Agreed. Remember, the only kids being entered into the database are the ones that the school officials already think are "troubled". Talk about self-fullfilling prophecies.
First of all, it's not a test. It's a database of information that the school can enter about a student; the more information you have, the more accurate the program supposes to be.
That's not true. It's database is confined to those the school officials already suspect. Here's a quote from the story:
It will involve only students who give cause for special concern, school and law-enforcement officials emphasize. "We certainly wouldn't want to develop any kind of tool for labeling students in any way," Vita said.
...so, if the Principal doesn't already dislike you and think you're weird, you're not even going to be entered into the database. The same old crap, only now it's digital.
Regarding your second point, the database is completely invalid, as it doesn't rate all students, only the administration-selected sub-groups that they already think are "troubled", i.e. us. So, when the next school shooting involves the captain of the football team, or one of the beloved cheerleaders, they will not be in this nasty little database. Besides, if the previous three-ring binders that this is replacing was of any use, why haven't they worked before?
Anyone who has ever taken a course in statistics can see how bogus this profiling is.
For a while, I've been saying that the only way to return the patent process to functionality is to open it to peer review. It would work in this way:
The applicant would submit the patent in the normal way, thus establishing.
The Patent Office publishes it for review in a "Patents Pending Gazette" and on a web site.
A period of public comment to inform the patent examiner of prior art, other relevant patents and additional reasonable objections ensues.
The examiner makes a decision to reject or grant the patent.
Any truly novel idea will survive this review process, and it will eliminate the vast number of frivolous and redundant patents submitted every day. The appearance in the "Pending Gazette" will be enough to provide a legal basis to defend against theft and a firm rejection will establish that the idea was not original.
The day is long past when a patent examiner could be an expert in every area. Let's allow real experts a crack at it.
Every plasma screen I've seen, at NAB, CES, SIGGRAPH and CEDIA, has limited color depth. The earliest ones, like the Phillips, looked like a bad GIF. The most recent ones, like the Sony and Panasonic, look like a decent GIF. Until the plasma cells and drivers are fast enough to display a true 24-bits, they won't be anything more than trade-show curiousities.
On the other hand, the Sony true flat CRT that was reported here many months ago should be able to have 24-bit quality, longer life than plasma, decent black levels and true crt brightness levels. Plasma is a dead end.
The thing holding up direct digital interfaces for monitors intended for TV viewing is Hollywood. FireWire (IEE-1394) is the intended format, but the Hollywood types want to control what happens between any digital source devices and any digital display devices.
Personally, I prefer "geek" to "nerd". A "nerd", in the way I've always known it, is simply a person with no social graces. A "geek", on the other hand, is distinguished by technical skill.
Put simply, one can be a "nerd", and know nothing about computers or posess any other technical ability. In the same way, one can be a full-blown "geek" and still have some social skills.
But davidu is apparently not hip to the changed meaning of "geek". The term has been reclaimed by the oppressed; Gay men have reclaimed "queer" and "fag"; "girl" has metamorphized into "grrrl"; and in the most potent example, black-on-black usage of the word "nigger".
In most of these cases, it's OK for the members of the group to use the reclaimed, formerly derogatory word, but it is still derogatory for it to be used by an outsider. Fellow geeks can call me a geek...but a suit cannot.
But on the other hand, what does it matter what they call us anyway? We rule the world now.
Phillip K. Dick, (the author of "Do Andriods Dream of Electric Sheep", which was later made into "Bladerunner") had a game in his book "Glactic Pothealer". The bored office workers of his dystopian future would take a common phrase, or book or movie title and run it through several translation machines. They would then challenge the others to identify the original phrase. The only one I can remember (it's been years) was "The Corn Is Green" became "The cliche is inexperienced"
It would be nice to name this script after P.K. Dick.
My dad and I started building an S-100 bus based Z80 system from scratch (anyone here ever build a wire-wrap computer component?).
I did! I was hand-building prototypes and short-run production units. We even had a hacked-up X-Y plotter as a wire-wrap guide, to take you from one pin to the next. Our company's claim to fame was "Pascal in a Prom".
On the negative side, I must admit that I cringed at "Mosaic, the first web browser" too... I used viola and cello before I ever heard of Mosaic.
I had nearly forgotten those ones, but yeah...
I guess I just think that rather than flame this one for its bias, let's just keep listing the Net and Unix heroes.
My favorite forgotten Computer Pioneer was the real father of computer graphics, John Whitney. This guy started making computer graphics before the CRT. He used a custom X-Y plotter and a light source to draw patterns directly onto film, using Army surplus analog computers! And his stuff still looks amazing.
What a pile of crap! Tim had a web browser running on NeXT long before Marc started screwing up the web with random, poorly-conceieved crap like the IMG tag. It's taken years of work to fix some of Marc's bad ideas. It's taken more years to rid the Netscape browser of Marc's "tag soup" method of rendering HTML (closer to the "rendering" done in a slaughterhouse than a method of display.)
For him to get credit for "writing the first web browser" is so deeply offensive on so many levels. Hell, I remember using the "www" text browser long before Mosaic appeared. It was cooler than Gopher, but not as useful.
Revisionist history is a game played by those who are not even in Redmond.
"Only in a police state is the job of a policeman easy."
One of the risks of this is they will start hiding these things as they get cheaper, and the average person will get "one hour's dose" of radiation every time he/she enters a secure building.
change this within the software once or twice, and you can format the HDD to change it again.
Technological solutions to a social problem. Ain't gonna happen.
The most offensive part of all this is that it isn't a social problem, like "piracy" or "bootlegging". The region coding exists solely to protect the movie studio's distribution plans. They obviously have global copyright for any major film they plan to distribute. The region system just allows them to stagger release around the globe, in order to minimize the number of prints, and have the stars on different lame talk shows at different times.
I wish I could make MY job easier by bribeing congressmen and threatening lawsuits to get selfserving legislation passed. And with the advent of digital theater projection and printless distribution, the whole region coding system will be rendered pointless.
I live in Chicago and read the Tribune occasionally. I have yet to read one of his columns that I wasn't mentally correcting. He makes huge errors on a regular basis - this was one of his least clue-free ones. Wait till you see one of his real doozies.
That would be HURD, the long-delayed GNU kernel. Use it if you think it's better, or if it's politics are more congruent with your own, or if you think RMS is a cooler dude than Linux, or whatever. Linus gave the only reasonable answer: Use what you want. It's all about choice.
This Comdex was a major disappointment in many ways, and missing Linus was just the start of it.
First, the place he was going to be speaking was very well hidden. It was a tiny room, about the right size for 30 or 40 people. So we were directed to another larger but still too-damn-small room that was filled to overflowing. Every door to the room was surrounded by a mob of people straining to hear.
Ziff-Davis seriously underestimated the popularity of this event, and didn't take it seriously. They didn't arrange for overflow, either via video or even with extra speakers in the hall.
Bill's speech (which I didn't bother to attend) was in the large theater in McCormick Place...but I kinda doubt people were practically standing on each other to hear it.
It's simple fairness. Surely nobody is suggested that only companies who are already employing the disabled should provide facilities for them. The cold hard truth is this: if Big Business isn't required to behave humanely, they won't. It's obviously easier to just not hire someone with the excuse that it would be too expensive to make accomodations. The ADA specifies "facilities". My reading is that the web is a facility. A vital one, and one that, is naturally accessible.
I guess one of the drivers for this policy is that government departments have to be seen to be non-discriminatory employers. If you believe the stats on the zdnet article, that would imply that up 1 in 30 government employees "have vision problems" (sic). That's probably a lot of employees who, unless something positive is done, will find their jobs harder to do as business moves more and more into internet technologies for their interactions
Businesses, once "forced" to hire disabled workers (by no longer having an excuse not to) usually find them to be especially motivated workers.
I've yet to see any web site that could not be made accessible.
Standards are good. However, following standards does not mean that one will produce good code or content.
Following standards will, by definition, produce good code. Following standards will ensure that the content will be available.
I am not too sure if I like the comment about folks who use 'page builders' to build their sites is very valid. I am sure there are some very good writers, artists, musicians who would not be on the web if they didn't have a GUI environment.
I've yet to meet anyone capable of producing worthwhile work who cannot learn HTML, a very simple markup language. If they want to get fancier and use Javascript, they really need to learn that as well. If they don't, they will just be producing cliche'd crap that anyone with the same visual tool could crank out.
This move also takes away some freedom of choice by the webmasters. While I can understand that government sites are required to follow certain guidelines why would I as a possible supplier have to follow them? Suppose I made some product which would be of no interest to any persons with any sort of disability?
Strawman. Disabled people have exactly the same range of interests as the able. One accident and you could join their ranks - say you lose your sight. Would you suddenly not want to be able to get information about your favorite band or singer? Try visiting any record company site with Lynx. Just try...and maybe you'll get the picture.
How does this affect companies like Real? Macromedia? Adobe? The companies that have invested a fair amount in producing good tools for graphics savvy sites?
By definition, a "good tool" produces decent HTML. A bad tool puts in images without ALT attributes, makes frames without prompting the user for useful NOFRAMES information, etc. These are not difficult things to add.
Lastly, if one extends this back to publishing on dead trees, will the govt insist that all its publications be made available in braile?
Strawman again. HTML, by default, is accessible. You have to work harder to make simple HTML inacessible.
Will all govt phone lines have teletype available for the deaf? Hmmm.. the Clinton hearings would sure have had some interesting moments if they had showed some of the testimony in sign language;-)
The hearings were available to the deaf via Closed-Captioning, included in every larger new TV set.
Slashdot Mirror
Agreed. Remember, the only kids being entered into the database are the ones that the school officials already think are "troubled". Talk about self-fullfilling prophecies.
That's not true. It's database is confined to those the school officials already suspect. Here's a quote from the story:
...so, if the Principal doesn't already dislike you and think you're weird, you're not even going to be entered into the database. The same old crap, only now it's digital.
Regarding your second point, the database is completely invalid, as it doesn't rate all students, only the administration-selected sub-groups that they already think are "troubled", i.e. us. So, when the next school shooting involves the captain of the football team, or one of the beloved cheerleaders, they will not be in this nasty little database. Besides, if the previous three-ring binders that this is replacing was of any use, why haven't they worked before?
Anyone who has ever taken a course in statistics can see how bogus this profiling is.
For a while, I've been saying that the only way to return the patent process to functionality is to open it to peer review. It would work in this way:
Any truly novel idea will survive this review process, and it will eliminate the vast number of frivolous and redundant patents submitted every day. The appearance in the "Pending Gazette" will be enough to provide a legal basis to defend against theft and a firm rejection will establish that the idea was not original.
The day is long past when a patent examiner could be an expert in every area. Let's allow real experts a crack at it.
Every plasma screen I've seen, at NAB, CES, SIGGRAPH and CEDIA, has limited color depth. The earliest ones, like the Phillips, looked like a bad GIF. The most recent ones, like the Sony and Panasonic, look like a decent GIF. Until the plasma cells and drivers are fast enough to display a true 24-bits, they won't be anything more than trade-show curiousities.
On the other hand, the Sony true flat CRT that was reported here many months ago should be able to have 24-bit quality, longer life than plasma, decent black levels and true crt brightness levels. Plasma is a dead end.
The thing holding up direct digital interfaces for monitors intended for TV viewing is Hollywood. FireWire (IEE-1394) is the intended format, but the Hollywood types want to control what happens between any digital source devices and any digital display devices.
Personally, I prefer "geek" to "nerd". A "nerd", in the way I've always known it, is simply a person with no social graces. A "geek", on the other hand, is distinguished by technical skill.
Put simply, one can be a "nerd", and know nothing about computers or posess any other technical ability. In the same way, one can be a full-blown "geek" and still have some social skills.
But davidu is apparently not hip to the changed meaning of "geek". The term has been reclaimed by the oppressed; Gay men have reclaimed "queer" and "fag"; "girl" has metamorphized into "grrrl"; and in the most potent example, black-on-black usage of the word "nigger".
In most of these cases, it's OK for the members of the group to use the reclaimed, formerly derogatory word, but it is still derogatory for it to be used by an outsider. Fellow geeks can call me a geek...but a suit cannot.
But on the other hand, what does it matter what they call us anyway? We rule the world now.
Phillip K. Dick, (the author of "Do Andriods Dream of Electric Sheep", which was later made into "Bladerunner") had a game in his book "Glactic Pothealer". The bored office workers of his dystopian future would take a common phrase, or book or movie title and run it through several translation machines. They would then challenge the others to identify the original phrase. The only one I can remember (it's been years) was "The Corn Is Green" became "The cliche is inexperienced"
It would be nice to name this script after P.K. Dick.
I did! I was hand-building prototypes and short-run production units. We even had a hacked-up X-Y plotter as a wire-wrap guide, to take you from one pin to the next. Our company's claim to fame was "Pascal in a Prom".
I had nearly forgotten those ones, but yeah...
My favorite forgotten Computer Pioneer was the real father of computer graphics, John Whitney. This guy started making computer graphics before the CRT. He used a custom X-Y plotter and a light source to draw patterns directly onto film, using Army surplus analog computers! And his stuff still looks amazing.
What a pile of crap! Tim had a web browser running on NeXT long before Marc started screwing up the web with random, poorly-conceieved crap like the IMG tag. It's taken years of work to fix some of Marc's bad ideas. It's taken more years to rid the Netscape browser of Marc's "tag soup" method of rendering HTML (closer to the "rendering" done in a slaughterhouse than a method of display.)
For him to get credit for "writing the first web browser" is so deeply offensive on so many levels. Hell, I remember using the "www" text browser long before Mosaic appeared. It was cooler than Gopher, but not as useful.
Revisionist history is a game played by those who are not even in Redmond.
I see a metal pants zipper, a metal slide for a plastic zipper for a coat, another zipper up near her throat...and a belly-button ring!
What do I win?
As Orson Welles said:
"Only in a police state is the job of a policeman easy."
One of the risks of this is they will start hiding these things as they get cheaper, and the average person will get "one hour's dose" of radiation every time he/she enters a secure building.
The most offensive part of all this is that it isn't a social problem, like "piracy" or "bootlegging". The region coding exists solely to protect the movie studio's distribution plans. They obviously have global copyright for any major film they plan to distribute. The region system just allows them to stagger release around the globe, in order to minimize the number of prints, and have the stars on different lame talk shows at different times.
I wish I could make MY job easier by bribeing congressmen and threatening lawsuits to get selfserving legislation passed. And with the advent of digital theater projection and printless distribution, the whole region coding system will be rendered pointless.
I live in Chicago and read the Tribune occasionally. I have yet to read one of his columns that I wasn't mentally correcting. He makes huge errors on a regular basis - this was one of his least clue-free ones. Wait till you see one of his real doozies.
That would be HURD, the long-delayed GNU kernel. Use it if you think it's better, or if it's politics are more congruent with your own, or if you think RMS is a cooler dude than Linux, or whatever. Linus gave the only reasonable answer: Use what you want. It's all about choice.
This Comdex was a major disappointment in many ways, and missing Linus was just the start of it.
First, the place he was going to be speaking was very well hidden. It was a tiny room, about the right size for 30 or 40 people. So we were directed to another larger but still too-damn-small room that was filled to overflowing. Every door to the room was surrounded by a mob of people straining to hear.
Ziff-Davis seriously underestimated the popularity of this event, and didn't take it seriously. They didn't arrange for overflow, either via video or even with extra speakers in the hall.
Bill's speech (which I didn't bother to attend) was in the large theater in McCormick Place...but I kinda doubt people were practically standing on each other to hear it.
"Where Do You Want To Go Today" - indeed!
It's simple fairness. Surely nobody is suggested that only companies who are already employing the disabled should provide facilities for them. The cold hard truth is this: if Big Business isn't required to behave humanely, they won't. It's obviously easier to just not hire someone with the excuse that it would be too expensive to make accomodations. The ADA specifies "facilities". My reading is that the web is a facility. A vital one, and one that, is naturally accessible.
Businesses, once "forced" to hire disabled workers (by no longer having an excuse not to) usually find them to be especially motivated workers.
I've yet to see any web site that could not be made accessible.
I've yet to meet anyone capable of producing worthwhile work who cannot learn HTML, a very simple markup language. If they want to get fancier and use Javascript, they really need to learn that as well. If they don't, they will just be producing cliche'd crap that anyone with the same visual tool could crank out.
Strawman. Disabled people have exactly the same range of interests as the able. One accident and you could join their ranks - say you lose your sight. Would you suddenly not want to be able to get information about your favorite band or singer? Try visiting any record company site with Lynx. Just try...and maybe you'll get the picture.
By definition, a "good tool" produces decent HTML. A bad tool puts in images without ALT attributes, makes frames without prompting the user for useful NOFRAMES information, etc. These are not difficult things to add.
Strawman again. HTML, by default, is accessible. You have to work harder to make simple HTML inacessible.
The hearings were available to the deaf via Closed-Captioning, included in every larger new TV set.