Lets assume that these spammers actually have some kind of product (whether it works/does what is claimed or not is irrelevant, what matters is that they have a product) and are actually sending it out to people who buy from their crappy.biz website.
If the place where the pills are coming from is located outside of the US, the drugs can be stopped in the mail (I believe mailing drugs into the US from outside of the US is illegal). If the place where the pills are coming from is located inside the US then the places they are being sent from could be shut down for not having a license or something. If enough people bought these "generic drugs" and didnt actually get them, they might care enough to complain to the supplier. The spam sites don't have a real product - they simply collect the credit card information from users for use in further criminal activity (e.g. ident theft, child porn, etc.) For at least one of these sites, the process is described in great detail: http://spamtrackers.eu/wiki/index.php?title=My_Can adian_Pharmacy
In my opinion, placing orders using randomly generated contact/CC info would do more damage, as they would have to filter through these false orders. If done to enough of a degree, it makes operating the site unproductive. Based on linear math from two datapoints, I suspect about ~300 orders within one month for one site in particular (based on order numbers RX52007-***331 from and RX52007-***724, about 30 days apart. )
I 3 online pharmacies, and I am aware that typing < instead of < causes me to teabag rather than to heart.
Further evidence that the organization knew that what they did to you was wrong. That's evidence that the assistant manager did something wrong, not the company. In particular, the manager made an accusation of shoplifting rather than stating that he needs to be more certain that the item was purchased from this store.
You should sue. For tens of millions. I heard there was a case involving a dry cleaner being sued for millions of dollars, since they lost a pair of pants and had a satisifcation guarenteed sign.
Devils Advocate: A receipt check is a request for cooperation in helping deter crime. A receipt check fails to deter crime since it doesn't even penetrate into the clothing of the customer consumer holding the bag.
A better deterrant is those magnetic strips/pads that activate alarms when they pass through a sensor (as is done at the local EB Games.) Those things, as you know, attract attention.
The reason many nerds are libertarian is simple - we like to be logical about things, and we believe in privacy and in small government. That's a limited definition of "nerd", possibly incorrect. Thinking logically, I can easily believe that certain forms of privacy can be stripped away, as well as increasing the size of government and it's set of laws. Examples include adding regulations to catch types of unquestionable fraud (insider trading, etc.) that would instantly be dismissed in a minimally regulated market.
Privacy can easily be removed as well - makes convicting domestic abuse easier, identifies organized crime etc. It will also prevent incidents such as those that happened to David Milgaard, Guy Paul Morin, and Steven Truscott as we will know they didn't do it. Is there a stalker? He can be tracked down while stalking (or otherwise apprehended afterwards.) Granted, it won't prevent crimes - especially the heat-of-the-moment ones, but it sure would slow down persistant criminals.
While not an "optimal" outcome, it's good enough for the average user.
BTW, perhaps the question was asked in a backwards fashion, where it should be "Why are so many libertarians nerds?" Not that it matters, due to the bigoted connotation of the word libertarian. (Nerd, however, is perfectly fine.)
2.4.3 Opened Envelope Any envelope or package that appears to have been opened and resealed, or otherwise improperly prepared, may not be registered.
2.4.6 Sealing The mailer must securely seal envelopes.
If you try contesting a defendant that uses the "poor-man's copyright" by claiming that the document wasn't in the envelope at the time it was mailed, this is close enough to the response you'll get. You may want to ask a lawyer on how to properly contest the document, unless it's obvious that the envelope was tampered with.
If you have a Mac, you save anything to be printed to file as a PDF document. I know this is offtopic, but Windows supports "print-to-file", which causes Windows to write a file that can later be manually copied over to a parallel-port printer (by using "copy/b file.prn lpt1" in the command prompt). Does anyone know the procedure for doing this to USB printers?
This is just in case I find I need to print out something when not currently connected to my printer. It could be a drawing I made, or some exercise training program that is permitted to be printed (explicitly, or forced by law.)
Is that illegal now? Depends on the terms at which you are permitted to print the coupons to begin with. Most likely, you are allowed two copies, and anything more is probably violating something.
You just described all email. When I send someone a job application, or a photo of a cat with its head stuck in a jar, or a love letter, it's because I think the recipient wants to read it (of course I want them to read it too, but I wouldn't send it unless I thought they'd be interested). In instances of sending a job application, it's usually semi-solicited or related to known business concerning the recipient. With the exception of Bernard Shiftman, cold-contacts such as these is not spam. In the instace of sending a cat with it's head in a jar or a love letter, there's probably some existing friendly relationship - and thus the assumption can be assumed.
The main issue with spamming is sending unsolicited bulk messages.
Email is inherently push-based, so it's always based on an assumption about what the other person might want to receive. The types of spam I receive don't make that assumption - they are blindly sent out. In particular, I receive several spams for online pharmacies, and "Get your 'free-as-in-pyramid-scam' $500 Visa gift card.", neither of which most reasonable people are interested in. In addition, at least two of my e-mail addresses were flooded with spam to a degree where legitimate messages were bouncing.
There is one batch of spam that I'm interested in, but it more to do with messing with their order system rather than the products behind the orders. I'm perfectly fine with it, since the site in question is unquestionably a scam (e.g. claim to be secure, but don't use https for credit card numbers - other clues give thins away as well.)
Here are some tantalizing tidbits that cast the shadow of doubt on evolutionary certitude: Only in the context provided. For example, dinosaurs are 30% different from modern animals since they were killed off by an ice age, requiring evolution to make up for the lost creatures.
As you know, it's much easier to use the pastafarianism style of creationism - where the Flying Spagetti Monster created the world complete with evidence of evolution. It removes the step of trying to use random tidbits in an attempt to disprove evolution (when such attempts can easily be explained as within normal tolerances of the theory, or instead used as proof), and gets direct to the point of having an external influence.
Personally, I think that there is a kind of multi-dimensional or perhaps zero-point pressure mechanism/interface at work between matter and energy that has not yet been articulated or identified The same entity that can micromanage evolution can easily create a big bang. Which one is easier for that entity?
I once tried debating evolution with someone that had a very strict religious view. The debate was very short His first answer was: "Any evidence of the existance of evolution has been put there by God to tempt the faithfull" That seems quite close to Pastafarianism.
On a technical level, the argument doesn't do anything against evolution. For example, God could easily play with Dominoes - by building a human in his image, simply by creating a single amoeba and waiting a long time. In this way, God is showing his omnipotence by making the universe much more complex than a single human can even come close to understanding. Right now, we're up to "string theory".
My favourite is that anything before ~1970 didn't happen since I never observed it - the universe was created as soon as I was born (complete with "pre-ageing"), and collapses as soon as I die. This indicates that the argument is the implementation on a religion, not how the world was indicated to have been setup in the current state.
The concern and the assumption here seems misplaced. First of all, evolution is nowhere near an established and testable "fact" such as DNA testing. Evolution can easily be identified as a fact through the fact that species have evolved from predecessors - for example, some modern humans (1990-2000s) have evolutionally progressed from some ancient humans (1AD - 1000AB) by having additional body fat located in the stomach, and by having a new ability of semi-instantly communicating over long distances. The shift isn't universal, as it progressed at different rates (e.g. some have less fat, and some others aren't as good with the new communication method.)
Macroevolution involves the shift between humans and their immediate ancestors. There is plenty of evidence that has been discovered to create the theory behind macroevolution. If there is a better theory you have in mind, feel free to present it clearly.
Regardless of the many instances where it appears that evolution is scientifically correct there are many critical areas where hard proof for the theory is lacking. The scientific record shows that new species seem to erupt out of nowhere with very few, if any, true transitional fossils being found. Citation?
Transitional fossils, as you should know, indicate a step between a species and a previously detected ancestor. Absense of evidence (which aren't guarenteed to be created) is not evidence of absense.
Also, a simple google search can easily identify these transitional fossils you are looking for.
Re:Truly gifted students don't need the extra supp
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Failing Our Geniuses
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I don't want to come off as insulting here, but you don't sound all that "gifted" to me. You had to take three years of the same math, and yet, rather than do something interesting with it, you chose instead to just sit there and take it. Actually, my focus was on computer programming, which isn't a pure math subject. One of the things that I was interested in, creating a level editor for Doom, didn't get far off the ground - while I was able to read the WAD file and display the results, it easily broke down when attempting to make changes to the map itself. When I reviewed it after college, I was able to make further progress - after I learned how things could go wrong in a medium to large-scale programs.
This attempt at work didn't rely on anything related to school. It also required combating Global Warming unless you wanted to stick with something basic.
It's still a math heavy subject, especially if you intend to do anything fancy. It's easier now with floating point processors, but in the 386/486 era, you need every trick in the book in order to make something semi-fast and stable. (As well as a way around the 64KB and 640KB barriers.) At least that stuff is still easier than adding AI support to "Tourneyfest" in Starfleet Command.
The world is full of people who used to be the smart kid in class but gave up - that's hardly special. I prefer the term reprioritized. </joke>
On a more serious note, there are plenty of students that react to external influences. In cases of the school system, there's some students that try to max out stuff anyway (which is labourous if courses follow the magical 2:1 homework ratio), some students that seek out something extra, and some that simply become bored.
If students start to self learn, there also needs to be a guide just in case something goes wrong. You may believe it's difficult to mess up something as simple as programming a 4-function Calculator, but you can expect bad things to happen if you aren't looking for problems. (Case in point: I self-learned a really strange method to get the GCF from a math textbook. It wouldn't get the correct answer, and I had no way to instantly verify it - aside from the initial example that happened to give the correct result.)
Re:Truly gifted students don't need the extra supp
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Failing Our Geniuses
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"Smart" students who will do the bare minimum to skate by and who will often complain that their classes aren't challenging but won't do anything but boast about it. Extra spending is irrelevant to this type because they won't take advantage of it. Under this definition, I would fit under this category. However, this is an extremely simplistic view of what's going on in education.
At one time, I asked for a prior learning assessment - which wasn't available at the public high-school. This resulted me in taking a math course where I already knew the content - for three years in a row. The time spent in these courses learning that negative numbers didn't exist followed by a redaction could have easily been spent learning that imaginary numbers didn't exist followed by a reaction. Alternativly, the math courses could be replaced with supplemental lessons which focus on areas that can be improved.
"Smart" students who will go above and beyond in order to *make* the work more challenging, who take the assignments as a minimum, not the maximum. These students don't need extra support, either - they make their own support. In my opinion, I put a lot of effort into creating a diarama when trying to make a "realistic" depiction of WWI trenches. I don't remember whether the low mark was because it was damaged after I handed in, or whether it was because of the catch-all "effort", but it wasn't something that could be corrected without access to better material. (In particular, the sand needed to be wet to stick together - what I wanted was a mud-like material that wasn't wet but looked realistic.)
After that, alongside similar projects with an "effort/creativity" mark, I simply lost all interest in those tasks.
BTW, these students still need support. Some students that can go above and beyond in some fields will feel uncomfortable looking deficient in others, and will cover up these flaws. I have heard plenty of personal accounts concerning this - such as some students using the wall clock in order to fake their way through math. If they are naturally advanced in all visible fields, they probably need more advanced materials/textbooks in order to maintain that advancement.
Anyone who has worked with special needs children will tell you that they are generally much brighter than they appear. Also if you have worked with gifted children you will often find they are brats. I have worked with both. Also, many 'gifted' people do not show their talent until later in life whereas many gifted children are has-beens quite young. This is generally caused by a botched education structure. In particular, gifted children aren't challenged in an American education system, in the same way that a level 50 RPG character isn't challenged by basic pest control. In addition, such children are generally abused by others as part of some cultural hazing campaign.
Gifted children will always find something to do "Genius will out" as the saying goes Only if they have the materials to do so. No matter how hard you try, you cannot translate from one language to another if you do not have a dictionary or reference for either of the two languages. Likewise, you cannot create art without paper and drawing materials, you cannot write a program without a compiler or interpreter, and you cannot learn without an appropriate textbook.
The problem with the education system is that it puts an emphasis on subjects that can be quantified. You can easily assess a good mathematician, but how do you assess a person who makes others feel happy, comfortable, cared for, relaxed, and in general is the sort of person we like to be in the company of. An employment training program used an ad-hoc procedure for determining the "non-quantifiable" aspects of a person. In particular, it involves checking with other participants about the behaviour, attitude and relationships of a given member, given to both supervisors and co-workers. Even if it isn't fully precise, it gives a general idea on what is going on.
The same system can be done in school - with the exception that you don't include blunders such as school yard bullies trying to rate down the class egghead, even if it involved throwing away data in bulk.
Sounds like a fair system. To the best students go the best teachers. You want the best teachers for your child make sure the child understands the score. It is fair, if there is a fair method of determining one of the best students. In practice, at least one relativly important inventor/scientist was declared stupid/addled/rowdy because the teachers were trying to put a square peg into a round hole. There was also instances where some students were deficiant in one area and thus treated as a "bad student".
Because of this practicality, the result is that you need to train students at their levels, not train students by assigning them to teachers.
No way should a good teacher be forced to teach students who do not want to study. Thankfully, purly unwilling students can be removed from the equation - provided that the field of study isn't something silly (e.g. you are given one pre-fab science fair project marked on "creativity" and "effort" - mine in particular was creating a chocolate bar... wrapper.)
You are coming to a sad realization. Cancel or Allow? Cancel. I'm quite happy with the current situation as I can actually do somthing about it (in this case, I place orders on some scam artists website using randomly generated information). Being sad only slows me down in this aspect.
It wasn't "all life" that came from the B Ark, only humans. And it's been a while since I've read the Guide (forgive me...), but I think it was pretty clear that modern humans were the descendents of the B Ark people, not the cavemen. If that's the case, Arthur wouldn't been able to query himself about the question. At worst, there must have been some crossbreeding between the B-Ark people and the cavemen...
Why render at 1600x1200 and then display it at 640x480 when you can just display it at 1600x1200 (I know a rough analogy, but it still stands), its on of the features that should get bumped once all others are maxed (including resolution). That analogy is fully accurate, but it can be turned against you. Rendering and displaying at 1600x1200 directly produces "jaggies". Rendering at 3200x2400 and displaying at 1600x1200 causes the jagged lines to smooth out slightly - while you could still see the staircase if you look closely enough, it won't be a black and white transition.
While exact rendering works fine for screenshots, you need to use supersampling tactics when the camera starts moving. As an example, look at Rise of the Triad: when you move forward on the first shareware level, the wall textures on the door opposite of your starting point will look like some moire varient - even when you are used to 320x200 resolution.
I think the basic psychology here is that if you learn a subject on your own, you are saying that the teachers aren't necessary. This is taken as arrogance and disrespect on your part. You're supposed to depend on the teachers for your learning, else why are they there? During high-school, I self-learned the math and computer fields. The rationale was that there wasn't really any suitable courses that I had access to, and studing for the existing math course would probably indicate obsessive-compulsive disorder. (The definition of insanity is doing the same thing expecting a different result - for example, studying in order to improve a 90-100% mark.)
There was very limited room for advancement in the fixed-rate education system - no matter how skilled you are, you need to take 110 hours per rigidly designed course. In addition, there isn't a possibility of a diploma-replacement (e.g. GED tests used in some US states), and thus highschool becomes a full-time job with less benefit than working at McD.
It would make a little more sense if this was college when you have an idea what you want to do with your life and realize it doesn't make sense to take calculus to finish out an art/language major. The problem with that line of reasoning is that it seeped over onto the more technical paths, including Computer Science. Most students (incorrectly) believe that they won't need the advanced math when they go out into the business area, which has resulted in focus being removed on what should be a critical course.
In my opinion, I feel that high-school has suffered from this reasoning as well - especially when combined with the fact that you do not get to keep a permanent reference for future study.
we repeat: You should probably consider upgrading from a 486. The processors capable of handling an infinite number of operations in finite time haven't been invented yet. But once that happens, we'll be able to have infinite-precision calculators.
You should probably consider upgrading from a 486. Won't protect against the buggy Javascript in question.
As an example, let's assume that one of those shaky "Your the 999,999th visitor" ads pins the CPU at 100%. Unless you only one web browser window/tab open (if you read/., probably not), it will be running more than once and thus cause problems. Even one 100% CPU process or thread can lock down the system - especially if it's called "Spoolsv.exe".
Dual core systems could help... but it won't be long before an SMP process can do the 100% pinning as well.
P.S. If you hear whooshing, you probably want to wear eye/head protection.
DosBox is not configured well, it runs 320x200 games in a kind of widescreen. That's cause it's a form of widescreen. - 640x480 has a 4:3 aspect ratio. - 320x200 has a 16:10 (or 8:5) aspect ratio.
If you play it on LCDs, you are usually playing the game at a non-native resolution. This isn't a problem itself, but as it's a matter of personal preference on how to handle the aspect ratio, it will be difficult to find the "best" solution.
Reminds me of when Amarica's Army tried an unusually way of filtering for a while. Instead of blocking the word, they substituted it with less offensive synonym. For example if I said "Joe is camping", you would see "Joe is using tactics". Three things came out of that: While that might have been abandoned, there's a way to fix it in future implementations.
As soon as the word camping comes up, print an in-game ad for "camp-buster", that kills off players standing still for more than ~300 milliseconds. It's more than enough time to keep players in action, and will cut down on any issues with players holding down a single area by "camping".
Having fewer laws but broader and vaguer definitions is even worse; it invites selective-enforcement by police. Selective enforcement is caused by the lack of police forces, a corrupt institution, or a despotism. In the latter of the two cases, selective enforcement is based on the ability to "get away" with the crimes. The number or quality of the laws do not affect this.
The RIAA, as you know, is flinging lawsuits left and right, as they have the resources to do so. They treat everyone equally - if you get detected, you become targetted. However, the DVDCCA allocated much less resources for legal battles and only targetted a small quantity of those who distributed DeCSS. For one reason or another, they couldn't go after the large quantity of "thieves" and needed to target a smaller group.
Suddenly, unbeknown to you, burning a back-up copy of your Duran-Duran CD falls under the same "stealing" law, In that event of the scenario, you've already broken the law and you'd know it - even before you attempt to burn the CD. Also, why would you want that CD? There's already high-quality entertainment played frequently enough that you don't need such low-quality sounds.
and carries the same penalties, as smashing a window and burglarizing a music store. Hammurabi's code of laws contains a concept known as an "Eye for an eye", where the punishment is proportional to the damage inflicted. Likewise, the book of Leviticus uses a "sheep for a sheep" concept. Breaking the law has always been easy to determine - either you steal or you don't.
Also, the comparison you provided isn't exact. For copying the CD, you've committed stealing, and upto two instances of possession (which requires more context to determine the actual answer). In the latter case, you've committed destruction and stealing. These are distinct enough to have different aggregiate punishments.
The punishments can simply be the standard eye-for-an-eye, where punishments are porportional to the damage. Possession is the only gray area even if the penalty happens to be death -- the law enforcement agencies still need to decide on whether or not you get to participate as the star character in the four-minutes of hate, followed by the method of death, and whether the death penality should be reprieved (to make room for waterboarding).
"There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power government has is the power to crack down on criminals. When there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws." -- Ayn Rand Nineteen Eighty Four shows a system where there is very few laws - there's no need to have seperate sections for robbery, extortion, fraud, etc when the term "stealing" would do. Other than that, it's pretty easy to avoid being vaporized - don't be a threat to society. Doing so is simple - don't be violent, don't be greedy, and don't think.
Slashdot Mirror
If the place where the pills are coming from is located outside of the US, the drugs can be stopped in the mail (I believe mailing drugs into the US from outside of the US is illegal). If the place where the pills are coming from is located inside the US then the places they are being sent from could be shut down for not having a license or something. If enough people bought these "generic drugs" and didnt actually get them, they might care enough to complain to the supplier. The spam sites don't have a real product - they simply collect the credit card information from users for use in further criminal activity (e.g. ident theft, child porn, etc.) For at least one of these sites, the process is described in great detail: http://spamtrackers.eu/wiki/index.php?title=My_Ca
In my opinion, placing orders using randomly generated contact/CC info would do more damage, as they would have to filter through these false orders. If done to enough of a degree, it makes operating the site unproductive. Based on linear math from two datapoints, I suspect about ~300 orders within one month for one site in particular (based on order numbers RX52007-***331 from and RX52007-***724, about 30 days apart. )
I 3 online pharmacies, and I am aware that typing < instead of < causes me to teabag rather than to heart.
Further evidence that the organization knew that what they did to you was wrong. That's evidence that the assistant manager did something wrong, not the company. In particular, the manager made an accusation of shoplifting rather than stating that he needs to be more certain that the item was purchased from this store. You should sue. For tens of millions. I heard there was a case involving a dry cleaner being sued for millions of dollars, since they lost a pair of pants and had a satisifcation guarenteed sign.
A better deterrant is those magnetic strips/pads that activate alarms when they pass through a sensor (as is done at the local EB Games.) Those things, as you know, attract attention.
Privacy can easily be removed as well - makes convicting domestic abuse easier, identifies organized crime etc. It will also prevent incidents such as those that happened to David Milgaard, Guy Paul Morin, and Steven Truscott as we will know they didn't do it. Is there a stalker? He can be tracked down while stalking (or otherwise apprehended afterwards.) Granted, it won't prevent crimes - especially the heat-of-the-moment ones, but it sure would slow down persistant criminals.
While not an "optimal" outcome, it's good enough for the average user.
BTW, perhaps the question was asked in a backwards fashion, where it should be "Why are so many libertarians nerds?" Not that it matters, due to the bigoted connotation of the word libertarian. (Nerd, however, is perfectly fine.)
2.4.3 Opened Envelope
Any envelope or package that appears to have been opened and resealed, or otherwise improperly prepared, may not be registered.
2.4.6 Sealing
The mailer must securely seal envelopes.
If you try contesting a defendant that uses the "poor-man's copyright" by claiming that the document wasn't in the envelope at the time it was mailed, this is close enough to the response you'll get. You may want to ask a lawyer on how to properly contest the document, unless it's obvious that the envelope was tampered with.
This is just in case I find I need to print out something when not currently connected to my printer. It could be a drawing I made, or some exercise training program that is permitted to be printed (explicitly, or forced by law.) Is that illegal now? Depends on the terms at which you are permitted to print the coupons to begin with. Most likely, you are allowed two copies, and anything more is probably violating something.
The main issue with spamming is sending unsolicited bulk messages. Email is inherently push-based, so it's always based on an assumption about what the other person might want to receive. The types of spam I receive don't make that assumption - they are blindly sent out. In particular, I receive several spams for online pharmacies, and "Get your 'free-as-in-pyramid-scam' $500 Visa gift card.", neither of which most reasonable people are interested in. In addition, at least two of my e-mail addresses were flooded with spam to a degree where legitimate messages were bouncing.
There is one batch of spam that I'm interested in, but it more to do with messing with their order system rather than the products behind the orders. I'm perfectly fine with it, since the site in question is unquestionably a scam (e.g. claim to be secure, but don't use https for credit card numbers - other clues give thins away as well.)
As you know, it's much easier to use the pastafarianism style of creationism - where the Flying Spagetti Monster created the world complete with evidence of evolution. It removes the step of trying to use random tidbits in an attempt to disprove evolution (when such attempts can easily be explained as within normal tolerances of the theory, or instead used as proof), and gets direct to the point of having an external influence. Personally, I think that there is a kind of multi-dimensional or perhaps zero-point pressure mechanism/interface at work between matter and energy that has not yet been articulated or identified The same entity that can micromanage evolution can easily create a big bang. Which one is easier for that entity?
"Any evidence of the existance of evolution has been put there by God to tempt the faithfull" That seems quite close to Pastafarianism.
On a technical level, the argument doesn't do anything against evolution. For example, God could easily play with Dominoes - by building a human in his image, simply by creating a single amoeba and waiting a long time. In this way, God is showing his omnipotence by making the universe much more complex than a single human can even come close to understanding. Right now, we're up to "string theory".
My favourite is that anything before ~1970 didn't happen since I never observed it - the universe was created as soon as I was born (complete with "pre-ageing"), and collapses as soon as I die. This indicates that the argument is the implementation on a religion, not how the world was indicated to have been setup in the current state.
Macroevolution involves the shift between humans and their immediate ancestors. There is plenty of evidence that has been discovered to create the theory behind macroevolution. If there is a better theory you have in mind, feel free to present it clearly. Regardless of the many instances where it appears that evolution is scientifically correct there are many critical areas where hard proof for the theory is lacking. The scientific record shows that new species seem to erupt out of nowhere with very few, if any, true transitional fossils being found. Citation?
Transitional fossils, as you should know, indicate a step between a species and a previously detected ancestor. Absense of evidence (which aren't guarenteed to be created) is not evidence of absense.
Also, a simple google search can easily identify these transitional fossils you are looking for.
This attempt at work didn't rely on anything related to school. It also required combating Global Warming unless you wanted to stick with something basic.
It's still a math heavy subject, especially if you intend to do anything fancy. It's easier now with floating point processors, but in the 386/486 era, you need every trick in the book in order to make something semi-fast and stable. (As well as a way around the 64KB and 640KB barriers.) At least that stuff is still easier than adding AI support to "Tourneyfest" in Starfleet Command. The world is full of people who used to be the smart kid in class but gave up - that's hardly special. I prefer the term reprioritized. </joke>
On a more serious note, there are plenty of students that react to external influences. In cases of the school system, there's some students that try to max out stuff anyway (which is labourous if courses follow the magical 2:1 homework ratio), some students that seek out something extra, and some that simply become bored.
If students start to self learn, there also needs to be a guide just in case something goes wrong. You may believe it's difficult to mess up something as simple as programming a 4-function Calculator, but you can expect bad things to happen if you aren't looking for problems. (Case in point: I self-learned a really strange method to get the GCF from a math textbook. It wouldn't get the correct answer, and I had no way to instantly verify it - aside from the initial example that happened to give the correct result.)
At one time, I asked for a prior learning assessment - which wasn't available at the public high-school. This resulted me in taking a math course where I already knew the content - for three years in a row. The time spent in these courses learning that negative numbers didn't exist followed by a redaction could have easily been spent learning that imaginary numbers didn't exist followed by a reaction. Alternativly, the math courses could be replaced with supplemental lessons which focus on areas that can be improved. "Smart" students who will go above and beyond in order to *make* the work more challenging, who take the assignments as a minimum, not the maximum. These students don't need extra support, either - they make their own support. In my opinion, I put a lot of effort into creating a diarama when trying to make a "realistic" depiction of WWI trenches. I don't remember whether the low mark was because it was damaged after I handed in, or whether it was because of the catch-all "effort", but it wasn't something that could be corrected without access to better material. (In particular, the sand needed to be wet to stick together - what I wanted was a mud-like material that wasn't wet but looked realistic.)
After that, alongside similar projects with an "effort/creativity" mark, I simply lost all interest in those tasks.
BTW, these students still need support. Some students that can go above and beyond in some fields will feel uncomfortable looking deficient in others, and will cover up these flaws. I have heard plenty of personal accounts concerning this - such as some students using the wall clock in order to fake their way through math. If they are naturally advanced in all visible fields, they probably need more advanced materials/textbooks in order to maintain that advancement.
The same system can be done in school - with the exception that you don't include blunders such as school yard bullies trying to rate down the class egghead, even if it involved throwing away data in bulk.
Because of this practicality, the result is that you need to train students at their levels, not train students by assigning them to teachers. No way should a good teacher be forced to teach students who do not want to study. Thankfully, purly unwilling students can be removed from the equation - provided that the field of study isn't something silly (e.g. you are given one pre-fab science fair project marked on "creativity" and "effort" - mine in particular was creating a chocolate bar... wrapper.)
While exact rendering works fine for screenshots, you need to use supersampling tactics when the camera starts moving. As an example, look at Rise of the Triad: when you move forward on the first shareware level, the wall textures on the door opposite of your starting point will look like some moire varient - even when you are used to 320x200 resolution.
There was very limited room for advancement in the fixed-rate education system - no matter how skilled you are, you need to take 110 hours per rigidly designed course. In addition, there isn't a possibility of a diploma-replacement (e.g. GED tests used in some US states), and thus highschool becomes a full-time job with less benefit than working at McD.
In my opinion, I feel that high-school has suffered from this reasoning as well - especially when combined with the fact that you do not get to keep a permanent reference for future study.
You should probably consider upgrading from a 486. The processors capable of handling an infinite number of operations in finite time haven't been invented yet. But once that happens, we'll be able to have infinite-precision calculators.
As an example, let's assume that one of those shaky "Your the 999,999th visitor" ads pins the CPU at 100%. Unless you only one web browser window/tab open (if you read
Dual core systems could help... but it won't be long before an SMP process can do the 100% pinning as well.
P.S. If you hear whooshing, you probably want to wear eye/head protection.
- 640x480 has a 4:3 aspect ratio.
- 320x200 has a 16:10 (or 8:5) aspect ratio.
If you play it on LCDs, you are usually playing the game at a non-native resolution. This isn't a problem itself, but as it's a matter of personal preference on how to handle the aspect ratio, it will be difficult to find the "best" solution.
As soon as the word camping comes up, print an in-game ad for "camp-buster", that kills off players standing still for more than ~300 milliseconds. It's more than enough time to keep players in action, and will cut down on any issues with players holding down a single area by "camping".
The RIAA, as you know, is flinging lawsuits left and right, as they have the resources to do so. They treat everyone equally - if you get detected, you become targetted. However, the DVDCCA allocated much less resources for legal battles and only targetted a small quantity of those who distributed DeCSS. For one reason or another, they couldn't go after the large quantity of "thieves" and needed to target a smaller group. Suddenly, unbeknown to you, burning a back-up copy of your Duran-Duran CD falls under the same "stealing" law, In that event of the scenario, you've already broken the law and you'd know it - even before you attempt to burn the CD. Also, why would you want that CD? There's already high-quality entertainment played frequently enough that you don't need such low-quality sounds. and carries the same penalties, as smashing a window and burglarizing a music store. Hammurabi's code of laws contains a concept known as an "Eye for an eye", where the punishment is proportional to the damage inflicted. Likewise, the book of Leviticus uses a "sheep for a sheep" concept. Breaking the law has always been easy to determine - either you steal or you don't.
Also, the comparison you provided isn't exact. For copying the CD, you've committed stealing, and upto two instances of possession (which requires more context to determine the actual answer). In the latter case, you've committed destruction and stealing. These are distinct enough to have different aggregiate punishments.
The punishments can simply be the standard eye-for-an-eye, where punishments are porportional to the damage. Possession is the only gray area even if the penalty happens to be death -- the law enforcement agencies still need to decide on whether or not you get to participate as the star character in the four-minutes of hate, followed by the method of death, and whether the death penality should be reprieved (to make room for waterboarding).