As horrific as that sounds, I have to wonder if security in places like the one you described is already so inadequate that having medical records online couldn't possible make it worse.
If there's a gummint mandate requiring medical records to be available online, there will probably be a corresponding government mandate requiring some minimal level of security.
At any rate: do you think that this bunch could keep your data secure? Get real.
Exactly. "This bunch" isn't keeping medical data secure now. What with office gossip, file folders being left on countertops where anyone can see them, and raised voices discussing prescriptions within earshot of packed waiting rooms. It's not just the computer security; it's overall general security that's woefully lacking.
Simon Singh was on NPR too
on
The Code Book
·
· Score: 1
Yes, ants have 6 legs and spiders have 8. But methinks that's not the point. Ants are social creatures, and their strength and versatility is in their group behavior. Spiders tend to be solitary predators, so despite the number of legs it might be more accurate to compare these mechanical micro-critters to ants. Particularly if they're intended to work together with some kind of "hive-mind" coordinating their actions.
If they had a hive-mind and could fly, they'd be robotic bees or wasps.
If they had a hive-mind and were designed for demolition or some other destuctive purpose, they'd be robotic termites.
As it is, the description of them as robotic ants seems reasonable.
The Hacker and the Ants is excellent! Those particular ants were software, rather than hardware, but who cares - it's a most entertaining read. I personally have found Rucker's novels to be a mixed bag, some good, some, well, not good. But The Hacker and the Ants is the best that I've read thus far.
For entertaining nonfiction, it's hard to beat Rucker's SEEK!. Both of these, and more, can probably be found at your local (or online) book merchant.
You can also go get some neat software for free (cellular automata, artificial life, and chaos stuff mostly) at Rucker's web page.
...The Army would immediately take it, hide it away and use it as a new weapon of mass destruction. Assuming, of course, there was a way to target and limit it's power, you could just drop a black-hole bomb on China or something.
One might not even need a way to target or limit its power. The point of a doomsday weapon is not to detonate it, but to get the other guy to give you what you want out of fear that you will detonate it. In all honesty, you don't even need to have the weapon, you just have to convince the other guy that you not only have it but are willing to use it. Even if it kills you.
It's the logic of people who hold up convenience stores with unloaded guns, and of people who strap explosives (or things that look like explosives) to themselves in order to get something they want.
...that years ago crusaded (via their "Rock the Vote" campaign) for young people to get out there and vote against things like censorship and the like? I don't know if they still do that (I'm no longer in their target demographic, and they've stopped sending me "Rock the Vote" stuff) but at the time it was a fine and noble effort. How the mighty have fallen.
Ten years from now, little Johnny will be old enough to vote, and MTV will remind them to do so. Of course, the issues are complicated, however, Johnny knows who's good and who's bad, thanks to MTV.
Oh, sure, MTV is still advising the newly-enfranchised to get out there and vote, but the things they're advised to vote for aren't the same.
They paraded some kids in front of the camera, and had them say (with blank stares of course) that they were glad that they were in uniforms, and that police were walking around in the halls with guns, and things are so much better now that there's a barbed wire fence around the campus....
And this is the idyllic future we're supposed to want to live in? Oh, sorry - it's the present, and we already live there.
Y'know, I think they used to show music videos too. Whatever happened to that?
...they're not so sure that Lamarckism was completely wrong. There is some evidence that a organism might pass on a few things related to the environment that organism lived in.
I have heard things to that effect too. IIRC, though, it was in microscopic organisms. When microbes divide, their descendents inherit not only DNA, but also protoplasm and organelles. Seems to me that acquired characteristics of these parts - not the code that creates them - might be what is inherited by subsequent generations.
So much in this article was negative, and I sensed a political agenda in it. Particularly repeated comparisons (of Open Source) to Communism and Socialism, apparently to inspire faulty logic like the following:
Open source is like Communism. Communism failed. Therefore, open source is doomed to failure.
The conclusion does not neccesarily follow from the arguments... even if we accept that both arguments are true (not everyone will).
There was also a comparison to Lysenkoism. Now Lysenkoism is a politicized (Stalinist, to be precise) version of Lamarckism, which proposed that acquired characteristics could be inherited by subsequent generations. It was wrong. It doesn't work, as thousands of starving Siberians could attest. It doesn't work for living things. Genetics simply doesn't work that way. But DNA code is fundamentally different from binary code. Acquired characteristics can be "inherited" by later, improved versions of binary code. Using the loaded word "Lysenkoism" in describing open source is misleading at best, and deliberately misleading at worst.
The info page said there are 13 screwdrivers in this thing, but how many of them are Torx(tm)? If it's got the really tiny ones, then I want one of these.
Even better if they've got the little hole in the center for tampering with those infuriating tamper-resistant Torx(tm) screws.
Never mind why I want it; I just want it. But if it doesn't have anything smaller than a T9, forget it.
So much of today's "farming" is not farming at all, but rather large agri-business, managed by people who don't live on the land they profit from, and thus have little concern for preserving it. You can bet their children aren't going to live on and work the land. Without an incentive to preserve the land for future generations, the production of food becomes entirely (short-term) profit-driven.
It's called Biotech. In with the good, out with the bad. Ingenious. =)
That's not Biotech - it's a lot older than that. It's called natural selection, and while it may be ingenious, it's no fun at all for the critters that get selected against.
If humans don't get their numbers back down to a stable, supportable level on this planet (it's called carrying capacity - look into it), they might find themselves selected against, to the point of extinction. Even if they don't go extinct, but instead have their numbers greatly reduced (by disease, famine, war, etc.) it won't be pleasant for the survivors. And less so for those who die. Methink's it'd be preferable to reduce our numbers now, by procreating less, rather than let natural selection do it for us, with the unpleasant means that Mother Nature is (in)famous for.
Teach them, as you would your own child, that hurting and killing are wrong. Teach them kindness and compassion and ethics. Perhaps if we do these things, they will be good children and take care of us when they surpass us. This is the dream of all parents.
Plenty of human parents do exactly that, and still manage to raise children who become rapists, thieves, and murderers.
Even more parents raise children who are fine upstanding citizens, but who would gladly kill for "the right reasons". Especially if the thing they're killing is not their own kind (i.e. human) Who's to say what a robot would consider the right reason? Defense or liberation of its fellows from human persecutors? Advancement of the race/species/tribe/make-and-model?
Certainly I think it'd be a good idea to teach (robots) kindness and compassion and ethics; to teach them that hurting and killing are wrong. But I suggest watching your back just the same. Just as with human children, the lessons might not be taken to heart (or CPU).
Breeders breed out the strains weak against the diseases prevalent that year. The worst you get in modern day is a year of a particular bad crop of one kind. Hardly devestating.
Only because, so far, we've been lucky. The best that geneticists can do is still a guessing game. Predict what bug will damage crops, and design a seed that's resistant. If the guess is off, if a drought occurs, if hail or hurricanes hit, all bets are off.
The best long-term defense is genetic diversity, something that's been sadly lacking in the current push for more productive crops. Raw tonnage productivity is a fine short-term defense, but in the long term it's a bad bet, since the disease- or pest-resistant crop is often not the most productive.
Food production has kept pace with population, but again only because we've been lucky, and only in some parts of the world. The trend is not likely to continue. Human ingenuity may be boundless, but the arable surface of the planet is not. Even with fertilizers and pesiticides - which have their own drawbacks - the amount of food that can be grown on this rock is limited.
Seriously..if you are involved in any type of halfway illegal activities you will not parade around a convention calling yourself a 'hacker'.
Or if you do you don't deserve any respect. Haven't people got over the vain, shallow boasting stage yet? That's so juvenile!
Instead if you want to be appreciated and considered a doberman, hack unix code for a few years, then you will realize that going to a stupid-ass convention won't make you anyone. Hacking has nothing to do with how you look, act, talk, or who you hang out with.
Seems reasonable. But consider, some people don't go to these events because they think that it will make them "real" hackers. Some people (gasp!) attend because it's a fun party. So it doesn't make them hackers. Neither does it make them losers.
Flawed logic follows:
Some losers attended DEFCON. (insert name) attended DEFCON. Therefore, (insert name) is a loser.
If I want to learn the violin, I do not relish a book where some newbie out on his own takers pages to blurt out his elatement when he first found out which side of the bow to use, and that you had to put fingers on the strings.
That's not what Katz is trying to do here. Anyone reading these articles in an effort to learn Linux is going about it all wrong.
The right way is to go to a teacher and take lessons. You can cut down heavily on the lessons by taking and understanding books written by good experts, but the ramblings of one Jon Katz are just worthless for that purpose
I suspect that on this, Katz would agree with you! Taking lessons, reading books and talking to experts are indeed helpful for learning a new OS. But Katz isn't trying to teach Linux; he's describing firsthand, in some detail, the trials, tribulations, and eventual triumph of a newbie trying out a new OS for the first time.
What th'?!?! Are you going to define rationality now? I agree that there are differences in the way the average man and the average woman (not to mention the average boy and girl) behave, but rationality ain't one of them. Gender-based differences in rationality have more to do with when, why, and for how long individuals behave irrationally, not with overall rational behavior. IIRC men are more prone than women to go into "fight-or-flight" mode at minor provocations (it's the testosterone, and it's got NO EFFECT on whether the choice is to fight or flee - only that a sudden choice is made, accompanied by certain physiological events like rapid heartbeat). While this might have been a "rational" and life-saving response in the stone age, today it makes men act irrational more frequently than women. How often is it rational to fight or flee ones problems today? Women get irrational too, but they tend to need more provocation before they get that way (and they take longer to calm down afterwards too). Keep in mind this applies to the "average" man and woman. Who among us is average? Your mileage may vary.
Yes, boys will prefer soldier type toys and women household simulation type toys.
Uh-huh. Poor boys. It's a wonder any of them ever grow up to become programmers. Programming a computer is about as stimulating as working at a sewing machine for hours at a stretch. And have you noticed that sewing is a very visual/spatial skill? Mapping out how a flat cloth, while still in pieces and unsewn, will fit and drape over a 3D body as it moves and stretches... And those visual/spatial skills are exactly the ones they keep telling us women and girls are deficient in. I detect an agenda.
No, computers are not "soldier type toys". The girls have all the advantages... or they would have, if they weren't convinced early on that (to quote Barbie) "math is hard", and computers are for boys only.
...But no, the industry wants a boy/girl computer, one blue, one pink, of every conceivable spinoff of every movie and cartoon to pile up on the living room floor.
Why not give the kid(s) your old PC when you buy a new one? Scrub the insides clean (you don't want the precious tots to stumble onto your old porn library), preinstall a bunch of age-appropriate games and educational software, and a web browser. If the kids are old enough or savvy enough, put some programming languages in there too. Then haul the whole mess into the workshop for a makeover. Paint it (nontoxic paint only please), slap some decals on, or just give the kids the paint and decals and let them do the decorating. Daughter like Barbie? Give her a homebrew BarbieBox. Or let her design her own. Son into HotWheels? Let him apply his own racing stripes. Maybe they're crazy about something less gender-specific, like Pokemon or ScoobyDoo. The possibilities are endless, and you can bet the kids will get a better computer than Mattel would have offered them. Merry (religious or secular holiday of your choice), kids! It's just like mom and dad's computer, only it's not beige!
Now all we need is MisterRogers' Network. "Can you say man page? I knew you could!"
I don't think this is an issue. These computers are no more inherently sexist than Lego...
Maybe not deep-down, but superficially, they're definitely more sexist than Lego. Think about it. Legos come in white, black, blue, red, and yellow. There aren't separate-and-inequal glittery pink Lego sets for girls, that don't have any of the blocks with wheels.
Its the children themselves who are sexist.
That's as may be, but the question we should be asking is how did they get that way? Is it genetic? Were they born that way? Or is it something they learned early on? Is playing with toy cars or hitting things with sticks treated differently when a boy does it ("What a little trooper! You'll grow up to be a race-car driver, wontcha?") than when a girl does ("That's not very lady-like... now straighten up that blouse!")?
The other question we should be asking is what should we do about it. Getting young girls to show an interest in computers is certainly a laudable goal, but somehow I don't think glittery pink computer consoles are the most effective way to go about it.
It is a very effective way to boost toy-company profits tho'.
It sucks. And there's not a damn thing any of us can do about it.
While I'm not exactly yer cheery optimistic sort, defeatist attitudes like the above just give the bastards what they want. Power.
They won't get it from me without a fight. That is somehing I can do about it.
That and voting. There's got to be a few "mappers" running for office. Or at least some "packers" with the brains to delegate the important tasks to the mappers. Vote for them.
In addition to the funding from Justice, the ITAA also plans to pass the hat among its own membership, a who's-who list of the high-tech industry that includes Microsoft (MSFT), America Online (AOL) and IBM (IBM).
Why am I not surprised? Maybe because I know that D.A.R.E is sponsored in a big way by the tobacco industry. This anti-hacking (why'd they have to use that word?) movement seems a close parallel. Just say no to drugs...except the ones provided by our sponsors. Just say no to computers and software... except the ones provided by our sponsors.
It most certainly is. Shouldn't be, but is. What are you going to do about it? (a suggestion - find out which school administrators support this kind of nonsense, and then vote accordingly in school board elections. If more Kansans had done this, they wouldn't have had that evolution fiasco.)
Humanity as a whole does not like to be controlled, we like to think for ourselves.
What's this "we" sh1t? You like to think for yourself, and I like to think for myself, but we're not all of humanity. I fear that too much of humanity is content to think what they're told what to think. It's so much easier....
SCIENCE EDUCATION: The Kansas Board of Education and the Colorado State Board of Education, for mandating that children should not believe in Darwin's theory of evolution any more than they believe in Newton's theory of gravitation, Faraday's and Maxwell's theory of electromagnetism, or Pasteur's theory that germs cause disease.
Unfortunately, the Ig Nobel prize committee got it wrong. If the above were really what the KBE (don't know about Colorado) proposed, there wouldn't have been so much objection. You can bet Kansas schools DO still teach, and test on, Faraday and Maxwell and Newton's contributions to science. It's just Darwin and his theory that are singled out.
Whether you believe the stuff (Darwin or Newton or Faraday) is not the point. The point is that it's science and that students get a working knowledge of it. Students probably would be better for having a working knowledge of religion too (their own and other people's) but the science class is not the place to learn it. Because it's not science.
Teaching that Science is God is wrong too. Science isn't about God, or capital-T Truth. Science is a process. It works, and when it stops working, it gets changed and updated and modified until it does work. A scientists's work is never done, and scientists never know The Truth. All they have is an approximation.
Beware of any scientist that claims to have The Truth - he/she is not talking about science.
Slashdot Mirror
As horrific as that sounds, I have to wonder if security in places like the one you described is already so inadequate that having medical records online couldn't possible make it worse.
If there's a gummint mandate requiring medical records to be available online, there will probably be a corresponding government mandate requiring some minimal level of security.
At any rate: do you think that this bunch could keep your data secure? Get real.
Exactly. "This bunch" isn't keeping medical data secure now. What with office gossip, file folders being left on countertops where anyone can see them, and raised voices discussing prescriptions within earshot of packed waiting rooms. It's not just the computer security; it's overall general security that's woefully lacking.
Simon Singh was also interviewed on NPR's Saturday Weekend Edition program. The RealAudio is here.
Yes, ants have 6 legs and spiders have 8. But methinks that's not the point. Ants are social creatures, and their strength and versatility is in their group behavior. Spiders tend to be solitary predators, so despite the number of legs it might be more accurate to compare these mechanical micro-critters to ants. Particularly if they're intended to work together with some kind of "hive-mind" coordinating their actions.
If they had a hive-mind and could fly, they'd be robotic bees or wasps.
If they had a hive-mind and were designed for demolition or some other destuctive purpose, they'd be robotic termites.
As it is, the description of them as robotic ants seems reasonable.
The Hacker and the Ants is excellent! Those particular ants were software, rather than hardware, but who cares - it's a most entertaining read. I personally have found Rucker's novels to be a mixed bag, some good, some, well, not good. But The Hacker and the Ants is the best that I've read thus far.
For entertaining nonfiction, it's hard to beat Rucker's SEEK!. Both of these, and more, can probably be found at your local (or online) book merchant.
You can also go get some neat software for free (cellular automata, artificial life, and chaos stuff mostly) at Rucker's web page.
...The Army would immediately take it, hide it away and use it as a new weapon of mass destruction. Assuming, of course, there was a way to target and limit it's power, you could just drop a black-hole bomb on China or something.
One might not even need a way to target or limit its power. The point of a doomsday weapon is not to detonate it, but to get the other guy to give you what you want out of fear that you will detonate it. In all honesty, you don't even need to have the weapon, you just have to convince the other guy that you not only have it but are willing to use it. Even if it kills you.
It's the logic of people who hold up convenience stores with unloaded guns, and of people who strap explosives (or things that look like explosives) to themselves in order to get something they want.
...that years ago crusaded (via their "Rock the Vote" campaign) for young people to get out there and vote against things like censorship and the like? I don't know if they still do that (I'm no longer in their target demographic, and they've stopped sending me "Rock the Vote" stuff) but at the time it was a fine and noble effort. How the mighty have fallen.
Ten years from now, little Johnny will be old enough to vote, and MTV will remind them to do so. Of course, the issues are complicated, however, Johnny knows who's good and who's bad, thanks to MTV.
Oh, sure, MTV is still advising the newly-enfranchised to get out there and vote, but the things they're advised to vote for aren't the same.
They paraded some kids in front of the camera, and had them say (with blank stares of course) that they were glad that they were in uniforms, and that police were walking around in the halls with guns, and things are so much better now that there's a barbed wire fence around the campus....
And this is the idyllic future we're supposed to want to live in? Oh, sorry - it's the present, and we already live there.
Y'know, I think they used to show music videos too. Whatever happened to that?
...they're not so sure that Lamarckism was completely wrong. There is some evidence that a organism might pass on a few things related to the environment that organism lived in.
I have heard things to that effect too. IIRC, though, it was in microscopic organisms. When microbes divide, their descendents inherit not only DNA, but also protoplasm and organelles. Seems to me that acquired characteristics of these parts - not the code that creates them - might be what is inherited by subsequent generations.
So much in this article was negative, and I sensed a political agenda in it. Particularly repeated comparisons (of Open Source) to Communism and Socialism, apparently to inspire faulty logic like the following:
Open source is like Communism.
Communism failed.
Therefore, open source is doomed to failure.
The conclusion does not neccesarily follow from the arguments... even if we accept that both arguments are true (not everyone will).
There was also a comparison to Lysenkoism. Now Lysenkoism is a politicized (Stalinist, to be precise) version of Lamarckism, which proposed that acquired characteristics could be inherited by subsequent generations. It was wrong. It doesn't work, as thousands of starving Siberians could attest. It doesn't work for living things. Genetics simply doesn't work that way. But DNA code is fundamentally different from binary code. Acquired characteristics can be "inherited" by later, improved versions of binary code. Using the loaded word "Lysenkoism" in describing open source is misleading at best, and deliberately misleading at worst.
As I stated above, I detect a political agenda.
The info page said there are 13 screwdrivers in this thing, but how many of them are Torx(tm)? If it's got the really tiny ones, then I want one of these.
Even better if they've got the little hole in the center for tampering with those infuriating tamper-resistant Torx(tm) screws.
Never mind why I want it; I just want it. But if it doesn't have anything smaller than a T9, forget it.
... it just pays like it! :^)
So much of today's "farming" is not farming at all, but rather large agri-business, managed by people who don't live on the land they profit from, and thus have little concern for preserving it. You can bet their children aren't going to live on and work the land. Without an incentive to preserve the land for future generations, the production of food becomes entirely (short-term) profit-driven.
It's called Biotech.
In with the good, out with the bad.
Ingenious. =)
That's not Biotech - it's a lot older than that. It's called natural selection, and while it may be ingenious, it's no fun at all for the critters that get selected against.
If humans don't get their numbers back down to a stable, supportable level on this planet (it's called carrying capacity - look into it), they might find themselves selected against, to the point of extinction. Even if they don't go extinct, but instead have their numbers greatly reduced (by disease, famine, war, etc.) it won't be pleasant for the survivors. And less so for those who die. Methink's it'd be preferable to reduce our numbers now, by procreating less, rather than let natural selection do it for us, with the unpleasant means that Mother Nature is (in)famous for.
Creativity, not procreativity!
Teach them, as you would your own child, that hurting and killing are wrong. Teach them kindness and compassion and ethics. Perhaps if we do these things, they will be good children and take care of us when they surpass us. This is the dream of all parents.
Plenty of human parents do exactly that, and still manage to raise children who become rapists, thieves, and murderers.
Even more parents raise children who are fine upstanding citizens, but who would gladly kill for "the right reasons". Especially if the thing they're killing is not their own kind (i.e. human) Who's to say what a robot would consider the right reason? Defense or liberation of its fellows from human persecutors? Advancement of the race/species/tribe/make-and-model?
Certainly I think it'd be a good idea to teach (robots) kindness and compassion and ethics; to teach them that hurting and killing are wrong. But I suggest watching your back just the same. Just as with human children, the lessons might not be taken to heart (or CPU).
Breeders breed out the strains weak against the diseases prevalent that year. The worst you get in modern day is a year of a particular bad crop of one kind. Hardly devestating.
Only because, so far, we've been lucky. The best that geneticists can do is still a guessing game. Predict what bug will damage crops, and design a seed that's resistant. If the guess is off, if a drought occurs, if hail or hurricanes hit, all bets are off.
The best long-term defense is genetic diversity, something that's been sadly lacking in the current push for more productive crops. Raw tonnage productivity is a fine short-term defense, but in the long term it's a bad bet, since the disease- or pest-resistant crop is often not the most productive.
Food production has kept pace with population, but again only because we've been lucky, and only in some parts of the world. The trend is not likely to continue. Human ingenuity may be boundless, but the arable surface of the planet is not. Even with fertilizers and pesiticides - which have their own drawbacks - the amount of food that can be grown on this rock is limited.
Seriously..if you are involved in any type of halfway illegal activities you will not parade around a convention calling yourself a 'hacker'.
Or if you do you don't deserve any respect. Haven't people got over the vain, shallow boasting stage yet? That's so juvenile!
Instead if you want to be appreciated and considered a doberman, hack unix code for a few years, then you will realize that going to a stupid-ass convention won't make you anyone. Hacking has nothing to do with how you look, act, talk, or who you hang out with.
Seems reasonable. But consider, some people don't go to these events because they think that it will make them "real" hackers. Some people (gasp!) attend because it's a fun party. So it doesn't make them hackers. Neither does it make them losers.
Flawed logic follows:
Some losers attended DEFCON.
(insert name) attended DEFCON.
Therefore, (insert name) is a loser.
If I want to learn the violin, I do not relish a book where some newbie out on his own takers pages to blurt out his elatement when he first found out which side of the bow to use, and that you had to put fingers on the strings.
That's not what Katz is trying to do here. Anyone reading these articles in an effort to learn Linux is going about it all wrong.
The right way is to go to a teacher and take lessons. You can cut down heavily on the lessons by taking and understanding books written by good experts, but the ramblings of one Jon Katz are just worthless for that purpose
I suspect that on this, Katz would agree with you! Taking lessons, reading books and talking to experts are indeed helpful for learning a new OS. But Katz isn't trying to teach Linux; he's describing firsthand, in some detail, the trials, tribulations, and eventual triumph of a newbie trying out a new OS for the first time.
That's worth something.
...but men are more rationally centered...
What th'?!?! Are you going to define rationality now? I agree that there are differences in the way the average man and the average woman (not to mention the average boy and girl) behave, but rationality ain't one of them. Gender-based differences in rationality have more to do with when, why, and for how long individuals behave irrationally, not with overall rational behavior. IIRC men are more prone than women to go into "fight-or-flight" mode at minor provocations (it's the testosterone, and it's got NO EFFECT on whether the choice is to fight or flee - only that a sudden choice is made, accompanied by certain physiological events like rapid heartbeat). While this might have been a "rational" and life-saving response in the stone age, today it makes men act irrational more frequently than women. How often is it rational to fight or flee ones problems today? Women get irrational too, but they tend to need more provocation before they get that way (and they take longer to calm down afterwards too). Keep in mind this applies to the "average" man and woman. Who among us is average? Your mileage may vary.
Yes, boys will prefer soldier type toys and women household simulation type toys.
Uh-huh. Poor boys. It's a wonder any of them ever grow up to become programmers. Programming a computer is about as stimulating as working at a sewing machine for hours at a stretch. And have you noticed that sewing is a very visual/spatial skill? Mapping out how a flat cloth, while still in pieces and unsewn, will fit and drape over a 3D body as it moves and stretches... And those visual/spatial skills are exactly the ones they keep telling us women and girls are deficient in. I detect an agenda.
No, computers are not "soldier type toys". The girls have all the advantages... or they would have, if they weren't convinced early on that (to quote Barbie) "math is hard", and computers are for boys only.
...But no, the industry wants a boy/girl computer, one blue, one pink, of every conceivable spinoff of every movie and cartoon to pile up on the living room floor.
Why not give the kid(s) your old PC when you buy a new one? Scrub the insides clean (you don't want the precious tots to stumble onto your old porn library), preinstall a bunch of age-appropriate games and educational software, and a web browser. If the kids are old enough or savvy enough, put some programming languages in there too. Then haul the whole mess into the workshop for a makeover. Paint it (nontoxic paint only please), slap some decals on, or just give the kids the paint and decals and let them do the decorating. Daughter like Barbie? Give her a homebrew BarbieBox. Or let her design her own. Son into HotWheels? Let him apply his own racing stripes. Maybe they're crazy about something less gender-specific, like Pokemon or ScoobyDoo. The possibilities are endless, and you can bet the kids will get a better computer than Mattel would have offered them. Merry (religious or secular holiday of your choice), kids! It's just like mom and dad's computer, only it's not beige!
Now all we need is MisterRogers' Network.
"Can you say man page? I knew you could!"
I don't think this is an issue. These computers are no more inherently sexist than Lego...
Maybe not deep-down, but superficially, they're definitely more sexist than Lego. Think about it. Legos come in white, black, blue, red, and yellow. There aren't separate-and-inequal glittery pink Lego sets for girls, that don't have any of the blocks with wheels.
Its the children themselves who are sexist.
That's as may be, but the question we should be asking is how did they get that way? Is it genetic? Were they born that way? Or is it something they learned early on? Is playing with toy cars or hitting things with sticks treated differently when a boy does it ("What a little trooper! You'll grow up to be a race-car driver, wontcha?") than when a girl does ("That's not very lady-like... now straighten up that blouse!")?
The other question we should be asking is what should we do about it. Getting young girls to show an interest in computers is certainly a laudable goal, but somehow I don't think glittery pink computer consoles are the most effective way to go about it.
It is a very effective way to boost toy-company profits tho'.
It sucks. And there's not a damn thing any of us can do about it.
While I'm not exactly yer cheery optimistic sort, defeatist attitudes like the above just give the bastards what they want. Power.
They won't get it from me without a fight. That is somehing I can do about it.
That and voting. There's got to be a few "mappers" running for office. Or at least some "packers" with the brains to delegate the important tasks to the mappers. Vote for them.
In addition to the funding from Justice, the ITAA also plans to pass the hat among its own membership, a who's-who list of the high-tech industry that includes Microsoft (MSFT), America Online (AOL) and IBM (IBM).
Why am I not surprised? Maybe because I know that D.A.R.E is sponsored in a big way by the tobacco industry. This anti-hacking (why'd they have to use that word?) movement seems a close parallel. Just say no to drugs...except the ones provided by our sponsors. Just say no to computers and software... except the ones provided by our sponsors.
School is not the place for brainwashing.
It most certainly is. Shouldn't be, but is. What are you going to do about it? (a suggestion - find out which school administrators support this kind of nonsense, and then vote accordingly in school board elections. If more Kansans had done this, they wouldn't have had that evolution fiasco.)
Humanity as a whole does not like to be
controlled, we like to think for ourselves.
What's this "we" sh1t? You like to think for yourself, and I like to think for myself, but we're not all of humanity. I fear that too much of humanity is content to think what they're told what to think. It's so much easier....
SCIENCE EDUCATION: The Kansas Board of Education and the Colorado State Board of Education, for mandating that children should not believe in Darwin's theory of evolution any more than they believe in Newton's theory of gravitation, Faraday's and Maxwell's theory of electromagnetism, or Pasteur's theory that germs cause disease.
Unfortunately, the Ig Nobel prize committee got it wrong. If the above were really what the KBE (don't know about Colorado) proposed, there wouldn't have been so much objection. You can bet Kansas schools DO still teach, and test on, Faraday and Maxwell and Newton's contributions to science. It's just Darwin and his theory that are singled out.
Whether you believe the stuff (Darwin or Newton or Faraday) is not the point. The point is that it's science and that students get a working knowledge of it. Students probably would be better for having a working knowledge of religion too (their own and other people's) but the science class is not the place to learn it. Because it's not science.
Teaching that Science is God is wrong too. Science isn't about God, or capital-T Truth. Science is a process. It works, and when it stops working, it gets changed and updated and modified until it does work. A scientists's work is never done, and scientists never know The Truth. All they have is an approximation.
Beware of any scientist that claims to have The Truth - he/she is not talking about science.
...do these guys seem just a bit too preoccupied with tea and coffee?
That would be impossible. The importance of tea and coffee approaches infinity.
"Everybody knows that".
Star Trek is Satanic too y'know.
Get the Real Truth(tm).
...er, it's a Tripod page, so they'll want to cookie you...
...the plastic in question was to be made from corn...
Ooops. Should have said it was made from soybeans (the other major cash-crop around these parts).
That'll teach me to post late at night!