Man, getting busted for filesharing is embarrasing enough but then having a letter sent to your parents and getting them dragged in as well? The horror. The horror.
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Smith:
You are hereby subpoenaed to appear in court on August 31, 2003 at 10am to answer the charges of illegal filesharing. Our scans have verified that the KaZaA account jerkingboy69@kazaa accesses the network from your computer is sharing over 600 copyrighted mp3 works in addition to numerous pornographic video files. If you do not appear on court at the above listed day and time, a warrant will be issued for your arrest.
I was a grad student there for over five years and it never really struck me as an interesting destination for visitors. There's not much to do there. I do remember walking home from classes one day and being stopped by a family of three who were looking at a map of the campus. They asked me if I knew where "they made minature listening devices." Since I looked as confused as I was by the request, they told me that they were visiting the campus so that they could purchase some listening devices that could fit in a car without the driver or passengers being aware of them. I was hungry and in no mood to be dealing with nutcases so I gave them the name and office number of my roomate and told them that he could "hook them up".
So, of course, that evening when my roomate comes home he tells me "You'll never believe what happened to me today."
No, really. Who are you? What kind of person? I really can't figure it out from your description above. Take this line, for example:
Think gadgets, bookstores, software, comics, The Library Of Congress...
It seems to me that gadgets and the Library of Congress are pretty much on opposite ends of the spectrum. The library is a collection that houses a significant body of knowledge in a format that has been used for centuries. Gadgets is a term usually reserved for fancy little electronic devices that feature more flash than substance.
It's going to be very difficult for us to give you suggestions on what might be of interest to you if you don't give us a better idea of what you're looking for: flashy things or "substance" things. There's nothing wrong with either choice: it's your vacation, after all. The only thing I can think of it that you are trying to take in a little bit of everything. If so, then I'm sure you'll get some good suggestions from the slashdot crowd. Contrary to what other's might think, we tend to be a fairly diverse crowd at times. But because your description of what kinds of things you are looking for is so unfocused and all-encompassing, I think you're going to get some pretty wild recommendations.
It always makes me sad to see supposedly-intelligent people citing Dr. Atkins as a reputatable source of dietary information. Dr. Atkins is listed on Quackwatch's list of Nonrecommended Sources of Health Advice. In addition, a good debunking of fad diets and Atkins' in general can be found here.
Please, people. Don't be giving this quack anymore publicity than he already gets. Just eat a balanced diet and exercise more. That's all you need to do.
Personally, I sit at a computer desk for 10 hours a day with very little actual work. Your also started to get a little belly and out of shape. I know it's real bad in my office, especially with all the beer I consume. What do you do to stay in shape? Any secrets, acessories? Recently I've started to do sit ups, push ups, and running up and down the stairs. I get alot of odd looks and would prefer something that doesn't make the whole office stare at me. I've looked through some websites with equipment, but it's all serious equipment I can't/won't lug into work. Any suggestions?
I have my doubts that this is a serious request but I'll answer it as if it was. You apparently are looking for "secrets, accessories" that will help you get back in shape such that you don't have to give up beer, can do it in your office, and won't get any strange looks. Quite frankly, you're asking too much. You're going to have to give up something. I know that's not what you wanted to hear, but, hey, life is tough sometimes.
I'd suggest you look at your restrictions and decide which is less painful for you to eliminate. You can either eat better, go to a gym after work, or put up with strange looks from collegues. Quite frankly, I would suggest continuing to work and enduring the stares of your office workers. Why? Because you will feel silly if you do all this stuff and DON'T lose weight! Fear of being rediculed by your officemates will keep you from doing a half-assed job of working out. You might look silly doing exercies but if you succeed in getting back into shape, you'll be surprised at how favorably your associates will respond.
I think you're on the right track by going up and down the stairwell during lunch break. Remember to keep going for a minimum of 20 minutes at a time, though, so that your body gets the necessary energy from burning fat stores rather than carbohydrate/glycogen.
GMD
You talking 'bout mice or slashdot trolls?
on
Psychotic Lab Mice
·
· Score: 5, Funny
Hmmm. It's scary how many of these behaviors also apply to slashdot trolls:
A) These activities consume up to half of the creatures' waking hours, every single day.
I'm sure they spend about half their time in front of the computer either reading, posting, or thinking of new offensive, off-topic things to say on slashdot.
B) The affected animals also exhibit other deficiencies and obsessive behaviors.
You mean like hitting "refresh" on the slashdot home page every 1-2 minutes so they can get first post?
C) The entire lifestyle of these creatures is wildly altered by the addition of something as simple as a cardboard tube to their cages.
The entire day of these creatures is wildly altered by something as simple as a fellow slashdotter replying to their message, not realizing it wasn't serious.
My point is, unless you want to get inside of their head, or ask them why they are doing what they are doing, we can't say it's abnormal behavior. To an "alien in space" (who knows nothing of human "culture") someone jumping on a trampoline, or someone jumping into a pool over and over again may seem pointless and that we are out of our minds. Just a thought. I'm sure the mice are just keeping themselves busy.
Don't human psychiatric workers keep track of how many times their inmates masturbate as a measure of frustration and stress? And don't soldiers who are exposed to heavy enemy fire on a daily basis usually succumb to self-manipulation 10+ times a day?
So are these mice jerking themselves silly or what? Just doing flips over and over isn't a sure sign of going nutso. Maybe they're just staying in shape! But if these cameras are capturing these mice reaching down between their legs a lot (or maybe rubbing their groins against every object in their cage), then I think we have a rock-solid case!
If those annoying cellphone "conversations" that I can't help but overhear in the grocery store are any indiciation of what we can expect in the skies, we're in for some trouble.
"Hey Buffy, guess where I am? No, I'm not at the grocery store. I'm in an airplane over Ohio! Does, like, your parents live there and stuff? No? Oh, they're in Michigan? But isn't Michigan a city in Ohio? Oh wow. Anyhow, the guys sitting next to me on this flight just want to do read their computer books so I'm bored. Yeah, I know, and this book has a drawing of some wierd animal on it, too. Anyhow, Let's talk about the butts of all the hot guys on American Idol! That should last the rest of this five-hour flight! You are, like, such a good friend to do this for me. Nah, don't worry about the phone charges. My parents pay for my cellphone anyhow cause I told them I needed it in case of emergency. What? Oh, you want me to speak louder? Sure thing!"
I would never, ever give a sample for a DNA analysis to anyone but a doctor.
You mean willingly and consciously never give a sample. All it would take is for some unscrupulous insurance company to hire a Pamela Anderson lookalike to come over to your house (or mother's basement) and in fifteen minutes (or maybe two minutes, if you're like most of us) they'd have a healthy sized sample for their database.
Our problem is that even with constant employee education and regular maintenance/cleaning efforts on our part - it is still very common for equipment to become contaminated with all manner of nasty goo.
Actually, a lot of people who use their computers in the privacy of their own homes for, uh, recreational purposes have the same problem. You'll probably get lots of helpful ideas from the slashdot crowd!
Assuming there is a correlation between employee title/rank and the number of options awarded...
Uh, I'm not sure which of your orifces you pulled that assumption from but I've never heard of such a thing. I've always seen options given out to employees whom the company values highly and wants to keep for the long haul, independent of their title/rank/seniority. People who have been with the company long enough to achieve some measure of title or rank probably have quite an investment (financial, emotional, or otherwise) with the company. So I don't see why a company would necessarily give those employees a larger number of options than talented newcomers who could "fly the coup" more easily.
We had a crazy English teacher in freshman high school. One project, we were not allowed to use a computer to find information. Now, this seemed okay at first, because there's a lot of information in a library. However, she really took the "no computer" as far as it could go - we couldn't even look up a book on the library's online catalog! And since the library didn't have a card catalog anymore, we had to find the books by scanning the shelves.
This is just so sad. Not how "crazy" your teacher was but the fact that once you were forbidden to use any electronic gadget, you seemed at a loss for how to do anything. Here's a couple of "unplugged" options you could have followed rather than performing an exhaustive search of the library's shelves:
Look at the poster of the Dewey Decimal System that's hanging on every friggin' wall in a library. Identify the range of numbers most likely to be of interest to you. Go to that specific bookshelf.
Once you locate one book that seems to have some useful information, look at the bibliography or references section of it. It will give you some other leads on useful sources of information.
Ask the librarian for help! That's what they're there for, for chrissake!
Needless to say, I didn't really like that teacher much.
The ability to deal with unexpected and difficult circumstances is a valuable skill that will serve you well in life. Your teacher was trying to see if you could demonstrate that ability. Perhaps instead of silently hating the teacher you and your classmates should have thought a bit more (or asked him or her) about why they set up those rules.
My personal pet peeve is graphing calculators. Why pay over a $100 for a calculator, when for the same money you can get a palm and load on graphing calculator software?
Or you could simply use any standard $2 calculator, a pencil, and some graph paper and have the kids plot the function themselves. The kids would be responsible for using as many or as few sample points as they needed. Instead of mindlessly typing in an equation and watching the gizmo do its thing, the repetition of manually evaluating the function over and over would drive home the important fact that a function is a mapping of inputs to outputs. Instinctively, the kids will want to minimize the amount of work that's required to graph the function and so they'll try to find the sampling that gets the right shape with the smallest number of points. To do this, they'll need to concentrate on the shape of the curve that they're generating with each new data point. Not just a quick glance -- they'll really have to study the shape to make sure they're not about to miss an inflection point or other "gotcha" that might lie between two of their sample points.
Yeah, it takes a few more minutes to do it this way. But when you factor in the amount of time needed to learn how to use a graphical calculator or software, I'm not sure it really looks that bad.
I don't have any first-hand experience with technology in the classroom but I would like to point out that although American schools have the best technology and computer equipment available to students, we still rank pretty much dead last in terms of math and science education amongst the industrialized countries. I think that fact by itself pretty much wipes out any arguments in favor of cramming our underfunded public schools full of gizmos.
If I were running a high school, I'd concentrate on making sure the kids learn basics. Like how to think. Deep thinking. Independent thinking. Creative thinking. Critical thinking. This can all be accomplished with pen and paper. Give these kids a solid foundation of how to use their brains and they'll be able to pick up application skills more quickly. I'd also ditch all the so-called "advanced" subjects that are all the rage in high schools these days. No more Psychology classes for high school juniors. No Film Studies. Philosophy might be useful since it teaches logic -- a skill missing from most people these days. Math. Science. English literature. History. That's all you need. If they need to do research, then they haul their lazy asses down to the public library. I'm sure some people will claim that there's a lot more information available on the internet than at the public library. The fact of the matter is that high school students aren't going to be doing research at such a deep level that they have to worry about limitations of their public library system.
I know my post isn't what you were looking for but I think these are things that anyone considering the role of technology in classrooms needs to keep in their minds. Learning isn't supposed to be a gimmick. Just use basic tools and work hard.
They keep slipping back to hardline Islam like this and we might have to "liberate" them all over again!
GMD
Re:Wha???
on
All The Rave
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
No shit. livegoats just made it to my foes list. What a moron.
That opening blurb just reeked of the same amateurish journalistic style as Katz. I don't see why he felt it necessary to make such a sweeping, rediculous and borderline insulting statement to start his review. Is it to try to convince us that Napster was some kind of important historical phenomenon and, therefore, we should read this review of a book about it? And if we didn't use Napster we were infants in diapers? Please. That kind of nonsense is not the way to start off any kind of article. That's pretty much the same kind of statement as Katz' "We can all agree that Columbine has changed the way that every single human being on the planet thinks about public education."
Story submitters: it's not necessary to try to place your articles in a larger context. We can do that for ourselves.
GMD
Re:Wha???
on
All The Rave
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
But on to the topic at hand -- um... I really never used Napster. I tried once and found that it didn't really have much worth downloading. Napster was good if you only wanted the top-40 of the day and didn't care if you got a song that was mislabeled, corrupted, incomplete or otherwise not worth a normal person's time.
Really? I always thought it was pretty good at helping me find obscure stuff I never would have thought of. I remember being bored one time and doing a search for "Star Trek" audio files. It popped up with a song named "Futile (Star Trek mix)" by a band named "Velvet Acid Christ". The Star Trek reference was because the song contained numerous samples from the ST:TNG episode "Best of Both Worlds" dealing with Picard's abduction by the Borg. I listened to the song and thought it was pretty cool. So I started looking around for more info on this band.
Needless to say, I would have never even heard of Velvet Acid Christ if it wasn't for Napster and the ability to search for any keyword whatsoever.
GMD
Shawn's computer pals
on
All The Rave
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
After his uncle John gives Shawn his first computer, the aw-shucks kid from Massachusetts comes across a brilliant idea, peer-to-peer file sharing, which he develops with the help of friends in several online communities. The story is touching, and it's fascinating to take a behind-the-scenes look at how the program originated, first through Shawn and then as the product of a tight-knit online community.
Did the members of this "tight-knit online community" become employees of Napster Inc. or did Shawn just ditch them once he realized just how big a thing p2p could be? I'm not trolling, I'm asking. I don't recall Shawn giving a lot of public thanks to his computer buddies during Napster's hayday.
No self-respecting culture maven can deny their love affair with Napster. If you weren't spending your spare time in the years 99-00 downloading MP3s like a champ, it's likely you were still in diapers or dancing with wolves. Oh, Napster, we loved ye when.
When the hell did Jon Katz start submitting slashdot articles again?
Consider this scenario. I regularly go to a hair-stylist who's a attractive woman, and regularly ask her out, and make comments about how pretty she is. She's more than welcomed to ask me to stop, and then if I continue, it's sexual harassment.
I'm not sure she could claim sexual harassment since you don't have any power over her. It's not like you're her boss. It may not be particularly nice of you but I don't think she would have any legal recourse against you. Most likely she would simply refuse to allow you into her shop. If she kept letting you be a customer even with your past, unwanted advances towards her, I think she'd have a hard time convincing the court that she was being coerced into sexual relations with you.
This isn't exactly sexual harassment, however, as he hasn't said 'No, and please stop asking.'
So why hasn't he told her to stop? Maybe she doesn't realize how much it's bothering him. Hell, from your description it's not even clear to me how much it's bothing him. If it's not that big of a bother to him, then he should just bare it. If it is creeping him out, then he needs to tell her that and not be a coward about not getting asked back for more work. Is this his only client or something? Part of the joy of being a consultant is that you can pick and choose your employer. He doesn't have to put up with that shit unless he wants to.
I don't understand why you are asking us about it. It seems like his course of action should be clear *if* he is clear about his own feelings on the matter. Either it's a big deal to him or it isn't.
According to CNN, facing the threat of lawsuits from a music industry trade group, fewer people are using online filesharing applications to swap songs.
Fine, whatever. Just as long as the number of people sharing porn videos doesn't drop!
I pity the poor ocean-dwelling carnivores which must have gotten a rude shock when they tried to dine on the group of slow-moving, brightly-colored objects thinking them the chance of a lifetime:
Killer whale observes slowly drifting flock of ducks and can't believe his luck.
"Sweet manna from heaven! Bonzai!"
Rises up out of water below them with his huge mouth filled to capacity with the little toys. Seconds later...
"Ptew!"..spits them out... "What kind of cruel fuckin' joke is this? Goddamn humans!"
Slashdot Mirror
Man, getting busted for filesharing is embarrasing enough but then having a letter sent to your parents and getting them dragged in as well? The horror. The horror.
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Smith:
You are hereby subpoenaed to appear in court on August 31, 2003 at 10am to answer the charges of illegal filesharing. Our scans have verified that the KaZaA account jerkingboy69@kazaa accesses the network from your computer is sharing over 600 copyrighted mp3 works in addition to numerous pornographic video files. If you do not appear on court at the above listed day and time, a warrant will be issued for your arrest.
Sincerely,
RIAA Enforcement Division
"Uh, Jeffery? Can I talk to you for a moment?"
GMD
Then again there is Cal Tech in Pasadena.
I was a grad student there for over five years and it never really struck me as an interesting destination for visitors. There's not much to do there. I do remember walking home from classes one day and being stopped by a family of three who were looking at a map of the campus. They asked me if I knew where "they made minature listening devices." Since I looked as confused as I was by the request, they told me that they were visiting the campus so that they could purchase some listening devices that could fit in a car without the driver or passengers being aware of them. I was hungry and in no mood to be dealing with nutcases so I gave them the name and office number of my roomate and told them that he could "hook them up".
So, of course, that evening when my roomate comes home he tells me "You'll never believe what happened to me today."
"Let me guess..."
GMD
No, really. Who are you? What kind of person? I really can't figure it out from your description above. Take this line, for example:
Think gadgets, bookstores, software, comics, The Library Of Congress...
It seems to me that gadgets and the Library of Congress are pretty much on opposite ends of the spectrum. The library is a collection that houses a significant body of knowledge in a format that has been used for centuries. Gadgets is a term usually reserved for fancy little electronic devices that feature more flash than substance.
It's going to be very difficult for us to give you suggestions on what might be of interest to you if you don't give us a better idea of what you're looking for: flashy things or "substance" things. There's nothing wrong with either choice: it's your vacation, after all. The only thing I can think of it that you are trying to take in a little bit of everything. If so, then I'm sure you'll get some good suggestions from the slashdot crowd. Contrary to what other's might think, we tend to be a fairly diverse crowd at times. But because your description of what kinds of things you are looking for is so unfocused and all-encompassing, I think you're going to get some pretty wild recommendations.
GMD
I never knew that Australia had astronomers!
It always makes me sad to see supposedly-intelligent people citing Dr. Atkins as a reputatable source of dietary information. Dr. Atkins is listed on Quackwatch's list of Nonrecommended Sources of Health Advice. In addition, a good debunking of fad diets and Atkins' in general can be found here.
Please, people. Don't be giving this quack anymore publicity than he already gets. Just eat a balanced diet and exercise more. That's all you need to do.
GMD
Personally, I sit at a computer desk for 10 hours a day with very little actual work. Your also started to get a little belly and out of shape. I know it's real bad in my office, especially with all the beer I consume. What do you do to stay in shape? Any secrets, acessories? Recently I've started to do sit ups, push ups, and running up and down the stairs. I get alot of odd looks and would prefer something that doesn't make the whole office stare at me. I've looked through some websites with equipment, but it's all serious equipment I can't/won't lug into work. Any suggestions?
I have my doubts that this is a serious request but I'll answer it as if it was. You apparently are looking for "secrets, accessories" that will help you get back in shape such that you don't have to give up beer, can do it in your office, and won't get any strange looks. Quite frankly, you're asking too much. You're going to have to give up something. I know that's not what you wanted to hear, but, hey, life is tough sometimes.
I'd suggest you look at your restrictions and decide which is less painful for you to eliminate. You can either eat better, go to a gym after work, or put up with strange looks from collegues. Quite frankly, I would suggest continuing to work and enduring the stares of your office workers. Why? Because you will feel silly if you do all this stuff and DON'T lose weight! Fear of being rediculed by your officemates will keep you from doing a half-assed job of working out. You might look silly doing exercies but if you succeed in getting back into shape, you'll be surprised at how favorably your associates will respond.
I think you're on the right track by going up and down the stairwell during lunch break. Remember to keep going for a minimum of 20 minutes at a time, though, so that your body gets the necessary energy from burning fat stores rather than carbohydrate/glycogen.
GMD
Hmmm. It's scary how many of these behaviors also apply to slashdot trolls:
A) These activities consume up to half of the creatures' waking hours, every single day.
I'm sure they spend about half their time in front of the computer either reading, posting, or thinking of new offensive, off-topic things to say on slashdot.
B) The affected animals also exhibit other deficiencies and obsessive behaviors.
You mean like hitting "refresh" on the slashdot home page every 1-2 minutes so they can get first post?
C) The entire lifestyle of these creatures is wildly altered by the addition of something as simple as a cardboard tube to their cages.
The entire day of these creatures is wildly altered by something as simple as a fellow slashdotter replying to their message, not realizing it wasn't serious.
GMD
My point is, unless you want to get inside of their head, or ask them why they are doing what they are doing, we can't say it's abnormal behavior. To an "alien in space" (who knows nothing of human "culture") someone jumping on a trampoline, or someone jumping into a pool over and over again may seem pointless and that we are out of our minds. Just a thought. I'm sure the mice are just keeping themselves busy.
Don't human psychiatric workers keep track of how many times their inmates masturbate as a measure of frustration and stress? And don't soldiers who are exposed to heavy enemy fire on a daily basis usually succumb to self-manipulation 10+ times a day?
So are these mice jerking themselves silly or what? Just doing flips over and over isn't a sure sign of going nutso. Maybe they're just staying in shape! But if these cameras are capturing these mice reaching down between their legs a lot (or maybe rubbing their groins against every object in their cage), then I think we have a rock-solid case!
GMD
If those annoying cellphone "conversations" that I can't help but overhear in the grocery store are any indiciation of what we can expect in the skies, we're in for some trouble.
"Hey Buffy, guess where I am? No, I'm not at the grocery store. I'm in an airplane over Ohio! Does, like, your parents live there and stuff? No? Oh, they're in Michigan? But isn't Michigan a city in Ohio? Oh wow. Anyhow, the guys sitting next to me on this flight just want to do read their computer books so I'm bored. Yeah, I know, and this book has a drawing of some wierd animal on it, too. Anyhow, Let's talk about the butts of all the hot guys on American Idol! That should last the rest of this five-hour flight! You are, like, such a good friend to do this for me. Nah, don't worry about the phone charges. My parents pay for my cellphone anyhow cause I told them I needed it in case of emergency. What? Oh, you want me to speak louder? Sure thing!"
GMD
I would never, ever give a sample for a DNA analysis to anyone but a doctor.
You mean willingly and consciously never give a sample. All it would take is for some unscrupulous insurance company to hire a Pamela Anderson lookalike to come over to your house (or mother's basement) and in fifteen minutes (or maybe two minutes, if you're like most of us) they'd have a healthy sized sample for their database.
Face it man: they 0wn you!
GMD
Our problem is that even with constant employee education and regular maintenance/cleaning efforts on our part - it is still very common for equipment to become contaminated with all manner of nasty goo.
Actually, a lot of people who use their computers in the privacy of their own homes for, uh, recreational purposes have the same problem. You'll probably get lots of helpful ideas from the slashdot crowd!
GMD
That mammoth ain't the only thing being cloned around here!
Well, actually I guess this new article is a follow-up to last year's work by this Japanese team so it doesn't technically count as a dupe.
GMDAssuming there is a correlation between employee title/rank and the number of options awarded...
Uh, I'm not sure which of your orifces you pulled that assumption from but I've never heard of such a thing. I've always seen options given out to employees whom the company values highly and wants to keep for the long haul, independent of their title/rank/seniority. People who have been with the company long enough to achieve some measure of title or rank probably have quite an investment (financial, emotional, or otherwise) with the company. So I don't see why a company would necessarily give those employees a larger number of options than talented newcomers who could "fly the coup" more easily.
GMD
We had a crazy English teacher in freshman high school. One project, we were not allowed to use a computer to find information. Now, this seemed okay at first, because there's a lot of information in a library. However, she really took the "no computer" as far as it could go - we couldn't even look up a book on the library's online catalog! And since the library didn't have a card catalog anymore, we had to find the books by scanning the shelves.
This is just so sad. Not how "crazy" your teacher was but the fact that once you were forbidden to use any electronic gadget, you seemed at a loss for how to do anything. Here's a couple of "unplugged" options you could have followed rather than performing an exhaustive search of the library's shelves:
Needless to say, I didn't really like that teacher much.
The ability to deal with unexpected and difficult circumstances is a valuable skill that will serve you well in life. Your teacher was trying to see if you could demonstrate that ability. Perhaps instead of silently hating the teacher you and your classmates should have thought a bit more (or asked him or her) about why they set up those rules.
GMD
My personal pet peeve is graphing calculators. Why pay over a $100 for a calculator, when for the same money you can get a palm and load on graphing calculator software?
Or you could simply use any standard $2 calculator, a pencil, and some graph paper and have the kids plot the function themselves. The kids would be responsible for using as many or as few sample points as they needed. Instead of mindlessly typing in an equation and watching the gizmo do its thing, the repetition of manually evaluating the function over and over would drive home the important fact that a function is a mapping of inputs to outputs. Instinctively, the kids will want to minimize the amount of work that's required to graph the function and so they'll try to find the sampling that gets the right shape with the smallest number of points. To do this, they'll need to concentrate on the shape of the curve that they're generating with each new data point. Not just a quick glance -- they'll really have to study the shape to make sure they're not about to miss an inflection point or other "gotcha" that might lie between two of their sample points.
Yeah, it takes a few more minutes to do it this way. But when you factor in the amount of time needed to learn how to use a graphical calculator or software, I'm not sure it really looks that bad.
GMD
I don't have any first-hand experience with technology in the classroom but I would like to point out that although American schools have the best technology and computer equipment available to students, we still rank pretty much dead last in terms of math and science education amongst the industrialized countries. I think that fact by itself pretty much wipes out any arguments in favor of cramming our underfunded public schools full of gizmos.
If I were running a high school, I'd concentrate on making sure the kids learn basics. Like how to think. Deep thinking. Independent thinking. Creative thinking. Critical thinking. This can all be accomplished with pen and paper. Give these kids a solid foundation of how to use their brains and they'll be able to pick up application skills more quickly. I'd also ditch all the so-called "advanced" subjects that are all the rage in high schools these days. No more Psychology classes for high school juniors. No Film Studies. Philosophy might be useful since it teaches logic -- a skill missing from most people these days. Math. Science. English literature. History. That's all you need. If they need to do research, then they haul their lazy asses down to the public library. I'm sure some people will claim that there's a lot more information available on the internet than at the public library. The fact of the matter is that high school students aren't going to be doing research at such a deep level that they have to worry about limitations of their public library system.
I know my post isn't what you were looking for but I think these are things that anyone considering the role of technology in classrooms needs to keep in their minds. Learning isn't supposed to be a gimmick. Just use basic tools and work hard.
GMD
They keep slipping back to hardline Islam like this and we might have to "liberate" them all over again!
GMD
No shit. livegoats just made it to my foes list. What a moron.
That opening blurb just reeked of the same amateurish journalistic style as Katz. I don't see why he felt it necessary to make such a sweeping, rediculous and borderline insulting statement to start his review. Is it to try to convince us that Napster was some kind of important historical phenomenon and, therefore, we should read this review of a book about it? And if we didn't use Napster we were infants in diapers? Please. That kind of nonsense is not the way to start off any kind of article. That's pretty much the same kind of statement as Katz' "We can all agree that Columbine has changed the way that every single human being on the planet thinks about public education."
Story submitters: it's not necessary to try to place your articles in a larger context. We can do that for ourselves.
GMD
But on to the topic at hand -- um... I really never used Napster. I tried once and found that it didn't really have much worth downloading. Napster was good if you only wanted the top-40 of the day and didn't care if you got a song that was mislabeled, corrupted, incomplete or otherwise not worth a normal person's time.
Really? I always thought it was pretty good at helping me find obscure stuff I never would have thought of. I remember being bored one time and doing a search for "Star Trek" audio files. It popped up with a song named "Futile (Star Trek mix)" by a band named "Velvet Acid Christ". The Star Trek reference was because the song contained numerous samples from the ST:TNG episode "Best of Both Worlds" dealing with Picard's abduction by the Borg. I listened to the song and thought it was pretty cool. So I started looking around for more info on this band.
Needless to say, I would have never even heard of Velvet Acid Christ if it wasn't for Napster and the ability to search for any keyword whatsoever.
GMD
After his uncle John gives Shawn his first computer, the aw-shucks kid from Massachusetts comes across a brilliant idea, peer-to-peer file sharing, which he develops with the help of friends in several online communities. The story is touching, and it's fascinating to take a behind-the-scenes look at how the program originated, first through Shawn and then as the product of a tight-knit online community.
Did the members of this "tight-knit online community" become employees of Napster Inc. or did Shawn just ditch them once he realized just how big a thing p2p could be? I'm not trolling, I'm asking. I don't recall Shawn giving a lot of public thanks to his computer buddies during Napster's hayday.
GMD
When the hell did Jon Katz start submitting slashdot articles again?
GMD
Consider this scenario. I regularly go to a hair-stylist who's a attractive woman, and regularly ask her out, and make comments about how pretty she is. She's more than welcomed to ask me to stop, and then if I continue, it's sexual harassment.
I'm not sure she could claim sexual harassment since you don't have any power over her. It's not like you're her boss. It may not be particularly nice of you but I don't think she would have any legal recourse against you. Most likely she would simply refuse to allow you into her shop. If she kept letting you be a customer even with your past, unwanted advances towards her, I think she'd have a hard time convincing the court that she was being coerced into sexual relations with you.
GMD
This isn't exactly sexual harassment, however, as he hasn't said 'No, and please stop asking.'
So why hasn't he told her to stop? Maybe she doesn't realize how much it's bothering him. Hell, from your description it's not even clear to me how much it's bothing him. If it's not that big of a bother to him, then he should just bare it. If it is creeping him out, then he needs to tell her that and not be a coward about not getting asked back for more work. Is this his only client or something? Part of the joy of being a consultant is that you can pick and choose your employer. He doesn't have to put up with that shit unless he wants to.
I don't understand why you are asking us about it. It seems like his course of action should be clear *if* he is clear about his own feelings on the matter. Either it's a big deal to him or it isn't.
GMD
According to CNN, facing the threat of lawsuits from a music industry trade group, fewer people are using online filesharing applications to swap songs.
Fine, whatever. Just as long as the number of people sharing porn videos doesn't drop!
GMD
I pity the poor ocean-dwelling carnivores which must have gotten a rude shock when they tried to dine on the group of slow-moving, brightly-colored objects thinking them the chance of a lifetime:
Killer whale observes slowly drifting flock of ducks and can't believe his luck.
"Sweet manna from heaven! Bonzai!"
Rises up out of water below them with his huge mouth filled to capacity with the little toys. Seconds later...
"Ptew!" ..spits them out... "What kind of cruel fuckin' joke is this? Goddamn humans!"
GMD