certainly possible for the tax base of the US to fulfill its obligations. Therefore, the idea that spending cuts are the "real" answer is wrong. The answer is a combination of tax increases (on the people that actually have money), job creation initiatives to put money into the economy (primarily infrastructure projects), and spending cuts that do not fundamentally break the social safety net that the poor and old rely on.
--
JimFive
What I can't agree with is that it is Constitutional or even simply ethical for government to interfere with what are mostly going to be perfectly innocent, honest, and beneficial social relationships.
Isn't it possible that a teacher friending some students but not others would violate the Equal Protection clause, e.g. not all students are being treated equally by an agent of the government?
While, on its face, this law seems like overkill, the purpose is probably to protect the teachers, the schools and the state from accusations of bias or abuse.
Someone further up the comments mentioned that the law requires schools to have a policy that meets certain standards, the most important of which (for this discussion) is that all communications between the teacher and student (presumably outside of the classroom) must be available to the parents. Since social networking sites such as facebook allow private communications they might violate the policy--depending on what the policy eventually says.
--
JimFive
I made a point of counting out change to people, and the younger ones would generally give me a 'What the hell are you doing?" look, while older customers would look pleased.
I'm no longer young, but I hate it when people count my change back. I can count the change in my hand a lot faster than you can count it into my hand. (I've usually counted it as they're pulling it out of the register anyway.)
Want to really confuse a cashier? If your total is (for example) $9.62 give them a ten and twelve cents.
I do this all the time. It is hilarious.
--
JimFive