Ouch, that's an awful policy. I didn't realize people ran into two-tests-per-class until grad school. At my high school finals were 20% of your final grade and those scared me a bit. They weren't that hard, but even a small slipup could really hurt you.
The goal here is to avoid reducing the difficulty of tests. At my school, some teachers would have each test count more than preceding ones so that you could recover from an early failure, and also drop the worst (weight*score)* test to prevent one later bomb from killing you. I found it increased the incentive without making it feel hopeless.
Some teachers would let you retake a test (not same questions obviously) and average the scores together. At the time I thought it was very reasonable.
I'm completely okay with rewarding students for improvement and for avoiding making them want to stop trying. Though dropping classes is also an option.
I don't agree with the way they're implementing this, but their principle is correct. If you pull a 0 on the first of four tests your best possible grade is a C. Maybe this is appropriate in grad school or college (hell, I'm grateful for my C's in college, that's a lot of hard work), but not for high school.
The one thing is that in college I noticed I generally knew things well about a week after I was tested on them, so maybe my school built bad habits. Or maybe I just go to a really crazy school (Caltech)
The proble mis when they have the right to affect your rights even if you don't use their products. Like the iPod searching border guards we're all afraid ACTA might create.
To play MAFIAA's advocate, America is more and more producing ideas rather than tangible goods. If we want to maintain our trade surplus* we need to protect the value of what we produce. Of course, I don't agree with HOW we're doing it, but I can at least see the reasoning. Imagine if piracy actually hurt the producers, this would be an issue.
*by which I mean prevent further increase to the trade deficit.
In general, you can trust people in academia to follow such a request. I doubt there's anyone who will respect a polite request that will respect legal conditions in such circles, but IANAP (I am not a psychologist)
The most extreme case: If you had such a license, would you really take a violator to court for it?
All governments have the same reason to censor, be it US, UK, or any other country. From their perspective, when is control of information ever a bad thing?
What varies is the thing they wave around to make people swoon. Terrorism, child porn, offense to Islam, Holocaust denial, etc.
Our Mulch-o-Tron 5000 satisfies over 9000 best business practices and is ISO infinity certified. What better way to protect your company from the legal dangers of open source?
The electronic copy isn't the thing he bought. The thing he bought is the license to use it. Will people please stop using the bullshit analogy between IP and physical property?
Consider: If I steal a widget from a store, now I have one more and the store has one less. Two things that hurt Big Content (but not the author)
If I make an unlicensed copy on BT, I have one more but the store has the same number. This is, by definition, not as damaging as theft of non-imaginary property, which includes this plus something else.
Not going to argue they're not both illegal, wrong, whatever, but let's not buy too far into the industry propaganda to lose sight of common sense.
Slashdot Mirror
That is such a good idea.
Ouch, that's an awful policy. I didn't realize people ran into two-tests-per-class until grad school. At my high school finals were 20% of your final grade and those scared me a bit. They weren't that hard, but even a small slipup could really hurt you.
I got out of them because I was *able to pass the tests* for all of them. Fixed that for myself:/
At my school you could:-) And I did:-) And it was glorious.
Got out of algebra, sex ed, and government because I already knew how to do it all.
The goal here is to avoid reducing the difficulty of tests. At my school, some teachers would have each test count more than preceding ones so that you could recover from an early failure, and also drop the worst (weight*score)* test to prevent one later bomb from killing you. I found it increased the incentive without making it feel hopeless.
Some teachers would let you retake a test (not same questions obviously) and average the scores together. At the time I thought it was very reasonable.
I'm completely okay with rewarding students for improvement and for avoiding making them want to stop trying. Though dropping classes is also an option.
I don't agree with the way they're implementing this, but their principle is correct. If you pull a 0 on the first of four tests your best possible grade is a C. Maybe this is appropriate in grad school or college (hell, I'm grateful for my C's in college, that's a lot of hard work), but not for high school.
The one thing is that in college I noticed I generally knew things well about a week after I was tested on them, so maybe my school built bad habits. Or maybe I just go to a really crazy school (Caltech)
I'd play it. Good way to take out my frustration at the ignorant ignoring and frustrating solution of the real issues of the world today:-(
The proble mis when they have the right to affect your rights even if you don't use their products. Like the iPod searching border guards we're all afraid ACTA might create.
To play MAFIAA's advocate, America is more and more producing ideas rather than tangible goods. If we want to maintain our trade surplus* we need to protect the value of what we produce. Of course, I don't agree with HOW we're doing it, but I can at least see the reasoning. Imagine if piracy actually hurt the producers, this would be an issue.
*by which I mean prevent further increase to the trade deficit.
Forget people, think of the CHILDREN! If we don't protect intellectual property rights, there could be MICKEY MOUSE PORN!
Yeah, it's sad when M$ is less anti-competitive than Apple, but hardly the first time.
I have Angstrom:-)
News to me too. I download FOSS ones. Because my platform isn't DRM-fucked by an evil monopoly;)
> You aren't a fanboi. A fanboi is someone who follows someone or something without question and without financial compensation.
Ron Paul!
It can help if Civil Protection is behind on their beating quota.
In general, you can trust people in academia to follow such a request. I doubt there's anyone who will respect a polite request that will respect legal conditions in such circles, but IANAP (I am not a psychologist)
The most extreme case: If you had such a license, would you really take a violator to court for it?
Or if Google could own the contents of everything created using Chrome
All governments have the same reason to censor, be it US, UK, or any other country. From their perspective, when is control of information ever a bad thing?
What varies is the thing they wave around to make people swoon. Terrorism, child porn, offense to Islam, Holocaust denial, etc.
Consider: Manager running a company that makes software vs manager running a company uses software. (Not claiming orthogonality here).
Our Mulch-o-Tron 5000 satisfies over 9000 best business practices and is ISO infinity certified. What better way to protect your company from the legal dangers of open source?
Obama's getting like 8x more from Big Content than McCain. Yet his policies aren't friendlier to them.
Oh he's beholden alright, but you have to dig a bit deeper if you want to know to whom.
(hint: it's not the Muslims or Black Extremists)
"Both parties are too beholden to corporate interests but there are differences on extremely important issues."
Thank you. You seem to get it better than most. Also, different corporate interests.
Yeah that's why Sony invented bittorrent.
Also AIDS, crack cocaine, and Ron Paul:-)
Yes, obtaining or writing DRM-busting software is legal in the US. So is using it in the case described above.
Just can't distribute or help anyone else. But we cannot help our neighbor. that's not good, Hackers, that's not good.
The electronic copy isn't the thing he bought. The thing he bought is the license to use it. Will people please stop using the bullshit analogy between IP and physical property?
Consider: If I steal a widget from a store, now I have one more and the store has one less. Two things that hurt Big Content (but not the author)
If I make an unlicensed copy on BT, I have one more but the store has the same number. This is, by definition, not as damaging as theft of non-imaginary property, which includes this plus something else.
Not going to argue they're not both illegal, wrong, whatever, but let's not buy too far into the industry propaganda to lose sight of common sense.
False, there are multiple standards for signing email. Certificate signatures are only one method, GPG is also used.
A larger concern is that once someone's computer is infected with a spambot you get their key.
*ring*
Hello?
V1agr4 4 s4l3 confadintial cheep! U want big l0v3 r0d/br34s7s?
our w3bsi7e us3s secur3 256 bi7 ord3r proc3ss1ng sh0p w17h confidance!