Though I haven't looked at any such numbers since before I went, I've heard from friends that Temple Law dropped in the ratings this year. There were other factors, too (long-time Dean retired, respected writing teacher lured away), but I suspect this is a big one. Temple has a big night program, though (whatever the opinion of the US News people) I would say they tend to the most notably ambitious and seemingly no dumber than we day students:) Most of them, after all, are working full time jobs at the same time, often in pretty challenging fields. I was a TA for some night students in my final year, and I was constantly amazed at the drive -- some of them are full-time parents *and* engineers *and* (by the way) law students. I was far too lazy for that:)
a) You might not agree with the reasoning in b), but I'm probably not going to spend any more time responding;)
b) Slashdot has sectional stories for stories we'd like to post but (as with this, a point-release of software other than, say, the Linux kernel), and there's a slightly messy overlap between sections, topics and tags, in that a given story can be assigned to multiple sections, tagged with various terms including ones that are covered by topics or section names, and labeled with any of the 100+ topics (some of which are also named sections).
There's not a perfect single section for "cross-platform desktop environment," so this one I set to both Linux and BSD sections, because KDE is frequently used in OSes of both varieties. It's also set to the topics KDE and GUI. In a parallel universe, it might be set to the KDE *section* (Slashdot just isn't set up to have one), and tagged workswithbsd, or something like that. Or given a list of "reasons" / topics in descending order, and set to an "intensity" level lower than that of stories that appear on the front page.
There may have been other factors equally at play, and, please note, I am wildly in favor of legalizing (not just "decriminalizing," and without that ridiculous and-then-tax-it-highly addendum) marijuna, but when a girl(brilliant, beautiful, beloved) who went to my school was killed, along with 17 others in an Amtrak collision (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chase,_Maryland_rail_wreck), at least two of the train crew had been smoking marijuana. One of them had previously been convicted of intoxicated driving, too, though, I'm not sure which intoxicant was involved.
My upshot: legal? Great. Long overdue, and the alternative of *illegality* causes many problems besides being facially, farcically stupid. But legal for driving in a commons? Bad move. (Or, more my favorite system, for alcohol, too: have a conservatively low threshold below which driving is not a crime per se, but impose strict liability and punishment in the event of an at-fault accident.)
The great thing about the smell of marijuana... it's easy to detect in any car at all! And anything that looks like it might contain marijunana (used to be 35mm film cans, I suspect now Altoids tins are in the same category) can lead to what an officer on a witness stand might plausibly say was reasonable suspicion.
Note: cops come in all varieties -- scrupulously honest / connivingly dishonest / middlin' honest, but the illegality-plus-ubiquity of pot makes it a tempting lure for advancing contacts, developing grounds for probable cause.
Agreed, agreed, agreed! Caps Lock is a pain in the ass. If someone really wants it on a keyboard, for reasons I can't readily imagine, but perhaps they're out there, then put it up to the right of the "pause" key or something. Have it next to the A, and between Tab and Shift, doesn't make sense now. (Did it ever? Perhaps there's some good reason for its prime position.)
Hey, I was being cynical, too (hence the link to the Concord Coalition;)). But I agree with you -- no matter *how* bad it is (and I hope that much of it won't be bad at all), it will be useful for the very reason you name.
Slashdot doesn't have geotags; that being the case, esp. when discussing prices that are affected by national, regional, state, and even local factors, it might be easier to discuss the details of prices if you also say where you're writing from / about.
"Well, people don't have keys taken off them because nearly all the population have an obvious need to take keys around with them. How many people have an obvious need for a can opener on the move? You got to admit that it's not exactly normal in the same way carrying keys are."
It's not as *common,* but it's perfectly normal, in the same way that carrying a pocketknife (often for its non-knife functions, like can-opener) is normal. Not everyone carries a can-opener on his keychain, I agree (I don't, and maybe you don't either), but the courthouse incident all seems pretty silly to me now, even after a year+ of "cooling off time." And while it's not every day, I have several times wished that I *did* carry a can-opener more often, though when I wished for one last month (long story -- I was in a house with no can opener, having just bought several canned items at the grocery), I was on the other side of a plane journey on which I'd checked no luggage; the fees I saved I suppose justified the purchase of a can opener I ended up making;)
I had the address "dining@temple.edu" for a year or two (temple.edu = Temple University, where I went to grad school, in Philadelphia, PA).
Like many other schools (and ISPs, too), Temple allowed email users to designate aliases, so long as they weren't already being used by others. I was surprised to find that I could get "dining@" -- I found out it was unoccupied when I tried to send a suggestion to the dining hall people (don't remember what it was) and it bounced as invalid.
And since I was already organizing some dinners involving my classmates, I selected it as one of my aliases, and it felt very official, out little dining club;)
I recently found out that one of the brightest guys at my law school had the same thing happen to him. SoftTest failed, which meant he failed the bar. Infuriating! I hope he (or someone) sues those idiots. (That is, the idiots who decided to use the software, and / or the ones who made less-than-robust software for a task where failure has worse results than delivering the wrong pizza.)
I've seen many crazy things to do w/ "security" guards, in all regions of the U.S. and various contexts (courthouses, airports, etc.) A friend of mine had his P38 (old military style) can opener taken off his keychain in the Bucks County Courthouse (PA); it's hard to believe that it's (much) more dangerous as a slashing implement than most of the other keys on the same keychain. And the keychain itself could be used to bludgeon someone. And the strap of my messenger bag could have quite satisfyingly throttled that simpering, simple-headed nogoodnik of a "security guard" in the first place.
True: walked into a parole office in New Jersey with a fellow about to start parole. The lazy, snickering security guard spotted us after we'd both entered, through the (unattended) flimsy, Soviet-style metal-detector that probably had guts cheaper than the kind you see guys sweeping down the beach. The new parolee, who was carrying nothing, was asked to actually go through the device. I was not (had to ask special) -- even though I was carrying a bag that could have had a few dozen grenades, or mice, or whatever. Perhaps it was because I was wearing a Suit of Hypnosis and a Tie of Knotting.
Guard soon went back to guarding his GameBoy in the corner 20 or more feet from the entrance.
One book that looks at both of those countries specifially is P.J. O'Rourke's "Eat the Rich." P.J.O'R is certainly "conservative" (actually, quite libertarian in most aspects, I think, which is why I've just scare-quoted that word) and could I think be called a free-market evangelist, but I don't think political orientation of any sort would be a sticking point in finding the chapters in which he describes and contrasts Sweden and Cuba interesting / informative / enjoyable.
I don't have the book in front of me to quote, but it's recent enough and high-selling enough it shouldn't be too hard to find, if you're in the U.S.
"Once you don't have caffeine for two weeks, your tolerance is basically zero. You can have a little bit of caffeine and it will have a large effect."
Yep. I am neither a (regular, steady) coffee drinker, nor a complete abstainer -- I probably end up having something with caffeine oh, once a week or so. Some weeks more, but many weeks none. The downside to this is that I have no real tolerance for it, so a mug of tea (often with a refill of hot water on the same leaves or bag) or a cup of coffee keeps me up until the wee hours. (The upside, when this is is the desired effect, is exactly the same as the downside:))
I think I probably had a higher tolerance for it during college, because I don't remember this sort of effect then!
Both cops and muggers neglected to shoot me! But only the muggers had a gun drawn that I saw. Though this is far from a universal experience, on this occasion at least the police were helpful and polite. And my landlady for my brief stay in that part of Philadelphia (Katia Ivanovic) was a far bigger incentive to move out of that neighborhood than being held on the ground with a gun at my neck anyhow; getting mugged (once, and literally, rather than on an ongoing basis figuratively) was nicer by comparison.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, well, sorry about that. I'll be sure to seed the page with new and interesting errors to spot ;)
timothy
Yes, that's right :) Sorry for the slow response, just noticed this.
Alternate, better explan: You see that symbol whenever you want to send money to the person whose name it's next to.
timothy
Is this part of the Republican War on Science?
That's "see," not "seem." It's late.
timothy
I just installed the .deb on this laptop, running Ubuntu 9.10 alpha. So far, seems nice and pleasant :)
I seem some rendering problems, but Hey, I blame google!
timothy
Though I haven't looked at any such numbers since before I went, I've heard from friends that Temple Law dropped in the ratings this year. There were other factors, too (long-time Dean retired, respected writing teacher lured away), but I suspect this is a big one. Temple has a big night program, though (whatever the opinion of the US News people) I would say they tend to the most notably ambitious and seemingly no dumber than we day students :) Most of them, after all, are working full time jobs at the same time, often in pretty challenging fields. I was a TA for some night students in my final year, and I was constantly amazed at the drive -- some of them are full-time parents *and* engineers *and* (by the way) law students. I was far too lazy for that :)
timothy
a) You might not agree with the reasoning in b), but I'm probably not going to spend any more time responding ;)
b) Slashdot has sectional stories for stories we'd like to post but (as with this, a point-release of software other than, say, the Linux kernel), and there's a slightly messy overlap between sections, topics and tags, in that a given story can be assigned to multiple sections, tagged with various terms including ones that are covered by topics or section names, and labeled with any of the 100+ topics (some of which are also named sections).
There's not a perfect single section for "cross-platform desktop environment," so this one I set to both Linux and BSD sections, because KDE is frequently used in OSes of both varieties. It's also set to the topics KDE and GUI. In a parallel universe, it might be set to the KDE *section* (Slashdot just isn't set up to have one), and tagged workswithbsd, or something like that. Or given a list of "reasons" / topics in descending order, and set to an "intensity" level lower than that of stories that appear on the front page.
As David Weinberger says, Everything is Miscellaneous; indexing's a pain.
timothy
There may have been other factors equally at play, and, please note, I am wildly in favor of legalizing (not just "decriminalizing," and without that ridiculous and-then-tax-it-highly addendum) marijuna, but when a girl(brilliant, beautiful, beloved) who went to my school was killed, along with 17 others in an Amtrak collision (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chase,_Maryland_rail_wreck), at least two of the train crew had been smoking marijuana. One of them had previously been convicted of intoxicated driving, too, though, I'm not sure which intoxicant was involved.
My upshot: legal? Great. Long overdue, and the alternative of *illegality* causes many problems besides being facially, farcically stupid. But legal for driving in a commons? Bad move. (Or, more my favorite system, for alcohol, too: have a conservatively low threshold below which driving is not a crime per se, but impose strict liability and punishment in the event of an at-fault accident.)
Just thoughts,
timothy
The great thing about the smell of marijuana ... it's easy to detect in any car at all! And anything that looks like it might contain marijunana (used to be 35mm film cans, I suspect now Altoids tins are in the same category) can lead to what an officer on a witness stand might plausibly say was reasonable suspicion.
Note: cops come in all varieties -- scrupulously honest / connivingly dishonest / middlin' honest, but the illegality-plus-ubiquity of pot makes it a tempting lure for advancing contacts, developing grounds for probable cause.
Aorry -- this is a pet peeve :)
timothy
Agreed, agreed, agreed! Caps Lock is a pain in the ass. If someone really wants it on a keyboard, for reasons I can't readily imagine, but perhaps they're out there, then put it up to the right of the
"pause" key or something. Have it next to the A, and between Tab and Shift, doesn't make sense now. (Did it ever? Perhaps there's some good reason for its prime position.)
timothy
If you see if again, I'd enjoy seeing a screenshot! :)
That would be fun to print and frame.
timothy
... The Psychology of Collection and Hoarding In Basements?
That might be more useful.
timothy
Hey, I was being cynical, too (hence the link to the Concord Coalition ;)). But I agree with you -- no matter *how* bad it is (and I hope that much of it won't be bad at all), it will be useful for the very reason you name.
timothy
Slashdot doesn't have geotags; that being the case, esp. when discussing prices that are affected by national, regional, state, and even local factors, it might be easier to discuss the details of prices if you also say where you're writing from / about.
timothy
"Well, people don't have keys taken off them because nearly all the population have an obvious need to take keys around with them. How many people have an obvious need for a can opener on the move? You got to admit that it's not exactly normal in the same way carrying keys are."
It's not as *common,* but it's perfectly normal, in the same way that carrying a pocketknife (often for its non-knife functions, like can-opener) is normal. Not everyone carries a can-opener on his keychain, I agree (I don't, and maybe you don't either), but the courthouse incident all seems pretty silly to me now, even after a year+ of "cooling off time." And while it's not every day, I have several times wished that I *did* carry a can-opener more often, though when I wished for one last month (long story -- I was in a house with no can opener, having just bought several canned items at the grocery), I was on the other side of a plane journey on which I'd checked no luggage; the fees I saved I suppose justified the purchase of a can opener I ended up making ;)
timothy
What guns are you bored with? :)
timothy
I had the address "dining@temple.edu" for a year or two (temple.edu = Temple University, where I went to grad school, in Philadelphia, PA).
Like many other schools (and ISPs, too), Temple allowed email users to designate aliases, so long as they weren't already being used by others. I was surprised to find that I could get "dining@" -- I found out it was unoccupied when I tried to send a suggestion to the dining hall people (don't remember what it was) and it bounced as invalid.
And since I was already organizing some dinners involving my classmates, I selected it as one of my aliases, and it felt very official, out little dining club ;)
timothy
I recently found out that one of the brightest guys at my law school had the same thing happen to him. SoftTest failed, which meant he failed the bar. Infuriating! I hope he (or someone) sues those idiots. (That is, the idiots who decided to use the software, and / or the ones who made less-than-robust software for a task where failure has worse results than delivering the wrong pizza.)
timothy
Not necessarily better!
I've seen many crazy things to do w/ "security" guards, in all regions of the U.S. and various contexts (courthouses, airports, etc.) A friend of mine had his P38 (old military style) can opener taken off his keychain in the Bucks County Courthouse (PA); it's hard to believe that it's (much) more dangerous as a slashing implement than most of the other keys on the same keychain. And the keychain itself could be used to bludgeon someone. And the strap of my messenger bag could have quite satisfyingly throttled that simpering, simple-headed nogoodnik of a "security guard" in the first place.
True: walked into a parole office in New Jersey with a fellow about to start parole. The lazy, snickering security guard spotted us after we'd both entered, through the (unattended) flimsy, Soviet-style metal-detector that probably had guts cheaper than the kind you see guys sweeping down the beach. The new parolee, who was carrying nothing, was asked to actually go through the device. I was not (had to ask special) -- even though I was carrying a bag that could have had a few dozen grenades, or mice, or whatever. Perhaps it was because I was wearing a Suit of Hypnosis and a Tie of Knotting.
Guard soon went back to guarding his GameBoy in the corner 20 or more feet from the entrance.
timothy
I would like point out that I am reading the entirety of this thread in the so-called "Comic Book Guy"'s voice. Including this post!
timothy
Hey, that's what *I* said! ;)
timothy
One book that looks at both of those countries specifially is P.J. O'Rourke's "Eat the Rich." P.J.O'R is certainly "conservative" (actually, quite libertarian in most aspects, I think, which is why I've just scare-quoted that word) and could I think be called a free-market evangelist, but I don't think political orientation of any sort would be a sticking point in finding the chapters in which he describes and contrasts Sweden and Cuba interesting / informative / enjoyable.
I don't have the book in front of me to quote, but it's recent enough and high-selling enough it shouldn't be too hard to find, if you're in the U.S.
You'll also find plenty of Sweden and Cuba mentions in the podcasts at econtalk.org; for instance, this one: http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2008/10/bernstein_on_in.html
Cheers,
timothy
"But taxing them is a viable compromise, a 'sin tax' of sorts similar to that levied on cigarettes."
Viable to whom? Are sin taxes a good idea?
timothy
"Once you don't have caffeine for two weeks, your tolerance is basically zero. You can have a little bit of caffeine and it will have a large effect."
Yep. I am neither a (regular, steady) coffee drinker, nor a complete abstainer -- I probably end up having something with caffeine oh, once a week or so. Some weeks more, but many weeks none. The downside to this is that I have no real tolerance for it, so a mug of tea (often with a refill of hot water on the same leaves or bag) or a cup of coffee keeps me up until the wee hours. (The upside, when this is is the desired effect, is exactly the same as the downside :))
I think I probably had a higher tolerance for it during college, because I don't remember this sort of effect then!
timothy
Both cops and muggers neglected to shoot me! But only the muggers had a gun drawn that I saw. Though this is far from a universal experience, on this occasion at least the police were helpful and polite. And my landlady for my brief stay in that part of Philadelphia (Katia Ivanovic) was a far bigger incentive to move out of that neighborhood than being held on the ground with a gun at my neck anyhow; getting mugged (once, and literally, rather than on an ongoing basis figuratively) was nicer by comparison.
timothy