I believe you're 100% correct. I would happily accept low teacher salary (because I have a passion for education and teaching) if I could get some security in my position and a secure retirement. If tenure hadn't come under attack, teachers not had a better chance of being laid off than hired, and this "accountability by student performance" trend not struck, I'd probably be in an MA/Credential program right now.
But if I can't expect security in my lower-paying job, then I can't even consider having a family in the future. That's my limit.
This. He committed unlawful entry or trespassing. There was no breaking and entering (hacking) and there was no force or fear. Regarding the car analogies above:
If you leave a key in a box magnetically stuck to the undercarriage of your car and someone steals your car with that key, they're only guilty of that theft... nothing about damage of your property or breaking into it. The thing about the email is that nothing was even stolen... so it's not even as bad as car theft *in that regard*.
What this is, though, is a breach of privacy-- something I consider beyond heinous.
1) They don't say what subjects are being taught. Science and math teachers get ~+20% more than liberal and fine arts. 2) They don't say if they include contractors, district-floating specialists, or special education teachers... all of which make WAY more than normal teachers. 3) They don't mention the availability of 100% teaching positions. 4) For the genuinely high-salary areas (Orange County), they don't mention that the competition is something like 500-1500 applications per open teaching position because (a) when you're not in Santa Ana or Costa Mesa, the students are already pretty high calibre and (b) it's a beautiful place to live with an extremely high cost of living. 5) That's an analysis of range, not of frequency. (Highest teacher salary is ONE person...) 6) It's on a site that advertises CSET test prep material and then teaching as a career so that you'll take the CSET. All sites advertising teaching as a career blow sunshine up the reader's ass.
Just like in standardized testing, you have to try and figure out what the statistics mean, not attribute your own biases.
We know google is massive and for-profit. They're doing what we would expect of them. The curious thing is Microsoft returning more accurate results for less profit. That smells more like "tactics" than "preserving high QoS" to me.
If Bing, the search engine created by the massive for-profit Microsoft corporation, is returning better results than Google and is still struggling to retain major market share, could it not be that Bing is allowing itself to be artificially more accurate just to gain ground? Once the market share is locked down, they will likely allow in more advertised results.
And it's not just a safety net for the families with good intentions. It's also there to specifically help the kids that are dealt a shitty hand.
I say this as someone who was that kid. My mom was a druggie with a middle school education and my dad was an druggie ex-con Vietnam veteran who got his GED in prison. Welfare, Medi-Cal, Food Stamps, and WIC-- that how I got my calories and roof over my head for 15 of the 17 years I lived with them. At 17, I went to college, emancipated, and began living my own life. I'd be dead or an addict myself if those social programs didn't exist.
I'm impressed by your endeavors to research the plight of educators. Dating some from New York suburbs is a fantastic way to do so. But I don't think they were actually teachers... or that they were bringing home $100k+ from teaching... unless they're teaching at some uber-elite private school. If you want to believed, you've got to provide some geographic information.
Teachers aren't supposed to be teaching kids to solve 21st century problems. Our 8 year-olds wouldn't be allowed the curriculum. Do you know what would happen if we taught our kids about the various genocides around the world? Terrorism? The roles major corporations play in our government? About mastectomies, AIDS, and the increasing preference to treat homosexuals as we would anyone else? The school districts would be sued. I want to teach kids 21st century problems and how we need to fix them, and many parents say they want their kids taught that, too-- but when it comes down to it, their own personal biases against genuine education prevent them from supporting it in the ballot box.
Moreover, I'm a firm believer that K-12 education is there to prepare students for higher education. Higher education exists to create a better society than we had before and *then* train either researcher or workers. However, our systems of higher education are so diversely split that job training is seen as a low-class endeavor and thus not associated with the personal education I think everyone should have.
My plan: First: Graduate highschool Second: 2-3 years of intense liberal arts study (sociology, philosophy, literature, etc.) Third: 1-2 years research training OR 1-2 years trade schooling.
That would, however, require the dismantling of the current UC and CSU systems... that's never going to happen.
I don't think taxes actually have to be raised. I think loopholes just need to be closed in the California tax code that allow for major industry to treat massive profits as massive debt. (Hollywood.) Make them pay their share and it just *might* be a little easier living here.
Tuition isn't 30k a year. God help the students of it was. The cost of a UC education includes personal expenses, housing, books and supplies, transportation, campus fees, and system-wide fees. Not to mention that since the UC system was just cut another $500 million a couple days ago and the UCs have 6 weeks to figure out how to make up for the loss.
You suggest scraping the bottom of the barrel for creating teachers. Would you send YOUR kids to be taught by a school full of people who went to a community college for his/her first 2 years of college, finished up at Cal State Stanislaus, and did a $5k night-course credential program? Wouldn't you object and say, "Our teachers are idiots and under-trained!" Ya... thought so...
So very THIS. Look at what it takes to become a teacher today.
Cost of public 4-year education from a UC = $120,000
Cost of graduate program in education = $40,000
Cost of teaching credential program and follow-up clear-credentialing = $15,000
Cost of all tests and college/program applications from SAT to the end of credentialing = $2,500
By the time you're fully competent and qualified to teach in California, you...
... are 27 years old ... are $180,000 in the hole in debt (hoping for *some* kind of debt-forgiveness without having to teach in Compton) ... have moved at least 3 times (expecting to move yet again to whichever district will hire you) ... are without any investments ... are without any retirement ... are in a market where there are so many cutbacks that you'll be lucky to get a 75% appointment ... are looking at $25,000 take-home for your first three years and a final salary of ~$50,000 take home 15 years later if you're teaching the right classes
And this isn't artificial "you don't really need that..." stuff. California wants "highly qualified" teachers. That's been interpreted to means 4-year degree, "majored in the subject they teach" and/or "proving equivalent competence", and credentialing. If you actually want to be a GOOD teacher (not just qualified) from day 1, you're likely to seek out an MA, too.
After all that... here's what you can look forward to...
... paying out of pocket for student supplies ... lowered pay ... the imminent end of tenure ... severely reduced benefits ... severely reduced pension ... pressure to leave teaching so they can hire someone younger and cheaper ... proxy anti-union hate ... evaluations based on numbers that aren't directly related to your own performance ... 10-hour days and the myth of the "free" summer during which you're taking classes and/or training
People who shoot their mouths off about "over-paid" teachers, evil unions, and the need to privatize are just stroking their own ignorance. It blows me away how people are still trying to become teachers in this climate... I just recently gave up. It just costs too much money and time. I'd never have the chance to own a home. I continue to work in education, but my hopes at actually becoming a teacher have been shot.
Don't you mean "Capture"? A dress that eliminates pollutants could be just as bad as good. One that acts as a carbon sink, however, could serve some purpose... somewhere... I guess.
And your response is why I found it important to study the evolution of philosophy. Morality and ethics are different. Negative experience evolved into rules which evolved into mores which evolved into morality and even religion. The process was unintentional. Ethics were chosen from debate (internal and external), contemplation, introspection, and retrospection. The process was intentional. Where morality is bestowed and passed on, ethics are developed after conscious deliberation. Combining the two interchangeably, in my opinion, is like combining the religious faith that God will heal a dying man in a prescription for his care and rehabilitation.
(As an aside, I've always found it tragically humorous how some seriously developed ethics in the past have been so doggedly repeated and mandated that they've turned into religion. Jesus', Confuscious', and Buddha's philosophies on the treatment of others come to mind. The ethics lose a great deal of their value when they're downgraded to the mindless following of inherited morality and the recipients ignore the *reasons* for the existence of the standards they set forth.)
The change from the word "pleasure" to "preferences" unquestionably changes utilitarianism's frequent use as a throw-away straw-man. It was the shallow "pleasure" that people find so unappealing where the use of the word "preferences" went beyond the simple carnal to address the higher desires. It's the use of "preferences" that changes how you would choose to act when those affected are female Muslims as opposed to Christian males.
The effort in the consideration for others and their own preferences is the "good" in the calculus and the final result carries the final value of the action. While it is genuinely impossible to discretely quantify (using whatever unit of measurement) the "weight" a preference of a person has against another person's fully separate preference, we, as insightful, experienced, and empathetic people can make surprisingly accurate approximations of relative value.
As someone who very nearly went into philosophy as a career, I can't say that I am too compelled to read this book. My personal focus was the evolution of philosophies, moral relativity, ethics, and dignity. Those I loved, but once I effectively mastered the roots and good numbers of interpretations, I noticed something robustly inane about those whose careers are philosophy: once processionals find a stance, all they do is argue about wording, implication, and hyperbole.
Almost any paper or book that comes out is prefaced with a billion (obvious exaggeration) of prior references which aren't sufficiently quoted and over-simplifications that give the reader only diminutive understanding of other thought processes. Once you become a philosopher by trade (author of philosophy books or a university professor), you must constantly make statements and defend them. You must read other people's assertions and try to tear them down. You must always try to be a winner!... That turned me off because I am someone who likes to work with people to refine ideas and potentially scrap work only to start from the beginning. That can't happen in a world of "publish or perish" or "survival by book sales".
My favorite example is how the *root* philosophy called "utilitarianism" is consistently used as a straw-man argument in summaries of "other philosophies that don't measure up" to whichever author's definition of the "right" ethic. Utilitarianism says, simply, that in every decision the "best" action is the one that produces the most pleasure and the least pain. That's where most people leave it and argue, "Well that means you could kill 10 people if it gives 100 people orgasms." *facepalm*
But later in the evolution of the philosophy of utilitarianism, the ethic morphed with the times. "Produces the most pleasure..." became "produces the most happiness". Even later, within the theory of Preference Utilitarianism, it was further honed to:
In every decision, one must consider the preferences of all those affected by each possible action. Preferences can be conscious or sub-conscious. (Sub-conscious because all heroine addicts actively want to feel the high of heroine, but sub-consciously want to be healthy even more so.) Note also that some preferences weigh heavier than others. The best action is the one in which the actor considers as preferences as possible by as many affected people as possible, and acts according to his/her best estimations of this "utilitarian calculus".
But stuff like that is never mentioned in the descriptions of utilitarianism because, well, the authors want to "win". Win at philosophy... jeez.
False dichotomy: Criminals want to steal your car or they don't. Tautology: If they are going to steal it, then they are going to steal it.
The decision to commit a crime is relative to the reward of the crime and the risk of getting caught. If the risk is low enough in relation to the value of the crime, then the criminal will commit the crime. If it's not, and there's no mitigating circumstances, the criminal will not commit the crime.
Make your car as difficult as possible to be stolen and your car will be less likely to be stolen. If it is stolen, then you will have a higher chance of recovery.
Wireless Activation: Walk up to car, get in car, drive away.
Mechanical Locks: Walk up to car, break window or slim jim the lock (both loud when the car has an alarm), hotwire/break ignition system, try to disable the alarm, drive away.
It's the difference between using a fake ID to get into a bar and having to punch a couple of people in the face to get into the door. The latter is inherently a bit more risky and likely to draw attention.
The "inconvenience" of using a key is worth the minute effort for the small, but more significant deterrence possibility.
Because when you're ashamed of your past, it's probably best to just change it. Why bother with educating people who read about your past (telling them about ways you and your people have changed) when you can just deceive them from the start?
I was barely on the web in the mid- to late- 90s. The "My Home Page" and "Look at my cats" pages, I think, weren't there to get hits, though. They were there to just to be there. Like someone writing a paper just to write it, no one expected anyone else to give a damn about their last family picnic or their cats. They were obscure if still numerous.
The Heretic: This is Terry Childs. Genuinely brilliant but also assertive (or aggressive enough) to stand up for his principles against those he thinks are in the wrong. I don't mind this so long as the "Heretic" can be pacified with genuine change or being proven incorrect. (Unfortunately, Childs never saw change and was proven correct... and punished nonetheless since he technically broke the law in his crusade.)
The Flake: This is a bad label since the example was of a guy who had two separate (though possibly interactive) psychological/biochemical disorders. In fact, having worked with kids on the autistic spectrum and thus having experience with a various psych situations, when the author described the person's extreme success and abysmal fall, I immediately thought "Bi-Polar or Manic Depressive".
The Jerk: I went to school with one of these. Brilliant person. Brought up comfortably, and even made personal efforts to keep within the ethical confines of his religious upbringing even if denies the existence of a higher power. He was also completely tactless. He didn't seek the best way to say just about anything and was surprised when, even in public, he would get glares from people as he walked by speaking his mind. He did so innocently. He was still a great friend to those who made the effort to understand him.
Web 1.0 = Producers were producers. Normal people consumed and conversed lightly. (News, BB, Chat)
Web 1.5 = Producers were producers and sellers. Normal people consumed and conversed heavily. (Dot-Com boom!)
Web 1.7 = Producers were producers and sellers. Normal people consumed and conversed heavily while trying to be sellers. (Make your own eBay business!!!)
Web 2.0 = Producers were producers and sellers. Normal people stopped trying to be sellers and just produced. Conversation began to lessen since everyone was focusing on content production and not critiquing what other people say. (See: Facebook similar-opinion groups)
Web 2.5 = Producers were producers and sellers. Normal people become voyeurs and think they're producing when they create content 160 characters at a time on topics no one cares about. (See: Twitter)
Web 2.7 (Current) = Producers are producers and sellers. Normal people become voyeurs and think they're producing when they create content 160 characters at a time on topics no one cares about. Vultures prey upon unwitting producing consumers and use the data collected to target them on- and off-line. By this time, the consumer has too much personal information online to turn back the clock. (See: Heavy investment in Twitter and Facebook by major corporations)
Web 3.0 = Producers will be producers and sellers. People will separate into two main groups: the "Look-at-me" and "Stop-looking-at-me" groups. They will consume and produce differently. With the likely demise of Net Neutrality, there's a high potential for the Web forking into "Commercial Web" and "Personal Web" where privacy, control, and customizability will differ greatly.
If there's anything that kills a new MMO, it's pushing the argument of whether it will or won't pose serious challenge to WoW's market share. I don't know if it's Blizzard employees, WoW loyalists, or just really stupid people, but they just keep shoving it down the throats of players who just want to play the game.
They make it sounds like it's an all-or-nothing game. "Oh, New MMO #5 won't beat Blizzard? Well you may as well not consider playing it... even for a day! How can something survive if it doesn't land a constant 5 million users from Day 1?"
All that matters to a game is profits, playability, and word of mouth advertising. It doesn't matter if WoW still holds the lion's share of users... a game can be successful without breaking Blizzard's bank.
That's in line with my experience. The hardest part is getting over the fear and you just need to know how to talk to people to help them gain the confidence to install their own RAM, expansion cards, and even hard disks.
The term is not "vulnerable". Users are only vulnerable to real world things. Users are however, *gullible* and *susceptible" to phishing ploys. Especially iPhone users, apparently. *facepalm*
Slashdot Mirror
I believe you're 100% correct. I would happily accept low teacher salary (because I have a passion for education and teaching) if I could get some security in my position and a secure retirement. If tenure hadn't come under attack, teachers not had a better chance of being laid off than hired, and this "accountability by student performance" trend not struck, I'd probably be in an MA/Credential program right now.
But if I can't expect security in my lower-paying job, then I can't even consider having a family in the future. That's my limit.
This. He committed unlawful entry or trespassing. There was no breaking and entering (hacking) and there was no force or fear. Regarding the car analogies above:
If you leave a key in a box magnetically stuck to the undercarriage of your car and someone steals your car with that key, they're only guilty of that theft... nothing about damage of your property or breaking into it. The thing about the email is that nothing was even stolen... so it's not even as bad as car theft *in that regard*.
What this is, though, is a breach of privacy-- something I consider beyond heinous.
Issues with the numbers you posted:
1) They don't say what subjects are being taught. Science and math teachers get ~+20% more than liberal and fine arts.
2) They don't say if they include contractors, district-floating specialists, or special education teachers... all of which make WAY more than normal teachers.
3) They don't mention the availability of 100% teaching positions.
4) For the genuinely high-salary areas (Orange County), they don't mention that the competition is something like 500-1500 applications per open teaching position because (a) when you're not in Santa Ana or Costa Mesa, the students are already pretty high calibre and (b) it's a beautiful place to live with an extremely high cost of living.
5) That's an analysis of range, not of frequency. (Highest teacher salary is ONE person...)
6) It's on a site that advertises CSET test prep material and then teaching as a career so that you'll take the CSET. All sites advertising teaching as a career blow sunshine up the reader's ass.
Just like in standardized testing, you have to try and figure out what the statistics mean, not attribute your own biases.
I dare say we didn't have a proper summer... and may indeed be having a proper winter.
We know google is massive and for-profit. They're doing what we would expect of them. The curious thing is Microsoft returning more accurate results for less profit. That smells more like "tactics" than "preserving high QoS" to me.
If Bing, the search engine created by the massive for-profit Microsoft corporation, is returning better results than Google and is still struggling to retain major market share, could it not be that Bing is allowing itself to be artificially more accurate just to gain ground? Once the market share is locked down, they will likely allow in more advertised results.
And it's not just a safety net for the families with good intentions. It's also there to specifically help the kids that are dealt a shitty hand.
I say this as someone who was that kid. My mom was a druggie with a middle school education and my dad was an druggie ex-con Vietnam veteran who got his GED in prison. Welfare, Medi-Cal, Food Stamps, and WIC-- that how I got my calories and roof over my head for 15 of the 17 years I lived with them. At 17, I went to college, emancipated, and began living my own life. I'd be dead or an addict myself if those social programs didn't exist.
I'm impressed by your endeavors to research the plight of educators. Dating some from New York suburbs is a fantastic way to do so. But I don't think they were actually teachers... or that they were bringing home $100k+ from teaching... unless they're teaching at some uber-elite private school. If you want to believed, you've got to provide some geographic information.
Teachers aren't supposed to be teaching kids to solve 21st century problems. Our 8 year-olds wouldn't be allowed the curriculum. Do you know what would happen if we taught our kids about the various genocides around the world? Terrorism? The roles major corporations play in our government? About mastectomies, AIDS, and the increasing preference to treat homosexuals as we would anyone else? The school districts would be sued. I want to teach kids 21st century problems and how we need to fix them, and many parents say they want their kids taught that, too-- but when it comes down to it, their own personal biases against genuine education prevent them from supporting it in the ballot box.
Moreover, I'm a firm believer that K-12 education is there to prepare students for higher education. Higher education exists to create a better society than we had before and *then* train either researcher or workers. However, our systems of higher education are so diversely split that job training is seen as a low-class endeavor and thus not associated with the personal education I think everyone should have.
My plan:
First: Graduate highschool
Second: 2-3 years of intense liberal arts study (sociology, philosophy, literature, etc.)
Third: 1-2 years research training OR 1-2 years trade schooling.
That would, however, require the dismantling of the current UC and CSU systems... that's never going to happen.
I don't think taxes actually have to be raised. I think loopholes just need to be closed in the California tax code that allow for major industry to treat massive profits as massive debt. (Hollywood.) Make them pay their share and it just *might* be a little easier living here.
Tuition isn't 30k a year. God help the students of it was. The cost of a UC education includes personal expenses, housing, books and supplies, transportation, campus fees, and system-wide fees. Not to mention that since the UC system was just cut another $500 million a couple days ago and the UCs have 6 weeks to figure out how to make up for the loss.
You suggest scraping the bottom of the barrel for creating teachers. Would you send YOUR kids to be taught by a school full of people who went to a community college for his/her first 2 years of college, finished up at Cal State Stanislaus, and did a $5k night-course credential program? Wouldn't you object and say, "Our teachers are idiots and under-trained!" Ya... thought so...
So very THIS. Look at what it takes to become a teacher today.
... are 27 years old
... are $180,000 in the hole in debt (hoping for *some* kind of debt-forgiveness without having to teach in Compton)
... have moved at least 3 times (expecting to move yet again to whichever district will hire you)
... are without any investments
... are without any retirement
... are in a market where there are so many cutbacks that you'll be lucky to get a 75% appointment
... are looking at $25,000 take-home for your first three years and a final salary of ~$50,000 take home 15 years later if you're teaching the right classes
... paying out of pocket for student supplies
... lowered pay
... the imminent end of tenure
... severely reduced benefits
... severely reduced pension
... pressure to leave teaching so they can hire someone younger and cheaper
... proxy anti-union hate
... evaluations based on numbers that aren't directly related to your own performance
... 10-hour days and the myth of the "free" summer during which you're taking classes and/or training
Cost of public 4-year education from a UC = $120,000
Cost of graduate program in education = $40,000
Cost of teaching credential program and follow-up clear-credentialing = $15,000
Cost of all tests and college/program applications from SAT to the end of credentialing = $2,500
By the time you're fully competent and qualified to teach in California, you...
And this isn't artificial "you don't really need that..." stuff. California wants "highly qualified" teachers. That's been interpreted to means 4-year degree, "majored in the subject they teach" and/or "proving equivalent competence", and credentialing. If you actually want to be a GOOD teacher (not just qualified) from day 1, you're likely to seek out an MA, too.
After all that... here's what you can look forward to...
People who shoot their mouths off about "over-paid" teachers, evil unions, and the need to privatize are just stroking their own ignorance. It blows me away how people are still trying to become teachers in this climate... I just recently gave up. It just costs too much money and time. I'd never have the chance to own a home. I continue to work in education, but my hopes at actually becoming a teacher have been shot.
Don't you mean "Capture"? A dress that eliminates pollutants could be just as bad as good. One that acts as a carbon sink, however, could serve some purpose... somewhere... I guess.
And your response is why I found it important to study the evolution of philosophy. Morality and ethics are different. Negative experience evolved into rules which evolved into mores which evolved into morality and even religion. The process was unintentional. Ethics were chosen from debate (internal and external), contemplation, introspection, and retrospection. The process was intentional. Where morality is bestowed and passed on, ethics are developed after conscious deliberation. Combining the two interchangeably, in my opinion, is like combining the religious faith that God will heal a dying man in a prescription for his care and rehabilitation.
(As an aside, I've always found it tragically humorous how some seriously developed ethics in the past have been so doggedly repeated and mandated that they've turned into religion. Jesus', Confuscious', and Buddha's philosophies on the treatment of others come to mind. The ethics lose a great deal of their value when they're downgraded to the mindless following of inherited morality and the recipients ignore the *reasons* for the existence of the standards they set forth.)
The change from the word "pleasure" to "preferences" unquestionably changes utilitarianism's frequent use as a throw-away straw-man. It was the shallow "pleasure" that people find so unappealing where the use of the word "preferences" went beyond the simple carnal to address the higher desires. It's the use of "preferences" that changes how you would choose to act when those affected are female Muslims as opposed to Christian males.
The effort in the consideration for others and their own preferences is the "good" in the calculus and the final result carries the final value of the action. While it is genuinely impossible to discretely quantify (using whatever unit of measurement) the "weight" a preference of a person has against another person's fully separate preference, we, as insightful, experienced, and empathetic people can make surprisingly accurate approximations of relative value.
As someone who very nearly went into philosophy as a career, I can't say that I am too compelled to read this book. My personal focus was the evolution of philosophies, moral relativity, ethics, and dignity. Those I loved, but once I effectively mastered the roots and good numbers of interpretations, I noticed something robustly inane about those whose careers are philosophy: once processionals find a stance, all they do is argue about wording, implication, and hyperbole.
Almost any paper or book that comes out is prefaced with a billion (obvious exaggeration) of prior references which aren't sufficiently quoted and over-simplifications that give the reader only diminutive understanding of other thought processes. Once you become a philosopher by trade (author of philosophy books or a university professor), you must constantly make statements and defend them. You must read other people's assertions and try to tear them down. You must always try to be a winner!... That turned me off because I am someone who likes to work with people to refine ideas and potentially scrap work only to start from the beginning. That can't happen in a world of "publish or perish" or "survival by book sales".
My favorite example is how the *root* philosophy called "utilitarianism" is consistently used as a straw-man argument in summaries of "other philosophies that don't measure up" to whichever author's definition of the "right" ethic. Utilitarianism says, simply, that in every decision the "best" action is the one that produces the most pleasure and the least pain. That's where most people leave it and argue, "Well that means you could kill 10 people if it gives 100 people orgasms." *facepalm*
But later in the evolution of the philosophy of utilitarianism, the ethic morphed with the times. "Produces the most pleasure..." became "produces the most happiness". Even later, within the theory of Preference Utilitarianism, it was further honed to:
In every decision, one must consider the preferences of all those affected by each possible action. Preferences can be conscious or sub-conscious. (Sub-conscious because all heroine addicts actively want to feel the high of heroine, but sub-consciously want to be healthy even more so.) Note also that some preferences weigh heavier than others. The best action is the one in which the actor considers as preferences as possible by as many affected people as possible, and acts according to his/her best estimations of this "utilitarian calculus".
But stuff like that is never mentioned in the descriptions of utilitarianism because, well, the authors want to "win". Win at philosophy... jeez.
Funny you say that... I've been doing quite a bit of research on bicycle security and that's the effectively the main type of security theft.
Quite common-sensical, when you think about it.
False dichotomy: Criminals want to steal your car or they don't.
Tautology: If they are going to steal it, then they are going to steal it.
The decision to commit a crime is relative to the reward of the crime and the risk of getting caught. If the risk is low enough in relation to the value of the crime, then the criminal will commit the crime. If it's not, and there's no mitigating circumstances, the criminal will not commit the crime.
Make your car as difficult as possible to be stolen and your car will be less likely to be stolen. If it is stolen, then you will have a higher chance of recovery.
Wireless Activation: Walk up to car, get in car, drive away.
Mechanical Locks: Walk up to car, break window or slim jim the lock (both loud when the car has an alarm), hotwire/break ignition system, try to disable the alarm, drive away.
It's the difference between using a fake ID to get into a bar and having to punch a couple of people in the face to get into the door. The latter is inherently a bit more risky and likely to draw attention.
The "inconvenience" of using a key is worth the minute effort for the small, but more significant deterrence possibility.
Because when you're ashamed of your past, it's probably best to just change it. Why bother with educating people who read about your past (telling them about ways you and your people have changed) when you can just deceive them from the start?
I was barely on the web in the mid- to late- 90s. The "My Home Page" and "Look at my cats" pages, I think, weren't there to get hits, though. They were there to just to be there. Like someone writing a paper just to write it, no one expected anyone else to give a damn about their last family picnic or their cats. They were obscure if still numerous.
Today, however, it's all out exhibitionism.
The Heretic: This is Terry Childs. Genuinely brilliant but also assertive (or aggressive enough) to stand up for his principles against those he thinks are in the wrong. I don't mind this so long as the "Heretic" can be pacified with genuine change or being proven incorrect. (Unfortunately, Childs never saw change and was proven correct... and punished nonetheless since he technically broke the law in his crusade.)
The Flake: This is a bad label since the example was of a guy who had two separate (though possibly interactive) psychological/biochemical disorders. In fact, having worked with kids on the autistic spectrum and thus having experience with a various psych situations, when the author described the person's extreme success and abysmal fall, I immediately thought "Bi-Polar or Manic Depressive".
The Jerk: I went to school with one of these. Brilliant person. Brought up comfortably, and even made personal efforts to keep within the ethical confines of his religious upbringing even if denies the existence of a higher power. He was also completely tactless. He didn't seek the best way to say just about anything and was surprised when, even in public, he would get glares from people as he walked by speaking his mind. He did so innocently. He was still a great friend to those who made the effort to understand him.
Web 1.0 = Producers were producers. Normal people consumed and conversed lightly. (News, BB, Chat)
Web 1.5 = Producers were producers and sellers. Normal people consumed and conversed heavily. (Dot-Com boom!)
Web 1.7 = Producers were producers and sellers. Normal people consumed and conversed heavily while trying to be sellers. (Make your own eBay business!!!)
Web 2.0 = Producers were producers and sellers. Normal people stopped trying to be sellers and just produced. Conversation began to lessen since everyone was focusing on content production and not critiquing what other people say. (See: Facebook similar-opinion groups)
Web 2.5 = Producers were producers and sellers. Normal people become voyeurs and think they're producing when they create content 160 characters at a time on topics no one cares about. (See: Twitter)
Web 2.7 (Current) = Producers are producers and sellers. Normal people become voyeurs and think they're producing when they create content 160 characters at a time on topics no one cares about. Vultures prey upon unwitting producing consumers and use the data collected to target them on- and off-line. By this time, the consumer has too much personal information online to turn back the clock. (See: Heavy investment in Twitter and Facebook by major corporations)
Web 3.0 = Producers will be producers and sellers. People will separate into two main groups: the "Look-at-me" and "Stop-looking-at-me" groups. They will consume and produce differently. With the likely demise of Net Neutrality, there's a high potential for the Web forking into "Commercial Web" and "Personal Web" where privacy, control, and customizability will differ greatly.
If there's anything that kills a new MMO, it's pushing the argument of whether it will or won't pose serious challenge to WoW's market share. I don't know if it's Blizzard employees, WoW loyalists, or just really stupid people, but they just keep shoving it down the throats of players who just want to play the game.
They make it sounds like it's an all-or-nothing game. "Oh, New MMO #5 won't beat Blizzard? Well you may as well not consider playing it... even for a day! How can something survive if it doesn't land a constant 5 million users from Day 1?"
All that matters to a game is profits, playability, and word of mouth advertising. It doesn't matter if WoW still holds the lion's share of users... a game can be successful without breaking Blizzard's bank.
That's in line with my experience. The hardest part is getting over the fear and you just need to know how to talk to people to help them gain the confidence to install their own RAM, expansion cards, and even hard disks.
The term is not "vulnerable". Users are only vulnerable to real world things. Users are however, *gullible* and *susceptible" to phishing ploys. Especially iPhone users, apparently. *facepalm*