Ann Arbor also has power. That and, oh, a major University (read: source of skilled technical labor), and easy access to a hub airport (Detroit-Wayne County Airport is only 20 minutes down I-94).
Detroit, on the other hand, has too many infrastructure problems to attract high-tech business, even with a cyber-court. In fact, Detroit Edison regularly has blackouts ranging from hours to weeks across the metropolitan area. Many of these are caused by windstorms, hailstorms, snowstorms, icestorms, tornados, etc.; yet DetEd claims burying power lines wouldn't help. Somebody send them a clue, please.
Senator Hatch is also a recorded musical artist. Not that you are apt to hear his music often, but you can buy albums of his music. I feel certain this influences his ideas of copyright and intellectual property.
I shall try to address each thought briefly. First, the idea that a student should report anything "suspicious" is based on the idea that a young person should not have the context to tell "Oooooooh I could just kill him!" from "I've got a gun in my backpack and I'm gonna blow the quarterback away." How many people have idly said the former empty threat? What the school official does with that information is another issue altogether. This case clearly represented an over-reaction. Concrete example, in high school a friend once passed me a suicide note. I took it to a counselor, and appropriate action was taken. I do not know what she did, but at the end of the semester my friend was still alive.
This brings me to the second thought. Zero Tolerance Policies are Zero Thinking Policies. I need not elaborate with this crowd, nor do I need to trot out the tired litany of kids suspended for accidentally taking mom's sack lunch containing her butter knife. If our school officials cannot be trusted to use good judgement then they need to be replaced with people possessing common sense. Another concrete example, once at a playground I saw an empty liquor bottle. I picked it up and put it in a trash can. If I had done that as a student on the campus of a school with a zero tolerance policy, I would have faced mandatory suspension or expulsion.
Final thought: there is not more juvenile violence, merely better press coverage of it. Think back to your hometown and your teenage years. Remember any incidents? Now consider Lizzy Borden, who hacked her parents to bits. Or the "righteous" teen girls of Salem, who got thier neighbors to kill one another. Leopold and Loeb, anyone? Anybody happen to know the average age of a soldier in the American Civil War?
What do kids learn from this? If you have a problem deal with it yourself, because adults can't be trusted. I doubt that is what we really want our schools teaching.
My dad likes to play with telemarketers. He figures the longer he keeps them on the phone, the longer they are not bothering someone else (like a little old lady who doesn't realize her brick house doesn't need aluminum siding). The aluminum siding guys are his favorite, BTW. He lets them go through the whole script and then they ask for a sales appointment. He says "That would be great! I'm at 123 Street Road, Apartment number...." This is when they usually hang up.
Actually, they don't need DFAST to screw Joe Sixpack out of taping his PPV WWF Killermatic Funfest. Macrovision already puts copyprotection crap in cable set-top boxes (ohhhh, so that's why they want you to get the digital cable and the converter box bigger than a VCR!). Go digging in thier SEC filings and you will find that very few cable operators use the features and they warn that "consumers may react negatively." Nothing like a good sugar coating, eh?
... but I can see both sides of this. Yes, it is possible that installing a chat server (the type was never specfied) on a government high security computer is a Bad Idea(TM). It is also likely that some time-wasting activities ensued. On the other hand, I use an instant message client at work, sometimes receiving assignments in this manner. Of course my job does not require a security clearance. I might also point out that I have very occasionally learned things on IRC that have made my job easier. Don't try to tell your boss you are on #l33t_h4x0r for research though!
"slowly but surely sliding towards a dark dark ignorant world"?
You had me till that line. It has *always* been a dark ignorant world. Want proof? Salem Witch Trials. Many events of World War 2. The current attitude in Africa regarding AIDS. Want a whole book of examples? Charles Mackay wrote an excellent book on the subject called "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds."
Yeah, lots of people did things that were good and not so good in this case. There is plenty of this crap pie to go around. Bottom line is that if they really wanted to get around the gag order they would have and should have filed an appeal. The most obvious grounds that I can see (non-lawyer that I am) is the fact that they are legally obligated to tell current and potential investors about things that might affect thier business, like LEGAL CASES PENDING for instance. Obviously you can't follow both the law and the gag order at the same time.
I like this a lot. The only thing I would add is something to the effect of "Never put anything in an email that you wouldn't feel comfortable saying to your boss, your mother, or a judge." This is my own test for email, both personal and company. I bet Microsoft wishes certain employees had used it as well!
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Detroit, on the other hand, has too many infrastructure problems to attract high-tech business, even with a cyber-court. In fact, Detroit Edison regularly has blackouts ranging from hours to weeks across the metropolitan area. Many of these are caused by windstorms, hailstorms, snowstorms, icestorms, tornados, etc.; yet DetEd claims burying power lines wouldn't help. Somebody send them a clue, please.
Senator Hatch is also a recorded musical artist. Not that you are apt to hear his music often, but you can buy albums of his music. I feel certain this influences his ideas of copyright and intellectual property.
This brings me to the second thought. Zero Tolerance Policies are Zero Thinking Policies. I need not elaborate with this crowd, nor do I need to trot out the tired litany of kids suspended for accidentally taking mom's sack lunch containing her butter knife. If our school officials cannot be trusted to use good judgement then they need to be replaced with people possessing common sense. Another concrete example, once at a playground I saw an empty liquor bottle. I picked it up and put it in a trash can. If I had done that as a student on the campus of a school with a zero tolerance policy, I would have faced mandatory suspension or expulsion.
Final thought: there is not more juvenile violence, merely better press coverage of it. Think back to your hometown and your teenage years. Remember any incidents? Now consider Lizzy Borden, who hacked her parents to bits. Or the "righteous" teen girls of Salem, who got thier neighbors to kill one another. Leopold and Loeb, anyone? Anybody happen to know the average age of a soldier in the American Civil War?
What do kids learn from this? If you have a problem deal with it yourself, because adults can't be trusted. I doubt that is what we really want our schools teaching.
My dad likes to play with telemarketers. He figures the longer he keeps them on the phone, the longer they are not bothering someone else (like a little old lady who doesn't realize her brick house doesn't need aluminum siding). The aluminum siding guys are his favorite, BTW. He lets them go through the whole script and then they ask for a sales appointment. He says "That would be great! I'm at 123 Street Road, Apartment number...."
This is when they usually hang up.
Actually, they don't need DFAST to screw Joe Sixpack out of taping his PPV WWF Killermatic Funfest. Macrovision already puts copyprotection crap in cable set-top boxes (ohhhh, so that's why they want you to get the digital cable and the converter box bigger than a VCR!). Go digging in thier SEC filings and you will find that very few cable operators use the features and they warn that "consumers may react negatively." Nothing like a good sugar coating, eh?
Oops! I accidentally attempted to read the ramblings of Jon Katz again! When will I learn? (Where's that computer game I was playing??)
... but I can see both sides of this. Yes, it is possible that installing a chat server (the type was never specfied) on a government high security computer is a Bad Idea(TM). It is also likely that some time-wasting activities ensued. On the other hand, I use an instant message client at work, sometimes receiving assignments in this manner. Of course my job does not require a security clearance. I might also point out that I have very occasionally learned things on IRC that have made my job easier. Don't try to tell your boss you are on #l33t_h4x0r for research though!
"slowly but surely sliding towards a dark dark ignorant world"?
You had me till that line. It has *always* been a dark ignorant world. Want proof? Salem Witch Trials. Many events of World War 2. The current attitude in Africa regarding AIDS. Want a whole book of examples? Charles Mackay wrote an excellent book on the subject called "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds."
Yeah, lots of people did things that were good and not so good in this case. There is plenty of this crap pie to go around. Bottom line is that if they really wanted to get around the gag order they would have and should have filed an appeal. The most obvious grounds that I can see (non-lawyer that I am) is the fact that they are legally obligated to tell current and potential investors about things that might affect thier business, like LEGAL CASES PENDING for instance. Obviously you can't follow both the law and the gag order at the same time.
I like this a lot. The only thing I would add is something to the effect of "Never put anything in an email that you wouldn't feel comfortable saying to your boss, your mother, or a judge." This is my own test for email, both personal and company. I bet Microsoft wishes certain employees had used it as well!