I guess it really depends on where you live. We've always had indoor/outdoor cats (keeping one cooped indoors just doesn't jive well with me). They spent most nights indoors, but they were let out whenever they wanted to go out.
My first cat lived with me for going on 10 years, moved all over the city with us. The she got fed up with all the moving and just didn't come home one night.
My second cat lived with us for near on 10 years, finally succumbing to old age and brittle bones (fell off the back of the couch and broke his neck).
My third cat lived with us for about 5 years before he got fed up with all the moves and wandered back to the old house. Used to see him around there now and then for about another year.
Yes, of the other 5 cats we've had, only 1 has made it past 5 years. The others have become either coyote, lynx, or cougar food, near as we can guess (we live on the outskirts of town near the woods).
Personally, I'd rather a pet just didn't come home then having to go through the agony of watching it die (as my mom and sister had to do with number 2 above) of an old-age related illness. At least if they don't come home, there's always the chance they're just wandering around out there on there own and living a good life somewhere else.:) (Yeah, I'm a cat person, and miss having one around the house.)
We keep one around for when we get kittens. First, they're house broken and taught to use the litter box. Then they're taught to go outside instead. Works like a charm. No litter box to smell/clean/change, and nothing to worry about tripping over in the yard either. One of the better things about cats: they look after themselves.
Even better, is to train them to use the can like everyone else does. We had one cat that just started crapping in the toilet -- didn't have to teach him or anything. I used to get in trouble all the time for not flushing (I was 8 or so) until my mom finally caught the cat in the act.
FreeBSD 5.3 includes three different threading libraries:
- libc_r: the old-style threading that will eventually be removed
- libpthread: M:N threading using KSE
- libthr: 1:1 threading
The default is libpthread, and this is what is set in the ports tree and source tree. Any multi-threaded app you install will, by default, link against libpthread.
IOW, if you don't recompile all your apps after an upgrade from 5.2.1 to 5.3, you will run into problems. Or, you have to create a libmap.conf file, map libc_r to libpthread, and remember to eventually recompile all your apps.
[quote] And slow and bloated is okay on the server, where it won't be noticed. [/quote]
Oh, it's definitely noticable, even on the server. For our use, anyway. Unfortunately.
We're trying to run IBM's WebSphere Portal and Lotus Workplace Manager, both of which are written in Java. The web server is a dual Xeon 2.4 GHz with 4 GB RAM and SATA drivers. The database server is also a dual Xeon 2.4 GHz with 2 GB RAM. Both are running RedHat Enterprise Linux 2.1 AS. Get three people signed into Workplace, and you can literally watch the screen draw itself line by line as the load on the server climbs into the mid-double-digits. Even the Lotus and IBM techs can't figure this one out. We're in conference calls with them three times a week trying to get this working.
Java on my Celeron 1 GHz laptop with 256 MB RAM running FreeBSD 5.3-BETA3 and KDE 3.3 is a lot smoother running WebSphere Development Studio or Eclipse.
You *do* need to recompile *all* your apps. Otherwise, down the line, you *will* run into problems.
For instance. You install a bunch of apps on 5.2.1 that link against the default threading libs. These are using libc_r.
Later, you upgrade to 5.3. These apps are still linked against libc_r which is still installed, so everything works. Then you install a few new apps, which depend on the apps already installed. These new apps are now linked against libkse, but they are trying to load libs that are linked against libc_r. BANG! The apps don't load, you get all kinds of weird error messages, and you stare at the screen going, "Uh, huh?" You now need to recompile all the existing apps so that they all link against the same threading libraries.
Yes, you can kind of hack your way around this by using/etc/libmap.conf to alias libc_r to libkse and so on. But that's just a stop-gap measure.
YOU NEED TO RECOMPILE ALL YOUR APPS AFTER AN UPGRADE TO 5.3. That's the only way that you can be *SURE* that everything will continue to work correctly.
As for the kernel options that are now sysctls: RANDOM_IP_ID is the latest one that I can think of off the top of my head. There's at least 2 others listed in/usr/src/UPDATING.
Binary security updates have been available for a good 6 months now, maybe even longer. Check out the security/freebsd-update port for more info. It's not yet part of the official FreeBSD project, but it is on track to, hopefully, become so in the future.
As for binary application availability, when you donate enough hardware to rebuild 11,700+ applications on a regular basis, then they'll be available. As is it, they have enough hardware in the ports build cluster to build the packages for each release, and that's about it. Takes a long time to build, and rebuild, and store 11,700+ applications.
Besides, who do you want to set which options / features are available in each program: you, or some nameless, faceless package builder on the other side of the world?? That is one thing I absolutely cannot stand about RPMs,.debs,.tgzs, and other binary formats: I have no say in which features are included in the application. And don't even think about saying "just build a different binary package for each possible option combination".:)
It will not be painless to upgrade from 5.2.1 to 5.3.
The upgrade will require a recompile of *ALL* installed ports due to the changes in threading libraries and the new version of GCC (3.4) in the base system.
A lot of kernel options have also been turned into sysctls requiring a thorough read through/usr/src/UPDATING to figure out what to remove from the kernel config file.
The default version of X11 has been changed to Xorg and a new make.conf variable has been introduced to allow you to choose which one you want. Blindly upgrading X apps without setting this, or setting it to the wrong version, will cause problems.
Highly recommended that people start reading the new/usr/ports/UPDATING file after every ports tree update.
There have been a *lot* of changes between 5.2.1 and 5.3. The recommended, and best, method for upgrading from one to the other is to: 1. Backup all your data and config files. 2. Install 5.3 from the CD or FTP. 3. Install all the apps you want to use. 4. Restore your data and config files, as needed.
Just to clarify one thing: Windows NT 4.0 has had command, directory, and filename completion in cmd.exe. That was released back in 95 (or thereabouts). Hardly "until recently" as you put it.
The only problem with cmd.exe's completion is that it is set to ESC or some strange character like that, by default. To change it to TAB (or whatever other key you prefer) meant editing the registry or installing TweakUI.
And there have been replacement command interpreters (like JP Software's 4DOS) with these abilities (and more) since the days of Windows 3.1.
The problem with reiserfsck is that is will halt a boot of a RedHat system (waiting for someone to type "Yes" or "No" to run the fsck), that it is not named the same as the rest of the fsck tools (you can't use "fsck -t reiserfs"), and the output is completely different from the rest of the fsck tools.
Why can't all the filesystem designers rename, or provide links on install, their fs utils to match the standard fs utils??
"Toronto needs *cooling*?" Oh, God, Yes!!!! The thermometer doesn't get much higher than 25 degrees Celcius, and rarely pushes beyond 30, but the humidity in that place is extremely high in the summer. There's nothing worse than waking up drenched in sweat, taking a shower, walking outside and being drenched again, and spending the entire day completely drenched, suffocating in the smog. It's horrible.
The temps here in Kamloops, BC may push the 40 degree mark, but at least it's a nice dry, desert heat, and you don't feel gross, dank, and sweaty all day.
Wow, yet another area the States is behind us lowly Canadians, then.:)
All the cell companies around here (Rogers/AT&T, Bell, Telus) offer free uncoming text messages. You only pay for out-going messages.
Rogers plans include e-mail to SMS gateway services (@pcs.rogers.com). Telus forces you to purchase their data plan to connect to their e-mail servers to check for new messages. No idea about Bell.
This is the only reason I stay with Rogers. All the servers I admin are configured to send a message to my cell whenever there's a problem. A feature that none of the other carriers support, and that I cannot work without.
What they need to do is in the compat directory tree that the BSDs use:/usr/compat/ with the needed directory like lib, bin, and so on underneath.
When you load a 32-bit x86 binary supported via compat libs, you do some nifty loader / linker tricks to make it think/usr/compat/x86/lib is actually/lib.
Keep all the directories under / for the main architecture of the OS. Put everything else under/usr/compat. It's been working great for many, many yeasr over in BSDland to support Linux, IBCS2, and other binary programs running on top of the BSD OS.
What's even worse than using a shortened version of your name is having two middle names. Try getting any company with a "fill in the blanks" form to accept two middle initials. I absolutely refuse to fill in any form that will not accept two middle initials with my full, legal name. If it doesn't take two middle initials, then all they get is a shortened form of my first name and my last name.
I've fought with banks, credit card companies, employers, and a few other places to use one of the two forms: full first name + both middle initials + last name, or short first name + last name. No other combinations are satisfactory.
Surprisingly, only one bank has given me grief over this. I just closed my accounts with them and went somewhere else.:)
Every piece of ID I have has a different name / address on it. But haven't had any problems so far.:D
If you lived here, and you experienced the attitudes of the locals, you'd realise we're still a "small town". Maybe, in ten years, when we hit the magical 100,000, we'll move into city status.:)
Actually, you could end up calling someone in BC. Convergys isn't located in a single city, there are Convergys call-centers all over Canada. The local one here in Kamloops, BC just started doing RoadRunner support, along with HP and American Express.
RoadRunner and HP tech support is done out of a small town in British Columbia known as Kamloops. They also handle US accounts for American Express (damn, you guys get a hell of a lot more bonuses, perks, and extras than the Canadian side of American Express).
Horrible place to work for, though. $11 / hr for phone support, $9 / hr for customer sales support. Great benefits, but doesn't make up for it at all. All trainees spend 3 months doing the 5am - 1:30pm shift. After that, they change your shift based on your test / training scores. They're the biggest employer in the city, yet have the highest turn over rate of any business in the city (gee, I wonder why?).
The P6 and NetBurst SMP architectures use a shared memory bus. This means that as you add CPUs to a system, you decrease the memory bandwidth available to each CPU. The total memeory bandwidth of the system never changes.
The K8 architecture uses a point-to-point memory system. The Opteron CPU includes the memory controller on the die and uses HyperTransport links to communicate between CPUs. This means that as you add CPUs to a system, you increase the overall memory bandwidth of the system. Each CPU only get 6.4 GB/s (or thereabouts) of bandwidth, but that's per CPU. Put in 2 or 4 CPUs, and you have 12 or 24 GB/s of memory bandwidth.
Ars Technica has a nice comparison of the 3+ GHz Xeons with 3 MB L3 and the Opteron in 1, 2, and 4-way configurations. Very enlightning little article, and shows just how horrible SMP on Intel hardware really is.
Perl was removed from the source tree with the release of FreeBSD 5.0. The installer installs Perl from a package so that the installed system still has Perl. But, it can be removed with a simple "pkg_delete perl\*" or upgraded to whichever version the user wants/needs/requires. All the system administration scripts that were written in Perl have been rewritten in either C or sh.
DragonFlyBSD doesn't "want to get away from FreeBSD". They want to try out new directions, new technologies, new ways of doing things. There have been several dozen imports from FreeBSD 4.x and 5.x, as well as from NetBSD and OpenBSD. That's the nice thing about the BSDs: they are all separate projects, but the source code flows freely between them all.
Considering that SMP will soon become standard issue in the x86 world, I don't see how SMP can not be important. Both Intel and AMD are putting the finishing touched on their dual-core CPUs. In another year, two at the most, you'll be buying a system with one physical CPU "chip", but two physical CPUs on it, making every system an SMP system.
There are several different ways to make an SMP system. FreeBSD 4.x used a simple "Big Giant Lock" on the kernel. FreeBSD 5.x uses fine-grained, mutex-based locking and Kernel Scheduled Entities. DragonFly will use a lockless, message-passing system based on Lightweight Kernel Threads. Very different beasts, and it's not possible to use both LWKT and KSE in the same system. Why not fork off another project, see if it works or not, and either let it live as a separate OS or fold the tech back into FreeBSD as needed?? Forks are not inherently bad things.
Besides, it is more likely the parents undermining the schoold system. Parents come in bitching about little Sally getting an F even though she did no work. If parents backed up schools, then we would have better kids in society. Instead, we have parents teaching kids not to respect authority.
This has nothing to do with parents undermining the schools. This has everything to with with schools being run by spineless idiots, and the lack of support schools receive from their higher-ups. The various levels of government are removing the abilities of the schools to punish children. This has nothing to with the parents. It's almost against the law now to fail a student.
We need legislators that are willing to stand up to others and to give the school administrators the tools they need to stand up to the parents. If a kid is not doing the work, fail them. Don't pass them if they don't deserve it. Punish a student if they do something wrong, and a "slap on the wrist" or detention is not enough.
I've always wanted to arrange something similar, a neighbourhood or city-wide challenge like that. But, the Laser Tag equipment up here is downright ugly, klunky, uncomfortable and gross. Not to mention extremely over-priced. Whatever happened to the cool vests and helmets from the original Laser Tag (you know, the one that was based on the cartoon or vice versa)??
If they make a nice-looking LT outfit and handgun, that could be comfortably worn at all times, with a battery life to last all day, and didn't cost an arm-and-a-leg, then this might be a fun "welcome to college" activity.:)
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I guess it really depends on where you live. We've always had indoor/outdoor cats (keeping one cooped indoors just doesn't jive well with me). They spent most nights indoors, but they were let out whenever they wanted to go out.
:) (Yeah, I'm a cat person, and miss having one around the house.)
My first cat lived with me for going on 10 years, moved all over the city with us. The she got fed up with all the moving and just didn't come home one night.
My second cat lived with us for near on 10 years, finally succumbing to old age and brittle bones (fell off the back of the couch and broke his neck).
My third cat lived with us for about 5 years before he got fed up with all the moves and wandered back to the old house. Used to see him around there now and then for about another year.
Yes, of the other 5 cats we've had, only 1 has made it past 5 years. The others have become either coyote, lynx, or cougar food, near as we can guess (we live on the outskirts of town near the woods).
Personally, I'd rather a pet just didn't come home then having to go through the agony of watching it die (as my mom and sister had to do with number 2 above) of an old-age related illness. At least if they don't come home, there's always the chance they're just wandering around out there on there own and living a good life somewhere else.
People still use litter boxes??
We keep one around for when we get kittens. First, they're house broken and taught to use the litter box. Then they're taught to go outside instead. Works like a charm. No litter box to smell/clean/change, and nothing to worry about tripping over in the yard either. One of the better things about cats: they look after themselves.
Even better, is to train them to use the can like everyone else does. We had one cat that just started crapping in the toilet -- didn't have to teach him or anything. I used to get in trouble all the time for not flushing (I was 8 or so) until my mom finally caught the cat in the act.
Now has?? It's been in there since the middle of the 4.x series.
No.
FreeBSD 5.3 includes three different threading libraries:
- libc_r: the old-style threading that will eventually be removed
- libpthread: M:N threading using KSE
- libthr: 1:1 threading
The default is libpthread, and this is what is set in the ports tree and source tree. Any multi-threaded app you install will, by default, link against libpthread.
IOW, if you don't recompile all your apps after an upgrade from 5.2.1 to 5.3, you will run into problems. Or, you have to create a libmap.conf file, map libc_r to libpthread, and remember to eventually recompile all your apps.
[quote] And slow and bloated is okay on the server, where it won't be noticed. [/quote]
Oh, it's definitely noticable, even on the server. For our use, anyway. Unfortunately.
We're trying to run IBM's WebSphere Portal and Lotus Workplace Manager, both of which are written in Java. The web server is a dual Xeon 2.4 GHz with 4 GB RAM and SATA drivers. The database server is also a dual Xeon 2.4 GHz with 2 GB RAM. Both are running RedHat Enterprise Linux 2.1 AS. Get three people signed into Workplace, and you can literally watch the screen draw itself line by line as the load on the server climbs into the mid-double-digits. Even the Lotus and IBM techs can't figure this one out. We're in conference calls with them three times a week trying to get this working.
Java on my Celeron 1 GHz laptop with 256 MB RAM running FreeBSD 5.3-BETA3 and KDE 3.3 is a lot smoother running WebSphere Development Studio or Eclipse.
You *do* need to recompile *all* your apps. Otherwise, down the line, you *will* run into problems.
/etc/libmap.conf to alias libc_r to libkse and so on. But that's just a stop-gap measure.
/usr/src/UPDATING.
For instance. You install a bunch of apps on 5.2.1 that link against the default threading libs. These are using libc_r.
Later, you upgrade to 5.3. These apps are still linked against libc_r which is still installed, so everything works. Then you install a few new apps, which depend on the apps already installed. These new apps are now linked against libkse, but they are trying to load libs that are linked against libc_r. BANG! The apps don't load, you get all kinds of weird error messages, and you stare at the screen going, "Uh, huh?" You now need to recompile all the existing apps so that they all link against the same threading libraries.
Yes, you can kind of hack your way around this by using
YOU NEED TO RECOMPILE ALL YOUR APPS AFTER AN UPGRADE TO 5.3. That's the only way that you can be *SURE* that everything will continue to work correctly.
As for the kernel options that are now sysctls: RANDOM_IP_ID is the latest one that I can think of off the top of my head. There's at least 2 others listed in
Binary security updates have been available for a good 6 months now, maybe even longer. Check out the security/freebsd-update port for more info. It's not yet part of the official FreeBSD project, but it is on track to, hopefully, become so in the future.
.debs, .tgzs, and other binary formats: I have no say in which features are included in the application. And don't even think about saying "just build a different binary package for each possible option combination". :)
As for binary application availability, when you donate enough hardware to rebuild 11,700+ applications on a regular basis, then they'll be available. As is it, they have enough hardware in the ports build cluster to build the packages for each release, and that's about it. Takes a long time to build, and rebuild, and store 11,700+ applications.
Besides, who do you want to set which options / features are available in each program: you, or some nameless, faceless package builder on the other side of the world?? That is one thing I absolutely cannot stand about RPMs,
It will not be painless to upgrade from 5.2.1 to 5.3.
/usr/src/UPDATING to figure out what to remove from the kernel config file.
/usr/ports/UPDATING file after every ports tree update.
The upgrade will require a recompile of *ALL* installed ports due to the changes in threading libraries and the new version of GCC (3.4) in the base system.
A lot of kernel options have also been turned into sysctls requiring a thorough read through
The default version of X11 has been changed to Xorg and a new make.conf variable has been introduced to allow you to choose which one you want. Blindly upgrading X apps without setting this, or setting it to the wrong version, will cause problems.
Highly recommended that people start reading the new
There have been a *lot* of changes between 5.2.1 and 5.3. The recommended, and best, method for upgrading from one to the other is to:
1. Backup all your data and config files.
2. Install 5.3 from the CD or FTP.
3. Install all the apps you want to use.
4. Restore your data and config files, as needed.
Just to clarify one thing: Windows NT 4.0 has had command, directory, and filename completion in cmd.exe. That was released back in 95 (or thereabouts). Hardly "until recently" as you put it.
The only problem with cmd.exe's completion is that it is set to ESC or some strange character like that, by default. To change it to TAB (or whatever other key you prefer) meant editing the registry or installing TweakUI.
And there have been replacement command interpreters (like JP Software's 4DOS) with these abilities (and more) since the days of Windows 3.1.
The problem with reiserfsck is that is will halt a boot of a RedHat system (waiting for someone to type "Yes" or "No" to run the fsck), that it is not named the same as the rest of the fsck tools (you can't use "fsck -t reiserfs"), and the output is completely different from the rest of the fsck tools.
Why can't all the filesystem designers rename, or provide links on install, their fs utils to match the standard fs utils??
"Toronto needs *cooling*?"
Oh, God, Yes!!!! The thermometer doesn't get much higher than 25 degrees Celcius, and rarely pushes beyond 30, but the humidity in that place is extremely high in the summer. There's nothing worse than waking up drenched in sweat, taking a shower, walking outside and being drenched again, and spending the entire day completely drenched, suffocating in the smog. It's horrible.
The temps here in Kamloops, BC may push the 40 degree mark, but at least it's a nice dry, desert heat, and you don't feel gross, dank, and sweaty all day.
Wow, yet another area the States is behind us lowly Canadians, then. :)
All the cell companies around here (Rogers/AT&T, Bell, Telus) offer free uncoming text messages. You only pay for out-going messages.
Rogers plans include e-mail to SMS gateway services (@pcs.rogers.com). Telus forces you to purchase their data plan to connect to their e-mail servers to check for new messages. No idea about Bell.
This is the only reason I stay with Rogers. All the servers I admin are configured to send a message to my cell whenever there's a problem. A feature that none of the other carriers support, and that I cannot work without.
If this is broken for you, then I'd look to your configuration. :)
We've been using Samba 2.2 and 3.0 at work on FreeBSD 4.x and 5.2.1 without issues. Reading and writing to FAT32 drives without corruption.
I also use this at home with -CURRENT.
Writing to a Samba share from Windows 98, 2000, and XP works fine for us. And writing to a mount point using mount_smbfs works as well.
What they need to do is in the compat directory tree that the BSDs use: /usr/compat/ with the needed directory like lib, bin, and so on underneath.
/usr/compat/x86/lib is actually /lib.
/usr/compat. It's been working great for many, many yeasr over in BSDland to support Linux, IBCS2, and other binary programs running on top of the BSD OS.
When you load a 32-bit x86 binary supported via compat libs, you do some nifty loader / linker tricks to make it think
Keep all the directories under / for the main architecture of the OS. Put everything else under
What's even worse than using a shortened version of your name is having two middle names. Try getting any company with a "fill in the blanks" form to accept two middle initials. I absolutely refuse to fill in any form that will not accept two middle initials with my full, legal name. If it doesn't take two middle initials, then all they get is a shortened form of my first name and my last name.
:)
:D
I've fought with banks, credit card companies, employers, and a few other places to use one of the two forms: full first name + both middle initials + last name, or short first name + last name. No other combinations are satisfactory.
Surprisingly, only one bank has given me grief over this. I just closed my accounts with them and went somewhere else.
Every piece of ID I have has a different name / address on it. But haven't had any problems so far.
If you lived here, and you experienced the attitudes of the locals, you'd realise we're still a "small town". Maybe, in ten years, when we hit the magical 100,000, we'll move into city status. :)
Actually, you could end up calling someone in BC. Convergys isn't located in a single city, there are Convergys call-centers all over Canada. The local one here in Kamloops, BC just started doing RoadRunner support, along with HP and American Express.
RoadRunner and HP tech support is done out of a small town in British Columbia known as Kamloops. They also handle US accounts for American Express (damn, you guys get a hell of a lot more bonuses, perks, and extras than the Canadian side of American Express).
Horrible place to work for, though. $11 / hr for phone support, $9 / hr for customer sales support. Great benefits, but doesn't make up for it at all. All trainees spend 3 months doing the 5am - 1:30pm shift. After that, they change your shift based on your test / training scores. They're the biggest employer in the city, yet have the highest turn over rate of any business in the city (gee, I wonder why?).
The P6 and NetBurst SMP architectures use a shared memory bus. This means that as you add CPUs to a system, you decrease the memory bandwidth available to each CPU. The total memeory bandwidth of the system never changes.
The K8 architecture uses a point-to-point memory system. The Opteron CPU includes the memory controller on the die and uses HyperTransport links to communicate between CPUs. This means that as you add CPUs to a system, you increase the overall memory bandwidth of the system. Each CPU only get 6.4 GB/s (or thereabouts) of bandwidth, but that's per CPU. Put in 2 or 4 CPUs, and you have 12 or 24 GB/s of memory bandwidth.
Ars Technica has a nice comparison of the 3+ GHz Xeons with 3 MB L3 and the Opteron in 1, 2, and 4-way configurations. Very enlightning little article, and shows just how horrible SMP on Intel hardware really is.
Perl was removed from the source tree with the release of FreeBSD 5.0. The installer installs Perl from a package so that the installed system still has Perl. But, it can be removed with a simple "pkg_delete perl\*" or upgraded to whichever version the user wants/needs/requires. All the system administration scripts that were written in Perl have been rewritten in either C or sh.
DragonFlyBSD doesn't "want to get away from FreeBSD". They want to try out new directions, new technologies, new ways of doing things. There have been several dozen imports from FreeBSD 4.x and 5.x, as well as from NetBSD and OpenBSD. That's the nice thing about the BSDs: they are all separate projects, but the source code flows freely between them all.
Considering that SMP will soon become standard issue in the x86 world, I don't see how SMP can not be important. Both Intel and AMD are putting the finishing touched on their dual-core CPUs. In another year, two at the most, you'll be buying a system with one physical CPU "chip", but two physical CPUs on it, making every system an SMP system.
There are several different ways to make an SMP system. FreeBSD 4.x used a simple "Big Giant Lock" on the kernel. FreeBSD 5.x uses fine-grained, mutex-based locking and Kernel Scheduled Entities. DragonFly will use a lockless, message-passing system based on Lightweight Kernel Threads. Very different beasts, and it's not possible to use both LWKT and KSE in the same system. Why not fork off another project, see if it works or not, and either let it live as a separate OS or fold the tech back into FreeBSD as needed?? Forks are not inherently bad things.
To quote a famous radio reporter: ... And now you know ... the rest of the story. :)
So? GCC != Linux, and Linux != GPL. I fail to see the connection between running SFU and "Windows will have Linux code".
This has nothing to do with parents undermining the schools. This has everything to with with schools being run by spineless idiots, and the lack of support schools receive from their higher-ups. The various levels of government are removing the abilities of the schools to punish children. This has nothing to with the parents. It's almost against the law now to fail a student.
We need legislators that are willing to stand up to others and to give the school administrators the tools they need to stand up to the parents. If a kid is not doing the work, fail them. Don't pass them if they don't deserve it. Punish a student if they do something wrong, and a "slap on the wrist" or detention is not enough.
Ah, thanks. I thought there was Nx686 or similar, but wasn't sure if I was remembering correctly.
I've always wanted to arrange something similar, a neighbourhood or city-wide challenge like that. But, the Laser Tag equipment up here is downright ugly, klunky, uncomfortable and gross. Not to mention extremely over-priced. Whatever happened to the cool vests and helmets from the original Laser Tag (you know, the one that was based on the cartoon or vice versa)??
:)
If they make a nice-looking LT outfit and handgun, that could be comfortably worn at all times, with a battery life to last all day, and didn't cost an arm-and-a-leg, then this might be a fun "welcome to college" activity.