The students don't have a choice in whether or not to show up to school, for the most part--skip school and truancy officers start looking for you. Apparently, you'd like to have it both ways: you'd like for students to be required to show up for school, and you'd like to be able to forbid them from school if they're being disruptive.
You can have it one way or the other, but asking for it both strikes me as hypocritical.
Actually, I think that requiring students to attend school past a certain age -- say, 10-12 -- is a big mistake. So at least at the secondary level, I'm not a hypocrite.
I'd favor making secondary school completely optional, and a privilege -- allowed by not being a disruptive influence and some minimum standard of effort. But available on a part-time basis and to people as old as maybe 23, so that the 14-17 year olds who get fed up with the system and then regret it later still have the option.
Not everyone takes advantage of our national parks -- because some people aren't interested. Same with public libraries. Same with a million other public works. It's possible public education should be no different.
I would actually support the student. The principal has no authority over the kid for what he or she does outside of school.
Absolutely. However, the principle should have
darn near absolute authority about what happens
within the school. And that includes who gets to attend. Disruptive influences can be tossed out.
So I say: let the kid keep his website up, no problem. But he doesn't set foot in the school again -- and hey, if the principal really sucked as much as the student thought, then the student wouldn't be all that bad off. The school can block the website and education can go on in peace. The student can find more satisfactory arrangements. And lawyers for an actual libel case.
Hate to say it, folks, but I'm slightly on the principals side.
One year ago I spent four months teaching algebra in a High School in a normal middle class area. It changed a few of the ideas I had about public education. One of them was that you could get by on charisma, intelligence, and efforts to do something beyond the ordinary -- and by "get by" I mean you could educate high schoolers w/o resorting to disciplinary tactics and falling back on institutional authority (I had managed to do so in the past, in an academic summer camp setting).
I was probably 80-90% right -- that's about the number of students who are willing to at least go with the flow and/or respect you for your knowledge and efforts. The problem is that you're left with an intractable 10-20% who really just don't want to be there and don't respect you, and simply because you ARE the institutional authority. They're looking for a conflict/power struggle. If you let them get out of hand, you start losing part of the rest of the 80-90%. And one of the ways to let things get out of hand is allowing disrespect of others (students) or authority figures.
I'm not talking about objections to the way things are done (though you'd be surprised how fast THOSE can get out of hand -- "But we're not READY for the test today... PLEEEAAASE can we move it to Monday?"). I'm not talking about appeals. I'm talking about things like... well, distributing pictures of the principal having sex with Marge Simpson. Repeatedly talking about their penis in the classroom. Making a hobby of reducing a girl in the room to tears. Free speech, yes. But most of you haven't been in the position of teaching in a public school, so you might underestimate the problem. It ain't fire in a crowded theatre -- no one's life is threatened, but I can tell you that quadratics do not get solved and approximating functions for oil prices don't get come up with while this crap is going on.
What's the last resort a teacher has with a recalcitrant student? Or a principal? Nothing, really, except one thing: the ability to decide if the student can continue to attend their classroom -- or for a principal, that institution. I won't ever teach in a public school unless I have an darn near unconditional right to say who gets to stay in my classroom. It's harsh, but it'd be the only way I can make sure I can do my job.
I'd love to find a nice way to resolve that with free speech, but I can't think of anything. The only thing I can think of is this: Free Speech is guaranteed to citizens in law. Free education isn't an unalienable right; it's probably a privilege more on order with a driver's license. You want your education, you don't do anything to make the jobs of educators any harder than they already are.
(To those who notice I posted the same thing when this appeared in YRO last week, I'm sorry. Duplicate submission, duplicate post. Ask the Slashdot editors why they didn't run this story in the main subject queue last week).
Hate to say it, folks, but I'm slightly on the principals side.
One year ago I spent four months teaching algebra in a High School in a normal middle class area. It changed a few of the ideas I had about public education. One of them was that you could get by on charisma, intelligence, and efforts to do something beyond the order -- and by "get by" I mean you could educate high schoolers w/o resorting to disciplinary tactics and falling back on institutional authority.
I was probably 80-90% right -- that's about the number of students who are willing to go with the flow and/or respect you for your knowledge and efforts. The problem is that you're left with an intractable 10-20% who really just don't want to be there and don't respect you because you ARE the institutional authority. If you let them get out of hand, you start losing part of the rest of the 80-90%. And one of the ways to let things get out of hand is allowing disrespect of others or authority figures.
I'm not talking about objections to the way things are done (though you'd be surprised how fast THOSE can get out of hand -- "But we're not READY for the test today... PLEEEAAASE can we move it to Monday?"). I'm not talking about appeals. I'm talking about things like... well, distributing pictures of the principal having sex with Marge Simpson.:) Most of you haven't been in the position of teaching in a public school, so you might underestimate the problem.
What's the last resort a teacher has with a recalcitrant student? Or a principal? Nothing, really, except one thing: the abilitiy to decide if you can continue to attend that institution.
I won't ever teach in a public school unless I have an darn near unconditional right to say who gets to stay in my classroom. It's harsh, but it'd be the only way I can make sure I can do my job.
I'd love to find a nice way to resolve that with free speech, but I can't think of anything. The only thing I can think of is this: Free Speech is guaranteed to citizens in law. Free education isn't an unalienable right; it's probably a privilege more on order with a driver's license. You want your education, you don't do anything to make the jobs of educators any harder than they already are.
PURPOSE: This document specifies the conditions under which tissue (or any other issue) taken from Weston may be used.
I - Should research leading to a profitable enterprise stem from discoveries made by examining Weston's tissue (whether the sole tissue examined or one of many samples), Weston shall be entitled to no less than 5% of the profits.
II - Should any such discoveries be patentable, Weston will be considered a co-holder of the patent, with power to freely license the patent for use by any third party.
III - The provisions in this agreement supercede provisions made in any other agreement. Should another agreement's provisions conflict, the provisions in this document will take precedence.
IV - Enforceability, govenered in Utah, void in Arkansas, blah, blah, blah...
When it comes to copyright law, I really do think Hatch has good intentions. It's just that he can't really see past the "what's good for corporations is good for individuals" and "there is no God but market" stuff. And I think he thinks he "gets it" just because he's a semi-professional lyricist who's collaborated with a few Utah/local big names (though really, it's likely that his privileged position and semi-celebrity status has given him a distorted view of things).
There was a Senate field hearing held at BYU a couple months back. You might want to read my take on the event.. I think it gives some idea that Hatch:
1) really was fishing for corporate support. I can't figure out why else all those corporations were there and allowed to read their press releases in the middle of the hearing
2) really is listening to people at Napster and to independant artists
3) really wants to do something, even if it might not be the greatest... ("let's look to the legislation that killed DAT as our possible solution")
I think that part of Hatch's motivation may come from what you're talking about, but I don't think he's quite as interested in completely regulating it as you might think.
The other part of his motivation is that he fancies himself a lyricist, and has sortof fallen in with the independent artist crowd. His level of privilege/celebrity in society probably gives him a distorted view of what it's like to make it in the world as an artist on your merits, but I think in some ways he's honestly trying.
I think he's misguided in some ways, but probably honestly trying.
I've wanted to pick up a cheap copy of the
last version of A/UX (3.0) for a while -- after all, I've got an SE 30 laying around with not much to do. Any idea where I'd do that? Ebay doesn't seem to have anything...
Many people don't know how to read scripture -- and I'm not just talking about the Bible. Rather than taking it as a possible source of wisdom from which one could learn something, they see it as a rulebook and source material for a feared hegemony (although if you're going to try to live a spiritual discipline, rules do come in at some point -- "that which abideth a law is protected and sanctified by the same").
This observation of mine is supported by the fact there about 10 replies of people who have to ask: Does that mean that it's only adultery if you lust after a woman? What about men? Goats? A bit of thinking goes a long way here. But in order to do that thinking -- and associated wisdom -- have to think about the text, almost enter into a dialogue with it, rather than treat it as a dead set if rules to be interpreted mechanistically and blindly followed. That's a start, at least...
Your argument that it won't happen seems to boil down to two things:
1) People prefer paper over anything that's been produced thus far. This is true.
2) People will always prefer paper over any future technologies. This is extrapolation, and is a mistake. There may very well be something produced that people will prefer. The options discussed in the article have some advantages that other technologies haven't.
3) People will always have the option to exercise their preferences. Not necessarily so: _publishers_ control distribution here. If they decided to go eBook only at some point, that's how it would be, by and large. Especially as the economy of scale for paper production collapsed and the one for ePaper ramped up.
This book is not owned by you: you own the medium on which it is stored and/or the reader on which it resides. You may not transmit this book in its entirety or any portion therof to another reader or medium w/o express permission by Harcourt-Brace publishers....
(that transfering medium clause covers old fasioned paper, folks. And 'express permission' is licenses at $10 a pop... after all, w/o getting properly paid, who would produce books anyway?)
So... What if publishers decide that eBooks are all they're gonna do?
People may or may not prefer these books for a while. As long as ePaper isn't almost exactly like reading off of real paper -- and even if it is, as long as the book interface/experiences of literal pages and a nice weighty feel is prefered over the slick single page attached to a chip -- people will probably want printed materials.
However, keep in mind that publishers have every incentive at the moment to go digital. Why? Access controls, and a legal framework that supports them . They can control who reads their published stuff, and charge per read. Say goodbye to ownership, say hello to licensing.
Not to mention that if they play their cards right, their cost for production and distribution will actually drop through the floor.
And they can do it all in the name of saving trees. How nice.:)
I think it might be important that we get copy protection/copyright issues resolved before these new storage technologies arrive.
As more proprietary stuff is produced -- and if it has killer-app serious storage capabilities -- several things will happen:
1) people will realize that they can store all the movies they want to watch and trade on their peer-to-peer networks
2) The media bullies of america will realize this too, and rather than develop a new business model and adapt, will demand draconian restrictions.
3) It will be easier to slip the "protection" mechanisms into the emerging proprietary technologies....
Bottom line: we need to make sure the issue is resolved sooner rather than later.
Even if spammimic only gets 2 hits a day; the fact that it's here might force the snoops to process terabytes of spam -- making them spend a
little less time on other mails.
Unless, of course, they can convince the general public that now, not only is spam annoying, it's actually a threat to national security -- nay, an open INVITATION to have a middle eastern terrorist bomb the public library in your home town. This could be the end of legal spam!
And if it's not, then we get cool steganography! Either way, we win!
('course, if they can get the public to buy that, they can get the public to buy pretty much anything, and we might be in big trouble.)
And the economic games involved in this sort of thing -- not to mention the literal life and death nature of it -- are exactly the reason why health insurance problems shouldn't be solved by "the free market".
I begin to think that state sponsored health insurance is the most humane choice. Possibly not the most ruthlessly effecient, but most humane.
I wouldn't be surprised if it were... insurance
companies already get to discriminate by criteria that practically no one else can: age and gender. Maybe they have race in the closet too.
I just saw Gattaca a few weeks ago for the first time. The phrase that stuck out in my head was "discrimination down to a science". The thing is, the insurance companies -- and who knows who else -- already DO have it down to a science with statistical analysis... the genetic links just will make the physical/health aspects more precise.
And apparently, it's not just coming, it's already here.
This might be a little hard for you all to follow (yes, especially you linear algebra freaks or you history buffs), but my parents came up with my nick. It's on my birth certificate. It's... it's...(*gasp*)... my REAL NAME!
Apparently they came up with it sortof on accident. One said "How about 'Winston'? and the other said "'Weston'? How did you come up with that?" and the other said "I didn't, but I like it!" I don't beleive they remember which said what.
Here's some things you could implement by chaging you apache configuration or by including a bit of code in you CGIs/PHP stuff:
1) Block/Redirect by referer. That way, if you've already been indexed, you can redirect Altavista users to a page explaining Altavista's infamies and directing them to a more ethical search engine. Additionally, if you have legal firepower, you could let Altavista know that you know they're indexing your site and that you charge to let you site be indexed.
2) Please see the children of this comment for suggestions about robots.txt and blocking/redirecting by User Agent (Altavista's is called Scooter).
I think there is a Webmaster's guild somewhere. Also, perhaps the w3c could weigh in.
I'm actually part Cliff Stoll disciple (well, I agree with him on many points), so I'm definitely not of the mind that the presence of computers can bolster most areas of education. However, there's a few points I'd like to bring up:
1) I'm convinced that learning to program boosted my understanding of mathematics and problem solving in general. From programming, I learned what variables and formulas and functions were. I learned to break down problems into smaller problems.
I heard someone say "Honestly, I don't know how people who can't code get by" a couple of years ago. When I taught High School Algebra a year ago, I saw that some people could code mathematically and some people couldn't, and wondered if a programming course or two would have helped (there was, though, a Linux/Perl hacker who couldn't factor polynomials to save his life).
That said, most "computers in education" initiatives probably don't really include the idea of teaching programming to every student.
2) Having computers in schools probably
does help with... learning about computers. It would provide kids who don't have computers at home with a chance to become literate with them. Or more.
Case in point: me & some of my classmates. My family had (up until I was a senior in high school) a TI 99/4A. A cool machine, and I love Parsec, but not a paragon of modern computing, even in the late 80s. At school, we were fortunate enough to have (donated by Word Perfect, I beleive) an ICON m68020 based unix workstation. So at age 16 I was lucky enough to have access to something UNIXish and learn all sorts of good things. Another guy in my class, Matt, completely absorbed the OS and I believe was making $50,000 a year in the early 90s working as a sysadmin/consultant. Not bad. Several others in that class have gone onto cool things.
3) I worked for a company called the Waterford Institute for a bit. They create software to teach young kids fundamentals of reading and math. Coincidentally, my Mom works as a remedial reading teacher, and the school where she was working used their software. It was her feeling that the software actually really helped many of the kids. Each exercise was very carefully designed by educators/artists/techwriters/programmers together (I've never seen software so well speced and designed) and they usually quite entertaining.
1) it encourages sexual feelings towards children; the theory is that encouraging those feelings may someday lead to action.
2) the actual creation of porn involving children is sexual abuse, therefore, it's illegal.
Now with the creation of virtual porn, it looks like reason #2 is magically eliminated. #1 becomes the focus, and is being discussed elsewhere in this topic.
But I want to point out there still exists a problem with #2. If you open the gate to making Virtual Kiddie Porn legal (and the state of Kiddie Porn Technology (TM) advances to the point where it's photoreal), then suddenly, you have a huge enforcement problem. "No, sir, this is %100 virtual kiddie porn. We wouldn't deal in that REAL stuff -- that's sick."
Your ability to protect actual victims and to tell those who are breaking the law from those who aren't.
That introduced ambiguity by itself should be enough of a reason to hold back on declaring VKP legal. Add to that the possibility that KP might encourage sexual behavior towards children -- and we don't know that it doesn't -- and the better bet seems to be to keep it illegal.
Um, how exactly is this *offtopic*? This is talking about a reason not to switch to OS X from Linux -- namely that darwin hasn't found its way into most autoconfiguration schemes, and so you can't easily compile things for it.
OS X and Linux and their relative merits really should be part of the threads here, right?
Yellowbox/Openstep). How is it that a former OS that basically failed (mostly due to Steve Jobs, no fault of the OS) being reincarnated as MacOS X and having basically the same development tools as before is a "find"?
In terms of market acceptance, Nextstep and openstep failed. In terms of delivering an excellent product, both the OS and the development tools/framework were quite successful. Small software shops did some pretty amazing things thanks to the productivity allowed to them by the platform.
I expect the same thing to happen here -- the market will probably overlook some of the incredible tools available. But that doesn't make Cocoa any less excellent.
Some astute (possibly evil) fortune builder could make themselves an internet power by giving ISPs incentives to use their root servers. Pay them, give them free support, whatever. Meanwhile, offer any TLD not taken already for a fee. Embrace and extend.... (goodness, I hope no MS minions are reading this).
Whether or not they've used it wisely (um, definitely not), Network Solutions has wielded
a huge amount of market power. In part because they had exclusive rights to sell TLDs for a while, but in part because they have the root level nameserver.
1) Have you ever seen what a cat does when it gets in a car?
2) What if these lifeforms actually were our first contact with intelligent life from space?
Also, the Evil Chinese masterminds need something to stroke as they ponder their next threat to the world....
Slashdot Mirror
The students don't have a choice in whether or not to show up to school, for the most part--skip school and truancy officers start looking for you. Apparently, you'd like to have it both ways: you'd like for students to be required to show up for school, and you'd like to be able to forbid them from school if they're being disruptive.
You can have it one way or the other, but asking for it both strikes me as hypocritical.
Actually, I think that requiring students to attend school past a certain age -- say, 10-12 -- is a big mistake. So at least at the secondary level, I'm not a hypocrite.
I'd favor making secondary school completely optional, and a privilege -- allowed by not being a disruptive influence and some minimum standard of effort. But available on a part-time basis and to people as old as maybe 23, so that the 14-17 year olds who get fed up with the system and then regret it later still have the option.
Not everyone takes advantage of our national parks -- because some people aren't interested. Same with public libraries. Same with a million other public works. It's possible public education should be no different.
--
I would actually support the student. The principal has no authority over the kid for what he or she does outside of school.
Absolutely. However, the principle should have
darn near absolute authority about what happens
within the school. And that includes who gets to attend. Disruptive influences can be tossed out.
So I say: let the kid keep his website up, no problem. But he doesn't set foot in the school again -- and hey, if the principal really sucked as much as the student thought, then the student wouldn't be all that bad off. The school can block the website and education can go on in peace. The student can find more satisfactory arrangements. And lawyers for an actual libel case.
--
Hate to say it, folks, but I'm slightly on the principals side.
... well, distributing pictures of the principal having sex with Marge Simpson. Repeatedly talking about their penis in the classroom. Making a hobby of reducing a girl in the room to tears. Free speech, yes. But most of you haven't been in the position of teaching in a public school, so you might underestimate the problem. It ain't fire in a crowded theatre -- no one's life is threatened, but I can tell you that quadratics do not get solved and approximating functions for oil prices don't get come up with while this crap is going on.
One year ago I spent four months teaching algebra in a High School in a normal middle class area. It changed a few of the ideas I had about public education. One of them was that you could get by on charisma, intelligence, and efforts to do something beyond the ordinary -- and by "get by" I mean you could educate high schoolers w/o resorting to disciplinary tactics and falling back on institutional authority (I had managed to do so in the past, in an academic summer camp setting).
I was probably 80-90% right -- that's about the number of students who are willing to at least go with the flow and/or respect you for your knowledge and efforts. The problem is that you're left with an intractable 10-20% who really just don't want to be there and don't respect you, and simply because you ARE the institutional authority. They're looking for a conflict/power struggle. If you let them get out of hand, you start losing part of the rest of the 80-90%. And one of the ways to let things get out of hand is allowing disrespect of others (students) or authority figures.
I'm not talking about objections to the way things are done (though you'd be surprised how fast THOSE can get out of hand -- "But we're not READY for the test today... PLEEEAAASE can we move it to Monday?"). I'm not talking about appeals. I'm talking about things like
What's the last resort a teacher has with a recalcitrant student? Or a principal? Nothing, really, except one thing: the ability to decide if the student can continue to attend their classroom -- or for a principal, that institution. I won't ever teach in a public school unless I have an darn near unconditional right to say who gets to stay in my classroom. It's harsh, but it'd be the only way I can make sure I can do my job.
I'd love to find a nice way to resolve that with free speech, but I can't think of anything. The only thing I can think of is this: Free Speech is guaranteed to citizens in law. Free education isn't an unalienable right; it's probably a privilege more on order with a driver's license. You want your education, you don't do anything to make the jobs of educators any harder than they already are.
(To those who notice I posted the same thing when this appeared in YRO last week, I'm sorry. Duplicate submission, duplicate post. Ask the Slashdot editors why they didn't run this story in the main subject queue last week).
--
Hate to say it, folks, but I'm slightly on the principals side.
... well, distributing pictures of the principal having sex with Marge Simpson. :) Most of you haven't been in the position of teaching in a public school, so you might underestimate the problem.
One year ago I spent four months teaching algebra in a High School in a normal middle class area. It changed a few of the ideas I had about public education. One of them was that you could get by on charisma, intelligence, and efforts to do something beyond the order -- and by "get by" I mean you could educate high schoolers w/o resorting to disciplinary tactics and falling back on institutional authority.
I was probably 80-90% right -- that's about the number of students who are willing to go with the flow and/or respect you for your knowledge and efforts. The problem is that you're left with an intractable 10-20% who really just don't want to be there and don't respect you because you ARE the institutional authority. If you let them get out of hand, you start losing part of the rest of the 80-90%. And one of the ways to let things get out of hand is allowing disrespect of others or authority figures.
I'm not talking about objections to the way things are done (though you'd be surprised how fast THOSE can get out of hand -- "But we're not READY for the test today... PLEEEAAASE can we move it to Monday?"). I'm not talking about appeals. I'm talking about things like
What's the last resort a teacher has with a recalcitrant student? Or a principal? Nothing, really, except one thing: the abilitiy to decide if you can continue to attend that institution.
I won't ever teach in a public school unless I have an darn near unconditional right to say who gets to stay in my classroom. It's harsh, but it'd be the only way I can make sure I can do my job.
I'd love to find a nice way to resolve that with free speech, but I can't think of anything. The only thing I can think of is this: Free Speech is guaranteed to citizens in law. Free education isn't an unalienable right; it's probably a privilege more on order with a driver's license. You want your education, you don't do anything to make the jobs of educators any harder than they already are.
--
PURPOSE: This document specifies the conditions under which tissue (or any other issue) taken from Weston may be used.
I - Should research leading to a profitable enterprise stem from discoveries made by examining Weston's tissue (whether the sole tissue examined or one of many samples), Weston shall be entitled to no less than 5% of the profits.
II - Should any such discoveries be patentable, Weston will be considered a co-holder of the patent, with power to freely license the patent for use by any third party.
III - The provisions in this agreement supercede provisions made in any other agreement. Should another agreement's provisions conflict, the provisions in this document will take precedence.
IV - Enforceability, govenered in Utah, void in Arkansas, blah, blah, blah...
--
I don't drink, but I voted for Howell. :)
When it comes to copyright law, I really do think Hatch has good intentions. It's just that he can't really see past the "what's good for corporations is good for individuals" and "there is no God but market" stuff. And I think he thinks he "gets it" just because he's a semi-professional lyricist who's collaborated with a few Utah/local big names (though really, it's likely that his privileged position and semi-celebrity status has given him a distorted view of things).
There was a Senate field hearing held at BYU a couple months back. You might want to read my take on the event.. I think it gives some idea that Hatch:
1) really was fishing for corporate support. I can't figure out why else all those corporations were there and allowed to read their press releases in the middle of the hearing
2) really is listening to people at Napster and to independant artists
3) really wants to do something, even if it might not be the greatest... ("let's look to the legislation that killed DAT as our possible solution")
--
I think that part of Hatch's motivation may come from what you're talking about, but I don't think he's quite as interested in completely regulating it as you might think.
The other part of his motivation is that he fancies himself a lyricist, and has sortof fallen in with the independent artist crowd. His level of privilege/celebrity in society probably gives him a distorted view of what it's like to make it in the world as an artist on your merits, but I think in some ways he's honestly trying.
I think he's misguided in some ways, but probably honestly trying.
You may want to read some of my comments on his DCMA and Peer-To-Peer hearing.
--
I've wanted to pick up a cheap copy of the
last version of A/UX (3.0) for a while -- after all, I've got an SE 30 laying around with not much to do. Any idea where I'd do that? Ebay doesn't seem to have anything...
--
Just another thought:
Many people don't know how to read scripture -- and I'm not just talking about the Bible. Rather than taking it as a possible source of wisdom from which one could learn something, they see it as a rulebook and source material for a feared hegemony (although if you're going to try to live a spiritual discipline, rules do come in at some point -- "that which abideth a law is protected and sanctified by the same").
This observation of mine is supported by the fact there about 10 replies of people who have to ask: Does that mean that it's only adultery if you lust after a woman? What about men? Goats? A bit of thinking goes a long way here. But in order to do that thinking -- and associated wisdom -- have to think about the text, almost enter into a dialogue with it, rather than treat it as a dead set if rules to be interpreted mechanistically and blindly followed. That's a start, at least...
--
Your argument that it won't happen seems to boil down to two things:
1) People prefer paper over anything that's been produced thus far. This is true.
2) People will always prefer paper over any future technologies. This is extrapolation, and is a mistake. There may very well be something produced that people will prefer. The options discussed in the article have some advantages that other technologies haven't.
3) People will always have the option to exercise their preferences. Not necessarily so: _publishers_ control distribution here. If they decided to go eBook only at some point, that's how it would be, by and large. Especially as the economy of scale for paper production collapsed and the one for ePaper ramped up.
--
Future license:
This book is not owned by you: you own the medium on which it is stored and/or the reader on which it resides. You may not transmit this book in its entirety or any portion therof to another reader or medium w/o express permission by Harcourt-Brace publishers....
(that transfering medium clause covers old fasioned paper, folks. And 'express permission' is licenses at $10 a pop... after all, w/o getting properly paid, who would produce books anyway?)
--
So... What if publishers decide that eBooks are all they're gonna do?
:)
People may or may not prefer these books for a while. As long as ePaper isn't almost exactly like reading off of real paper -- and even if it is, as long as the book interface/experiences of literal pages and a nice weighty feel is prefered over the slick single page attached to a chip -- people will probably want printed materials.
However, keep in mind that publishers have every incentive at the moment to go digital. Why? Access controls, and a legal framework that supports them . They can control who reads their published stuff, and charge per read. Say goodbye to ownership, say hello to licensing.
Not to mention that if they play their cards right, their cost for production and distribution will actually drop through the floor.
And they can do it all in the name of saving trees. How nice.
--
Just a thought here, folks....
I think it might be important that we get copy protection/copyright issues resolved before these new storage technologies arrive.
As more proprietary stuff is produced -- and if it has killer-app serious storage capabilities -- several things will happen:
1) people will realize that they can store all the movies they want to watch and trade on their peer-to-peer networks
2) The media bullies of america will realize this too, and rather than develop a new business model and adapt, will demand draconian restrictions.
3) It will be easier to slip the "protection" mechanisms into the emerging proprietary technologies....
Bottom line: we need to make sure the issue is resolved sooner rather than later.
--
Even if spammimic only gets 2 hits a day; the fact that it's here might force the snoops to process terabytes of spam -- making them spend a
little less time on other mails.
Unless, of course, they can convince the general public that now, not only is spam annoying, it's actually a threat to national security -- nay, an open INVITATION to have a middle eastern terrorist bomb the public library in your home town. This could be the end of legal spam!
And if it's not, then we get cool steganography! Either way, we win!
('course, if they can get the public to buy that, they can get the public to buy pretty much anything, and we might be in big trouble.)
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And the economic games involved in this sort of thing -- not to mention the literal life and death nature of it -- are exactly the reason why health insurance problems shouldn't be solved by "the free market".
I begin to think that state sponsored health insurance is the most humane choice. Possibly not the most ruthlessly effecient, but most humane.
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So my question is: is this actually legal?
... the genetic links just will make the physical/health aspects more precise.
I wouldn't be surprised if it were... insurance
companies already get to discriminate by criteria that practically no one else can: age and gender. Maybe they have race in the closet too.
I just saw Gattaca a few weeks ago for the first time. The phrase that stuck out in my head was "discrimination down to a science". The thing is, the insurance companies -- and who knows who else -- already DO have it down to a science with statistical analysis
And apparently, it's not just coming, it's already here.
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This might be a little hard for you all to follow (yes, especially you linear algebra freaks or you history buffs), but my parents came up with my nick. It's on my birth certificate. It's... it's...(*gasp*)... my REAL NAME!
Apparently they came up with it sortof on accident. One said "How about 'Winston'? and the other said "'Weston'? How did you come up with that?" and the other said "I didn't, but I like it!" I don't beleive they remember which said what.
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Here's some things you could implement by chaging you apache configuration or by including a bit of code in you CGIs/PHP stuff:
1) Block/Redirect by referer. That way, if you've already been indexed, you can redirect Altavista users to a page explaining Altavista's infamies and directing them to a more ethical search engine. Additionally, if you have legal firepower, you could let Altavista know that you know they're indexing your site and that you charge to let you site be indexed.
2) Please see the children of this comment for suggestions about robots.txt and blocking/redirecting by User Agent (Altavista's is called Scooter).
I think there is a Webmaster's guild somewhere. Also, perhaps the w3c could weigh in.
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I'm actually part Cliff Stoll disciple (well, I agree with him on many points), so I'm definitely not of the mind that the presence of computers can bolster most areas of education. However, there's a few points I'd like to bring up:
1) I'm convinced that learning to program boosted my understanding of mathematics and problem solving in general. From programming, I learned what variables and formulas and functions were. I learned to break down problems into smaller problems.
I heard someone say "Honestly, I don't know how people who can't code get by" a couple of years ago. When I taught High School Algebra a year ago, I saw that some people could code mathematically and some people couldn't, and wondered if a programming course or two would have helped (there was, though, a Linux/Perl hacker who couldn't factor polynomials to save his life).
That said, most "computers in education" initiatives probably don't really include the idea of teaching programming to every student.
2) Having computers in schools probably
does help with... learning about computers. It would provide kids who don't have computers at home with a chance to become literate with them. Or more.
Case in point: me & some of my classmates. My family had (up until I was a senior in high school) a TI 99/4A. A cool machine, and I love Parsec, but not a paragon of modern computing, even in the late 80s. At school, we were fortunate enough to have (donated by Word Perfect, I beleive) an ICON m68020 based unix workstation. So at age 16 I was lucky enough to have access to something UNIXish and learn all sorts of good things. Another guy in my class, Matt, completely absorbed the OS and I believe was making $50,000 a year in the early 90s working as a sysadmin/consultant. Not bad. Several others in that class have gone onto cool things.
3) I worked for a company called the Waterford Institute for a bit. They create software to teach young kids fundamentals of reading and math. Coincidentally, my Mom works as a remedial reading teacher, and the school where she was working used their software. It was her feeling that the software actually really helped many of the kids. Each exercise was very carefully designed by educators/artists/techwriters/programmers together (I've never seen software so well speced and designed) and they usually quite entertaining.
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Child porn has been illegal for two reasons:
1) it encourages sexual feelings towards children; the theory is that encouraging those feelings may someday lead to action.
2) the actual creation of porn involving children is sexual abuse, therefore, it's illegal.
Now with the creation of virtual porn, it looks like reason #2 is magically eliminated. #1 becomes the focus, and is being discussed elsewhere in this topic.
But I want to point out there still exists a problem with #2. If you open the gate to making Virtual Kiddie Porn legal (and the state of Kiddie Porn Technology (TM) advances to the point where it's photoreal), then suddenly, you have a huge enforcement problem. "No, sir, this is %100 virtual kiddie porn. We wouldn't deal in that REAL stuff -- that's sick."
Your ability to protect actual victims and to tell those who are breaking the law from those who aren't.
That introduced ambiguity by itself should be enough of a reason to hold back on declaring VKP legal. Add to that the possibility that KP might encourage sexual behavior towards children -- and we don't know that it doesn't -- and the better bet seems to be to keep it illegal.
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Explore the dark silent depths of usenet groups/hierarchies that have fallen into disuse!
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Um, how exactly is this *offtopic*? This is talking about a reason not to switch to OS X from Linux -- namely that darwin hasn't found its way into most autoconfiguration schemes, and so you can't easily compile things for it.
OS X and Linux and their relative merits really should be part of the threads here, right?
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Yellowbox/Openstep). How is it that a former OS that basically failed (mostly due to Steve Jobs, no fault of the OS) being reincarnated as MacOS X and having basically the same development tools as before is a "find"?
In terms of market acceptance, Nextstep and openstep failed. In terms of delivering an excellent product, both the OS and the development tools/framework were quite successful. Small software shops did some pretty amazing things thanks to the productivity allowed to them by the platform.
I expect the same thing to happen here -- the market will probably overlook some of the incredible tools available. But that doesn't make Cocoa any less excellent.
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Some astute (possibly evil) fortune builder could make themselves an internet power by giving ISPs incentives to use their root servers. Pay them, give them free support, whatever. Meanwhile, offer any TLD not taken already for a fee. Embrace and extend.... (goodness, I hope no MS minions are reading this).
Whether or not they've used it wisely (um, definitely not), Network Solutions has wielded
a huge amount of market power. In part because they had exclusive rights to sell TLDs for a while, but in part because they have the root level nameserver.
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Why?
1) Have you ever seen what a cat does when it gets in a car?
2) What if these lifeforms actually were our first contact with intelligent life from space?
Also, the Evil Chinese masterminds need something to stroke as they ponder their next threat to the world....
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