Please show me where in the constitution it excludes minors from having rights.
The constitution says that everyone has the Inalienable Rights to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, I suppose.
But, there are other rights that minors do not have by force of law, specifically the right to vote and (in most cases), own property. Minors can't enter into binding contracts, either. It may vary state-to-state, and I'm not an expert, but this is the way I understand it. (any clarification can be helpful...)
This is why the student that asked this question can't do a thing without the help of his parents, because since he is a minor there are all sorts of things that he is legally precluded from doing without his parents actually doing it on his behalf.
Of course, it always bothered me that a 16-year-old with a good-paying summer job may have to pay taxes, but doesn't get a right to vote. Didn't we fight a war over that sort of thing?
There are very few things in this world that a minor can do on his/her own. But pretty much anything can be done through parents or guardians.
You should try and convinve a group of your parents of the problem, and have them support you before the School Board. You should still present something to the Board, but they should, also. After all, if you can't convince your parents, then you don't have a chance of convincing the School Board!
And if you don't get what you want, even after all this effort? Then pat yourselves on the back for the effort, and just don't use the school's computers unless mandated by a class. Go home to get that research for your class on pr0n.;]
There are two things in this story that make this different than most other Domain Name stories:
First, the silly trademark involved. I'm not a lawyer, but trademarking dictionary words seems weak to me, especially when the word is a description of the service they provide!
For instance, everybody here agrees that Apple Computer has a legitimate trademark for Apple, even though it is a common word. But if Apple had just called itself "A Computer Company", would they have the trademark on "Computer", which "Computer Shopper" magazine would infringe on?
I think not, although my (non-lawyerly) opinion is worthless. This case is similar. If Referee Magazine wanted to not be confused with every other Referee-oriented business, they should not have chosen a generic name!
Second, the US Federal Courts just sang a long rendition of "You're Not The Boss Of Me Now" to ICANN, utterly rejecting their authority over domain names. If this stands, then who actually holds jurisdiction over domain names? I nominate Taco.
I've got a Base Station, and it does get pretty hot.
However, I don't see the bubbling in the label that was in that link.
I did intend to mount the antenna on the wall at one point, but never did it. The wall bracket is still on, though, and it serves to elevate the base station off of the shelf that it's on, which is probably good for ventilation.
Moral of the story: Put that bracket on, even if you're not intending to mount it. Not only could it make your unit run cooler, but it gives it that kind of floating-UFO action.
In my mind, there is a difference between listening to students and actively encouaging them to rat on their friends.
All teachers (and administrators, councilors, et.al.) should listen to their students. If a student hears another student say something that scares him or her, they should be able to confide in their teachers, or their parents, and have their concerns fairly judged.
But teachers go too far when they encourage students to be on the lookout and report anything that they feel is amiss. This makes students generally more suspicious than they would have been. Perhaps in a normal school-agecontext, a particular suspicious statement would not have seemed worthy for attention, since adolescents say those sorts of things all the time. But when students are told to be on the lookout for suspicious behavior, well, that could change the context those remarks are heard in by making everyone overly paranoid, wouldn't it?
To be clear:
I think it is OK for teachers to let students know they will listen to anything they have to say, even if it involves their friends. This creates a positive environment. I think it's Not OK for teachers to actively seek to recruit kids as informants, and turn them against one another. That creates a negative environment.
It's a fine line to tread, and one I think many schools are on the wrong side of.
This won't nearly be as useful as we all think until more computers ship with USB Keyboards - I'd rather plug one of these into my keyboard than into the back of my box.
But just think -- You might be able to put your future software license "keys" on an actual keychain!
I hate web pages with text over a tiled picture in the background... My eyes hurt reading that first link!
Anyway, I have legitimate concerns as well over whether this is a Good Thing. I have no doubt that NASA scientists could do it if given enough time, but then what?
Will it be International territory like Antarctica, or will the U.S. just annex the whole damn thing? Nothing escapes Politics, and if the US ends up funding most of it you can bet the US Polititians will behave like they own the place.
One things for sure - once they find something deep witin Mars that worth mining or drilling for, they'll forget all the environmental concerns and implement a Scorched Earth (Scorched Mars?) Strategy sooner than you can say "Martian Oilman".
We gave Mars that nice environment, and we can take it away...
I've been told that non-compete clauses are of dubious legality, at least in my state (NY).
The way it was explained to me, your employer has a right to expect you to not give confidential information to a competitor, even after you are no longer employed by them. But no contract can take away your right to an honest living in your trade.
For instance, if you take code or business plans with you to a new employer, that's a no-no. But if you just take your Mad Perl Kung Foo, well, there's nothing your former employer can do about it, even if you are going to a competitor. And even if they paid for training to develop your skills. You own the general skills; your employer owns the actual work that you did for them. (Well, there is one thing they can do -- pay you your salary for the length of the agreement, so you can sit on your ass and do nothing...)
And if they threaten nasty stuff, get a lawyer and give it right back to 'em: in most cases, those agreements aren't worth the paper they're printed on.
I think everyone here at/. knows that platform and browser independance is a thing of the past -- you're preaching to the choir here.
With so many proprietary web extensons around, you almost have to write two or three versions for every page you write. Cross-multiply this by the major platforms and Operating Systems, and I'm glad I don't design Web Sites for a living!
I hope the MS hackers from a few months ago replaced the next version of IE code with Mosaic. (or Lynx!) And while you're at it, Please do the same for Netscape, because it sucks worse, OK?
While reading some of the comments here, I see a point that some posters reference but never fully explain: There is a difference between annoying privacy violations and unfair privacy violations.
What is annoying? Junk mail, Spam, credit checks, all those things that we hate. But they aren't going away. Your information will be sold, often by the same government that just gave you a tax cut and is looking to make up the shortfall. It's the price we have to pay for living in an information-based society. There are many worse problems in the world than all the crap that appears in my mailboxes.
What is unfair? Getting your identity stolen, having inaccurate information on your credit report, having your medical information given to people who have no business knowing. These are all things that suck, but 99% of them can be prevented. Instead of whining about how much they suck, read your credit reports every few years! Whenever you get rejected for something, ask why! When you find out why, if it's incorrect, pursue the matter!
If you think you're getting screwed and no one's talking to you, remember that you should have a right to know information about yourself. You might have to start kicking ass and taking names (of managers and supervisors), but isn't that what you do with Tech Support people anyway?
Are you insane? The conrinthians football (yes football, not soccar!) team is a commmerical venture, why should this individual get to keep a commerical domain name for a non-commericial website!!
The original posters' point was that the TLD's are arbitrary and no one enforces them. While I happen to think that was the original spirit of the TLD guidelines, I was pointing out that WIPO disagrees with that premise, and their opinion actually matters, unlike yours or mine.
To sum up: because there's no difference between.com,.net and.org anymore, we're essentially using unlimited TLDs followed by an arbitrary string. Unless the new TLDs are enforced in some way (which at this point I don't see happening), this isn't going to change. AOL/TW will promptly go out and buy aoltw.coop, aoltw.store and so forth.
But they are being enforced, at least intermittently, by the fine folks at WIPO.
Remember the discussion over corinthians.com? It was taken away from the owner because he had the gall to use a dot-com address for a non-commercial puropse (posting bible verses.)
So the address was given to a Soccer team of the same name, even though the Book of Corinthians pre-dates the soccer team.
My wife and I both have excellent credit records, we checked them (and fixed the minor errors) before we bought our house. We pull down decent salaries, as well.
Yet, when we went to get a car loan from our Credit Union, we were told we couldn't get the "A" rate because our credit wasn't good enough. Those "scores" that pop up on bankers' screens really, really baffle me. I asked for an explanation for why the score was what it was, and the standard reply was "You must have something bad in your report, but the Computer figures out your score and I have no clue how it does it." I knew that our reports were clean...
Morons! I would have pushed the issue and figured out exactly how that score got computed, but I shopped around and got a great rate from the dealer, and promptly forgot about the whole affair until now.
Lessons learned:
Get all your credit reports BEFORE getting loans on your own. If that's not possible, definitely ask for more information if you get declined for a loan and get your report then!
Remember kids, your keystroke logger records EVERY keystroke. Typed out a phrase that might be a little too strong, but then thought better and erased it? Logged. No opportunity for revision, as soon as you press the key the FIRST time, the event is recorded, even if it was never saved to a file/sent in email/sent in chat.
You could type "I accept suitcases full of cash in exchange for contraband" at a random and inappropriate time, and it would be logged, even though your sentiment was not reflected in any saved file or communication.
This is why we have courts in the U.S. Any good defense attorney (and even a few of the bad ones) can make the right case to the jury in the above situation. Remember, Juries are composed of a dozen people who couldn't get out of Jury Duty...
The situation referenced in the article, where passwords were stolen, lead to files and records that did NOT suffer from this preservation of thoughts that you thought better about saving. (Unless you're using Fast Save in Word...)
So, the power of the Government is somewhat limited by this whole Fair Trial thing. As for your Employer? They have more of an opportunity to abuse things, I suppose. It's their computer, after all, and you should have no expectation of privacy on it. Just make sure that you do your job so well that no one will be out to get you!
Looks like somebody just hit up the UK government for a grant to study something that doesn't really happen, and they just rubber-stamped it.
Hey, I heard that schools of fish in Tahiti keel over in droves whenever somebody on land farts! Seriously! I heard it on the Internet, so it must be true!
Quick, let's get our proposal ready and go down there!
If the Government is serious about allowing E-signatures for contracts and bill notices, we need E-mail service at least as reliable as US Postal Service Registered Mail.
Anything less is asking for a disaster.
And yes, I know that the Government (and the Media) wouldn't know what a real Electronic Signature is if it bit them in the ASP...
Does onybody remember when the Web was supposed to be the thing that made OS irrelevant, the thing that was supposed to be platform-independant?
Doesn't the W3C release standards to promote this effect?
And doesn't MS and Netscape blatently ignore these standards (specifically to create a platform-dependant experience, in the case of MS a Windows-dependant experience...)
I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but I lay the blame for ruining the interoperability of the web squarely on the major browser writers.
Who would have thought that Free (as in beer) software from companies with an agenda could do so much damage?
I've often wondered what the implications are if you enter the voting booth and just didn't vote for one particular race.
Will it be counted in the total vote total, just not for any candidate? Or will it not be counted in the vote total, and have the same effect as if you didn't vote?
I've been thinking about this because I get the pleasure of voting in the NY Senate Race, and I honestly think my six-month-old Golden Retriever could do a better job than any candidate on the ballot.
Of course they should structure their comittee like the W3C.
After all, look how good a job the W3C comittee does at convincing MS and Netscape of the value of standards!
Standards work well for technical concepts where it's really in the best interest of everyone to do it the same way, and everyone realizes it.
But for new concepts where companies already have their own buzzword-compliant concepts to make them money at the expense of the general industry, standards efforts are doomed to fail!
I want little nanosites that float in my bloodstream and automatically manufacture coffee when I need it!
And good coffee at that, not the sludge that comes out of the Office coffee pot!
Do you think that would make a good thesis?
Wearable computers and Why We'll Use Them
on
Ready-To-Wear PCs
·
· Score: 1
Most people, when hearing about wearable computers for the first time, say that the last thing we need is a computer with us, all the time.
But the whole point of wearable computing is (or should be) to use computing technology to get away from the whole "Computer" concept!
When's the last time you had to reboot a screwdriver? Or had to update the BIOS on your pair of pliers? The tools we've been using for thousands of years just work, and we know how to use them intuitively.
A good wearable computer design will have the usability and intuitiveness of something we're already familiar with, but be able to take advantage of the benefits that computing technology could offer.
For instance, what if, woven into the threads of your jacket, you had a small computer platform that could do Speech Recognition, Language Translation, and Speech Synthesis in a different language? Want to visit France? Put on your French-Translation jacket! Want to visit Italy? Poof - just download the Italian program over the Wireless Network! And the computing system is so robust that not only will it NEVER crash, but you can put it through the wash!
Perhaps the idea of a jacket may be silly, but the idea is that you can integrate this computing function into your daily life like you would a jacket, and rely on it like you do a hammer. When's the last time you had a hammer crash on you? (Maybe I'm asking that question to the wrong people...)
Most people who pan Wearables play up the "Cyborg" aspect, but the true power of this technology lies in having it benefit our lives WITHOUT having the technology in our face all the time.
I got my masters as part of CMU's wearables group, and this is the direction that the long-term research was heading at the time. It's been a few years since I left, but I think it's still a good way to go, even if it is (very) far off! (We had the speech and translation part working, thanks to CMU's excellent CS researchers, but the rest of it obviously is still long-term...)
I don't care how old this article is, EG says something in it that I wish all the non-techies would latch onto:
Instead of arguing over the definition of hackers and crackers, let's just say this:
If you commit a crime while "exploring", you are a criminal.
If you do not commit a crime, then you are not a criminal.
Then, all we need to do is get the people who write the laws to understand what should be a crime and what shouldn't. Easy, right? hah. This is why the EFF exists, I suppose...
Slashdot Mirror
The constitution says that everyone has the Inalienable Rights to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, I suppose.
But, there are other rights that minors do not have by force of law, specifically the right to vote and (in most cases), own property. Minors can't enter into binding contracts, either. It may vary state-to-state, and I'm not an expert, but this is the way I understand it. (any clarification can be helpful...)
This is why the student that asked this question can't do a thing without the help of his parents, because since he is a minor there are all sorts of things that he is legally precluded from doing without his parents actually doing it on his behalf.
Of course, it always bothered me that a 16-year-old with a good-paying summer job may have to pay taxes, but doesn't get a right to vote. Didn't we fight a war over that sort of thing?
You should try and convinve a group of your parents of the problem, and have them support you before the School Board. You should still present something to the Board, but they should, also. After all, if you can't convince your parents, then you don't have a chance of convincing the School Board!
And if you don't get what you want, even after all this effort? Then pat yourselves on the back for the effort, and just don't use the school's computers unless mandated by a class. Go home to get that research for your class on pr0n. ;]
First, the silly trademark involved. I'm not a lawyer, but trademarking dictionary words seems weak to me, especially when the word is a description of the service they provide!
For instance, everybody here agrees that Apple Computer has a legitimate trademark for Apple, even though it is a common word. But if Apple had just called itself "A Computer Company", would they have the trademark on "Computer", which "Computer Shopper" magazine would infringe on? I think not, although my (non-lawyerly) opinion is worthless. This case is similar. If Referee Magazine wanted to not be confused with every other Referee-oriented business, they should not have chosen a generic name!
Second, the US Federal Courts just sang a long rendition of "You're Not The Boss Of Me Now" to ICANN, utterly rejecting their authority over domain names. If this stands, then who actually holds jurisdiction over domain names? I nominate Taco.
However, I don't see the bubbling in the label that was in that link.
I did intend to mount the antenna on the wall at one point, but never did it. The wall bracket is still on, though, and it serves to elevate the base station off of the shelf that it's on, which is probably good for ventilation.
Moral of the story: Put that bracket on, even if you're not intending to mount it. Not only could it make your unit run cooler, but it gives it that kind of floating-UFO action.
All teachers (and administrators, councilors, et.al.) should listen to their students. If a student hears another student say something that scares him or her, they should be able to confide in their teachers, or their parents, and have their concerns fairly judged.
But teachers go too far when they encourage students to be on the lookout and report anything that they feel is amiss. This makes students generally more suspicious than they would have been.
Perhaps in a normal school-agecontext, a particular suspicious statement would not have seemed worthy for attention, since adolescents say those sorts of things all the time. But when students are told to be on the lookout for suspicious behavior, well, that could change the context those remarks are heard in by making everyone overly paranoid, wouldn't it?
To be clear:
I think it is OK for teachers to let students know they will listen to anything they have to say, even if it involves their friends. This creates a positive environment.
I think it's Not OK for teachers to actively seek to recruit kids as informants, and turn them against one another. That creates a negative environment.
It's a fine line to tread, and one I think many schools are on the wrong side of.
But just think -- You might be able to put your future software license "keys" on an actual keychain!
Anyway, I have legitimate concerns as well over whether this is a Good Thing. I have no doubt that NASA scientists could do it if given enough time, but then what?
Will it be International territory like Antarctica, or will the U.S. just annex the whole damn thing? Nothing escapes Politics, and if the US ends up funding most of it you can bet the US Polititians will behave like they own the place.
One things for sure - once they find something deep witin Mars that worth mining or drilling for, they'll forget all the environmental concerns and implement a Scorched Earth (Scorched Mars?) Strategy sooner than you can say "Martian Oilman".
We gave Mars that nice environment, and we can take it away...
If we ever do bridge the digital divide, we will need to give all the newly-empowered 31337 hAx0r D00Dz an extra spelling class...
I want a translator woven into my clothing.
There's University-level research going on in this area right now, and it could actually be here in time for us to be able to use it!
The way it was explained to me, your employer has a right to expect you to not give confidential information to a competitor, even after you are no longer employed by them. But no contract can take away your right to an honest living in your trade.
For instance, if you take code or business plans with you to a new employer, that's a no-no. But if you just take your Mad Perl Kung Foo, well, there's nothing your former employer can do about it, even if you are going to a competitor. And even if they paid for training to develop your skills. You own the general skills; your employer owns the actual work that you did for them. (Well, there is one thing they can do -- pay you your salary for the length of the agreement, so you can sit on your ass and do nothing...)
And if they threaten nasty stuff, get a lawyer and give it right back to 'em: in most cases, those agreements aren't worth the paper they're printed on.
With so many proprietary web extensons around, you almost have to write two or three versions for every page you write. Cross-multiply this by the major platforms and Operating Systems, and I'm glad I don't design Web Sites for a living!
I hope the MS hackers from a few months ago replaced the next version of IE code with Mosaic. (or Lynx!) And while you're at it, Please do the same for Netscape, because it sucks worse, OK?
What is annoying? Junk mail, Spam, credit checks, all those things that we hate. But they aren't going away. Your information will be sold, often by the same government that just gave you a tax cut and is looking to make up the shortfall. It's the price we have to pay for living in an information-based society. There are many worse problems in the world than all the crap that appears in my mailboxes.
What is unfair? Getting your identity stolen, having inaccurate information on your credit report, having your medical information given to people who have no business knowing. These are all things that suck, but 99% of them can be prevented. Instead of whining about how much they suck, read your credit reports every few years! Whenever you get rejected for something, ask why! When you find out why, if it's incorrect, pursue the matter!
If you think you're getting screwed and no one's talking to you, remember that you should have a right to know information about yourself. You might have to start kicking ass and taking names (of managers and supervisors), but isn't that what you do with Tech Support people anyway?
The original posters' point was that the TLD's are arbitrary and no one enforces them.
While I happen to think that was the original spirit of the TLD guidelines, I was pointing out that WIPO disagrees with that premise, and their opinion actually matters, unlike yours or mine.
But they are being enforced, at least intermittently, by the fine folks at WIPO.
Remember the discussion over corinthians.com? It was taken away from the owner because he had the gall to use a dot-com address for a non-commercial puropse (posting bible verses.)
So the address was given to a Soccer team of the same name, even though the Book of Corinthians pre-dates the soccer team.
Go figure!
Yet, when we went to get a car loan from our Credit Union, we were told we couldn't get the "A" rate because our credit wasn't good enough. Those "scores" that pop up on bankers' screens really, really baffle me. I asked for an explanation for why the score was what it was, and the standard reply was "You must have something bad in your report, but the Computer figures out your score and I have no clue how it does it." I knew that our reports were clean...
Morons! I would have pushed the issue and figured out exactly how that score got computed, but I shopped around and got a great rate from the dealer, and promptly forgot about the whole affair until now.
Lessons learned:
Get all your credit reports BEFORE getting loans on your own.
If that's not possible, definitely ask for more information if you get declined for a loan and get your report then!
If you know your credit is good, shop around!
You could type "I accept suitcases full of cash in exchange for contraband" at a random and inappropriate time, and it would be logged, even though your sentiment was not reflected in any saved file or communication.
This is why we have courts in the U.S. Any good defense attorney (and even a few of the bad ones) can make the right case to the jury in the above situation. Remember, Juries are composed of a dozen people who couldn't get out of Jury Duty...
The situation referenced in the article, where passwords were stolen, lead to files and records that did NOT suffer from this preservation of thoughts that you thought better about saving. (Unless you're using Fast Save in Word...)
So, the power of the Government is somewhat limited by this whole Fair Trial thing. As for your Employer? They have more of an opportunity to abuse things, I suppose. It's their computer, after all, and you should have no expectation of privacy on it. Just make sure that you do your job so well that no one will be out to get you!
Looks like somebody just hit up the UK government for a grant to study something that doesn't really happen, and they just rubber-stamped it.
Hey, I heard that schools of fish in Tahiti keel over in droves whenever somebody on land farts! Seriously! I heard it on the Internet, so it must be true!
Quick, let's get our proposal ready and go down there!
If the Government is serious about allowing E-signatures for contracts and bill notices, we need E-mail service at least as reliable as US Postal Service Registered Mail.
Anything less is asking for a disaster.
And yes, I know that the Government (and the Media) wouldn't know what a real Electronic Signature is if it bit them in the ASP...
Does onybody remember when the Web was supposed to be the thing that made OS irrelevant, the thing that was supposed to be platform-independant?
Doesn't the W3C release standards to promote this effect?
And doesn't MS and Netscape blatently ignore these standards (specifically to create a platform-dependant experience, in the case of MS a Windows-dependant experience...)
I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but I lay the blame for ruining the interoperability of the web squarely on the major browser writers.
Who would have thought that Free (as in beer) software from companies with an agenda could do so much damage?
I've often wondered what the implications are if you enter the voting booth and just didn't vote for one particular race.
Will it be counted in the total vote total, just not for any candidate? Or will it not be counted in the vote total, and have the same effect as if you didn't vote?
I've been thinking about this because I get the pleasure of voting in the NY Senate Race, and I honestly think my six-month-old Golden Retriever could do a better job than any candidate on the ballot.
Of course they should structure their comittee like the W3C.
After all, look how good a job the W3C comittee does at convincing MS and Netscape of the value of standards!
Standards work well for technical concepts where it's really in the best interest of everyone to do it the same way, and everyone realizes it.
But for new concepts where companies already have their own buzzword-compliant concepts to make them money at the expense of the general industry, standards efforts are doomed to fail!
I want little nanosites that float in my bloodstream and automatically manufacture coffee when I need it!
And good coffee at that, not the sludge that comes out of the Office coffee pot!
Do you think that would make a good thesis?
Most people, when hearing about wearable computers for the first time, say that the last thing we need is a computer with us, all the time.
But the whole point of wearable computing is (or should be) to use computing technology to get away from the whole "Computer" concept!
When's the last time you had to reboot a screwdriver? Or had to update the BIOS on your pair of pliers? The tools we've been using for thousands of years just work, and we know how to use them intuitively.
A good wearable computer design will have the usability and intuitiveness of something we're already familiar with, but be able to take advantage of the benefits that computing technology could offer.
For instance, what if, woven into the threads of your jacket, you had a small computer platform that could do Speech Recognition, Language Translation, and Speech Synthesis in a different language? Want to visit France? Put on your French-Translation jacket! Want to visit Italy? Poof - just download the Italian program over the Wireless Network! And the computing system is so robust that not only will it NEVER crash, but you can put it through the wash!
Perhaps the idea of a jacket may be silly, but the idea is that you can integrate this computing function into your daily life like you would a jacket, and rely on it like you do a hammer. When's the last time you had a hammer crash on you? (Maybe I'm asking that question to the wrong people...)
Most people who pan Wearables play up the "Cyborg" aspect, but the true power of this technology lies in having it benefit our lives WITHOUT having the technology in our face all the time.
I got my masters as part of CMU's wearables group, and this is the direction that the long-term research was heading at the time. It's been a few years since I left, but I think it's still a good way to go, even if it is (very) far off! (We had the speech and translation part working, thanks to CMU's excellent CS researchers, but the rest of it obviously is still long-term ...)
I don't care how old this article is, EG says something in it that I wish all the non-techies would latch onto:
Instead of arguing over the definition of hackers and crackers, let's just say this:
If you commit a crime while "exploring", you are a criminal.
If you do not commit a crime, then you are not a criminal.
Then, all we need to do is get the people who write the laws to understand what should be a crime and what shouldn't. Easy, right? hah. This is why the EFF exists, I suppose...
Yes, I know, but that doesn't quite have the same ring to it.
Besides, if you take ALL the engineers and put them together, the average and the median are close enough for me!
But, if it makes all those people who were better at statistics than I was happy, I'll change my sig and make it even more vague!