How so? I'll tell you - it's because the students are violating the Acceptable Use Policy that all students sign and agree to. If they disagree, then can use their parents' computers to accomplish those things that are explicitly forbidden at school (and that they are required to enforce by law - the CIPA, in fact), or find other public use computers that do not have those restrictions.
I'm not sure why folks don't understand this - it doesn't MATTER if you, or anyone else thinks that having an Acceptable Use Policy is a good idea or not. What does matter is that they agreed to it, then violated that agreement. That means they will face a consequence for that violation.
That's like getting a library card - you agree to borrow a book, and return it. If you think that because you're impoverished, or need the money to buy medicine for chemotheraphy for your sainted mother, and so sell the book and fail to return it, that you WON'T be prosecuted for violating the law, then you're delusional.
The school enforces policy that the local school board approved. The parents elect the school board, and so they delegate the responsibility to the board to come up with school policies. We DO still live in a representative democracy, after all. Sheesh.
I agree with an earlier post - it's far better to teach our youth that there are consequences for our actions, and that THEY are responsible for their own actions. Get this hard lesson learned when the only consequence is missing Grad Night at Disneyland or a big school dance, and not getting fired for violating the company AUP when your wife is pregnant, the car needs new tires, and your doctor says you need an operation.
Sometimes those consequences are things that we disagree with. Great. Go out, fight the good fight, and get those policies changed. Run for school board. Get petitions signed. Make REAL change. And find out that it's hard, thankless work.
But for pete's sake, stop with the whining!
Joe G. Mono County Office of Education Mammoth Lakes, CA
Actually, these have been used commercially, but are no longer produced for a variety of reasons. They're called Darrieus turbines (vertial axis wind turbine, or VAWT), and they had a site in Tehachapi pass, in California (between Bakersfield and Mojave) until the early 1990's. They were owned by a company based in San Rafael, California, called Flowind. They worked fine, but had certain drawbacks compared to horizontal axis wind turbines. For one, they don't start themselves when the wind blows (unlike HAWTs). They must be jump-started with a motor. Second, they take up more ground area, since the top of the axis must be supported by guy wires. Third, the Flowind VAWTs had an initial problem with bad blades. They were extruded aluminum, and they experienced severe fatigue over time, due to harmonic effects during rotation. Flowind eventually got most of this under control, but it was too little, too late. HAWTs took over because they could put more of them in higher density on existing sites, for less money. The HAWTs were also higher capacity (more kW per turbine), had new technological advances such as variable pitch blades, and with that technology, they could take advantage of shear effect (because the wind blows faster at the top of the rotor plane, and slower at the bottom of the rotor plane), a controller could pitch the blades more aggressively at the top of the rotor plane to take advantage of the higher windspeed there, and pitch less aggressively at the bottom, to get more power per MPH of wind flow.
The Flowind site in Tehachapi was repowered in the 1990's with HAWTs made by Danish firm NEG Micon wind turbines, and are still running there today. No Darrieus turbines remain in use commercially (industrial scale windfarms), as far as I'm aware.
I used to work for Zond Energy Systems, who installed hundreds of wind turbines in Tehachapi pass, and who was eventually purchased by Enron energy, and they are now GE Windpower (General Electric), so I was there in Tehachapi during the decommissioning of the Flowind Darrieus machines.
Good God. If your assessment of the IT staff at your school is based on your ability to absorb what they have to offer, then take a look at your paragraph, and see what I see on what you've apparently gleaned from your English and Language Arts teachers. I doubt many will take you very seriously. Do you really not know what it looks like to others when your spelling and grammar are so weak?
Putting that aside, your generalization of IT staff in education is poorly founded. First, you offer rationalization on your own weaknesses, yet magnify them in others (educational IT staff). If you ever attend the NIC (network implementation committee) for the state of California, you'll find fifty top men and women in IT, working to design, implement, and maintain the K12HSN in California. That's the network that connects K12s to the rest of CalREN (higher ed high speed backbone), and these are no slouches. I personally know county and district IT staff from virtually every county in California, and I'd say my experience runs counter to your perception. So who's right?
If you're judging all of educational IT by your own weak experience (I'm assuming in high school), your sample is far too small to make such a broad generalization. But then, this is Slashdot, so I suppose I should temper my own expectations...sigh.
But the problem is that sometimes "the worst human" is using something technologically hefty enough (like, say, a multi-ton airplane full of people and fuel) to do something rather drastic, and irreversibly final.
Your quote gets right to the crux of the matter. Both in the Star Wars movies, and standard Christian philosophy, there is no "irreversibly final" act. Yoda admonishes Anakin to let go of his obsession with the things of this world, which even includes his attachment to Padme. He tells Anakin to rejoice, rather than mourn, death. This flies in the face of most self-centered philosophies, which are ultimately doomed to fail, due to mankind's mortality. If the meaning of one's life is dependent on things that end with one's own life ("Be nice to other people, do good works, fulfill one's own potential, etc.), then that philosophy fails when one's life ends, as they all will. Hence, the Star Wars philosophy extends beyond mortal life, but anyone who doesn't have faith in "the force," and therefore refuses to accept that death is not the end, but rather a beginning, never gains the greatest power (eternal life, peace, happiness, wisdom, as evidenced by the return of Yoda and Obi Wan in ghost form), and spends their existence in futile search for transcendence which never comes. It is through the act of faith that they become "true" Jedi. Without faith, characters are left with nothing greater to live for than power, money, control, etc. And that way lies the Dark Side...;-)
Yoda's advice resonates with Christian philosophy in the same way. Redemption for even the worst of humans is possible because God's power extends beyond this world. So when one has faith, their actions will reflect that faith, and redemption is at hand. Yes, even for murderers, rapists, child-killers, child molesters, or any other horrible human-based atrocity. Theologically speaking, Lucas' "force" has this in common with other religious philosophies which advocate faith as their catalyst, and extends beyond mortal life.
Well, that's sort of the definition of redemption. If you're talking standard Christian doctrine, then redemption is available to ALL sinners, regardless of the depths of their apostasy. If you're a Christian, then your sin is forgiven by God, through his Son. All you have to do is accept redemption sincerely, and it is given to you.
Now, in Star Wars, I guess we can imagine that Luke is willing to sacrifice his life for his dad's. By accepting that act of gracious sacrifice, Darth was redeemed. Not quite a perfect fit with standard Christian stories, but the metaphor remains intact. Someone who is faithful (Luke has faith in his father's goodness despite much evidence to the contrary) reaches out to someone who doesn't deserve it, and offers redemption. It is accepted, and the person is redeemed!
If King David can be redeemed through faith, then so can Darth Vader...
Maybe we're just a bit too jaded with a vengeful mentality these days to accept the idea that even the worst human is worthy of redemption.
There is a market for these, and you've spotted it - the teeming masses who will use it for email and nothing else.
But, the whole point of Apple's biggest marketshare success was that Steve Wozniak was a tinkerer, and made a box that was easy to tinker with! Do you remember when people made 3rd party cards for Apple IIs and Apple actually encouraged that? There were all kinds of cool hacks, alternate vendors for stuff, (hard drives! floppy disk controllers, RAM cards, modems, and so much more).
Moreover, businesses used them because they were capable of running spreadsheets, and there were no alternatives then (IBM's original PC wasn't even made yet!), and the Apple II kicked everyone's ass in terms of expandability and 3rd party software.
It was Steve Jobs who made the Macintosh into a strictly defined device (he often made the "toaster" analogy - computers would be consumer items like toasters - no need to tinker with it!). Jobs never really understood the psychological mindset of the folks who made the Apple II such a success (more successful in terms of business market penetration even than any Mac since) - that people WANT the ability to hack a computer, even if they never use that ability.
When presented with two computers - one with expandability, lots of 3rd party vendor accessories, and the second with limited hardware, only for use with the original vendor certified parts, then most (not all, but most) will choose one with the ABILITY to use more features, even if they NEVER ACTUALLY USE THAT ABILITY. That's the "consumer" hacker mindset, and Jobs never "got" it in the same way Wozniak instinctively did.
Couldn't Google just crawl Microsoft in return? Then they'd be stuck in an endless loop, and William Shatner can then swoop in, crack some skulls, and save the day.
Was that supposed to be "thoughtful contemplation?" Perhaps before the good Commander posted that, he should have paused for a bit of thoughtful contemplation...
You make it sound as if the "only" difference is the convenience. It is a HUGE difference! I *still* don't make Xerox copies in my house, because they're not the flexible tool that a computer is. I've had a VCR for decades now, soon to be completely replaced by my computer/DVD player. I've owned tape recorders until they became obsolete a few years ago.
The reason file sharing is so huge is PRECISELY because it is so easy to use! Don't discount that when discussing the phenomenon of file sharing.
Your point is, I think, that file sharing is against the law. That seems to be the case. The question most slashdotters hear, and most want to discuss is, "SHOULD it continue to be against the law, and in the face of rampant lawbreaking, do we need to reevaluate the underlying assumptions of the law that's being broken?"
Whether or not you are partial to judicial review, it's still a good topic for discussion.
The argument is more nuanced, and is rarely so cut and dried.
It is not like stealing. Your song on Kazaa is being distributed as surely as it would be on a radio station, except you get no performance payments. THAT'S the real difference.
Record companies did not adjust quickly enough to a new technological model of distribution, and so the marketplace came up with a free alternative. Bummer. That genie is out of the bottle...
Options? Well, suing the crap out of everyone is one way to curb file sharing, but that has the detrimental effect of keeping the music out of the hands of the fans, and pissing off the most ardent enthusiasts of music.
Trying a performance fee such as online radio stations might work, and ISPs would be required to collect the fee from all users, based on the amount of music files shared per ISP.
The really, REALLY difficult part of all this is the fact that the internet is GLOBAL, and radio stations, and even television really isn't! So any payment scheme legislated in the US wouldn't apply overseas without some really serious negotiation. But hey, at least SOME income is better than nothing. Perhaps the US fees would be enough to keep these musicians off the streets...
It's going to take time to adjust to this "new" (cough) phenomenon of the internet, and how it flattens the distriubtion model to just one layer (the producer to the consumer!), with no place in the middle to take a cut of the action.
Other big ideas? I'm sure there's VC out there for someone who can make music pay...
That wouldn't work with our 68030 Macs, which still require tech intervention. Norton Ghost works for our 133MHz Pentiums to our 1.7GHz Centrino workstations. Ah well. Vive la difference.
I replied to this earlier in another post, but I'll speak as a small-district IT director (at in Bishop, CA).
In our districts, Macs do not have lower TCO (as nebulous as that term is) compared to our PCs. The reason is simple - Norton Ghost. Our largest manpower sink is when a classroom computer gets hosed completely, and requires a clean install. With Norton Ghost, we re-image the drive in MINUTES, from anywhere on my network. I can VNC to our server, re-cast the Ghost image to the proper computer, and voila! The classroom computer is back online.
This is, of course, our last resort, but it does make centralized managment simpler for very serious problems. Additionally, if you aren't familiar with Active Directory, you can tweak pretty much every OS feature through it, and roll out different profiles on a per-user basis. This is excellent when teachers and students use the same classroom computers. Each profile can be roaming, so that teachers can work on their gradebook software on any computer on our campuses, or the students can get their documents from the same "My Documents" folder because they're all redirected to network shares by user. Cool stuff, and for a staff one one (me), it rocks.
I have previewed the Apple OS X server hardware and software (it was sent free to me by Apple, for evaluation), and it wasn't as tweakable, and I never did find a Norton Ghost equivalent for Apple OS.
We recently installed enough new computers in OUR middle school (in Bishop, CA to lower the student-to-computer ratio to 10-1.
When making the platform decision, the ability to quickly restore services if any given desktop got hosed was absolutely critical.
Using Norton Ghost, we can *immediately* re-cast the ghost image to any computer on the LAN, and restore the computer to pristine condition. This is not client-based, and can be done from remote.
Using the Active Directory for installation of redirected student folders, setting permissions on a per-user basis, locking down some desktop components, allow roaming profiles, and remote desktop management keeps our staff level manageable. This is done using, well, me.
Manpower required is THE determining factor when analyzing platform requirements. Sure, there are zealots for pretty much any OS choice, and Mac zealots will swear by their platform, and Linux zealots will cry out for how cheap their platform is, but the fact is that I have myself, one part-time network manager, and two after-school student workers to manage over 500 workstations on three physcially disparate campuses. It works well, because we automate almost everything, and despite some clear anti-MS bias here at Slashdot, Active Directory works great for remotely managing desktops to the nth degree, all from one location.
Norton Ghost is a godsend when dealing with hosed machines that would take hours for a technician to reformat and rebuild manually. It works from remote, and it works flawlessly. In combination with realVNC and Active Directory (to lockdown the app itself), we can remotely view workstations and troubleshoot from any other workstation. This is great when we get a call from one campus, but we're on another.
Just thought I'd give the perspective of a public school IT Director here in California.
I have a friend who plays Shadowbane with his son, and they're really into it. They pay a monthly fee for the privelege. If someone ruins the game, then why *shouldn't* they be punished? It was a commercial enterprise, making money for the game host company, and now it's ruined.
People may quit, they lose revenue while they clean up the mess, so therefore they can and probably should prosecute. Hell, why not even pursue civil damages for the people responsible? There is a tangible loss in revenue when the server(s) are down.
I say, throw the book at 'em. If the crackers knew it was wrong, knew that people who were paying to play the game would be screwed, then they deserve criminal punishment.
I have to point out to the readership that ALL public schools are moving toward this model of instant accountability.\
Here at Bishop Elementary and Bishop Union High School in Inyo County, California, we will be rolling out a very similar system, whereby parents and students will have instant access to their attendance (including tardies, absences, the whole schmeer), grades, discipline records, standardized test scores, and homeowrk.
Most school administration software (Aeries, SASI XP, etc.) allow an online component based on passworded security to give parents and teachers access to this information.
The driver for this is increased accountability for public schools. This is not a bad thing. Parents will be able to see instantly if their child blew a test, or if they're struggling with a particular section during a course.
The key is NOT to make a student's life "a living hell" but rather to get parents and teachers to support students when they're struggling, and to praise them when they're doing well.
It's so common-sense that most *involved* parents will yawn, because they ALREADY DO THIS by talking with their children's teachers, talking with school administrators, and talking with their kids.
But hey, putting it on the web, that's so newfangled that people get all worked up about it.
I say, get used to it. With the federal No Child Left Behind act now law, school districts throughout the country will be making more and more information available online for parents and teachers to show their progress, or lack thereof.
Joe Griego
Director, Information Technology
Bishop Union Elementary/High School Districts
Inyo County, California
K-12 schools refer to the primary, middle, and high school grades.
K - is for Kindergarten. 4-5 year old students begin public education in this grade level.
1st grade through 5th or 6th grade (depending on the district) are the elementary school grades.
6th through 8th (or 9th, depending on district) are usually the Middle School grades.
High school is usually from 9th through 12th grade.
All US children are required in most school districts to attend school until they reach the 12th grade (or are 18 years old and choose to drop out). Education for Kindergarten through the 12th grade is paid for through public tax funds, and cost parents and children nothing.
Education beyond 12th grade is the sole responsibility of the child, or their parents, so they have to pay for college (or university).
So, from Kindergarten (K) through high school (12th grade) represents the required grades for US children, hence K-12.
Hope that clears it up!
Joe Griego Bishop Elementary School District Bishop, California
Slashdot Mirror
How so? I'll tell you - it's because the students are violating the Acceptable Use Policy that all students sign and agree to. If they disagree, then can use their parents' computers to accomplish those things that are explicitly forbidden at school (and that they are required to enforce by law - the CIPA, in fact), or find other public use computers that do not have those restrictions.
I'm not sure why folks don't understand this - it doesn't MATTER if you, or anyone else thinks that having an Acceptable Use Policy is a good idea or not. What does matter is that they agreed to it, then violated that agreement. That means they will face a consequence for that violation.
That's like getting a library card - you agree to borrow a book, and return it. If you think that because you're impoverished, or need the money to buy medicine for chemotheraphy for your sainted mother, and so sell the book and fail to return it, that you WON'T be prosecuted for violating the law, then you're delusional.
The school enforces policy that the local school board approved. The parents elect the school board, and so they delegate the responsibility to the board to come up with school policies. We DO still live in a representative democracy, after all. Sheesh.
I agree with an earlier post - it's far better to teach our youth that there are consequences for our actions, and that THEY are responsible for their own actions. Get this hard lesson learned when the only consequence is missing Grad Night at Disneyland or a big school dance, and not getting fired for violating the company AUP when your wife is pregnant, the car needs new tires, and your doctor says you need an operation.
Sometimes those consequences are things that we disagree with. Great. Go out, fight the good fight, and get those policies changed. Run for school board. Get petitions signed. Make REAL change. And find out that it's hard, thankless work.
But for pete's sake, stop with the whining!
Joe G.
Mono County Office of Education
Mammoth Lakes, CA
Actually, these have been used commercially, but are no longer produced for a variety of reasons. They're called Darrieus turbines (vertial axis wind turbine, or VAWT), and they had a site in Tehachapi pass, in California (between Bakersfield and Mojave) until the early 1990's. They were owned by a company based in San Rafael, California, called Flowind. They worked fine, but had certain drawbacks compared to horizontal axis wind turbines. For one, they don't start themselves when the wind blows (unlike HAWTs). They must be jump-started with a motor. Second, they take up more ground area, since the top of the axis must be supported by guy wires. Third, the Flowind VAWTs had an initial problem with bad blades. They were extruded aluminum, and they experienced severe fatigue over time, due to harmonic effects during rotation. Flowind eventually got most of this under control, but it was too little, too late. HAWTs took over because they could put more of them in higher density on existing sites, for less money. The HAWTs were also higher capacity (more kW per turbine), had new technological advances such as variable pitch blades, and with that technology, they could take advantage of shear effect (because the wind blows faster at the top of the rotor plane, and slower at the bottom of the rotor plane), a controller could pitch the blades more aggressively at the top of the rotor plane to take advantage of the higher windspeed there, and pitch less aggressively at the bottom, to get more power per MPH of wind flow.
The Flowind site in Tehachapi was repowered in the 1990's with HAWTs made by Danish firm NEG Micon wind turbines, and are still running there today. No Darrieus turbines remain in use commercially (industrial scale windfarms), as far as I'm aware.
I used to work for Zond Energy Systems, who installed hundreds of wind turbines in Tehachapi pass, and who was eventually purchased by Enron energy, and they are now GE Windpower (General Electric), so I was there in Tehachapi during the decommissioning of the Flowind Darrieus machines.
Hope that helps.
Joe Griego
Bishop, CA
Good God. If your assessment of the IT staff at your school is based on your ability to absorb what they have to offer, then take a look at your paragraph, and see what I see on what you've apparently gleaned from your English and Language Arts teachers. I doubt many will take you very seriously. Do you really not know what it looks like to others when your spelling and grammar are so weak?
Putting that aside, your generalization of IT staff in education is poorly founded. First, you offer rationalization on your own weaknesses, yet magnify them in others (educational IT staff). If you ever attend the NIC (network implementation committee) for the state of California, you'll find fifty top men and women in IT, working to design, implement, and maintain the K12HSN in California. That's the network that connects K12s to the rest of CalREN (higher ed high speed backbone), and these are no slouches. I personally know county and district IT staff from virtually every county in California, and I'd say my experience runs counter to your perception. So who's right?
If you're judging all of educational IT by your own weak experience (I'm assuming in high school), your sample is far too small to make such a broad generalization. But then, this is Slashdot, so I suppose I should temper my own expectations...sigh.
Joe G.
Bishop, CA
But the problem is that sometimes "the worst human" is using something technologically hefty enough (like, say, a multi-ton airplane full of people and fuel) to do something rather drastic, and irreversibly final.
Your quote gets right to the crux of the matter. Both in the Star Wars movies, and standard Christian philosophy, there is no "irreversibly final" act. Yoda admonishes Anakin to let go of his obsession with the things of this world, which even includes his attachment to Padme. He tells Anakin to rejoice, rather than mourn, death. This flies in the face of most self-centered philosophies, which are ultimately doomed to fail, due to mankind's mortality. If the meaning of one's life is dependent on things that end with one's own life ("Be nice to other people, do good works, fulfill one's own potential, etc.), then that philosophy fails when one's life ends, as they all will. Hence, the Star Wars philosophy extends beyond mortal life, but anyone who doesn't have faith in "the force," and therefore refuses to accept that death is not the end, but rather a beginning, never gains the greatest power (eternal life, peace, happiness, wisdom, as evidenced by the return of Yoda and Obi Wan in ghost form), and spends their existence in futile search for transcendence which never comes. It is through the act of faith that they become "true" Jedi. Without faith, characters are left with nothing greater to live for than power, money, control, etc. And that way lies the Dark Side... ;-)
Yoda's advice resonates with Christian philosophy in the same way. Redemption for even the worst of humans is possible because God's power extends beyond this world. So when one has faith, their actions will reflect that faith, and redemption is at hand. Yes, even for murderers, rapists, child-killers, child molesters, or any other horrible human-based atrocity. Theologically speaking, Lucas' "force" has this in common with other religious philosophies which advocate faith as their catalyst, and extends beyond mortal life.
Joe G.
Bishop, CA
Well, that's sort of the definition of redemption. If you're talking standard Christian doctrine, then redemption is available to ALL sinners, regardless of the depths of their apostasy. If you're a Christian, then your sin is forgiven by God, through his Son. All you have to do is accept redemption sincerely, and it is given to you.
Now, in Star Wars, I guess we can imagine that Luke is willing to sacrifice his life for his dad's. By accepting that act of gracious sacrifice, Darth was redeemed. Not quite a perfect fit with standard Christian stories, but the metaphor remains intact. Someone who is faithful (Luke has faith in his father's goodness despite much evidence to the contrary) reaches out to someone who doesn't deserve it, and offers redemption. It is accepted, and the person is redeemed!
If King David can be redeemed through faith, then so can Darth Vader...
Maybe we're just a bit too jaded with a vengeful mentality these days to accept the idea that even the worst human is worthy of redemption.
Joe G.
Bishop, CA
There is a market for these, and you've spotted it - the teeming masses who will use it for email and nothing else.
But, the whole point of Apple's biggest marketshare success was that Steve Wozniak was a tinkerer, and made a box that was easy to tinker with! Do you remember when people made 3rd party cards for Apple IIs and Apple actually encouraged that? There were all kinds of cool hacks, alternate vendors for stuff, (hard drives! floppy disk controllers, RAM cards, modems, and so much more).
Moreover, businesses used them because they were capable of running spreadsheets, and there were no alternatives then (IBM's original PC wasn't even made yet!), and the Apple II kicked everyone's ass in terms of expandability and 3rd party software.
It was Steve Jobs who made the Macintosh into a strictly defined device (he often made the "toaster" analogy - computers would be consumer items like toasters - no need to tinker with it!). Jobs never really understood the psychological mindset of the folks who made the Apple II such a success (more successful in terms of business market penetration even than any Mac since) - that people WANT the ability to hack a computer, even if they never use that ability.
When presented with two computers - one with expandability, lots of 3rd party vendor accessories, and the second with limited hardware, only for use with the original vendor certified parts, then most (not all, but most) will choose one with the ABILITY to use more features, even if they NEVER ACTUALLY USE THAT ABILITY. That's the "consumer" hacker mindset, and Jobs never "got" it in the same way Wozniak instinctively did.
Just my two cents.
Joe G.
Bishop, CA
Couldn't Google just crawl Microsoft in return? Then they'd be stuck in an endless loop, and William Shatner can then swoop in, crack some skulls, and save the day.
Or something like that.
biffnix
Was that supposed to be "thoughtful contemplation?" Perhaps before the good Commander posted that, he should have paused for a bit of thoughtful contemplation...
Joe G.
Bishop, CA
Steve Gibson at GRC (Gibson Research), the SpinRite guy, has warned about the exploitability of raw sockets for YEARS!
Here's a link to his article on the topic of raw sockets: Raw Sockets Article.
So check that out, and see why Winders finally locked it down.
Joe Griego
Bishop, CA
I was using the Latin "originial" or "to correct others without washing one's own wordsmithing." It's the originial meening, you know...
Joe G.
Bishop, CA
Can't even tell if you're joking, but "it's" was correct in the first place, as a contraction of "it has."
Its is a possessive...
And in the orginial post, it's "impugn," not "impune."
Joe G.
Bishop, CA
Tonya Harding
'nuff said.
Joe G.
Bishop, CA
You make it sound as if the "only" difference is the convenience. It is a HUGE difference! I *still* don't make Xerox copies in my house, because they're not the flexible tool that a computer is. I've had a VCR for decades now, soon to be completely replaced by my computer/DVD player. I've owned tape recorders until they became obsolete a few years ago.
The reason file sharing is so huge is PRECISELY because it is so easy to use! Don't discount that when discussing the phenomenon of file sharing.
Your point is, I think, that file sharing is against the law. That seems to be the case. The question most slashdotters hear, and most want to discuss is, "SHOULD it continue to be against the law, and in the face of rampant lawbreaking, do we need to reevaluate the underlying assumptions of the law that's being broken?"
Whether or not you are partial to judicial review, it's still a good topic for discussion.
Joe G.
Bishop, CA
...Knee...jerking....must...stop...too LATE!
The argument is more nuanced, and is rarely so cut and dried.
It is not like stealing. Your song on Kazaa is being distributed as surely as it would be on a radio station, except you get no performance payments. THAT'S the real difference.
Record companies did not adjust quickly enough to a new technological model of distribution, and so the marketplace came up with a free alternative. Bummer. That genie is out of the bottle...
Options? Well, suing the crap out of everyone is one way to curb file sharing, but that has the detrimental effect of keeping the music out of the hands of the fans, and pissing off the most ardent enthusiasts of music.
Trying a performance fee such as online radio stations might work, and ISPs would be required to collect the fee from all users, based on the amount of music files shared per ISP.
The really, REALLY difficult part of all this is the fact that the internet is GLOBAL, and radio stations, and even television really isn't! So any payment scheme legislated in the US wouldn't apply overseas without some really serious negotiation. But hey, at least SOME income is better than nothing. Perhaps the US fees would be enough to keep these musicians off the streets...
It's going to take time to adjust to this "new" (cough) phenomenon of the internet, and how it flattens the distriubtion model to just one layer (the producer to the consumer!), with no place in the middle to take a cut of the action.
Other big ideas? I'm sure there's VC out there for someone who can make music pay...
Joe G.
Bishop, CA
That wouldn't work with our 68030 Macs, which still require tech intervention. Norton Ghost works for our 133MHz Pentiums to our 1.7GHz Centrino workstations. Ah well. Vive la difference.
Joe Griego
Howdy. Wally Coleman retired last year, and the Apple IIe's are *still* in the classroom, although I'm not sure how much they really get used.
Glad to see a Bishop geek doing well!
Joe G.
BUESD/BUHS
I replied to this earlier in another post, but I'll speak as a small-district IT director (at in Bishop, CA).
In our districts, Macs do not have lower TCO (as nebulous as that term is) compared to our PCs. The reason is simple - Norton Ghost. Our largest manpower sink is when a classroom computer gets hosed completely, and requires a clean install. With Norton Ghost, we re-image the drive in MINUTES, from anywhere on my network. I can VNC to our server, re-cast the Ghost image to the proper computer, and voila! The classroom computer is back online.
This is, of course, our last resort, but it does make centralized managment simpler for very serious problems. Additionally, if you aren't familiar with Active Directory, you can tweak pretty much every OS feature through it, and roll out different profiles on a per-user basis. This is excellent when teachers and students use the same classroom computers. Each profile can be roaming, so that teachers can work on their gradebook software on any computer on our campuses, or the students can get their documents from the same "My Documents" folder because they're all redirected to network shares by user. Cool stuff, and for a staff one one (me), it rocks.
I have previewed the Apple OS X server hardware and software (it was sent free to me by Apple, for evaluation), and it wasn't as tweakable, and I never did find a Norton Ghost equivalent for Apple OS.
Just my two cents.
Joe GriegoBishop Union High School District
Bishop Union Elementary School District
We recently installed enough new computers in OUR middle school (in Bishop, CA to lower the student-to-computer ratio to 10-1.
When making the platform decision, the ability to quickly restore services if any given desktop got hosed was absolutely critical.
Using Norton Ghost, we can *immediately* re-cast the ghost image to any computer on the LAN, and restore the computer to pristine condition. This is not client-based, and can be done from remote.
Using the Active Directory for installation of redirected student folders, setting permissions on a per-user basis, locking down some desktop components, allow roaming profiles, and remote desktop management keeps our staff level manageable. This is done using, well, me.
Manpower required is THE determining factor when analyzing platform requirements. Sure, there are zealots for pretty much any OS choice, and Mac zealots will swear by their platform, and Linux zealots will cry out for how cheap their platform is, but the fact is that I have myself, one part-time network manager, and two after-school student workers to manage over 500 workstations on three physcially disparate campuses. It works well, because we automate almost everything, and despite some clear anti-MS bias here at Slashdot, Active Directory works great for remotely managing desktops to the nth degree, all from one location.
Norton Ghost is a godsend when dealing with hosed machines that would take hours for a technician to reformat and rebuild manually. It works from remote, and it works flawlessly. In combination with realVNC and Active Directory (to lockdown the app itself), we can remotely view workstations and troubleshoot from any other workstation. This is great when we get a call from one campus, but we're on another.
Just thought I'd give the perspective of a public school IT Director here in California.
Share and Enjoy,
Joe Griego
Bishop Union Elementary School District
Bishop Joint Union High School District
It's like they have a different word for EVERYTHING!
Joe G.
Squishy Words for Squishy PeopleI have a friend who plays Shadowbane with his son, and they're really into it. They pay a monthly fee for the privelege. If someone ruins the game, then why *shouldn't* they be punished? It was a commercial enterprise, making money for the game host company, and now it's ruined.
People may quit, they lose revenue while they clean up the mess, so therefore they can and probably should prosecute. Hell, why not even pursue civil damages for the people responsible? There is a tangible loss in revenue when the server(s) are down.
I say, throw the book at 'em. If the crackers knew it was wrong, knew that people who were paying to play the game would be screwed, then they deserve criminal punishment.
Joe G.
Bishop, CA
The Matrix Reloaded (just one link)
Hey, it worked for me. I'm now getting a 220k download speed.
Thanks, Slashdot!
Biffnix
Wait. I thought they all looked just like Angelina Jolie in "Hackers!" Maybe I need to re-think my major now...
I have to point out to the readership that ALL public schools are moving toward this model of instant accountability.\ Here at Bishop Elementary and Bishop Union High School in Inyo County, California, we will be rolling out a very similar system, whereby parents and students will have instant access to their attendance (including tardies, absences, the whole schmeer), grades, discipline records, standardized test scores, and homeowrk. Most school administration software (Aeries, SASI XP, etc.) allow an online component based on passworded security to give parents and teachers access to this information. The driver for this is increased accountability for public schools. This is not a bad thing. Parents will be able to see instantly if their child blew a test, or if they're struggling with a particular section during a course. The key is NOT to make a student's life "a living hell" but rather to get parents and teachers to support students when they're struggling, and to praise them when they're doing well. It's so common-sense that most *involved* parents will yawn, because they ALREADY DO THIS by talking with their children's teachers, talking with school administrators, and talking with their kids. But hey, putting it on the web, that's so newfangled that people get all worked up about it. I say, get used to it. With the federal No Child Left Behind act now law, school districts throughout the country will be making more and more information available online for parents and teachers to show their progress, or lack thereof. Joe Griego Director, Information Technology Bishop Union Elementary/High School Districts Inyo County, California
There is no such word as "irregardless," regardless of what you may believe.
So there.
Joe G.
Bishop, CA
K-12 schools refer to the primary, middle, and high school grades.
K - is for Kindergarten. 4-5 year old students begin public education in this grade level.
1st grade through 5th or 6th grade (depending on the district) are the elementary school grades.
6th through 8th (or 9th, depending on district) are usually the Middle School grades.
High school is usually from 9th through 12th grade.
All US children are required in most school districts to attend school until they reach the 12th grade (or are 18 years old and choose to drop out). Education for Kindergarten through the 12th grade is paid for through public tax funds, and cost parents and children nothing.
Education beyond 12th grade is the sole responsibility of the child, or their parents, so they have to pay for college (or university).
So, from Kindergarten (K) through high school (12th grade) represents the required grades for US children, hence K-12.
Hope that clears it up!
Joe Griego
Bishop Elementary School District
Bishop, California