I'd go one more level up. Fire the politicians who decide that they need to spend money on these garbage tests from Pearson to prove that our kids are failing so that Pearson can sell those politicians the solution.
Not really a special case. This is happening all over. I'm in New York and our governor has all but declared war on teachers, blaming them for students failing (after pushing for high stakes tests which only 33% of kids passed), and threatening to close down public schools in favor of business-run charter schools. (Businesses which contribute to his campaign, of course.)
It wasn't cheating/stealing. Nor was it just simple monitoring. What sparked this was that a student posted something after a test (after they left school). They didn't post a photo of the test, just a comment. Pearson contacted the department of education in New Jersey and demanded the student be punished for this action, claiming the student broke confidentiality. The student was questioned and pressured to delete the tweet (which they did).
Here's where I have a problem with this: Pearson is acting as though these students have signed an NDA in taking these tests. However, they also claim these tests are mandatory. You can't require someone sign an NDA. If my job says I must sign an NDA and I don't want to, I have an option (quit my job). If a company wants me to review their product and asks me to sign an NDA that I don't want to sign, I have an option (don't review the product). What if the student doesn't want to "sign the Pearson NDA"? Can they opt out of the tests? Pearson and the department of education keep insisting that students can't and must take the tests or else. You can't compel someone to sign a contract. So either students can opt out* or they must take the tests and there is no NDA associated with it.
* Disclosure: My wife and I have our kids opt out of some of the high pressure standardized tests that are given in New York. The only purpose of the ones we opt out of is to prove that students are failing, that it is the teachers' fault, and that Pearson/charter schools can sell politicians the solution.
The teachers, by and large, do not like these tests because 1) they are high pressure and designed to make kids look like they are failing, 2) don't actually give any useful information about what a student knows, and 3) are tied to the teachers' job.
So the students take the tests, are proclaimed to be failing (by the same companies who sell "fixes" for failing students coincidentally), and the blame gets tossed on the teacher who can then be fired because BIG-COMPANY-WHO-PROFITS-OFF-KIDS-FAILING said so.
It might be a necessary evil in some cases, but the main problems are:
1) Making sure you don't execute an innocent man. How many times has a combination of witnesses who falsely recollect (either on purpose or just due to the fact that people's memories are always worse than they think they are), an overeager prosecutor (death penalty conviction = tough on crime campaign slogan = election to higher office), and a desire to hold SOMEONE responsible resulted in a death penalty conviction of someone who was later shown to be innocent? How many times has that "later shown to be innocent" come AFTER the execution took place?
2) Making sure the execution isn't inhumane. Ok, we've decided via a court of law that John Smith is guilty. He's exhausted all appeal opportunities designed to help prevent innocents from being executed (see #1). It's time to execute him. There is always some element that would like to see the person suffer before death. Left to those devices, we could resort to something like slowly sawing off limbs/appendages while he's fully awake. That would definitely result in agony before death. However, that would also be highly inhumane. On the other hand, we could give him a painless drug that puts him to sleep and then have him only breathe nitrogen. However, those "revenge elements" start objecting to his peaceful demise. So we get the situation where we're trying to find a cruel way of execution - but not TOO cruel.
The reason the Arab countries should have absorbed the Palestinians was because THEY were the ones who said "flee your lands and you'll get them back when we kill those Jews." Instead, the Arab countries lost the war they started and the Palestinians found that they had backed the losing side. Israel wasn't going to let them just waltz back in (would YOU accept someone back who had just supported your enemy's attempt to kill you?) and the Arab countries suddenly decided that they didn't actually care about the Palestinians (beyond photo ops and distraction purposes). Yet, Israel gets blamed solely and told they should have just let the Palestinians back in no questions asked.
Hypothetical scenario: Suppose Mexico suddenly decided to invade the US and told a bunch of people in New Mexico to flee and they would be rewarded. A group of US citizens in New Mexico listen to this and cross the border into Mexico, supporting Mexico in this war. Mexico invades, but is easily beaten back. Should the US take back the citizens who sided with Mexico so much that they crossed to Mexico's side? Or should the US be wary of their loyalties and refuse their re-entry?
That might put the ISPs in a tricky situation if they need to testify in court that their Internet service really isn't broadband. "Your honor, these rules clearly state that they are for 'broadband internet service.' My client's service is so horrifically slow that it can't possibly be construed as broadband. Downloads stink. Streaming media stutters. And don't even get me started on online gaming."
I got this from the actual document. Granted, I didn't read the whole thing (don't have time to read 500 pages of government regulation), but from what I've read in other sources (like the article the summary links to) the actual regulation is actually very short. The bulk of the 500 pages is sort of a question and answer about the small regulations.
The ISPs are already doing away with unlimited access. Unfortunately, many have been tight-lipped about how much access you get - cutting some people off at X GB while others download much more. This means they can institute caps but must say what the caps are. I haven't read the rules too closely, but there might be grounds to protest with the FCC if the caps are too low. (e.g. If Time Warner Cable decided everyone gets only 5GB a month.)
I took it to mean that ISPs can't be held accountable for blocking "Warez And Viruses R Us Dot Com" but can be held accountable if they block "Legal Video Streaming Service Dot Com."
I don't see "Don't block legal content for any reason" as requiring blocking illegal content. If anything, it might make ISPs wary of blocking something in a grey area. If the "grey area" service proves they are legal in court, the ISP could get in a lot of trouble for blocking them.
In case the 500 pages scare off anyone, he's the TDLR version:
1) No Blocking - An ISP can't block legal content for any reason. So Comcast can't decide that you can't get to Disney's website anymore because they are having a cable TV dispute with Disney over ESPN.
2) No Throttling - An ISP can't say "you have broadband Internet" and then tell you "you've used too much so now you're stuck at dial-up speeds." If they want to have caps - e.g. only 500GB of data per month - they need to clearly specify this limitation. ("the Order builds on the strong foundation established in 2010 and enhances the transparency rule for both end users and edge providers, including by adopting a requirement that broadband providers always must disclose promotional rates, all fees and/or surcharges, and all data caps or data allowances")
3) No Paid Prioritization - An ISP can't tell a website that the website will be slowed down unless they pay for "fast lane access." (Note: This doesn't mean the ISP can't sell users faster speeds for more money. Just that ISPs can't try to double-dip by charging web content providers to allow/speed up their traffic through the ISP's network as well as charging users for the Internet access to get the web content.)
All in all, pretty common sense stuff. It's a shame that it had to come down to a government agency saying this, but the ISPs only have themselves (and their greed) to blame.
Another fact that is often ignored: The Arab states could have absorbed the Palestinians who fled Israel when they were told "flee and you can have your land back when we wipe Israel off the map." Instead, they set them up in refugee camps so they could point to them and say "Look at how horrible our brethren have it. This is all Israel's fault. Keep looking at these downtrodden folks and ignore the horrible things we're doing to our own populace."
I'm not saying Israel is blameless (far from it), but the people who try to claim that the conflict in the region is all Israel's fault vastly oversimplify the entire situation.
That was my first thought also. The problem is that the government would likely say that you need to wait for approval before publishing online - no matter how long the wait. So you go to share your cute video of your baby with your relatives online via YouTube, submit it to the government for approval, and get the approval just in time for your baby to leave for college. (I'm sure any South African business that makes money from posting content online would be able to pay the government extra for rush approval. The rest of the people can just shut up and wait in line like good little drones.)
Also ignoring that America is still an influential force in the world. Unfortunately, much of our influence has been directed in a negative manner (e.g. copyright expansion). Imagine if the US government used its influence to put rational limits on spying. Would everyone immediately stop? Of course not, but it would push a lot of countries in the right direction and give some us good momentum.
They already want (and have put some) backdoors in all encryption schemes so they can easily use them to listen in on encrypted data transmissions. They either haven't considered or don't care that said backdoors could be used by hackers as well as by government officials. (This is even assuming that said government official has a legitimate reason for listening in... the "listening in just because encrypted must mean illegal" is a whole other discussion.)
I read your comment quickly and thought you said "It's called unplugging the Internet." Was going to reply back that they've floated that proposal in the past too.
The NSA has been listening in on the data of everyone it can, and wants the ability to do so without any oversight. Now, it wants to ability to retaliate without oversight? The NSA is one "colorful" leader away from making the transition from power hungry government agency to supervillian organization.
A few years ago, my in-laws came with my wife, kids, and myself to Disney World. During the trip, my mother-in-law seemed highly agitated at how many photos I was taking. (I was using a DSLR and love taking tons of photos.) Once we got home, though, I copied the photos to her laptop and she started browsing the photos. She started noticing details in the parks that she hadn't seen before and had memories sparked of things we experienced. She instantly apologized and now loves that I take so many photos.
Are there pictures that I'll take and then never look at again? Sure, but you never know which photos will wind up being treasured and I make sure I still enjoy the actual vacation (as opposed to the vacation through the lens).
For me cooking is no problem. I'd want a house cleaning robot. I fight a never ending battle against household clutter and no matter how many gains I make, I keep falling behind. Part of this is due to "distractions" like having a full-time job, spending time with my kids, running errands, etc. It can also be demoralizing when you put a ton of effort into cleaning up an area only to have it rapidly become a mess again. A house cleaning robot could spend 24 hours cleaning the house (minus however many hours it needed to recharge every day) without getting bored, tired, or upset because it just cleaned a room yesterday and it is a mess again today.
"Without DST where I live, it would get light at like 3:30 or 4 AM. I have no desire to have sunlight streaming into my bedroom at that hour." Clock times are only a social convention. If you don't want sunlight streaming into your bedroom at 0400, simply adjust all your clocks so that it streams in 0800, or you can become a very late riser and make the adjustment so that your room lights up at 1030.
Or just get a set of room darkening shades. Those will keep the sunlight from streaming in at any hour.
Which is backed up by that documentary which clearly shows stone age families having a dinosaur as a pet and using various animals as household appliances. Apparently, they also loved saying "Yabba-Dabba-Doo."
Slashdot Mirror
I'd go one more level up. Fire the politicians who decide that they need to spend money on these garbage tests from Pearson to prove that our kids are failing so that Pearson can sell those politicians the solution.
Not really a special case. This is happening all over. I'm in New York and our governor has all but declared war on teachers, blaming them for students failing (after pushing for high stakes tests which only 33% of kids passed), and threatening to close down public schools in favor of business-run charter schools. (Businesses which contribute to his campaign, of course.)
It wasn't cheating/stealing. Nor was it just simple monitoring. What sparked this was that a student posted something after a test (after they left school). They didn't post a photo of the test, just a comment. Pearson contacted the department of education in New Jersey and demanded the student be punished for this action, claiming the student broke confidentiality. The student was questioned and pressured to delete the tweet (which they did).
Here's where I have a problem with this: Pearson is acting as though these students have signed an NDA in taking these tests. However, they also claim these tests are mandatory. You can't require someone sign an NDA. If my job says I must sign an NDA and I don't want to, I have an option (quit my job). If a company wants me to review their product and asks me to sign an NDA that I don't want to sign, I have an option (don't review the product). What if the student doesn't want to "sign the Pearson NDA"? Can they opt out of the tests? Pearson and the department of education keep insisting that students can't and must take the tests or else. You can't compel someone to sign a contract. So either students can opt out* or they must take the tests and there is no NDA associated with it.
* Disclosure: My wife and I have our kids opt out of some of the high pressure standardized tests that are given in New York. The only purpose of the ones we opt out of is to prove that students are failing, that it is the teachers' fault, and that Pearson/charter schools can sell politicians the solution.
The teachers, by and large, do not like these tests because 1) they are high pressure and designed to make kids look like they are failing, 2) don't actually give any useful information about what a student knows, and 3) are tied to the teachers' job.
So the students take the tests, are proclaimed to be failing (by the same companies who sell "fixes" for failing students coincidentally), and the blame gets tossed on the teacher who can then be fired because BIG-COMPANY-WHO-PROFITS-OFF-KIDS-FAILING said so.
There are antisemitic posts that make me angry and want to reach through the screen to punch the poster.
And then there are ones like these that make me laugh and want to mess with the poster.
And, yes, I'm Jewish. Oh, no. We're on Slashdot too! Boo, Mr. Anonymous Coward!
It might be a necessary evil in some cases, but the main problems are:
1) Making sure you don't execute an innocent man. How many times has a combination of witnesses who falsely recollect (either on purpose or just due to the fact that people's memories are always worse than they think they are), an overeager prosecutor (death penalty conviction = tough on crime campaign slogan = election to higher office), and a desire to hold SOMEONE responsible resulted in a death penalty conviction of someone who was later shown to be innocent? How many times has that "later shown to be innocent" come AFTER the execution took place?
2) Making sure the execution isn't inhumane. Ok, we've decided via a court of law that John Smith is guilty. He's exhausted all appeal opportunities designed to help prevent innocents from being executed (see #1). It's time to execute him. There is always some element that would like to see the person suffer before death. Left to those devices, we could resort to something like slowly sawing off limbs/appendages while he's fully awake. That would definitely result in agony before death. However, that would also be highly inhumane. On the other hand, we could give him a painless drug that puts him to sleep and then have him only breathe nitrogen. However, those "revenge elements" start objecting to his peaceful demise. So we get the situation where we're trying to find a cruel way of execution - but not TOO cruel.
The reason the Arab countries should have absorbed the Palestinians was because THEY were the ones who said "flee your lands and you'll get them back when we kill those Jews." Instead, the Arab countries lost the war they started and the Palestinians found that they had backed the losing side. Israel wasn't going to let them just waltz back in (would YOU accept someone back who had just supported your enemy's attempt to kill you?) and the Arab countries suddenly decided that they didn't actually care about the Palestinians (beyond photo ops and distraction purposes). Yet, Israel gets blamed solely and told they should have just let the Palestinians back in no questions asked.
Hypothetical scenario: Suppose Mexico suddenly decided to invade the US and told a bunch of people in New Mexico to flee and they would be rewarded. A group of US citizens in New Mexico listen to this and cross the border into Mexico, supporting Mexico in this war. Mexico invades, but is easily beaten back. Should the US take back the citizens who sided with Mexico so much that they crossed to Mexico's side? Or should the US be wary of their loyalties and refuse their re-entry?
That might put the ISPs in a tricky situation if they need to testify in court that their Internet service really isn't broadband. "Your honor, these rules clearly state that they are for 'broadband internet service.' My client's service is so horrifically slow that it can't possibly be construed as broadband. Downloads stink. Streaming media stutters. And don't even get me started on online gaming."
I got this from the actual document. Granted, I didn't read the whole thing (don't have time to read 500 pages of government regulation), but from what I've read in other sources (like the article the summary links to) the actual regulation is actually very short. The bulk of the 500 pages is sort of a question and answer about the small regulations.
The ISPs are already doing away with unlimited access. Unfortunately, many have been tight-lipped about how much access you get - cutting some people off at X GB while others download much more. This means they can institute caps but must say what the caps are. I haven't read the rules too closely, but there might be grounds to protest with the FCC if the caps are too low. (e.g. If Time Warner Cable decided everyone gets only 5GB a month.)
I took it to mean that ISPs can't be held accountable for blocking "Warez And Viruses R Us Dot Com" but can be held accountable if they block "Legal Video Streaming Service Dot Com."
I don't see "Don't block legal content for any reason" as requiring blocking illegal content. If anything, it might make ISPs wary of blocking something in a grey area. If the "grey area" service proves they are legal in court, the ISP could get in a lot of trouble for blocking them.
In case the 500 pages scare off anyone, he's the TDLR version:
1) No Blocking - An ISP can't block legal content for any reason. So Comcast can't decide that you can't get to Disney's website anymore because they are having a cable TV dispute with Disney over ESPN.
2) No Throttling - An ISP can't say "you have broadband Internet" and then tell you "you've used too much so now you're stuck at dial-up speeds." If they want to have caps - e.g. only 500GB of data per month - they need to clearly specify this limitation. ("the Order builds on the strong foundation established in 2010 and enhances the transparency rule for both end users and edge providers, including by adopting a requirement that broadband providers always must disclose
promotional rates, all fees and/or surcharges, and all data caps or data allowances")
3) No Paid Prioritization - An ISP can't tell a website that the website will be slowed down unless they pay for "fast lane access." (Note: This doesn't mean the ISP can't sell users faster speeds for more money. Just that ISPs can't try to double-dip by charging web content providers to allow/speed up their traffic through the ISP's network as well as charging users for the Internet access to get the web content.)
All in all, pretty common sense stuff. It's a shame that it had to come down to a government agency saying this, but the ISPs only have themselves (and their greed) to blame.
Another fact that is often ignored: The Arab states could have absorbed the Palestinians who fled Israel when they were told "flee and you can have your land back when we wipe Israel off the map." Instead, they set them up in refugee camps so they could point to them and say "Look at how horrible our brethren have it. This is all Israel's fault. Keep looking at these downtrodden folks and ignore the horrible things we're doing to our own populace."
I'm not saying Israel is blameless (far from it), but the people who try to claim that the conflict in the region is all Israel's fault vastly oversimplify the entire situation.
That was my first thought also. The problem is that the government would likely say that you need to wait for approval before publishing online - no matter how long the wait. So you go to share your cute video of your baby with your relatives online via YouTube, submit it to the government for approval, and get the approval just in time for your baby to leave for college. (I'm sure any South African business that makes money from posting content online would be able to pay the government extra for rush approval. The rest of the people can just shut up and wait in line like good little drones.)
Also ignoring that America is still an influential force in the world. Unfortunately, much of our influence has been directed in a negative manner (e.g. copyright expansion). Imagine if the US government used its influence to put rational limits on spying. Would everyone immediately stop? Of course not, but it would push a lot of countries in the right direction and give some us good momentum.
They already want (and have put some) backdoors in all encryption schemes so they can easily use them to listen in on encrypted data transmissions. They either haven't considered or don't care that said backdoors could be used by hackers as well as by government officials. (This is even assuming that said government official has a legitimate reason for listening in... the "listening in just because encrypted must mean illegal" is a whole other discussion.)
I read your comment quickly and thought you said "It's called unplugging the Internet." Was going to reply back that they've floated that proposal in the past too.
And now I want one of those buttons. (I promise not to abuse it... too much.)
The NSA has been listening in on the data of everyone it can, and wants the ability to do so without any oversight. Now, it wants to ability to retaliate without oversight? The NSA is one "colorful" leader away from making the transition from power hungry government agency to supervillian organization.
A few years ago, my in-laws came with my wife, kids, and myself to Disney World. During the trip, my mother-in-law seemed highly agitated at how many photos I was taking. (I was using a DSLR and love taking tons of photos.) Once we got home, though, I copied the photos to her laptop and she started browsing the photos. She started noticing details in the parks that she hadn't seen before and had memories sparked of things we experienced. She instantly apologized and now loves that I take so many photos.
Are there pictures that I'll take and then never look at again? Sure, but you never know which photos will wind up being treasured and I make sure I still enjoy the actual vacation (as opposed to the vacation through the lens).
For me cooking is no problem. I'd want a house cleaning robot. I fight a never ending battle against household clutter and no matter how many gains I make, I keep falling behind. Part of this is due to "distractions" like having a full-time job, spending time with my kids, running errands, etc. It can also be demoralizing when you put a ton of effort into cleaning up an area only to have it rapidly become a mess again. A house cleaning robot could spend 24 hours cleaning the house (minus however many hours it needed to recharge every day) without getting bored, tired, or upset because it just cleaned a room yesterday and it is a mess again today.
Or just get a set of room darkening shades. Those will keep the sunlight from streaming in at any hour.
My wife's parents own a cockatoo. That thing is definitely dinosaur. On a related note, the idea of a 10+ foot tall cockatoo is frightening!
Which is backed up by that documentary which clearly shows stone age families having a dinosaur as a pet and using various animals as household appliances. Apparently, they also loved saying "Yabba-Dabba-Doo."