I don't necessarily disagree with you, but how is this much different than some of the justifications used by the US government for applying the "interstate commerce clause" of the constitution to things that are obviously not interstate commerce?
I thought that the number of rotors had to be even so that the torque canceled out. Canceling torque being the reason why multi-rotor aircraft don't need a separate vertical rotor like an ordinary single horizontal rotor helicopter. Forgive me if I missed some obvious pun and focused on the odd number relationship instead.
Executable content from an uncontrolled source. Sheesh! Why do the folks who design/build entertainment electronics have such a limited understanding of the digital world? Going back to the invention of the Compact Disc as a music medium, the industry consistently demonstrates an inability to think broadly about the opportunities and consequences of the digital world.
People with home networks (i.e., lots of folks) and a TV that permits executable content that was received from an uncontrolled RF source to run on a CPU that has access to the TV's in-home Local Area Network connection will be so screwed it isn't funny.
If all TV's end up with this capability, we'll have to firewall off our TVs from the rest of our home networks. The last thing I need when I get home from work worrying about the unholy intersection of jackass hackers and jackass software vendors is my TV going rogue and hacking into the rest of my carefully secured digital castle through the television.
Is the US government asleep at the switch? Here is the opportunity to nip in the bud a huge threat to national security (ever see how many TVs there are all over all federal buildings these days?). If they can't understand basic Information Systems security enough to understand that executable content MUST be either be from a controlled/trusted source OR MUST be securely isolated from trusted network connections, then we need a new set of policy folks.
One way to stop this idiocy would be to convince the masses that this threat is too great to ignore. If no one buys the TV sets (which are essentially Trojan Horse wormholes), the manufacturers will certainly take notice. If we get the entertainment electronics journalists on board ringing the danger bell, that might put enough of a dent in sales to get their attention.
If I were a student living in one of the rental units, I would want to a) disconnect from restricted access network, b) have the cost credited to me in the form of lower rent, and c) get my own unfiltered Internet access. I think I would even be willing to go to court over it, and maybe even make it a class-action lawsuit.
I would feel the same way if the rental units provided cable TV service, but chose to limit access to certain freely available channels (i.e., local terrestrial broadcast stations), or of the rental units provided a shared FM antenna system but chose to restrict or control access to certain FM radio frequencies.
Whether the FCC has gotten around to making it legally so or not, access to the Internet should be provided as a common carrier service. The intermediaries (such as the rental company in this case) should not be able to try to get a cut of the action above and beyond simply recovering the cost of the service in the rent.
That's my opinion, however. I'm sure others have their own. What the people who control the rental units should bear in mind is that others may share my opinion, and if enough of them do it could get very sticky for them. Restraining people's access to freely available media doesn't go over well.
The child production strategies with which I am most familiar leave no doubt as to the female DNA source. The male parent's genes have a more difficult time ensuring that child-rearing resources are spent on the right combined DNA complex. Should we be surprised at the existence of various strategies to decrease the probability of the male DNA source rearing the wrong DNA complex?
A sniper may be able to avert a major action by removing an important player relatively surgically. He or she would be doing this at great risk to him/herself, by infiltrating an enemy-held area with no backup support other than his/her spotter. That's cowardly? I think the use of snipers is a lot more nuanced than is being presented here.
Interesting. I suppose that if I were being attacked by drones, I would consider it within the rules of war to discover where the drones were being operated from and to attack each and every location that I thought the drones were produced, supplied, and commanded from until they stopped attacking me. That seems to mean that anyone using drones is inviting attacks like that upon themselves.
My original comment wasn't based on subletting, it was based on the transient nature of a hotel/motel/B&B guest as opposed to a neighbor (regardless of whether the neighbor owns/rents/sublets).
There is a wide range of what is acceptable to various people in this context. For some, not knowing who their neighbors are from day to day may not be a big deal. Maybe they like forming new associations constantly, or maybe they avoid forming any associations. Either way, they don't care if the people around them are the same as yesterday or will be the same tomorrow. Others like more constancy in their associations, especially those who are around them when they are most vulnerable (i.e. at home where a lot of relaxing, bathing, and sleeping takes place). It is a tribute to society that many of us feel safe in a variety of circumstances that leave us vulnerable to those around us. We don't feel like we have to live with armed guards, nor constantly watch our backs to make sure someone isn't putting a knife into it. But how comfortable you are in the presence of strangers when you are vulnerable depends a lot on your level of trust in others and/or your ignorance of what can go wrong.
I think people usually expect and operate with the default assumption that the people around them are mostly like themselves, and they govern their actions accordingly. Short-term transient rentals will almost certainly play havoc with those assumptions on both parts. The "inconsiderate assholes" who show up late at night for their AirBnB accommodation probably aren't assholes at all. Their travel was delayed, they are tired and worn out, and they just want to get to a touchdown/relaxation spot. But their assumptions about what constitutes "good behavior" under those circumstances are very different than those of the long-term residents around them think, because they have very different expectations and motivations.
I'm familiar with a circumstance in which the equivalent business to a short-term rental opened in a very small neighborhood (private road off of a county road, six houses). This business has 24 hour a day operations, 7 days per week, with at least 3 employees per shift. Obviously way above/beyond AirBnB of course. The culture clash is enormous. For example, the employees speed down the road when they are late for work (and its not uncommon for people to be running late in the morning). Because its a private road, its only 18 feet wide, not the minimum 22 feet of a county road. The residents know each other, and always slow down to pass each other. The employees don't slow down a bit; I suspect they don't realize the road is as narrow as it is. I'm sure the employees don't understand why the neighbors dislike them so much - they are just working for a living, like everyone else, right? But unlike the residents, there is no tie of the employees to the neighborhood. Its just their job, not where they live.
Is it possible that there is more going on here than the city protecting the city's revenues? If I were the neighbor of someone engaging in the short term rental of a property that was not in an area zoned for short term rentals, I would be very glad that the municipality was cracking down on them. I like to know who my neighbors are; I don't want new ones showing up every week.
But - if the court doesn't really even understand what was done, how is it possible for the court to know what the right sentence is? I think 3 1/2 years may be a bit much. People convicted of violent offenses against other people may not get 3 1/2 years.
Importantly, there's no explicit "right to privacy" in the US Constitution, but Griswold laid the foundation for why it follows from many of the other parts.
I've heard this claim before, and I'm confused and truly looking for an analysis. The 4th Amendment to the US Constitution says:
Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
The above doesn't explicitly use the word "privacy," but how is the right to be secure in my person, house, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures" not a right to privacy?
The franchise tax board of the state of California has a history of overly broad attempts to collect taxes. I wish I could have sued the state of California for the $1000 they stole from me claiming I owned taxes for a period of time when I was not even a resident (garnished from my wages when I was a resident and never returned even after I proved I wasn't a resident when earning the income they claimed taxes owed upon). If California has to pay out a $400 million judgement for their evil ways, the people to blame are the ones with the evil ways, not the ones who successfully defended themselves against them. I don't know if the guy in question really had an invention, but it doesn't seem like he was a resident of California at the time, at least not to the Nevada jury.
My experience with California and residency is that California will claim you were a California resident for the prior year if you file a federal tax return by April of the current year with a California address (the idea that you could have moved into the state in the first 1/3 of the year seems novel to them). I believe California was also (at one point) trying to retroactively claim taxes owed on 401(k) deferrals made by California citizens who had subsequently moved on to residency in other states before beginning withdrawals from these retirement accounts. I would not assume too quickly that California was right and this guy was wrong just because a motivation can be identified on his part to have tried to escape California taxes. California tries to over claim taxes due whenever they can. With the amount of money at stake here, I can easily believe that they went way over the line in the process.
If an award of some value is to be made to those who substantially advance the start of the art, we need some way to separate those advances which were immediately "inevitable" based on the state of the art as known to practioners, and those in which the state of the art was advanced more than merely incrementally whether through concentrated hard work or through inspired genius.
Part of the challenge of determining which advances were leaps forward and which were merely steps is the "obviousness" problem that makes it so difficult to judge "after the fact." I suspect that once more than a few years have passed, it becomes more and more difficult to determine whether an idea was novel enough for a patent. Perhaps the law needs to be adjusted so that if too much time passes before a patent is granted, the patent can't be granted.
I think that accurately predicting the orbit of satellites requires more than just the mass of the earth as a point. I think that generally predicting the orbit requires less data (and maybe only requires a point mass estimate), but results in errors accumulating over time between where the satellite is predicted to be versus where it really is. Its my understanding that satellites intended for long-term use have mechanisms to correct for the error (i.e., discover the delta and alter the orbit).
Accurately predicting the orbit should improve the error detection/correction capabilities. Just Saturday at a physics lab I saw a physical model of the earth that was developed from analyzing the variations in density of the earth; the model is used to more accurately predict satellite orbit deviations due to variations in the density of the planet earth. It didn't look anything like a nice regular sphere (which is what I think a point mass/no density variation model would look like).
It wouldn't surprise me (but I'm no expert) that even when these density variations and other disturbances are taken into account, satellites still exhibit some position error from what is predicted. Sounds like this guy came up with a fairly radical idea about where some of the additional position error is coming from.
I'm with you. The benefits of the evolution of communications into personal digital communications across the globe has been stolen by corporate interests and the government and used to create a mindfuck situation of unbelievable proportions. It seems like not long ago the US federal government was arguing about how new digital telephone switches so impacted their traditional ability to intercept calls that they need special legislative provisions that required interception capabilities to be built into all telephony switches or else they would lose their ability to investigate crime. Now we all wonder if we have any privacy at all, even in our own homes (how do you know your cell phone hasn't been programmed to perform electronic eavesdropping of your every conversation?), never mind in our on-line e-mails, and now possibly even in our thoughts about blog postings. Its enough to make one paranoid!
I share your wonderment about what the overall purpose of the competition might be. The results will be anecdotal at best, which is not something to base policy upon.
The cynical side of me thinks that these submissions will be used to justify spending on "technology" for education. It seems to be a long-standing yet not necessarily proven meme that using technology in education will make education "better" (cheaper, more effective, etc.). I haven't seen much in the way of a cost/benefit analysis that would identify what kinds of technology brings the best results at a reasonable cost, however.
Spending money on technology for education appears to me to mostly benefit the technology companies. Schools that used to have problems buying enough textbooks now find that they are expected to have electronic whiteboards in every classroom, with PCs to drive them that need to be replaced every 3 years or so. The ones that also include PCs for every student up the ante even further. I *like* technology, but I don't think its the answer to every problem. When it is an answer, it should be shown how its benefit exceeds its cost.
As you imply, the IRS doesn't make the tax code - Congress does. In fact, if it weren't for the fact that the IRS is the enforcer of the US tax code, it would almost be possible to feel sorry for them. Congress can pass legislation right up to the end of the year. Within a very short period of time afterwards, the IRS has to have forms, instructions, and processing software ready to go that completely and correctly explains the consequences of the tax code, walks taxpayers through whatever byzantine provisions Congress has come up with, and then calculates taxes owed, refunds, etc. There are no boundaries on the wackiness of the tax code, and it sometimes seems like even the Congress critters don't really understand what the actual rules will be to enforce the tax code provisions.
I have a Bluetooth earpiece and a smartphone. I press the button up by my ear, then say "Call (name from my address book). The phone finds the name in my address book, dials the number, the phone rings, and I start taking when my contact answers the phone. I never touch the phone, just the Bluetooth earpiece, and that only to initiate the call and then to hang up. My experience with auto manufacturer's voice command systems indicates that they should stick to making cars and leave the fancy electronics interfaces to others.
My wife and I had to go in and have a conference with the principal and two teachers when my 4th grade son drew a picture of a figure holding a shuriken in its hand. I was confused by the initial letter of complaint sent home by the teacher: it was not clear whether he was in trouble for drawing a picture (any picture) because he had been instructed to not read or write after finishing a test he was taking, or that he was in trouble for drawing a picture of a WEAPON! (Underlined three times in the note). Things didn't get any better during the meeting when I pointed out that he hadn't read or written anything, he had made a drawing (he is very literal that way). Then they pointed out that he had drawn a picture of a WEAPON! (Imagine that, a 10 year old drawing a picture of a shuriken!). Since I knew already, I asked them what the test had been about - primitive societies. It included several questions on the tools that they used to hunt. You know, weapons. I asked them how they could possibly expect him to differentiate between GOOD weapons (used by primitive people 1000s of years ago) and BAD weapons (shurikens as seen in Japanese anime). Finally, my wife told them we were just going to have to agree to disagree about the whole weapons thing. They assured us they were just so concerned because it was school department policy to have to report any such incidents to the superintendent of schools. Sheesh. Oh - it is also a big no-no for them to make the "gun sign" (point your finger like a gun). This includes anything that even slightly resembles making the gun sign (like making the "L" for loser sign on your forehead).
Bingo - the administration (principal, etc.) is management, the teachers are "workers". Union prevents management from being mean to workers. So the principal tells us he will encourage the teachers to properly record grades in the system, but apparently has little enforcement power for this practice.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't necessarily disagree with you, but how is this much different than some of the justifications used by the US government for applying the "interstate commerce clause" of the constitution to things that are obviously not interstate commerce?
I thought that the number of rotors had to be even so that the torque canceled out. Canceling torque being the reason why multi-rotor aircraft don't need a separate vertical rotor like an ordinary single horizontal rotor helicopter. Forgive me if I missed some obvious pun and focused on the odd number relationship instead.
Executable content from an uncontrolled source. Sheesh! Why do the folks who design/build entertainment electronics have such a limited understanding of the digital world? Going back to the invention of the Compact Disc as a music medium, the industry consistently demonstrates an inability to think broadly about the opportunities and consequences of the digital world.
People with home networks (i.e., lots of folks) and a TV that permits executable content that was received from an uncontrolled RF source to run on a CPU that has access to the TV's in-home Local Area Network connection will be so screwed it isn't funny.
If all TV's end up with this capability, we'll have to firewall off our TVs from the rest of our home networks. The last thing I need when I get home from work worrying about the unholy intersection of jackass hackers and jackass software vendors is my TV going rogue and hacking into the rest of my carefully secured digital castle through the television.
Is the US government asleep at the switch? Here is the opportunity to nip in the bud a huge threat to national security (ever see how many TVs there are all over all federal buildings these days?). If they can't understand basic Information Systems security enough to understand that executable content MUST be either be from a controlled/trusted source OR MUST be securely isolated from trusted network connections, then we need a new set of policy folks.
One way to stop this idiocy would be to convince the masses that this threat is too great to ignore. If no one buys the TV sets (which are essentially Trojan Horse wormholes), the manufacturers will certainly take notice. If we get the entertainment electronics journalists on board ringing the danger bell, that might put enough of a dent in sales to get their attention.
If I were a student living in one of the rental units, I would want to a) disconnect from restricted access network, b) have the cost credited to me in the form of lower rent, and c) get my own unfiltered Internet access. I think I would even be willing to go to court over it, and maybe even make it a class-action lawsuit.
I would feel the same way if the rental units provided cable TV service, but chose to limit access to certain freely available channels (i.e., local terrestrial broadcast stations), or of the rental units provided a shared FM antenna system but chose to restrict or control access to certain FM radio frequencies.
Whether the FCC has gotten around to making it legally so or not, access to the Internet should be provided as a common carrier service. The intermediaries (such as the rental company in this case) should not be able to try to get a cut of the action above and beyond simply recovering the cost of the service in the rent.
That's my opinion, however. I'm sure others have their own. What the people who control the rental units should bear in mind is that others may share my opinion, and if enough of them do it could get very sticky for them. Restraining people's access to freely available media doesn't go over well.
The child production strategies with which I am most familiar leave no doubt as to the female DNA source. The male parent's genes have a more difficult time ensuring that child-rearing resources are spent on the right combined DNA complex. Should we be surprised at the existence of various strategies to decrease the probability of the male DNA source rearing the wrong DNA complex?
A sniper may be able to avert a major action by removing an important player relatively surgically. He or she would be doing this at great risk to him/herself, by infiltrating an enemy-held area with no backup support other than his/her spotter. That's cowardly? I think the use of snipers is a lot more nuanced than is being presented here.
Interesting. I suppose that if I were being attacked by drones, I would consider it within the rules of war to discover where the drones were being operated from and to attack each and every location that I thought the drones were produced, supplied, and commanded from until they stopped attacking me. That seems to mean that anyone using drones is inviting attacks like that upon themselves.
My original comment wasn't based on subletting, it was based on the transient nature of a hotel/motel/B&B guest as opposed to a neighbor (regardless of whether the neighbor owns/rents/sublets).
There is a wide range of what is acceptable to various people in this context. For some, not knowing who their neighbors are from day to day may not be a big deal. Maybe they like forming new associations constantly, or maybe they avoid forming any associations. Either way, they don't care if the people around them are the same as yesterday or will be the same tomorrow. Others like more constancy in their associations, especially those who are around them when they are most vulnerable (i.e. at home where a lot of relaxing, bathing, and sleeping takes place). It is a tribute to society that many of us feel safe in a variety of circumstances that leave us vulnerable to those around us. We don't feel like we have to live with armed guards, nor constantly watch our backs to make sure someone isn't putting a knife into it. But how comfortable you are in the presence of strangers when you are vulnerable depends a lot on your level of trust in others and/or your ignorance of what can go wrong.
I think people usually expect and operate with the default assumption that the people around them are mostly like themselves, and they govern their actions accordingly. Short-term transient rentals will almost certainly play havoc with those assumptions on both parts. The "inconsiderate assholes" who show up late at night for their AirBnB accommodation probably aren't assholes at all. Their travel was delayed, they are tired and worn out, and they just want to get to a touchdown/relaxation spot. But their assumptions about what constitutes "good behavior" under those circumstances are very different than those of the long-term residents around them think, because they have very different expectations and motivations.
I'm familiar with a circumstance in which the equivalent business to a short-term rental opened in a very small neighborhood (private road off of a county road, six houses). This business has 24 hour a day operations, 7 days per week, with at least 3 employees per shift. Obviously way above/beyond AirBnB of course. The culture clash is enormous. For example, the employees speed down the road when they are late for work (and its not uncommon for people to be running late in the morning). Because its a private road, its only 18 feet wide, not the minimum 22 feet of a county road. The residents know each other, and always slow down to pass each other. The employees don't slow down a bit; I suspect they don't realize the road is as narrow as it is. I'm sure the employees don't understand why the neighbors dislike them so much - they are just working for a living, like everyone else, right? But unlike the residents, there is no tie of the employees to the neighborhood. Its just their job, not where they live.
Interesting. Makes the "sharing economy" sound a lot like prostitution.
Is it possible that there is more going on here than the city protecting the city's revenues? If I were the neighbor of someone engaging in the short term rental of a property that was not in an area zoned for short term rentals, I would be very glad that the municipality was cracking down on them. I like to know who my neighbors are; I don't want new ones showing up every week.
But - if the court doesn't really even understand what was done, how is it possible for the court to know what the right sentence is? I think 3 1/2 years may be a bit much. People convicted of violent offenses against other people may not get 3 1/2 years.
I've heard this claim before, and I'm confused and truly looking for an analysis. The 4th Amendment to the US Constitution says:
The above doesn't explicitly use the word "privacy," but how is the right to be secure in my person, house, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures" not a right to privacy?
The franchise tax board of the state of California has a history of overly broad attempts to collect taxes. I wish I could have sued the state of California for the $1000 they stole from me claiming I owned taxes for a period of time when I was not even a resident (garnished from my wages when I was a resident and never returned even after I proved I wasn't a resident when earning the income they claimed taxes owed upon). If California has to pay out a $400 million judgement for their evil ways, the people to blame are the ones with the evil ways, not the ones who successfully defended themselves against them. I don't know if the guy in question really had an invention, but it doesn't seem like he was a resident of California at the time, at least not to the Nevada jury.
My experience with California and residency is that California will claim you were a California resident for the prior year if you file a federal tax return by April of the current year with a California address (the idea that you could have moved into the state in the first 1/3 of the year seems novel to them). I believe California was also (at one point) trying to retroactively claim taxes owed on 401(k) deferrals made by California citizens who had subsequently moved on to residency in other states before beginning withdrawals from these retirement accounts. I would not assume too quickly that California was right and this guy was wrong just because a motivation can be identified on his part to have tried to escape California taxes. California tries to over claim taxes due whenever they can. With the amount of money at stake here, I can easily believe that they went way over the line in the process.
If an award of some value is to be made to those who substantially advance the start of the art, we need some way to separate those advances which were immediately "inevitable" based on the state of the art as known to practioners, and those in which the state of the art was advanced more than merely incrementally whether through concentrated hard work or through inspired genius.
Part of the challenge of determining which advances were leaps forward and which were merely steps is the "obviousness" problem that makes it so difficult to judge "after the fact." I suspect that once more than a few years have passed, it becomes more and more difficult to determine whether an idea was novel enough for a patent. Perhaps the law needs to be adjusted so that if too much time passes before a patent is granted, the patent can't be granted.
"WTF is a "true atheist"
Perhaps the previous poster mean "true atheist" in the same sense as "true Scotsman" - look it up.
I think that accurately predicting the orbit of satellites requires more than just the mass of the earth as a point. I think that generally predicting the orbit requires less data (and maybe only requires a point mass estimate), but results in errors accumulating over time between where the satellite is predicted to be versus where it really is. Its my understanding that satellites intended for long-term use have mechanisms to correct for the error (i.e., discover the delta and alter the orbit).
Accurately predicting the orbit should improve the error detection/correction capabilities. Just Saturday at a physics lab I saw a physical model of the earth that was developed from analyzing the variations in density of the earth; the model is used to more accurately predict satellite orbit deviations due to variations in the density of the planet earth. It didn't look anything like a nice regular sphere (which is what I think a point mass/no density variation model would look like).
It wouldn't surprise me (but I'm no expert) that even when these density variations and other disturbances are taken into account, satellites still exhibit some position error from what is predicted. Sounds like this guy came up with a fairly radical idea about where some of the additional position error is coming from.
I'm with you. The benefits of the evolution of communications into personal digital communications across the globe has been stolen by corporate interests and the government and used to create a mindfuck situation of unbelievable proportions. It seems like not long ago the US federal government was arguing about how new digital telephone switches so impacted their traditional ability to intercept calls that they need special legislative provisions that required interception capabilities to be built into all telephony switches or else they would lose their ability to investigate crime. Now we all wonder if we have any privacy at all, even in our own homes (how do you know your cell phone hasn't been programmed to perform electronic eavesdropping of your every conversation?), never mind in our on-line e-mails, and now possibly even in our thoughts about blog postings. Its enough to make one paranoid!
I share your wonderment about what the overall purpose of the competition might be. The results will be anecdotal at best, which is not something to base policy upon.
The cynical side of me thinks that these submissions will be used to justify spending on "technology" for education. It seems to be a long-standing yet not necessarily proven meme that using technology in education will make education "better" (cheaper, more effective, etc.). I haven't seen much in the way of a cost/benefit analysis that would identify what kinds of technology brings the best results at a reasonable cost, however.
Spending money on technology for education appears to me to mostly benefit the technology companies. Schools that used to have problems buying enough textbooks now find that they are expected to have electronic whiteboards in every classroom, with PCs to drive them that need to be replaced every 3 years or so. The ones that also include PCs for every student up the ante even further. I *like* technology, but I don't think its the answer to every problem. When it is an answer, it should be shown how its benefit exceeds its cost.
Isn't the same thing true about cars?
As you imply, the IRS doesn't make the tax code - Congress does. In fact, if it weren't for the fact that the IRS is the enforcer of the US tax code, it would almost be possible to feel sorry for them. Congress can pass legislation right up to the end of the year. Within a very short period of time afterwards, the IRS has to have forms, instructions, and processing software ready to go that completely and correctly explains the consequences of the tax code, walks taxpayers through whatever byzantine provisions Congress has come up with, and then calculates taxes owed, refunds, etc. There are no boundaries on the wackiness of the tax code, and it sometimes seems like even the Congress critters don't really understand what the actual rules will be to enforce the tax code provisions.
Firing a US federal government worker? An unlikely outcome.
I have a Bluetooth earpiece and a smartphone. I press the button up by my ear, then say "Call (name from my address book). The phone finds the name in my address book, dials the number, the phone rings, and I start taking when my contact answers the phone. I never touch the phone, just the Bluetooth earpiece, and that only to initiate the call and then to hang up. My experience with auto manufacturer's voice command systems indicates that they should stick to making cars and leave the fancy electronics interfaces to others.
My wife and I had to go in and have a conference with the principal and two teachers when my 4th grade son drew a picture of a figure holding a shuriken in its hand. I was confused by the initial letter of complaint sent home by the teacher: it was not clear whether he was in trouble for drawing a picture (any picture) because he had been instructed to not read or write after finishing a test he was taking, or that he was in trouble for drawing a picture of a WEAPON! (Underlined three times in the note). Things didn't get any better during the meeting when I pointed out that he hadn't read or written anything, he had made a drawing (he is very literal that way). Then they pointed out that he had drawn a picture of a WEAPON! (Imagine that, a 10 year old drawing a picture of a shuriken!). Since I knew already, I asked them what the test had been about - primitive societies. It included several questions on the tools that they used to hunt. You know, weapons. I asked them how they could possibly expect him to differentiate between GOOD weapons (used by primitive people 1000s of years ago) and BAD weapons (shurikens as seen in Japanese anime). Finally, my wife told them we were just going to have to agree to disagree about the whole weapons thing. They assured us they were just so concerned because it was school department policy to have to report any such incidents to the superintendent of schools. Sheesh. Oh - it is also a big no-no for them to make the "gun sign" (point your finger like a gun). This includes anything that even slightly resembles making the gun sign (like making the "L" for loser sign on your forehead).
Bingo - the administration (principal, etc.) is management, the teachers are "workers". Union prevents management from being mean to workers. So the principal tells us he will encourage the teachers to properly record grades in the system, but apparently has little enforcement power for this practice.