Children need to go to school. 16 year olds are not children and should be allowed to drop out. In reality they already are as evidenced by graduation rates in low performing districts.
Sounds more like an experiment to me. Since the public sector has neither the money nor the will to experiment it seems worthwhile for the Gates Foundation to fund it. This experiment generated data that will be useful in future initiatives, if only as a record of what doesn't work.
Actually I see the opposite trend. Maybe just in CA. Most people are locking down their networks. I, in fact, did so after the RIAA starting suing people based on IP addresses. I'd like to provide free, limited (bandwidth-wise) internet to the whole neighborhood, and I'm certainly capable of securing my LAN while doing so, but the law is just not in place to protect my doing so.
So I think the default for "please-set-up-my-internets" guy is going to be to enable encryption until society catches up.
I'm not arguing that drug use is an essential right like free speech. I'm arguing that other rights like the right to be free of unreasonable search and seizure are being infringed in the attempts to stop people from doing drugs. This is old news. With the DMCA, freedom of speech is being sacrificed in an attempt to stop piracy. With the PRO-IP act seizure of devices containing copyrighted materials is now allowed in copyright cases, which is similar to the way property is seized in drug cases.
Sorry to respond to myself. The particularly worrying thing here is government's violations of the right to property with respect to the drug war and now with respect to copyright violation, although the latter is much less common. If we deny that right combating drug use and piracy, where will we stop?
Scope creep is endemic. First the drugs are illegal (copyrighted works), then the US pressures other countries to make them illegal (WTO actions), then the paraphenalia is illegal (DMCA circumvention), then they can confiscate your property if you touch the drugs (more recent acts). Then your freedoms start to get eroded in the name of the war. All of this so the pharmaceutical companies (large software publishers) can avoid competition.
Yes there are people who get drunk and stoned at the same time, but in general people who are getting high will not be getting drunk, and if they are they are usually too tired to do any of the violent shit drunk people do. So really the fact that marijuana is a safer sometime-substitute for alcohol is a reason it should be legal.
True but a lot of gamers know enough to dual boot Linux. If I'm going to set up Grandpa or whoever with a computer and he does not intend to play games on it, I'm not going to let the fact that games only run on windows sway my OS decision. Photoshop OTOH, means that my Grandpa has to run Windows or OS X, which is a pity because like most people he will click the spyware downloads.
Very true. I can't tell you how much time I would save if every user got a piece of paper with the relevant router settings in big bold letters with instructions not to misplace it. Usually when I try to fix people's internet remotely they lack this information, and I'm left grasping at straws trying to google what XYZ ISP uses. Even better they could (like my ISP Cox) abandon the practice of using PPPoE for broadband. What's the point of that anyways? Is that seriously the only way DSL providers can control access to their networks?
Actually last time I called I followed the instructions, and I'm glad I did. It turns out that my modem, not unlike a baby duckling, binds to the first MAC address it sees when it boots up. Therefore you must power it on *first*, wait for ready light to come on, *then* plug in the router. If you tried plugging in, say, your laptop first to test the connection, you have to reboot the modem. Lesson learned, I guess.
This is what has always irked me about California laws. Why should I have to justify my need to carry a weapon? Is the fact that there ARE criminals in my city and the fact that they DO carry guns and they DO kill people with them not justification enough? The granting of concealed carry permits to (mostly) only cops has nothing to do with level of risk and everything to do with a buddy buddy relationship with the legislature. Sure, we know the cops already know how to use the guns, and I'm not saying we should force them to take another round of gun training, but it makes sense to allow other properly trained citizens to carry as well.
Prisons are the world's mental hospitals now, for better or for worse. It used to be that mental hospitals were more like prisons, but this was unfair to the mentally ill who hadn't killed anyone, and the conditions for everyone imprisoned were almost universally awful. Today's prisons are more humane than the old insane asylums in most cases, but their ability to sufficiently reform a patient/prisoner that he can be safely released into society is at least as poor.
That has been impossible since guns were invented, despite the best efforts of many. What's more worrisome is that prohibition of nuclear arms seems headed down the same path.
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I was told in high school that the best predictor was the classes you took in high school. You got a cite? I would find that interesting.
Children need to go to school. 16 year olds are not children and should be allowed to drop out. In reality they already are as evidenced by graduation rates in low performing districts.
Sounds more like an experiment to me. Since the public sector has neither the money nor the will to experiment it seems worthwhile for the Gates Foundation to fund it. This experiment generated data that will be useful in future initiatives, if only as a record of what doesn't work.
Actually I see the opposite trend. Maybe just in CA. Most people are locking down their networks. I, in fact, did so after the RIAA starting suing people based on IP addresses. I'd like to provide free, limited (bandwidth-wise) internet to the whole neighborhood, and I'm certainly capable of securing my LAN while doing so, but the law is just not in place to protect my doing so.
So I think the default for "please-set-up-my-internets" guy is going to be to enable encryption until society catches up.
It doesn't matter if you come from a less corrupt country. If you want to operate in a more corrupt one you're going to have to bribe someone.
Get a blackberry. I just got one, they're cool, and I don't think RIM ever spied on anybody.*
*I am not in any way associated with RIM or Blackberry beyond my data plan.
Umm GP doesn't have a signature, and you brought religion in to this. I'm confused.
I'm not arguing that drug use is an essential right like free speech. I'm arguing that other rights like the right to be free of unreasonable search and seizure are being infringed in the attempts to stop people from doing drugs. This is old news. With the DMCA, freedom of speech is being sacrificed in an attempt to stop piracy. With the PRO-IP act seizure of devices containing copyrighted materials is now allowed in copyright cases, which is similar to the way property is seized in drug cases.
Sorry to respond to myself. The particularly worrying thing here is government's violations of the right to property with respect to the drug war and now with respect to copyright violation, although the latter is much less common. If we deny that right combating drug use and piracy, where will we stop?
My post wasn't about the causes but the responses of government to the crimes. In both cases government has resorted to eroding essential freedoms.
Scope creep is endemic. First the drugs are illegal (copyrighted works), then the US pressures other countries to make them illegal (WTO actions), then the paraphenalia is illegal (DMCA circumvention), then they can confiscate your property if you touch the drugs (more recent acts). Then your freedoms start to get eroded in the name of the war. All of this so the pharmaceutical companies (large software publishers) can avoid competition.
Yeah you have to pay for that self install with Cox. I believe that's the 80 bucks the GP was complaining about.
Yes there are people who get drunk and stoned at the same time, but in general people who are getting high will not be getting drunk, and if they are they are usually too tired to do any of the violent shit drunk people do. So really the fact that marijuana is a safer sometime-substitute for alcohol is a reason it should be legal.
Yeah but they weren't smoking it. Marijuana generally refers to dope not rope
You mean like Obama. Man too easy.
I agree. He should just ahead and trash that whole "American Dream" thing. It's just greed after all.
I have it on good authority that Verizon is good in the rural south.
Just scrap the GSM phone.
Agreed. CDMA is far superior.
True but a lot of gamers know enough to dual boot Linux. If I'm going to set up Grandpa or whoever with a computer and he does not intend to play games on it, I'm not going to let the fact that games only run on windows sway my OS decision. Photoshop OTOH, means that my Grandpa has to run Windows or OS X, which is a pity because like most people he will click the spyware downloads.
Very true. I can't tell you how much time I would save if every user got a piece of paper with the relevant router settings in big bold letters with instructions not to misplace it. Usually when I try to fix people's internet remotely they lack this information, and I'm left grasping at straws trying to google what XYZ ISP uses. Even better they could (like my ISP Cox) abandon the practice of using PPPoE for broadband. What's the point of that anyways? Is that seriously the only way DSL providers can control access to their networks?
I second this. This is the most common user error on the computer: refusal to even try tweaking the settings a bit before freaking out and calling me.
Actually last time I called I followed the instructions, and I'm glad I did. It turns out that my modem, not unlike a baby duckling, binds to the first MAC address it sees when it boots up. Therefore you must power it on *first*, wait for ready light to come on, *then* plug in the router. If you tried plugging in, say, your laptop first to test the connection, you have to reboot the modem. Lesson learned, I guess.
This is what has always irked me about California laws. Why should I have to justify my need to carry a weapon? Is the fact that there ARE criminals in my city and the fact that they DO carry guns and they DO kill people with them not justification enough? The granting of concealed carry permits to (mostly) only cops has nothing to do with level of risk and everything to do with a buddy buddy relationship with the legislature. Sure, we know the cops already know how to use the guns, and I'm not saying we should force them to take another round of gun training, but it makes sense to allow other properly trained citizens to carry as well.
Prisons are the world's mental hospitals now, for better or for worse. It used to be that mental hospitals were more like prisons, but this was unfair to the mentally ill who hadn't killed anyone, and the conditions for everyone imprisoned were almost universally awful. Today's prisons are more humane than the old insane asylums in most cases, but their ability to sufficiently reform a patient/prisoner that he can be safely released into society is at least as poor.
That has been impossible since guns were invented, despite the best efforts of many. What's more worrisome is that prohibition of nuclear arms seems headed down the same path.