Will the product be used in connection with weapons of mass destruction, i.e. nuclear applications, missile technology, or chemical or biological weapons purposes?
Yes
No
Jimbo: Ok, let's try again.
Ned: Is anyone other than the 2 of you traveling in this vehicle?
Jimbo: No.
Ned: Do you have any firearms or explosives in the car?
Jimbo: Yes?
[Ned shakes his head]
Jimbo: Damn it, I got it wrong again! What's the answer again?
-South Park
Re:OT question: Why not dual flush toilets in USA?
on
The Power of Sewage
·
· Score: 1
I can see it now... [walking into the bathroom] "What is that SMELL? Dammit, who half-flushed? Sick..."
I got so sick of this BS that now I do all my shopping at Trader Joe's. Not only do they not have stupid ID/"Savings" cards, they don't even put anything on sale. The price they charge is the price, period. Oddly enough, it's much cheaper to buy stuff there than at the 'regular' grocery store (especially organic foods and other speciality items). The food is much higher quality, and generally is healthier than the crap at the grocery store (espcially prepared foods).
They're opening new stores all over the country, so if they aren't in your area yet, they may be there soon.
I really like the fact that I don't have to go through a circular every week to figure out what they decided to put on sale this week, search those items out, then get to the checkout only to find that I forgot my "preferred shoppers" card.
Most bank cards issued now (and for some time AFAIK) are on the credit networks - you select 'credit' at the POS and it goes over the Visa/MC/etc network, rather than the ATM/debit network, but is still debited from your account. If you use it like this (as 'credit', not 'debit') you get the same protections as you would using a regular credit card. You are still responsible for the first $50 of fraud by federal law if I'm not mistaken, this may have changed though.
Banks are heavily pushing ATM and Debit cards when they are unquestionably in the consumers' worst interests. Not really. As long as the customer uses credit (which I was advised to do upon opening accounts with two large banks), there isn't much to worry about. Consumers get debit card functionality with credit card protection, while the banks probably get a big kickback from the credit card companies for increasing traffic (i have family in the banking industry, believe me, they don't do anything sensible unless they make money from it). In fact, it's sort of silly to use debit because you get charged for it - using the credit network is free (to the consumer at least). I only use debit if I'm somewhere that doesn't accept credit, like Costco.
I had an account with TCF Bank for a while - Oddly enough, they installed pin pads at all of the teller windows, and if I remember correctly you had to swipe your card and enter your pin to verify your identity when making a transaction. Never did find out what happened what happened if you tried to take out money without your card...:-/
Well, generally, I'd say this would be a good thing to include in a cover letter. With online submission, the focus on cover letters has faded a bit, but I still think they are an important part of any job application.
Most importantly, keep the letter very short and to the point, so that they actually read it. Briefly and HONESTLY explain what happened - tell them enough to not throw out your resume.
A well-written cover letter also shows that you are interested in the position (i.e., not submitting 200 resumes for any job you can get - it's probably the truth in this economy, but it helps if they don't get that impression).
A good cover letter won't make up for a bad resume, but if there is something on your resume that needs explaination (and personally I think getting laid-off doesn't belong on the resume itself), the cover letter may be what saves you. If you're quickly reviewing a resume, see that the applicant only worked a month in a job and don't understand why, you might be more prone to just rejecting it because there are probably plenty of other applicants that don't show any signs of a problem.
If you can flip back to the cover letter and quickly scan through for some mention of what happened, you might keep the resume and ask any other questions in the interview.
Of course there are exceptions (I'm sure some person will reply to this saying "I never hire people who give me a cover letter"), it has worked for me and others I know. YMMV, but it probably won't hurt to include one.
Oh, and don't just copy a letter out of a book. Write a honest letter and keep it to the point. The more meaningless drivel you put in there, the less likely the letter will actually be read.
Maybe it could be used to keep paper documents containing intellectual property from magically "leaving" the office without permission - sort of a anti-theft tag. I'm not sure how effective it would be in this case though.
I was in the course he forged the evals for. I can't verify the reason he fired him (for privacy reasons), but a check on the evals site showed that his evals were WAY above average and nearly the entire class turned in evaluations when virtually no one showed up to class.
It is extremely usefull, and although one improvement would be to list the number of students who dropped.
That would be VERY helpful - I'll try to suggest it, but I don't know if they can pull that info out of the system easily.
They should also get rid of the A-F scale - it isn't meaningfull in many of the rankings, such as workload, expected grade, since the target point for those is subjective.
Yes, I agree-it's not the most meaningful way of doing it... I do find it helpful when scanning the report though - after viewing a few dozens of these reports the numbers begin to all blend together...
Lastly, the average grade for a Calc II class was B+!? That is very high, unless a lot of people dropped.It's actually for an honors calc class. About 40 people took that course, while a few hundred (probably 300-400+) take the 'regular' Calc II course. Honors math students are usually VERY good at math, so I think that bumps the average up. The number I posted earlier was the 'expected' grade before the final exam (basically a 'best guess') - the actual average final grade in the honors sections was a 3.37(B+) (versus a 2.79(C+) average in the regular sections). The honors math sections are MUCH more difficult than the regular section, so the difference may be justified.
Your random selection turned up a rank-and-file class that is selectively taken above-average students. You are going to pick up almost exclusively outliers of the desired population.
It wasn't exactly random; I just tried to pick a course with a good mix of questions and responses. Each department uses their own set of questions, and some only have a few basic ones. The math department was the first one I clicked on. tried to find a section with a variety of marks, this was the first one I found after 2 or 3 tries. I wasn't trying to make a point with the actual data - just trying to show what information was provided.
Wow! Do A's grow on trees at umich?
Well, generally speaking students in this class are way above average in math (generally there are a few hundred taking the 'regular' Calc II class, and about 40 students total took the honors class). Also, this is the estimated grade, so in this case I think it's a class of freshman that haven't found out that they won't get straight A's in college (for the most part). From experience, I can tell you A's don't exist at umich, especially in the math department...:-/ The actual average grade in the honors section was about a 3.3(B+), while in the 'regular' sections of calc 2, the average grade was about a 2.7(C+)
Either the students are definitely outliers and think several hours of homework a night isn't bad or the professor was easy going. Students typically give evaluations whose numbers directly correspond to their grade. Professors who give out A's like they're cheap hard candy on average receive higher marks even if their students tend to learn less.
Well yeah, of course they do. That's why the multiple ratings are helpful. If the average workload is a 5 (light), then chances are the prof got a good rating because of that. If the workload was a 3, then the prof ratings mean a lot more to me. If they just said "Math xxx section xxx with prof xxx got a 4.2 rating", that would mean nothing to me.
I do have a professor that always ranks very high on evaluations, yet assigns much more work than other profs do, and makes the classes a lot more difficult. He's a great prof, and the extra work actually translates into better understanding of the subject/doesn't assign work just for the sake of assigning work. Obviously this isn't always the case though.
Making decisions based solely on these ratings isn't a great idea - you can get a lot more insight by talking to other students that have taken classes in that section before. The course evals are a great place to start, and are a good source of advice if you don't know anyone who has had that professor before.
All they have to do is take the end-of-course data that they share with the professor, and publish it. If they got an average of 1.34 out of 5, that's an irrefutable fact and therefore no libel charge can come of that.... and that's really all the students need to know.
I go to the University of Michigan - at the end of each term, we are asked to fill out scantron course evaluations on the last day of class (the format is similar to what the poster described). This data is used for a variety of purposes, including tenure evaulations. The data is also tabulated and posted for making your course selections. They use a variety of questions to help students make a good decision.
The evaluations are presented as a series of statements, which the student ranks from 1 (bad) to 5 (good). They post the average rating for each statement, organized by course and/or instructor. The information is restricted to University affialiates, so heres an example of an evaluation summary for a random professor (name removed):
Course: Honors Calculus II, section xxx
Students Responded: 13
Students Enrolled : 19
Overall, this was an excellent course. 4.43 A-
Overall, the instructor was an excellent teacher. 4.85 A
I learned a great deal from this course. 4.31 A-
I had a strong desire to take this course. 3.60 B
The workload for this course was (5=LIGHT...1=HEAVY) 2.81 C
Students felt comfortable asking questions. 4.31 A-
Graded assignments reflected the material covered. 4.06 B+
The grades in this course were fairly determined 4.30 A-
Students' difficulty with the material was recognized. 3.67 B
My expected grade in this course is (5=A...1=E) 4.21 A-
The course requirements were clearly defined. 4.25 A-
The instructor presented material clearly in lectures/discussions. 4.69 A
Generally speaking, students are fair with the evaluations (unless the prof is just awful...) - I really like that they ask several questions about the professor and the course (rather than simply "How was the professor? 1-5"; it helps to make more objective decisions about the course and the professor. The questions depend on the department (Elec. Engin. and Comp. Sci. has 20-30 evaluation statments for some courses).
Oddly enough, the worst professor I've ever had told us that 'we didn't need to come to class' for one of the last days of the course. Turns out he gave out evaluations that day, and very few people were in class. The next term, somebody checked the evaluation stats for the class, and saw that while there were only a few people in class that day, 100+ students responded with evaluations (with VERY high ratings). He told the department, and an investigation revealted that the professor filled out the forms himself (with very high ratings, of course). He was promptly fired. Sweet, sweet revenge:-p
I go to Michigan (working on my Computer Engineering BSE) and love it. I know there's an upper-level class in CS/CE that is devoted to networking (EECS 489) - I don't know much about it but all of the content (including lectures) are posted online. Personally I love Ann Arbor and the College of Engineering here, but I have a lot of friends at MSU and they have a respectible program too.
One of the nice things about our CS degree is that it is offered as both an Engineering and Literature Science and Arts degree - basically this means you can opt for more science/math related classes (and no foreign language requirement!) with the engin degree, or more humanities and social studies with the lsa degree.
The EECS department has a lot of ties with the School of Information and the Internet2 project, and they just broke ground on an incredible new CSE building that is going to be a nice place to do research and attend class. The classes are generally big but it's still easy to get to know the profs in office hours (especially if you chat with them about their research interests).
Since you probably won't be able to do much in networking until you work on your masters, another factor you might want to consider is grad school options - Michigan offers two great ones that might appeal to you:
1. CUGS (Concurrent Undergrad/Graduate) - You graduate in 5 years rather than 4, but come out with both a BSE and MSE. You can double-apply your grad school classes to your graduate and undergrad degrees, which may be a good option if you're interested in the grad-level networking offerings. Upside: much more depth; downside: less breadth.
2. 3.4 program - if you keep a 3.4 in your program (not an easy task, mind you) and overall, you are guaranteed a spot in the masters program, no questions asked. A bit more breadth than CUGS, but keeps you in school longer.
Advice for choosing a school: I'd say if you can find the money and time, go visit a few schools that you're really interested in. I had a really hard time choosing schools until I spent a day or two at each - I immediately fell in love with Michigan and will be for the rest of my life. This played a huge part in my decision. Spend some time at a few campuses and see what kind of 'vibe' you get from each one. FIGURE OUT WHAT IS IMPORTANT TO YOU AND MAKE SURE YOU THINK ABOUT THAT WHEN YOU CHOOSE A SCHOOL. You're going to invest a LOT of time (and money) there.
these guys probably allready own a crapload of licenses
Yeah, I'd bet that a lot of companies want to purchase all of their licenses through their MS licensing program - I believe my company specifically requires that new computers not ship with Office so that they can use a site-license which "simplifies license management and reduces TCO" or something like that. If they site-license Windows, they buy a (cheap?) license and get upgrades for the life of the license (I think... I stopped keeping up with the MS licenses a while ago)
The only reason FreeDOS is on there is because they can't ship hardware without an OS.
I strongly disagree - I don't think Google's toolbar is spyware.
Wikipedia defines spyware as "software that aids in gathering information about a person or organization without their knowledge." The term spyware is obviously derived from 'spy', which generally indicates some type of undercover, covert, or deceptive act.
Even though many pieces of spyware 'inform' you of their presence though obscure EULAs or deceptive tricks, I still consider this without their knowledge.
While I haven't downloaded the toolbar in a few months and this may have changed, Google forces you to choose between enabling and disabling the advanced features, and provides more than enough information about the privacy implications of either choice. This is from the FAQ:
"Some features available on the Google Toolbar can enhance your search and browsing experience, but may require that we have some understanding of the web pages that you are viewing. For example, by knowing which web page you are viewing, the PageRank feature of Google Toolbar can show you Google's ranking of that web page. Google can also use this information about the pages you have viewed to improve functionality or quality, or add new features.
We believe these features will greatly enhance your browsing experience. We understand, however, you may not agree that the benefits provided by these features outweigh the information we must collect. For this reason, we provide you the opportunity to disable these features on the Privacy Information page (accessed by selecting "Privacy Information..." in the Toolbar's "Google" menu). With the advanced features disabled, no information about the page you are viewing will be sent to Google unless you explicitly request more information about that page (such as with the "Cached Snapshot", "Backward Links" or "Similar Pages" features).
This information was presented to me upon installation each time I installed the toolbar in the past. The installation also makes the user choose whether they want to enable advanced features, and again brings the privacy implications to the attention of the user.
To summarize:
Google makes no attempt to trick the user into installing the toolbar
They are upfront about what information they collect and how to disable it
Unlike gator-tied products, they don't force you to send them data to use their product. You can still use the toolbar (minus pagerank) without sending browsing information to them.
They provide an e-mail address so that users can ask questions about privacy issues
Considering the total lack of 'spying', I'm not sure how you see this as spyware.
I agree, I love the Mozilla Firebird pop-up blocker. In my experience, Google didn't manage to block ALL popup ads. Mozilla products block them all.
It is also easier to allow popups from specific sites in Mozilla. Throw in the Flash Click To View extension and you've eliminated a great deal of the annoying crap that comes along with surfing the web.
The University of Michigan implements this policy, and I think it works pretty well:
A. Systems purchased or developed by the University of Michigan will not use Social Security numbers as identifiers unless required by law or business necessity.
B. Each member of the University community will be assigned a unique identification number that is
not the same as, or derived from, the individual's Social Security number.
C. Systems purchased or developed by the University of Michigan will use Social Security numbers as data elements only, not as keys to databases.
D. Systems purchased or developed by the University of Michigan will not display Social Security numbers visually, whether on computer monitors or on printed forms or other system output, unless required by law or business necessity.
E. Name and directory systems purchased or developed by the University of Michigan will be tied to individuals' unique identification numbers, not to Social Security numbers.
F. When databases require Social Security numbers, the databases may automatically cross-reference
between the Social Security numbers and other information through the use of conversion tables
within systems or other technical mechanisms.
G. No new system or technology will be developed or purchased by the University of Michigan unless
it is compatible with these regulations.
The only times I'm asked for my SSN are for tax, financial aid, and health purposes.
If you're concerned about the use of your SSN, and your school does something that blantently stupid (especially if they print your SSN on all your documents and on your ID card), you should go to a meeting of the governing body of the University (Regents, etc.) and present your case. Bring some examples of policy from other schools. It's kind of pointless to argue with the desk staff who ask for your SSN, as they are just doing what they are told and can't do much to help your privacy concerns. It might be hard to change the system, but it's worth a try.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes
No
Jimbo: Ok, let's try again.
Ned: Is anyone other than the 2 of you traveling in this vehicle?
Jimbo: No.
Ned: Do you have any firearms or explosives in the car?
Jimbo: Yes?
[Ned shakes his head]
Jimbo: Damn it, I got it wrong again! What's the answer again?
-South Park
I can see it now... [walking into the bathroom] "What is that SMELL? Dammit, who half-flushed? Sick..."
Not especially, but I hear Goatse Man really enjoys it. And I mean REALLY enjoys it.
That's the liberation of Mars, you insensitive clod!
They're opening new stores all over the country, so if they aren't in your area yet, they may be there soon.
I really like the fact that I don't have to go through a circular every week to figure out what they decided to put on sale this week, search those items out, then get to the checkout only to find that I forgot my "preferred shoppers" card.
Banks are heavily pushing ATM and Debit cards when they are unquestionably in the consumers' worst interests.
Not really. As long as the customer uses credit (which I was advised to do upon opening accounts with two large banks), there isn't much to worry about. Consumers get debit card functionality with credit card protection, while the banks probably get a big kickback from the credit card companies for increasing traffic (i have family in the banking industry, believe me, they don't do anything sensible unless they make money from it). In fact, it's sort of silly to use debit because you get charged for it - using the credit network is free (to the consumer at least). I only use debit if I'm somewhere that doesn't accept credit, like Costco.
I had an account with TCF Bank for a while - Oddly enough, they installed pin pads at all of the teller windows, and if I remember correctly you had to swipe your card and enter your pin to verify your identity when making a transaction. Never did find out what happened what happened if you tried to take out money without your card... :-/
I'm hoping for power over cable line. The cable company isn't screwing me enough as it is.
Yeah, right after MS made the switch from ASP to PHP :-p
Well, generally, I'd say this would be a good thing to include in a cover letter. With online submission, the focus on cover letters has faded a bit, but I still think they are an important part of any job application. Most importantly, keep the letter very short and to the point, so that they actually read it. Briefly and HONESTLY explain what happened - tell them enough to not throw out your resume. A well-written cover letter also shows that you are interested in the position (i.e., not submitting 200 resumes for any job you can get - it's probably the truth in this economy, but it helps if they don't get that impression). A good cover letter won't make up for a bad resume, but if there is something on your resume that needs explaination (and personally I think getting laid-off doesn't belong on the resume itself), the cover letter may be what saves you. If you're quickly reviewing a resume, see that the applicant only worked a month in a job and don't understand why, you might be more prone to just rejecting it because there are probably plenty of other applicants that don't show any signs of a problem. If you can flip back to the cover letter and quickly scan through for some mention of what happened, you might keep the resume and ask any other questions in the interview. Of course there are exceptions (I'm sure some person will reply to this saying "I never hire people who give me a cover letter"), it has worked for me and others I know. YMMV, but it probably won't hurt to include one. Oh, and don't just copy a letter out of a book. Write a honest letter and keep it to the point. The more meaningless drivel you put in there, the less likely the letter will actually be read.
Maybe it could be used to keep paper documents containing intellectual property from magically "leaving" the office without permission - sort of a anti-theft tag. I'm not sure how effective it would be in this case though.
I was in the course he forged the evals for. I can't verify the reason he fired him (for privacy reasons), but a check on the evals site showed that his evals were WAY above average and nearly the entire class turned in evaluations when virtually no one showed up to class.
That would be VERY helpful - I'll try to suggest it, but I don't know if they can pull that info out of the system easily.
They should also get rid of the A-F scale - it isn't meaningfull in many of the rankings, such as workload, expected grade, since the target point for those is subjective.
Yes, I agree-it's not the most meaningful way of doing it... I do find it helpful when scanning the report though - after viewing a few dozens of these reports the numbers begin to all blend together...
Lastly, the average grade for a Calc II class was B+!? That is very high, unless a lot of people dropped.It's actually for an honors calc class. About 40 people took that course, while a few hundred (probably 300-400+) take the 'regular' Calc II course. Honors math students are usually VERY good at math, so I think that bumps the average up. The number I posted earlier was the 'expected' grade before the final exam (basically a 'best guess') - the actual average final grade in the honors sections was a 3.37(B+) (versus a 2.79(C+) average in the regular sections). The honors math sections are MUCH more difficult than the regular section, so the difference may be justified.
It wasn't exactly random; I just tried to pick a course with a good mix of questions and responses. Each department uses their own set of questions, and some only have a few basic ones. The math department was the first one I clicked on. tried to find a section with a variety of marks, this was the first one I found after 2 or 3 tries. I wasn't trying to make a point with the actual data - just trying to show what information was provided.
Wow! Do A's grow on trees at umich? Well, generally speaking students in this class are way above average in math (generally there are a few hundred taking the 'regular' Calc II class, and about 40 students total took the honors class). Also, this is the estimated grade, so in this case I think it's a class of freshman that haven't found out that they won't get straight A's in college (for the most part). From experience, I can tell you A's don't exist at umich, especially in the math department... :-/ The actual average grade in the honors section was about a 3.3(B+), while in the 'regular' sections of calc 2, the average grade was about a 2.7(C+)
Either the students are definitely outliers and think several hours of homework a night isn't bad or the professor was easy going.
Students typically give evaluations whose numbers directly correspond to their grade. Professors who give out A's like they're cheap hard candy on average receive higher marks even if their students tend to learn less. Well yeah, of course they do. That's why the multiple ratings are helpful. If the average workload is a 5 (light), then chances are the prof got a good rating because of that. If the workload was a 3, then the prof ratings mean a lot more to me. If they just said "Math xxx section xxx with prof xxx got a 4.2 rating", that would mean nothing to me.
I do have a professor that always ranks very high on evaluations, yet assigns much more work than other profs do, and makes the classes a lot more difficult. He's a great prof, and the extra work actually translates into better understanding of the subject/doesn't assign work just for the sake of assigning work. Obviously this isn't always the case though.
Making decisions based solely on these ratings isn't a great idea - you can get a lot more insight by talking to other students that have taken classes in that section before. The course evals are a great place to start, and are a good source of advice if you don't know anyone who has had that professor before.
The evaluations are presented as a series of statements, which the student ranks from 1 (bad) to 5 (good). They post the average rating for each statement, organized by course and/or instructor. The information is restricted to University affialiates, so heres an example of an evaluation summary for a random professor (name removed):
Course: Honors Calculus II, section xxx
Students Responded: 13
Students Enrolled : 19
Overall, this was an excellent course. 4.43 A-
Overall, the instructor was an excellent teacher. 4.85 A
I learned a great deal from this course. 4.31 A-
I had a strong desire to take this course. 3.60 B
The workload for this course was (5=LIGHT...1=HEAVY) 2.81 C
Students felt comfortable asking questions. 4.31 A-
Graded assignments reflected the material covered. 4.06 B+
The grades in this course were fairly determined 4.30 A-
Students' difficulty with the material was recognized. 3.67 B
My expected grade in this course is (5=A...1=E) 4.21 A-
The course requirements were clearly defined. 4.25 A-
The instructor presented material clearly in lectures/discussions. 4.69 A
Generally speaking, students are fair with the evaluations (unless the prof is just awful...) - I really like that they ask several questions about the professor and the course (rather than simply "How was the professor? 1-5"; it helps to make more objective decisions about the course and the professor. The questions depend on the department (Elec. Engin. and Comp. Sci. has 20-30 evaluation statments for some courses).
Oddly enough, the worst professor I've ever had told us that 'we didn't need to come to class' for one of the last days of the course. Turns out he gave out evaluations that day, and very few people were in class. The next term, somebody checked the evaluation stats for the class, and saw that while there were only a few people in class that day, 100+ students responded with evaluations (with VERY high ratings). He told the department, and an investigation revealted that the professor filled out the forms himself (with very high ratings, of course). He was promptly fired. Sweet, sweet revenge :-p
One of the nice things about our CS degree is that it is offered as both an Engineering and Literature Science and Arts degree - basically this means you can opt for more science/math related classes (and no foreign language requirement!) with the engin degree, or more humanities and social studies with the lsa degree.
The EECS department has a lot of ties with the School of Information and the Internet2 project, and they just broke ground on an incredible new CSE building that is going to be a nice place to do research and attend class. The classes are generally big but it's still easy to get to know the profs in office hours (especially if you chat with them about their research interests).
Since you probably won't be able to do much in networking until you work on your masters, another factor you might want to consider is grad school options - Michigan offers two great ones that might appeal to you:
1. CUGS (Concurrent Undergrad/Graduate) - You graduate in 5 years rather than 4, but come out with both a BSE and MSE. You can double-apply your grad school classes to your graduate and undergrad degrees, which may be a good option if you're interested in the grad-level networking offerings. Upside: much more depth; downside: less breadth.
2. 3.4 program - if you keep a 3.4 in your program (not an easy task, mind you) and overall, you are guaranteed a spot in the masters program, no questions asked. A bit more breadth than CUGS, but keeps you in school longer.
Advice for choosing a school: I'd say if you can find the money and time, go visit a few schools that you're really interested in. I had a really hard time choosing schools until I spent a day or two at each - I immediately fell in love with Michigan and will be for the rest of my life. This played a huge part in my decision. Spend some time at a few campuses and see what kind of 'vibe' you get from each one. FIGURE OUT WHAT IS IMPORTANT TO YOU AND MAKE SURE YOU THINK ABOUT THAT WHEN YOU CHOOSE A SCHOOL. You're going to invest a LOT of time (and money) there.
Yeah, I'd bet that a lot of companies want to purchase all of their licenses through their MS licensing program - I believe my company specifically requires that new computers not ship with Office so that they can use a site-license which "simplifies license management and reduces TCO" or something like that. If they site-license Windows, they buy a (cheap?) license and get upgrades for the life of the license (I think... I stopped keeping up with the MS licenses a while ago)
The only reason FreeDOS is on there is because they can't ship hardware without an OS.
Even though many pieces of spyware 'inform' you of their presence though obscure EULAs or deceptive tricks, I still consider this without their knowledge.
While I haven't downloaded the toolbar in a few months and this may have changed, Google forces you to choose between enabling and disabling the advanced features, and provides more than enough information about the privacy implications of either choice. This is from the FAQ:
This information was presented to me upon installation each time I installed the toolbar in the past. The installation also makes the user choose whether they want to enable advanced features, and again brings the privacy implications to the attention of the user.To summarize:
Considering the total lack of 'spying', I'm not sure how you see this as spyware.
It is also easier to allow popups from specific sites in Mozilla. Throw in the Flash Click To View extension and you've eliminated a great deal of the annoying crap that comes along with surfing the web.
Well at least the "emergency procedures" are easy to find. :-p
If you're concerned about the use of your SSN, and your school does something that blantently stupid (especially if they print your SSN on all your documents and on your ID card), you should go to a meeting of the governing body of the University (Regents, etc.) and present your case. Bring some examples of policy from other schools. It's kind of pointless to argue with the desk staff who ask for your SSN, as they are just doing what they are told and can't do much to help your privacy concerns. It might be hard to change the system, but it's worth a try.
I prefer the chocolate-covered gold coins myself.
+"to be or not to be"
That requires the phrase to be on the page. Otherwise it will sprinkle in 'good approximations'.
If you don't get what you're looking for, the plus sign can help narrow things down.
Just download the episode from kazaa. :-p