The article is best summed up by it's final quote:
Whatever the circumstances behind the access, Mr. Patry said, the sole result "is that information that they had formerly made publicly available didn't stay hidden."
While some of my points will just belabor those that have already been made I'll make them anyway:
Peer review of writing. One good way to learn how NOT to do something is to see others make the mistake. We use peer review in basic university Lit classes, we should do the same in High School at the least. Though, honestly, I think this could go down to junior/middle school as well.
Increase class participation. Round table discussion on almost any topic is a great way to spur individual thought and increase learning. This needs to be done as early as 1st grade. It will help get kids involved in their education instead of just being bystanders.
Teach kids at an early age that it is OK to be smart and, sometimes, smarter than the rest of the class.
Don't inflate grades, advance kids that aren't ready, or otherwise lie to yourself and the child about his/her abilities. You hurt both the child and the society at large
Expect kids to excel and don't accept failure.
Don't medicate every hyper kid. While this isn't necessarilly something schools do, far too many kids are on ADD drugs.
That is just the start of what I would do; I would also introduce foreign language classes in Kindergarten, incorporate excercises in the classroom that reflect real world situations, encourage not just written but verbal communciation, bring back "penmanship methods" such as the palmer method that my parents used and which led to MUCH better penmanship than the last few generations have seen.
Look mr nice guy - its also not OK if one person gets RAPED
As someone else said sex offenders are often repeat offenders.
Because there is an appropriate penalty for what they have done, and that is to be administered according to law, by a court
And being listed on a known sex offender list IS PART OF THAT PENALTY.
Are there people on the list who shouldn't be? Probably. But there are also people on there who should be. It is just like everything else with the justice system. It isn't perfect (far from it) but at least it offers a modicrum of protection for people who live near real rapists.
Or would it be better to protect the known rapist over the next victim? I think not.
That can mean an 18-year old getting jiggy with his 17-year old bitch, or it can even mean two 17-year olds getting it on, depending on the state.
And it can mean someone raping a 15 year old.
Nothing is ever black and white. I am not convicted anyone that as listed I was just citing some examples of what "appear" to be more serious than public urination.
I don't know about the entire sex offender list but my very simple random sample of one person:
Carlton L. Colemen was convicted of sexual abuse of a minor (under the age of 18).
That doesn't sound like public urination to me.
So, to be a bit more scientific I randomly picked another:
Dwayne A Woodard was convicted of 2nd degree rape of a 17 year old aquaintance.
And, just because I like to be fair I picked a third from the middle of the list: Ronald K Lassiter was convicted of Child Abuse
Seems odd that not one of my three person sample had a conviction even remotely close to urinating in public.
However, what I found really interesting was the fact that so many of them live within a couple blocks of each other (D.C. map) I wonder if there is some form of neighborhood limitation upon sex offenders in the Capital? I know most people don't want sex offenders living near them; but it seems amazing to me that so many live so close together. Imagine being a family living in that neighborhood. It can't leave you feeling very safe for your children, wife, sister, etc..
First, how does the fact that two companies demo'd products of similar nature imply pending ineteroperability? It doensn't.
Second, what added benefit is there to HD videoconferencing? How would this possibly be the pancea of people wanting to meet in person. They still aren't meeting in person so they will still want to. A pretty picture doesn't change that.
I've never posted a a negative reply to a/. story - but I don't see how the story has any bearing on anything other than the fact aht HD videoconferncing is now possible. Thats it. It is as if the parent was just stretching for something interesting in an otherwise ho-hum topic.
I was in the US Army for most of the 1990s and served in both Combat Arms and Air Defense and was never issued a Knife.
I was issued a bayonet - but then that was very rare. I can think of two times.
1. Basic Training 2. Another Training Exercise
Some moron lost his Bayonet during the training exercise and there was all hell to pay for the whole unit because it was lost. That sucked.
In Desert Storm - no knife, no bayonet. Same with Desert Shield:O)
The entrenching tool - a small shovel that has a handle and blade that can pivot into various angular configurations - is issued to every soldier regardless of MOS (at least all enlisted soliders) and it can be an effective weapon.
In a combat scenario you never know when you'll need more than a bullet. Ammo can run out - your entrenching tool is always there. Granted, it wouldn't be my first choice, but if I found myself in a hand-to-hand encounter I'd rather have its vicously pointed and serated edge than just my bare hands.
You obviously live in a location of Plenty. Not all states, and not all parts of each state, are as fortunate as you are.
I live in West Virginia. (Please, lets skip the hillbilly jokes for a minute). Here, there are many, many poor families who live on hills and in valleys far away from a grocery store. These families simply MUST hunt to survive.
In fact, the first day of hunting season schools througout the state are closed. WV is a poor state - one of the poorest. And for far too many people hunting is still a necessity.
I would bet you could rural find families in every state that are in the same boat. It is just more marked here because there is so little urban area in WV and so much rural; and thus the need for hunting so widespread.
In addition to that the states Capital (Charleston), has a deer population problem. And they have even had to consider opening up a very limited bow hunting season WITHIN the city just to cull back a very dangerous situation. I don't know if they follwed through on the plan, but it was seriously debated.
First off, I am not a hunter. However, my father is. I consider my dad a pretty good parent and some of the best times of my childhood with him were hunting. It wasn't about killing the animal. (or dragging its heavy corpse back through the snow to our campsite) It was about the time we spent together. Him teaching me about all sorts of wildnerss things - knots, tree and plant identification, tracking, constellation observations, etc.
My family did a ton of stuff outside - but few of them were as peaceful and quiet as the 99% of the time your hunting. We didn't get much (in game) but we did talk to each other alot and spend some very quality time together.
If you didn't experience it with your dad you really can't knock it because, frankly, you have know idea what your talking about.
no, i think he was saying the odds increased quite a bit.
For instance; If I started to hang out with known gang members but i still weren't a gang member. Then I were killed in a gang shooting - it wouldn't be that big of a suprise. I put myself into a situtation that greatly increased my chance of getting killed violently.
I actually use Gmail as my primary email location for a few reasons.
1. I really like the conversation view. The fact that it pulls my replies in makes keeping track of everything that has been said pretty handy.
2. I check mail at home and at work and on the road. Now, I can manage it all in one place with a fairly elegant interface.
3. I forward all my email that isn't work related to my gmail account. Using labels, filters and search I don't really need to worry about identifying where each mail was destined for. Gmail takes care of that for me.
4. 2gb is a ton of space. sure it just gives me a place to clutter. but it makes it easier for me to store attachemnts that I may want to view again in the future without having to clutter my harddrive (and have it availble at home/work/road).
5. I only have to have one application open to browse the web and read email. I keep EditPlus open for coding (or Eclipse) and my browser open. Not having a dedicated email client running as well reduces my memory usage and processor load (albiet barely).
6. I use the sage firefox plugin for RSS feeds (again staying in my browser and no need for a rss or email client for tracking feeds). Though technically I should use something more centralized - I am not feeling confident those central services will remain free.
Boy I guess that is more than a couple reasons. But all in all thats why I use Gmail. I have had webmail access before (squirrel, horde, etc) but never really cared for them. Gmail pulls it off better (but it still needs work; fortunately there is Greasemonkey (ff plugin) which adds a delete button) so I use it.
I have thunderbird installed and mess with it on occasion, even to download my Gmail - just to try out its features. Its threaded view is pretty close to Gmails except I can't order a threaded view by date - as soon as I do that the grouping is lost.
I am actually kind of suprised you haven't heard of HUD as "Housing and Urban Development"
While I have heard of HUD as heads up display - I'm pretty sure the Housing and Urban Development expansion of the acronym predates any existance of Heads Up Display.
It's always interesting to see how different backgrounds can effect the interpretation of language.
Thanks for repeating the parent that I replied to. If you READ his/her post you will see it was said, "if firefox can do... [x and y] then maybe I would switch".
So, in an effort to provide some information to said Parent and not to start a "war thread" I responded.
I'm glad you are happy with Opera. I don't want you to switch to another browser - nor do I want the parent to switch.
I'm glad there are options in the browser market. That's why I replied so that parent would know that FireFox was a viable option for what he wanted.
Don't hate me for liking both browsers - I guess I'm just a fence sitter.
your right, opera does have those features. However, I was responding to someone who said, "IF FireFox had these features..."
I wasn't trying to bash Opera or give undue props to Firefox - I was just answering an inferred question.
It really is OK to like both browsers isn't it?
Re:Not being trollish, but...
on
Opera 8 Released
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Can't you do all of that with firefox? I have the deverloper toolbar and the first dropdown menu is "disable" on it is "cache, cookies, image animations, images, java, javascript, page colors, popup blockers, referral logging, and styles (which is another submenu consisting of all styles, embedded styles, inline styles, linked style sheets, and an individual style sheet selector). https://addons.update.mozilla.org/exte nsions/morei nfo.php?application=firefox&category=Developer%20T ools&numpg=10&id=60
you can also use mouse gestures with a FF extension: https://addons.update.mozilla.org/exte nsions/morei nfo.php?application=firefox&version=1.0&os=Windows &category=Navigation&numpg=10&id=39
and finally, I don't get your drift on the broswer has to get the ads somewhere. What do you mean?
My favorite feature of Opera is the preview in a mobile device option. Now that is handy (to me as a web developer).
JFCCNW is not an acronym. Oh sure, people love to say everything that consists of the first letter of each word is an acronym - but this isnt.
Acronym - a new word or pronounceable and hence memorable name coined from the first or first few letters or parts of a phrase or compound term (HUD for Housing and Urban Development).
About all JFCCNW does is take the first letter from a bunch of words. It is certainly not pronouncable, nor is it particularly memorable.
Not only are your acronym's funnier, but they are actually acronyms.
Or maybe this is pronounced Jiff-canoe ('jif? - k&-'nü)
We American's often do stupid things. We, as a people, don't fully appreciate the value of the rights we have and consistently try to forfeit some or all of them.
Take for instance these legal efforts to dump the Fourth and Sixth Amendments: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,1 45529,00.html
Or how half of all high school students think all News should be censored: http://www.lasvegasweekly.com/2005/02/1 0/culturecl ub.html
The founding fathers knew what they were doing. They realized the people would do stupid things and slowly give away their liberties. Its why they made it so hard for us to shoor ourselves.
Sadly, it just seems like were getting better and better at it as time goes by.
Over 480 responses and maybe only 2 actually answer his question.
Instead everyone has to be a smartass and tell him that if the drive is damaged he can't write to it.
He didn't ask that - he asked if there was a good device for securely wiping a harddrive. Is it really that freaking hard to stay on topic and just answer the guy?
Ever time anyone has an ask slashdot it creates the "know-it-all" effect around here. Nobody actually knows the answer, but they feel inspired to spout off about everything they think they do know about.
I don't mind helping my family/friends/etc out with their computer problems - but I don't like spending hours and hours doing it. I have a life I prefer to live over working on computers.
I particularly don't like trying to help people over the phone. Suddenly you take someone who is normally quite intelligent and they start talking like imbiciles who can't think for themselves.
I would prefer they just wait till I come visit then bog me down with "repair" work than calling me and asking me to walk them through some crazy problem.
Actually, I'd prefer if they would stop being so damn chicken and just try to figure it out themselves. Thats usually what I have to do anyway. It isn't as if I have an encylcopedic knowledge of all computer problems and software configurations. But, boy, everyone sure thinks I should.
Your probably right, N Korea probably does really have Nukes. When I was sent to SK in 1994 we believed they had them and they declared they were working on them.
But the truth is, we don't know if they do or not. It isn't as if they have advertised the fact like we used to in the Nevada desert. It is just as likely that they are taking a defensive posture to prevent future agression by the US. It isn't as if they haven't played the Nuke card before.
As for Iraq... My "critical propaganda filter" led me to believe Saddam was hiding something in pre-war Iraq. His behavior was pretty damn shady in my opinion. I don't know what he was hiding , but he was trying to hide something - or at least lead people to believe he was.
I definately didn't "know darn well that Iraq didn't have any WMD" - how you knew they absolutely didn't is beyond me. You may have suspected they didn't - but KNEW - that seems unlikely. Just as NK actual progress on building nukes hasn't been well known by anyone. Again, people have suspected progress - but there is a big difference between suspecting and knowing.
Hence why we need a president who can actually see into the future. Then we actually will KNOW and not just suspect.
BTW: I haven't voted for Bush. However, nor do I envy his position of being the president after 9/11. That event had so many foriegn policy implications that I wouldn't wish the job of dealing with it on anyone.
Slashdot Mirror
While some of my points will just belabor those that have already been made I'll make them anyway:
That is just the start of what I would do; I would also introduce foreign language classes in Kindergarten, incorporate excercises in the classroom that reflect real world situations, encourage not just written but verbal communciation, bring back "penmanship methods" such as the palmer method that my parents used and which led to MUCH better penmanship than the last few generations have seen.
As someone else said sex offenders are often repeat offenders.
And being listed on a known sex offender list IS PART OF THAT PENALTY.
Are there people on the list who shouldn't be? Probably. But there are also people on there who should be. It is just like everything else with the justice system. It isn't perfect (far from it) but at least it offers a modicrum of protection for people who live near real rapists.
Or would it be better to protect the known rapist over the next victim? I think not.
And it can mean someone raping a 15 year old.
Nothing is ever black and white. I am not convicted anyone that as listed I was just citing some examples of what "appear" to be more serious than public urination.
Either way I look at your post I don't see how none of the people listed did anything worse than public urination.
Personally, I don't know all of the details on everyone listed (nor do I really want to) - do you?
How you can you authoratively state that none of the people on the list did anything serious?
I don't know about the entire sex offender list but my very simple random sample of one person:
Carlton L. Colemen was convicted of sexual abuse of a minor (under the age of 18).
That doesn't sound like public urination to me.
So, to be a bit more scientific I randomly picked another:
Dwayne A Woodard was convicted of 2nd degree rape of a 17 year old aquaintance.
And, just because I like to be fair I picked a third from the middle of the list:
Ronald K Lassiter was convicted of Child Abuse
Seems odd that not one of my three person sample had a conviction even remotely close to urinating in public.
However, what I found really interesting was the fact that so many of them live within a couple blocks of each other (D.C. map) I wonder if there is some form of neighborhood limitation upon sex offenders in the Capital? I know most people don't want sex offenders living near them; but it seems amazing to me that so many live so close together. Imagine being a family living in that neighborhood. It can't leave you feeling very safe for your children, wife, sister, etc..
First, how does the fact that two companies demo'd products of similar nature imply pending ineteroperability? It doensn't.
/. story - but I don't see how the story has any bearing on anything other than the fact aht HD videoconferncing is now possible. Thats it. It is as if the parent was just stretching for something interesting in an otherwise ho-hum topic.
Second, what added benefit is there to HD videoconferencing? How would this possibly be the pancea of people wanting to meet in person. They still aren't meeting in person so they will still want to. A pretty picture doesn't change that.
I've never posted a a negative reply to a
I was in the US Army for most of the 1990s and served in both Combat Arms and Air Defense and was never issued a Knife.
:O)
I was issued a bayonet - but then that was very rare. I can think of two times.
1. Basic Training
2. Another Training Exercise
Some moron lost his Bayonet during the training exercise and there was all hell to pay for the whole unit because it was lost. That sucked.
In Desert Storm - no knife, no bayonet. Same with Desert Shield
The entrenching tool - a small shovel that has a handle and blade that can pivot into various angular configurations - is issued to every soldier regardless of MOS (at least all enlisted soliders) and it can be an effective weapon.
In a combat scenario you never know when you'll need more than a bullet. Ammo can run out - your entrenching tool is always there. Granted, it wouldn't be my first choice, but if I found myself in a hand-to-hand encounter I'd rather have its vicously pointed and serated edge than just my bare hands.
we could have. But we also like the taste of venison, duck, quail, goose, rabbit, etc.
the food was just a nice side effect of the time we spent together.
However, it seems you just prefer to ignore purpose of my reply and instead focus on an activity you are obviously opposed to.
You obviously live in a location of Plenty. Not all states, and not all parts of each state, are as fortunate as you are.
I live in West Virginia. (Please, lets skip the hillbilly jokes for a minute). Here, there are many, many poor families who live on hills and in valleys far away from a grocery store. These families simply MUST hunt to survive.
In fact, the first day of hunting season schools througout the state are closed. WV is a poor state - one of the poorest. And for far too many people hunting is still a necessity.
I would bet you could rural find families in every state that are in the same boat. It is just more marked here because there is so little urban area in WV and so much rural; and thus the need for hunting so widespread.
In addition to that the states Capital (Charleston), has a deer population problem. And they have even had to consider opening up a very limited bow hunting season WITHIN the city just to cull back a very dangerous situation. I don't know if they follwed through on the plan, but it was seriously debated.
First off, I am not a hunter. However, my father is. I consider my dad a pretty good parent and some of the best times of my childhood with him were hunting. It wasn't about killing the animal. (or dragging its heavy corpse back through the snow to our campsite) It was about the time we spent together. Him teaching me about all sorts of wildnerss things - knots, tree and plant identification, tracking, constellation observations, etc.
My family did a ton of stuff outside - but few of them were as peaceful and quiet as the 99% of the time your hunting. We didn't get much (in game) but we did talk to each other alot and spend some very quality time together.
If you didn't experience it with your dad you really can't knock it because, frankly, you have know idea what your talking about.
no, i think he was saying the odds increased quite a bit.
For instance; If I started to hang out with known gang members but i still weren't a gang member. Then I were killed in a gang shooting - it wouldn't be that big of a suprise. I put myself into a situtation that greatly increased my chance of getting killed violently.
I actually use Gmail as my primary email location for a few reasons.
1. I really like the conversation view. The fact that it pulls my replies in makes keeping track of everything that has been said pretty handy.
2. I check mail at home and at work and on the road. Now, I can manage it all in one place with a fairly elegant interface.
3. I forward all my email that isn't work related to my gmail account. Using labels, filters and search I don't really need to worry about identifying where each mail was destined for. Gmail takes care of that for me.
4. 2gb is a ton of space. sure it just gives me a place to clutter. but it makes it easier for me to store attachemnts that I may want to view again in the future without having to clutter my harddrive (and have it availble at home/work/road).
5. I only have to have one application open to browse the web and read email. I keep EditPlus open for coding (or Eclipse) and my browser open. Not having a dedicated email client running as well reduces my memory usage and processor load (albiet barely).
6. I use the sage firefox plugin for RSS feeds (again staying in my browser and no need for a rss or email client for tracking feeds). Though technically I should use something more centralized - I am not feeling confident those central services will remain free.
Boy I guess that is more than a couple reasons. But all in all thats why I use Gmail. I have had webmail access before (squirrel, horde, etc) but never really cared for them. Gmail pulls it off better (but it still needs work; fortunately there is Greasemonkey (ff plugin) which adds a delete button) so I use it.
I have thunderbird installed and mess with it on occasion, even to download my Gmail - just to try out its features. Its threaded view is pretty close to Gmails except I can't order a threaded view by date - as soon as I do that the grouping is lost.
I am actually kind of suprised you haven't heard of HUD as "Housing and Urban Development"
While I have heard of HUD as heads up display - I'm pretty sure the Housing and Urban Development expansion of the acronym predates any existance of Heads Up Display.
It's always interesting to see how different backgrounds can effect the interpretation of language.
Thanks for repeating the parent that I replied to. If you READ his/her post you will see it was said, "if firefox can do ... [x and y] then maybe I would switch".
So, in an effort to provide some information to said Parent and not to start a "war thread" I responded.
I'm glad you are happy with Opera. I don't want you to switch to another browser - nor do I want the parent to switch.
I'm glad there are options in the browser market. That's why I replied so that parent would know that FireFox was a viable option for what he wanted.
Don't hate me for liking both browsers - I guess I'm just a fence sitter.
your right, opera does have those features. However, I was responding to someone who said, "IF FireFox had these features..."
I wasn't trying to bash Opera or give undue props to Firefox - I was just answering an inferred question.
It really is OK to like both browsers isn't it?
Can't you do all of that with firefox? I have the deverloper toolbar and the first dropdown menu is "disable" on it is "cache, cookies, image animations, images, java, javascript, page colors, popup blockers, referral logging, and styles (which is another submenu consisting of all styles, embedded styles, inline styles, linked style sheets, and an individual style sheet selector).e nsions/morei nfo.php?application=firefox&category=Developer%20T ools&numpg=10&id=60
e nsions/morei nfo.php?application=firefox&version=1.0&os=Windows &category=Navigation&numpg=10&id=39
https://addons.update.mozilla.org/ext
you can also use mouse gestures with a FF extension:
https://addons.update.mozilla.org/ext
and finally, I don't get your drift on the broswer has to get the ads somewhere. What do you mean?
My favorite feature of Opera is the preview in a mobile device option. Now that is handy (to me as a web developer).
JFCCNW is not an acronym. Oh sure, people love to say everything that consists of the first letter of each word is an acronym - but this isnt.
Acronym - a new word or pronounceable and hence memorable name coined from the first or first few letters or parts of a phrase or compound term (HUD for Housing and Urban Development).
About all JFCCNW does is take the first letter from a bunch of words. It is certainly not pronouncable, nor is it particularly memorable.
Not only are your acronym's funnier, but they are actually acronyms.
Or maybe this is pronounced Jiff-canoe ('jif? - k&-'nü)
We American's often do stupid things. We, as a people, don't fully appreciate the value of the rights we have and consistently try to forfeit some or all of them.
1 45529,00.html
1 0/culturecl ub.html
Take for instance these legal efforts to dump the Fourth and Sixth Amendments:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,
Or how half of all high school students think all News should be censored:
http://www.lasvegasweekly.com/2005/02/
The founding fathers knew what they were doing. They realized the people would do stupid things and slowly give away their liberties. Its why they made it so hard for us to shoor ourselves.
Sadly, it just seems like were getting better and better at it as time goes by.
not just suffered a moment of frustration at the complete waste of time that is /. reader comments :O)
Over 480 responses and maybe only 2 actually answer his question.
Instead everyone has to be a smartass and tell him that if the drive is damaged he can't write to it.
He didn't ask that - he asked if there was a good device for securely wiping a harddrive. Is it really that freaking hard to stay on topic and just answer the guy?
Ever time anyone has an ask slashdot it creates the "know-it-all" effect around here. Nobody actually knows the answer, but they feel inspired to spout off about everything they think they do know about.
Just answer the question. sheesh.
I don't mind helping my family/friends/etc out with their computer problems - but I don't like spending hours and hours doing it. I have a life I prefer to live over working on computers.
I particularly don't like trying to help people over the phone. Suddenly you take someone who is normally quite intelligent and they start talking like imbiciles who can't think for themselves.
I would prefer they just wait till I come visit then bog me down with "repair" work than calling me and asking me to walk them through some crazy problem.
Actually, I'd prefer if they would stop being so damn chicken and just try to figure it out themselves. Thats usually what I have to do anyway. It isn't as if I have an encylcopedic knowledge of all computer problems and software configurations. But, boy, everyone sure thinks I should.
funny, i have never lost ALL of my data due to a BSOD.
Nor has anyone I know.
Have they lost some of the data, ie the document they are currently working on? Sure. But ALL of their data - nope.
Funny, when Linux dies - and it does die - your current changes since last save on a document will probably be lost too. amazing.
ok, so he can use 2^2 -1 :O)
boy, guys around here sure are quick to jump on a mistake. he was just being funny.
Your probably right, N Korea probably does really have Nukes. When I was sent to SK in 1994 we believed they had them and they declared they were working on them.
But the truth is, we don't know if they do or not. It isn't as if they have advertised the fact like we used to in the Nevada desert. It is just as likely that they are taking a defensive posture to prevent future agression by the US. It isn't as if they haven't played the Nuke card before.
As for Iraq...
My "critical propaganda filter" led me to believe Saddam was hiding something in pre-war Iraq. His behavior was pretty damn shady in my opinion. I don't know what he was hiding , but he was trying to hide something - or at least lead people to believe he was.
I definately didn't "know darn well that Iraq didn't have any WMD" - how you knew they absolutely didn't is beyond me. You may have suspected they didn't - but KNEW - that seems unlikely. Just as NK actual progress on building nukes hasn't been well known by anyone. Again, people have suspected progress - but there is a big difference between suspecting and knowing.
Hence why we need a president who can actually see into the future. Then we actually will KNOW and not just suspect.
BTW: I haven't voted for Bush. However, nor do I envy his position of being the president after 9/11. That event had so many foriegn policy implications that I wouldn't wish the job of dealing with it on anyone.