You don't understand how visual learners learn. By writing in class I cement in my memory the lecture. Hearing and writing gives me near photographic recall to the point that after writing the notes in class I often can throw them away because the act of writing what was said anchored the memory. It's not the notes that are important, it's the writing of them that is how the memory is created and sustained. That's what makes visual learners different from everyone else, they have to see and do, not just hear. If for example I take the prof's notes home and then try to write notes I won't remember more than about 25% of what was taught and as I already said after producing the notes they were rarely consulted because I didn't need them anymore. It's my understanding from my years in college that the vast majority of people can learn simply from the spoken word, those of us that are visual learners must SEE and often write to put the ideas into memory. That's why banning note taking is a capital offense to me and completely discriminatory against those of us that learn differently than the majority.
I think many people miss the point of the OP. This teacher wishes to give his/her students the maximum amount of exposure to the material. Verbally with lecture, visually with preprinted notes, and tactically with the, hopefully recommended, practice practice practice of the material. OP might have neglected to say this in the post, but that's the accepted practice of teaching these days. And if OP is not doing this, then OP should start immediately before I start having the same complaints.
I don't have a single problem with a professor suggesting a way to learn and I certainly think it's a good idea to lecture and provide typed notes, but when they step over the boundary of BANNING the taking of notes during the lecture they've stepped into the realm of telling ME how to learn with the likely result of a failing grade. That's reason to seek the professors dismissal. My senior class in college got a professor removed from undergraduate teaching for equally assine behavior, about 1/3 of the students came to the final class with their appraisal forms pre-typed they were so angry.
Warning, this is not a good idea! You'd be talking to the dean of mathematics about this, and the dean (being a mathematician) would probably just tell you to stop goofing off by pretending to take notes and to listen and learn to the lecturer instead. The teaching faculty will tend to be intolerant of any student they think is not applying themselves properly...
I would be happy to tell the dean that the professors job isn't to tell a single person HOW to learn. Forbidding note taking is assine and likely a violation of the students rights. In addition any idiot that thinks taking notes means you aren't paying attention doesn't know a god damn thing about learning and certainly isn't qualified to be instructing anyone in how to learn. Visual learners compose about 10-15% of the population, note taking is essential to learning for most visual learners. In college by hearing and writing material it gave me near photographic recall, if I didn't write I didn't remember any of it. Any teacher that bans note taking has abrogated his responsibility to the college, the students and learning. Everyone learns differently and it's not the job of a single professor to dictate how to do it, any that do are BAD professors and don't deserve to be teaching.
You don't have very good reading comprehension. The OP said he doesn't let people take notes, my "special needs" are that the professor mind his own fucking business and let me learn how I learn. If he thinks he knows better than me how I learn then he deserves to be fired because he's a pretentious asshole. It's not a teachers job to dictate how a student learns, once he steps outside teaching the material into dictating how to learn he's abrogated his responsibilities and stepped into the realm of self-help, which isn't his job. So convince me it's the teachers job to tell students HOW to learn, not what to learn.
I'm always amused at comments like yours on Slashdot. They somehow get modded up. You're upset because you learn one way and would rather have instructors doing that, ensuring that only a minority do well... Wait a second, that's just what you said! Holy shit, the street goes both ways! You're right in that everyone learns different. Why couldn't you have fully applied that thought to your statements?
The reason you probably find it humorous is your reading comprehension sucks. The OP said he WON'T LET HIS STUDENTS TAKE NOTES. What I said is he should mind his own fucking business and teach the material and stop trying to tell his students how to learn. Refusing to let students taken notes or learn the best way THEY learn is assine, stupid and fucking pretentious. As I SAID I'm a visual leaner, I'm not alone, most of the people in my field are very much like me as we are predisposed to the career. I had a professor in college that thought he knew the best way to learn, he was the single most hated teacher in the college. He fit the stereotype too, self righteous, convinced he knows better than the student how the student learns. Typical behavior for self important college professors. Not everybody learns the same, people have the right to learn how they choose, not have it dictated to them by a self righteous asshole, professors should stop worrying about what their students are doing and focus on the material, doing otherwise makes you a terrible teacher.
I would drop any class you did that in and ensure that I reward you with a terrible recommendation and report, if I was your dean I would fire you. I learn best by writing what is said, take away my ability to write and I won't learn it all. Your policy is beyond stupid because everyone learns differently. By forcing everyone to learn the way you learn, or the way you believe people should learn, you are guaranteeing that a minority of your classes won't learn anything. You should rethink your insistence that you know how to learn better than the students you are teaching because not only is your policy downright discriminatory for those with learning disorders such as dyslexia, but your arrogant belief that you know better demonstrates a superiority complex that's prevalent in higher education and a first order indicator of a bad teacher.
Anti-competitive trust behavior. Also if all the studios do it at the same time it's collusion also. The music companies tried it then paid quite a bit of money to settle a bunch of class actions and a federal anti-trust action that could have revoked their copyrights.
As the studios have a natural trust they will be engaged in extending that trust into DVD rentals. That's illegal under the Sherman Anti-trust act. The music publishers did this in the 90's when they colluded to keep music prices high and walmart out of the music business then they paid a few hundred million to settle class action lawsuits and a federal anti-trust action in the 2000's (forget the exact year). They learned not to do that because it will cost them more money than they will make as the anti-trust provisions allow for disgorgement of all profits and compensation for legal fees.
Bullshit. The Studios have never discounted to the renters. They hate the renters and would love to see them out of business. If the sold to the renters in advance of retail availability they would charge MORE not less, as that's EXACTLY what they used to do with movies when they came on tapes. Netflix pays EXACTLY the same amount or MORE for what you can buy, the big distributors might cut a slight discount (at a hit to their own profits) for bulk purchases but they don't pay a dime less than the studio's dictate. What the studios are proposing here is illegal restraint of trade, it's an illegal trust action and something the music companies already got sued for and lost.
Don't believe for a minute there is any such thing as wholesale pricing for rentals. For years back in the VCR era the studios sold movies to the rental shops first for about $80 a copy and after it came off the new release list a few months later they would open up sales to the general public at 1/8th the cost.
What the studios are engaged in here is restraint of trade, collusion and illegal trust behavior. If they engage a policy of refusing to sell movies to Netflix and Redbox they are going to be sued by the feds and likely by Netflix and Redbox for the above illegal actions. If they are stupid enough to do it it's going to be for ulterior motives such as they will use it as an excuse to lobby congress to limit first sale because the lawsuit will cost them serious dollars, especially if Netflix and Redbox team up and go after them because they will be able to claim direct losses.
It's just like Video games, DRM on video games was never to stop piracy, it was to stop resale. The movie studios, music companies and video game publishers HATE resale and rentals. They see it as lost income and they want to put a halt to it.
Petitions are no different than gathering in a public square to protest. They are a PUBLIC statement of support for the cause. That's their entire purpose. If they were intended to be private they would have no value. Apparently no one ever taught you what signing a petition means and why even people who support an idea won't sign a petition for it. Petitions have been used throughout their history to persecute the people that signed it. The declaration of independence was nothing more than a forceful petition as the people that signed it didn't truly represent anyone at the time (under English law). Signing a petition is the one of the ultimate forms of support for a cause because it publicly associates your name to the cause so your elected officials know how many people support it. Only voting is anonymous, not petitions nor should they ever be. Without public petitions the petition isn't worth the paper it's printed on as other people could sign your name to it and you would never know.
A picture is worth 1000 words. What would the press value be of text statements about the Iranian protests compared to the value of a picture showing 100,000 people in the streets? If you restrict the anonymous networks to text only you destroy the press value. Pictures are the basis of modern press. The picture or video of the police beating someone has value, a text statement by an anonymous eyewitness is easily refuted by the authoritarian regime but the video or picture can't be refuted easily.
The problem with believing in free speech is you have to tolerate all speech. You are unwilling to tolerate all speech so you throw out all the value of the really important, possibly world changing, speech. To me it's called throwing out the baby with the bathwater but to each his own, but you aren't on the moral high ground you think you are.
You make huge leaps in judgement in Lawsuits so you can justify Discovery to find out if your allegations are true. She will use the suit to get subpoenas to use against ISP's so if possible she can track the origin of the intrusion and other subpoenas so she can read emails exchanged by Delta and Memron to see if there was a conspiracy. Depending on the servers used the logs may indicate where the hacking came from. If it can be traced to a Delta or Metron IP address she's going to win a LOT of money, if not she has to use emotional reasons or email evidence of a conspiracy to convince a Jury or more likely the Judge will throw out the case after discovery because she can't find any evidence implicating either company.
The problem isn't that they aren't "sufficiently" open, it's that they aren't open at all and are pretending to be. Binary modules and broken independent firmware's aren't open. Harold is right to call them out for false advertising. Astro-Turfing is a real problem, it's basically false advertising and the FTC is allowing it to happen.
The high incarceration percentage in the US has nothing at all to do with rehabilitation vs. punishment. The high US incarceration rate is due to Federal minimum mandatory sentences for drug related crimes. If you are caught with more than 1 gram of crack you go to jail for 10 years, no exceptions, no deals and no circumstances will change that sentence. It's a minimum mandatory sentence. Take the drug non violent drug offenders out of the US prisons and the incarceration rate would be identical to European countries because they don't put their drug addicts in jail in Europe.
Real scientific studies on recidivism rates that compare punishment systems verses "rehabilitation" based systems show no statistical significance between recidivism rates. let me reiterate, No difference that can be verified. In fact comparisons that dip back into history show that even when England engaged in capital punishment for nearly every crime, when they shipped every criminal to prison colonies in the US and Australia and their current "rehabilitation" bases system that there was no statistically significant difference in crime rates. The fact is crime rate is a pretty constant thing, even if you execute every single criminal. People don't consider the consequences and you can't "rehabilitate" them. "Rehabilitation" is a bunch of pseudo psychiatric jargon to make us feel good about putting people in cages for the majority of their adult life. Prison should have one single purpose, it should be to separate criminals from those that don't commit crimes. You have to give people the opportunity to change by letting them out every now and then (based on what they did), but you aren't going change them or their criminality.
The only person that can rehabilitate a criminal is the criminal deciding he's going to stop breaking the law. The only thing that can generally decide recidivism rates is the type of crime, influenced slightly by age and whether it's a first offense. It's possible to scare first offenders straight (for general crime, this doesn't apply to sex crimes), but there is no consistent way to do so and studies show scattergun techniques using multiple approaches can reduce recidivism among young first offenders but no one technique will work consistently. Older repeat offenders simply can't be rehabilitated. Much like drug abuse, the only way they will stop committing crimes is if they want to, not through any "program" that tries to rehabilitate them. So talk about rehabilitation if it makes you feel better, but don't make it out to be a panacea as it simply doesn't work and the statistics show that. Find a program that can actually reduce recidivism that doesn't involve lobotomies and you will win the Nobel prize and make millions on the talk show and book circuit, but the simple fact is you can't rehabilitate someone that doesn't want to change and 90% (percentages vary based on crime) of criminals don't want to change.
You fail to understand history. The IDF was world class in '67. They killed multiple Egyptians for every IDF soldier that was killed. The IDF had some of the most advanced European weaponry available and the Egyptians were using subpar WWII class soviet tanks and weapons. Even with a high kill ratio at 10,000 or so casulties the IDF was nearly cut in half (active combat troops). The IDF maybe good, but they aren't good enough to sustain long term fights, nor can they sustain heavy casualties (Israel only has 7 million people and the IDF if it drafted every eligible male between 16-49 could only field 1.4 million troops and another 1.4million women in the same age range to support). In a game of numbers the Arabs can win a war of attrition even with heavily advantageous kill ratios (Egypt alone can field 18million males in the same age range, all numbers are from the CIA factbook using the fit for service estimated number). That means in an all out battle for survival against Egypt Isreal would need to kill greater than 18:1, and that's only if they fought only Egypt, add in other Arab countries and the required kill ratio will nearly double for every country added. And lets be honest, Israel loses 1.4 million males and they are no longer a viable country.
If you prefer a better example, examine the Korean war. China suffered 300,000 casualties and the UN forces sustained 50,000 and the war ground to a stand still. When people are cannon fodder and you don't care about kill ratio's superior numbers can always win the game simply by overwhelming the opposing force. Dien bien phu is another example where a vastly a vastly inferior fighting force with superior numbers overwhelmed the superior (equipped, trained and supplied) force using Chinese "human wave" tactics. Don't think the IDF is invincible, Hezbollah proved that if you can stage the fight how you want and don't care about casualties you can grind a superior force to a standstill. If anything the Lebanon invasion proved the IDF has relied on their reputation for superiority above tactics and planning.
From Israel's point of view they need Nukes as an end game scenario for anyone that tries to perpetrate the next holocaust. It's in this context that Iran's comments gain special weight. Israel's population is highly concentrated in a few large cities. Of their 7 million population nearly half is in Televiv. A single nuclear weapon dropped on Televiv could destroy Israel. This is the reason Israel considers Iranian nuclear weapons a direct threat to their survival and the reason they will bomb Iran if they believe they are going to acquire them. If Iran doesn't stop enriching I believe Israel will bomb Iran before 2015.
On the other hand Israel has a vested interest in having the bomb so they can use it as a threat in the end game scenario where the Arab world actually successfully teams up against them. There is a lot of speculation that the reason the US intervened in '67 and concocted the camp David accords to pay Israel and Egypt annual sums to avoid war was precisely because US intelligence assets saw Israel prep'ing their nukes for delivery to Cairo during the losing portion (for Israel, 12,000+ casualties is near catastrophic for the IDF). It's speculated that the US emergency equipment airlift was a concession to stop Israel from nuking Cairo (and or using the weapons tactically against the Egyptian tank forces) and the successive Accords were to prevent Egypt and Israel from doing the Tango again.
Ironically it's precisely this accord that got Osama and his Egyptian buddies panties in a bunch because they saw the double wammy of supporting Israel (which up until '67 the US didn't do) and supporting the Egyptian dictator who ordered the torture of many of the Al Queda higher level people before they were evicted from Egypt.
Damned if you do damned if you don't. Had we allowed Israel to go forward with the deployment of Nuclear weapons the damage both direct and indirect would have been catastrophic yet we are blamed for stopping something very very bad from happening. Of course Al Queda has demonstrated to the Arab world their willingness to sacrifice innocent Muslims to their cause and probably would have preferred that Israel use the nuclear weapons and the successive generations of damage the fallout would have caused, let alone the direct casualties.
And people who use are good at slide rules can often smoke someone using a calculator with certain calculations. Any tool with proper training and use can be effective, even if you think it's antiquated.
Gas taxes haven't been indexed against inflation and have been stagnant for 20 years because of the political toxicity for suggesting a gas tax increase. As a result the highway trust fund which was setup to fund reconstruction and maintenance of the interstate system (which congress robbed blind for the last 30 years) is now bankrupt and can't support reconstruction of the highway system that is currently needed, and in fact can barely meet year to year maintenance requirements and won't even support that by 2012.
Without either raising the gas tax or imposing this draconian per mile tax (which the Republicans support because it doesn't allow those hippies who get more fuel efficient cars to pay less taxes)highway reconstruction stops, bridges fail and fall down and everyone gets screwed because your parents paid for the infrastructure you've taken for granted the last 30 years and now that's it's time to rebuild the system (30 year design life) the public isn't willing to pay the money to rebuild because they whine if gas goes up 10 cents. It's called the decline of the america people, infrastructure built this country and enabled the mobility you take for granted, without reconstruction the system fails because the interstates were built with a 30 year life in mind, in the 60-70's. Most are 10-20 years over their design life and show it, the bridge failure in Illinois was the first in what is going to be a much more common situation unless gas taxes are increased to fund reconstruction.
I specifically mentioned potable water delivery systems for a reason. Well water is a separate game with each well user responsible for sterilization and filtration. Although most well water is highly sterile (after all the water has passed through a natural gravel filter that is multiple miles in length), IMO the bacterial risk is generally very low, the problem with well water is usually the heavy metals the user isn't aware are there. The chemical contamination risks usually far outweigh biological risks when dealing with well water, particularly because most well water users don't test their water regularly to verify chemical makeup.
If the shower is run once a day the residual chlorine would sterilize any colony before it could establish. If the shower isn't run once a day and properly drains the environment won't remain wet enough long enough for the colony to establish. The only time a colony could establish such that the residual wouldn't kill it is if the shower isn't used daily and doesn't drain properly. Even then I doubt it could effectively establish because the amount of food in the water for the bacteria is going to be near zero, at least for properly treated water. The BOD (Biologic Oxygen Demand) requirements for potable water are very very low in the US. Only the water systems that are the worst of the worst (no residual chlorine, high BOD) in the US would even have the possibility and then you need a bad shower head and infrequent showering to make this happen. The probability is very low IMO.
The poster presented this as true everywhere, at least deceptively implied it is so. The reality is this is only going to be true where the water isn't properly sanitized, in the US the clean water act requires cities, counties and water authorities to insure the water is properly sanitized before delivery. Most US systems are designed to have residual chlorine all the way to delivery (if you are worried about it let the water sit for 5 min before you drink it and the minimal chlorine will leach out of the water, or you can have an in home filtration system that will strip the chlorine before delivery to the drinking taps).
The only place this bacteria could grow in shower heads would be countries that don't require that the potable water be properly sterilized at delivery. That doesn't include the US and I doubt it includes any European country or Japan or any developed country for that mater that has clean water rules.
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You don't understand how visual learners learn. By writing in class I cement in my memory the lecture. Hearing and writing gives me near photographic recall to the point that after writing the notes in class I often can throw them away because the act of writing what was said anchored the memory. It's not the notes that are important, it's the writing of them that is how the memory is created and sustained. That's what makes visual learners different from everyone else, they have to see and do, not just hear. If for example I take the prof's notes home and then try to write notes I won't remember more than about 25% of what was taught and as I already said after producing the notes they were rarely consulted because I didn't need them anymore. It's my understanding from my years in college that the vast majority of people can learn simply from the spoken word, those of us that are visual learners must SEE and often write to put the ideas into memory. That's why banning note taking is a capital offense to me and completely discriminatory against those of us that learn differently than the majority.
I don't have a single problem with a professor suggesting a way to learn and I certainly think it's a good idea to lecture and provide typed notes, but when they step over the boundary of BANNING the taking of notes during the lecture they've stepped into the realm of telling ME how to learn with the likely result of a failing grade. That's reason to seek the professors dismissal. My senior class in college got a professor removed from undergraduate teaching for equally assine behavior, about 1/3 of the students came to the final class with their appraisal forms pre-typed they were so angry.
I would be happy to tell the dean that the professors job isn't to tell a single person HOW to learn. Forbidding note taking is assine and likely a violation of the students rights. In addition any idiot that thinks taking notes means you aren't paying attention doesn't know a god damn thing about learning and certainly isn't qualified to be instructing anyone in how to learn. Visual learners compose about 10-15% of the population, note taking is essential to learning for most visual learners. In college by hearing and writing material it gave me near photographic recall, if I didn't write I didn't remember any of it. Any teacher that bans note taking has abrogated his responsibility to the college, the students and learning. Everyone learns differently and it's not the job of a single professor to dictate how to do it, any that do are BAD professors and don't deserve to be teaching.
You don't have very good reading comprehension. The OP said he doesn't let people take notes, my "special needs" are that the professor mind his own fucking business and let me learn how I learn. If he thinks he knows better than me how I learn then he deserves to be fired because he's a pretentious asshole. It's not a teachers job to dictate how a student learns, once he steps outside teaching the material into dictating how to learn he's abrogated his responsibilities and stepped into the realm of self-help, which isn't his job. So convince me it's the teachers job to tell students HOW to learn, not what to learn.
The reason you probably find it humorous is your reading comprehension sucks. The OP said he WON'T LET HIS STUDENTS TAKE NOTES. What I said is he should mind his own fucking business and teach the material and stop trying to tell his students how to learn. Refusing to let students taken notes or learn the best way THEY learn is assine, stupid and fucking pretentious. As I SAID I'm a visual leaner, I'm not alone, most of the people in my field are very much like me as we are predisposed to the career. I had a professor in college that thought he knew the best way to learn, he was the single most hated teacher in the college. He fit the stereotype too, self righteous, convinced he knows better than the student how the student learns. Typical behavior for self important college professors. Not everybody learns the same, people have the right to learn how they choose, not have it dictated to them by a self righteous asshole, professors should stop worrying about what their students are doing and focus on the material, doing otherwise makes you a terrible teacher.
I would drop any class you did that in and ensure that I reward you with a terrible recommendation and report, if I was your dean I would fire you. I learn best by writing what is said, take away my ability to write and I won't learn it all. Your policy is beyond stupid because everyone learns differently. By forcing everyone to learn the way you learn, or the way you believe people should learn, you are guaranteeing that a minority of your classes won't learn anything. You should rethink your insistence that you know how to learn better than the students you are teaching because not only is your policy downright discriminatory for those with learning disorders such as dyslexia, but your arrogant belief that you know better demonstrates a superiority complex that's prevalent in higher education and a first order indicator of a bad teacher.
I've installed Linux on every computer I've owned for the last 9 years. Since about 2004 I've never had a peripheral that wasn't found and configured.
Can't rent for commercial gain, non-profits, such and rental clubs and libraries are excluded.
Anti-competitive trust behavior. Also if all the studios do it at the same time it's collusion also. The music companies tried it then paid quite a bit of money to settle a bunch of class actions and a federal anti-trust action that could have revoked their copyrights.
As the studios have a natural trust they will be engaged in extending that trust into DVD rentals. That's illegal under the Sherman Anti-trust act. The music publishers did this in the 90's when they colluded to keep music prices high and walmart out of the music business then they paid a few hundred million to settle class action lawsuits and a federal anti-trust action in the 2000's (forget the exact year). They learned not to do that because it will cost them more money than they will make as the anti-trust provisions allow for disgorgement of all profits and compensation for legal fees.
Bullshit. The Studios have never discounted to the renters. They hate the renters and would love to see them out of business. If the sold to the renters in advance of retail availability they would charge MORE not less, as that's EXACTLY what they used to do with movies when they came on tapes. Netflix pays EXACTLY the same amount or MORE for what you can buy, the big distributors might cut a slight discount (at a hit to their own profits) for bulk purchases but they don't pay a dime less than the studio's dictate. What the studios are proposing here is illegal restraint of trade, it's an illegal trust action and something the music companies already got sued for and lost.
Don't believe for a minute there is any such thing as wholesale pricing for rentals. For years back in the VCR era the studios sold movies to the rental shops first for about $80 a copy and after it came off the new release list a few months later they would open up sales to the general public at 1/8th the cost.
What the studios are engaged in here is restraint of trade, collusion and illegal trust behavior. If they engage a policy of refusing to sell movies to Netflix and Redbox they are going to be sued by the feds and likely by Netflix and Redbox for the above illegal actions. If they are stupid enough to do it it's going to be for ulterior motives such as they will use it as an excuse to lobby congress to limit first sale because the lawsuit will cost them serious dollars, especially if Netflix and Redbox team up and go after them because they will be able to claim direct losses.
It's just like Video games, DRM on video games was never to stop piracy, it was to stop resale. The movie studios, music companies and video game publishers HATE resale and rentals. They see it as lost income and they want to put a halt to it.
Petitions are no different than gathering in a public square to protest. They are a PUBLIC statement of support for the cause. That's their entire purpose. If they were intended to be private they would have no value. Apparently no one ever taught you what signing a petition means and why even people who support an idea won't sign a petition for it. Petitions have been used throughout their history to persecute the people that signed it. The declaration of independence was nothing more than a forceful petition as the people that signed it didn't truly represent anyone at the time (under English law). Signing a petition is the one of the ultimate forms of support for a cause because it publicly associates your name to the cause so your elected officials know how many people support it. Only voting is anonymous, not petitions nor should they ever be. Without public petitions the petition isn't worth the paper it's printed on as other people could sign your name to it and you would never know.
A picture is worth 1000 words. What would the press value be of text statements about the Iranian protests compared to the value of a picture showing 100,000 people in the streets? If you restrict the anonymous networks to text only you destroy the press value. Pictures are the basis of modern press. The picture or video of the police beating someone has value, a text statement by an anonymous eyewitness is easily refuted by the authoritarian regime but the video or picture can't be refuted easily.
The problem with believing in free speech is you have to tolerate all speech. You are unwilling to tolerate all speech so you throw out all the value of the really important, possibly world changing, speech. To me it's called throwing out the baby with the bathwater but to each his own, but you aren't on the moral high ground you think you are.
You make huge leaps in judgement in Lawsuits so you can justify Discovery to find out if your allegations are true. She will use the suit to get subpoenas to use against ISP's so if possible she can track the origin of the intrusion and other subpoenas so she can read emails exchanged by Delta and Memron to see if there was a conspiracy. Depending on the servers used the logs may indicate where the hacking came from. If it can be traced to a Delta or Metron IP address she's going to win a LOT of money, if not she has to use emotional reasons or email evidence of a conspiracy to convince a Jury or more likely the Judge will throw out the case after discovery because she can't find any evidence implicating either company.
The problem isn't that they aren't "sufficiently" open, it's that they aren't open at all and are pretending to be. Binary modules and broken independent firmware's aren't open. Harold is right to call them out for false advertising. Astro-Turfing is a real problem, it's basically false advertising and the FTC is allowing it to happen.
The high incarceration percentage in the US has nothing at all to do with rehabilitation vs. punishment. The high US incarceration rate is due to Federal minimum mandatory sentences for drug related crimes. If you are caught with more than 1 gram of crack you go to jail for 10 years, no exceptions, no deals and no circumstances will change that sentence. It's a minimum mandatory sentence. Take the drug non violent drug offenders out of the US prisons and the incarceration rate would be identical to European countries because they don't put their drug addicts in jail in Europe.
Real scientific studies on recidivism rates that compare punishment systems verses "rehabilitation" based systems show no statistical significance between recidivism rates. let me reiterate, No difference that can be verified. In fact comparisons that dip back into history show that even when England engaged in capital punishment for nearly every crime, when they shipped every criminal to prison colonies in the US and Australia and their current "rehabilitation" bases system that there was no statistically significant difference in crime rates. The fact is crime rate is a pretty constant thing, even if you execute every single criminal. People don't consider the consequences and you can't "rehabilitate" them. "Rehabilitation" is a bunch of pseudo psychiatric jargon to make us feel good about putting people in cages for the majority of their adult life. Prison should have one single purpose, it should be to separate criminals from those that don't commit crimes. You have to give people the opportunity to change by letting them out every now and then (based on what they did), but you aren't going change them or their criminality.
The only person that can rehabilitate a criminal is the criminal deciding he's going to stop breaking the law. The only thing that can generally decide recidivism rates is the type of crime, influenced slightly by age and whether it's a first offense. It's possible to scare first offenders straight (for general crime, this doesn't apply to sex crimes), but there is no consistent way to do so and studies show scattergun techniques using multiple approaches can reduce recidivism among young first offenders but no one technique will work consistently. Older repeat offenders simply can't be rehabilitated. Much like drug abuse, the only way they will stop committing crimes is if they want to, not through any "program" that tries to rehabilitate them. So talk about rehabilitation if it makes you feel better, but don't make it out to be a panacea as it simply doesn't work and the statistics show that. Find a program that can actually reduce recidivism that doesn't involve lobotomies and you will win the Nobel prize and make millions on the talk show and book circuit, but the simple fact is you can't rehabilitate someone that doesn't want to change and 90% (percentages vary based on crime) of criminals don't want to change.
You fail to understand history. The IDF was world class in '67. They killed multiple Egyptians for every IDF soldier that was killed. The IDF had some of the most advanced European weaponry available and the Egyptians were using subpar WWII class soviet tanks and weapons. Even with a high kill ratio at 10,000 or so casulties the IDF was nearly cut in half (active combat troops). The IDF maybe good, but they aren't good enough to sustain long term fights, nor can they sustain heavy casualties (Israel only has 7 million people and the IDF if it drafted every eligible male between 16-49 could only field 1.4 million troops and another 1.4million women in the same age range to support). In a game of numbers the Arabs can win a war of attrition even with heavily advantageous kill ratios (Egypt alone can field 18million males in the same age range, all numbers are from the CIA factbook using the fit for service estimated number). That means in an all out battle for survival against Egypt Isreal would need to kill greater than 18:1, and that's only if they fought only Egypt, add in other Arab countries and the required kill ratio will nearly double for every country added. And lets be honest, Israel loses 1.4 million males and they are no longer a viable country.
If you prefer a better example, examine the Korean war. China suffered 300,000 casualties and the UN forces sustained 50,000 and the war ground to a stand still. When people are cannon fodder and you don't care about kill ratio's superior numbers can always win the game simply by overwhelming the opposing force. Dien bien phu is another example where a vastly a vastly inferior fighting force with superior numbers overwhelmed the superior (equipped, trained and supplied) force using Chinese "human wave" tactics. Don't think the IDF is invincible, Hezbollah proved that if you can stage the fight how you want and don't care about casualties you can grind a superior force to a standstill. If anything the Lebanon invasion proved the IDF has relied on their reputation for superiority above tactics and planning.
From Israel's point of view they need Nukes as an end game scenario for anyone that tries to perpetrate the next holocaust. It's in this context that Iran's comments gain special weight. Israel's population is highly concentrated in a few large cities. Of their 7 million population nearly half is in Televiv. A single nuclear weapon dropped on Televiv could destroy Israel. This is the reason Israel considers Iranian nuclear weapons a direct threat to their survival and the reason they will bomb Iran if they believe they are going to acquire them. If Iran doesn't stop enriching I believe Israel will bomb Iran before 2015.
On the other hand Israel has a vested interest in having the bomb so they can use it as a threat in the end game scenario where the Arab world actually successfully teams up against them. There is a lot of speculation that the reason the US intervened in '67 and concocted the camp David accords to pay Israel and Egypt annual sums to avoid war was precisely because US intelligence assets saw Israel prep'ing their nukes for delivery to Cairo during the losing portion (for Israel, 12,000+ casualties is near catastrophic for the IDF). It's speculated that the US emergency equipment airlift was a concession to stop Israel from nuking Cairo (and or using the weapons tactically against the Egyptian tank forces) and the successive Accords were to prevent Egypt and Israel from doing the Tango again.
Ironically it's precisely this accord that got Osama and his Egyptian buddies panties in a bunch because they saw the double wammy of supporting Israel (which up until '67 the US didn't do) and supporting the Egyptian dictator who ordered the torture of many of the Al Queda higher level people before they were evicted from Egypt.
Damned if you do damned if you don't. Had we allowed Israel to go forward with the deployment of Nuclear weapons the damage both direct and indirect would have been catastrophic yet we are blamed for stopping something very very bad from happening. Of course Al Queda has demonstrated to the Arab world their willingness to sacrifice innocent Muslims to their cause and probably would have preferred that Israel use the nuclear weapons and the successive generations of damage the fallout would have caused, let alone the direct casualties.
And people who use are good at slide rules can often smoke someone using a calculator with certain calculations. Any tool with proper training and use can be effective, even if you think it's antiquated.
It's not the gravel you should worry about. Try getting to work without any bridges.
Gas taxes haven't been indexed against inflation and have been stagnant for 20 years because of the political toxicity for suggesting a gas tax increase. As a result the highway trust fund which was setup to fund reconstruction and maintenance of the interstate system (which congress robbed blind for the last 30 years) is now bankrupt and can't support reconstruction of the highway system that is currently needed, and in fact can barely meet year to year maintenance requirements and won't even support that by 2012.
Without either raising the gas tax or imposing this draconian per mile tax (which the Republicans support because it doesn't allow those hippies who get more fuel efficient cars to pay less taxes)highway reconstruction stops, bridges fail and fall down and everyone gets screwed because your parents paid for the infrastructure you've taken for granted the last 30 years and now that's it's time to rebuild the system (30 year design life) the public isn't willing to pay the money to rebuild because they whine if gas goes up 10 cents. It's called the decline of the america people, infrastructure built this country and enabled the mobility you take for granted, without reconstruction the system fails because the interstates were built with a 30 year life in mind, in the 60-70's. Most are 10-20 years over their design life and show it, the bridge failure in Illinois was the first in what is going to be a much more common situation unless gas taxes are increased to fund reconstruction.
I specifically mentioned potable water delivery systems for a reason. Well water is a separate game with each well user responsible for sterilization and filtration. Although most well water is highly sterile (after all the water has passed through a natural gravel filter that is multiple miles in length), IMO the bacterial risk is generally very low, the problem with well water is usually the heavy metals the user isn't aware are there. The chemical contamination risks usually far outweigh biological risks when dealing with well water, particularly because most well water users don't test their water regularly to verify chemical makeup.
If the shower is run once a day the residual chlorine would sterilize any colony before it could establish. If the shower isn't run once a day and properly drains the environment won't remain wet enough long enough for the colony to establish. The only time a colony could establish such that the residual wouldn't kill it is if the shower isn't used daily and doesn't drain properly. Even then I doubt it could effectively establish because the amount of food in the water for the bacteria is going to be near zero, at least for properly treated water. The BOD (Biologic Oxygen Demand) requirements for potable water are very very low in the US. Only the water systems that are the worst of the worst (no residual chlorine, high BOD) in the US would even have the possibility and then you need a bad shower head and infrequent showering to make this happen. The probability is very low IMO.
The poster presented this as true everywhere, at least deceptively implied it is so. The reality is this is only going to be true where the water isn't properly sanitized, in the US the clean water act requires cities, counties and water authorities to insure the water is properly sanitized before delivery. Most US systems are designed to have residual chlorine all the way to delivery (if you are worried about it let the water sit for 5 min before you drink it and the minimal chlorine will leach out of the water, or you can have an in home filtration system that will strip the chlorine before delivery to the drinking taps).
The only place this bacteria could grow in shower heads would be countries that don't require that the potable water be properly sterilized at delivery. That doesn't include the US and I doubt it includes any European country or Japan or any developed country for that mater that has clean water rules.