"In terms of federal research, in 1980 the federal government provided about 70% of all dollars spent on basic research, but since then the government's share of basic research funding given to all entities has fallen to 57%."
You mean to tell me that this is part of the beef? That Great God Government (beat head three times on the floor in the direction of Washington) now has less control over what people can research?
Can someone explain to me why this is a bad thing?
Because governments used to invest in research that had long term payoff; corporate research tends toward short term payoff.
You've heard of, say, the Internet? Government research / funding to get it going to a critical mass. Space exploration and its derivative benefits? Government spending... Someone has to do basic science research, not just research into selling new shiny toys to consumers.
Also, it's idiotic to say,
now has less control over what people can research
it's not so much that government is dictating what can and cannot be researched (except by small government types like Republicans banning stem cell research of certain types), it's that the gov't isn't funding research directly.
The consultation is open until February 14, 2012. All it takes a single email with your name, address, and comments on the issue. The email can be sent to consultations@international.gc.ca. Alternatively, submissions can be sent by fax (613-944-3489) or mail (Trade Negotiations Consultations (TPP), Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada, Trade Policy and Negotiations Division II (TPW), Lester B. Pearson Building, 125 Sussex Drive, Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0G2).
Clean up a system so it's more like a freshly installed one.
Could be a handy feature. In fact, I used it for the first time inside a VM the other day to clean up from a slew of packages I'd installed whilst trying to compile ffmpeg + x264 + mp3, etc.
Newspapers in my area have started tabulating "value added" data on teachers, where they look at how much students *gained* over the course of the school year in a particular teacher's class. They've found that some teachers have much higher gains than others.
That could be a useful metric, assuming the newspaper has access to all students' grades from the previous year and through the "measurement" year. Not sure how they can do that though, would require compliance by each and every parent. (Assuming students' grades aren't posted openly for any & all to harvest.)
It's been suggested that teachers ought to be evaluated based on this, maybe given merit pay, etc.
Not a bad idea at first blush. But, class composition would need to be a truly random distribution, weighted for catchment area demographics: not fair to compare wealthy neighbourhoods to impoverished ones, for example.
Probably could be made to work. I'm skeptical, in that any large amount of resources spent on ensuring randomness and weighting schemes, as well as actual measurement would probably be best spent improving other things. I dunno, like healthy hot lunches or more teaching materials.
But if it could be shown to be efficient and effective, I'm not against it.
Guess how teachers' unions feel about that?
I'm not going to defend the teachers' union. On one hand, they and the police union in particular, piss me off to no end. On the other hand, the only thing worse than unions are no unions (since they came about through great struggle as a response to terrible working conditions).
I think of them as (sometimes) too much of a good thing...
Educators do have something similar they can do: they can fail a student. Whether they really will have the backbone to do so
I used to think this a solution, but now I'm not so sure. Failing a kid until he's old enough to drop out but still in grade 5... A bad situation. Might it be better to put him through to next class hoping he/she absorbs something, eventually? What's the value of being surrounded by peers instead of kids 2, 3,... years younger? I have no answer to that one.
Back to the topic at hand, they're probably correct in rejecting the imposed technical solution to non-technical problems. As with patents, adding "on a computer" or "on the internet" isn't really adding value.
Some bridges are harder to build and some student harder to teach. Good engineers / teachers will overcome those challenges.
Not within a 10 month (or so) time frame given to them, and poor quality building materials.
Professional ones will at least tell you when they are not qualified and/or experienced enough to make the project work.
But unlike a civil engineering project, one cannot reject the materials nor the project. Well, one person can, but someone has to "make a bridge" (try to teach the poor students).
You realize that students drop out of engineering courses, right? So the engineers teaching the engineering courses are failures because some students drop out every semester?
Human psychology is, unlike say, steel, a non-determinate thing.
An engineer under such circumstances would test the bridges he'd built, learn which were stronger or weaker, and use the data to improve the results with his next batch of bridges. Teachers, or at least their unions, are actively hostile to the "testing" stage which is a prerequisite for improvement.
I'm not going to defend teachers' unions, but an engineer would only be able to make so good a bridge with duct tape & 2x4s, in the 10 month time frame he's given, and would very likely resent being tested or graded on the results of such bridges.
He wouldn't be able (keeping with the analogy) to say, "Only grade my work on the steel bridges." And the percentage that fail all reasonable tests would reflect poorly on him/her; which I saw is not fair.
Engineer didn't get to choose the materials... Just given scraps and told to make a bridge in 10 months...
Oh, just thought of another thing, so replying again...
What makes you think the problem is that students are "out of spec"?
In the case of the downtown east-side (home of North America's only government-run "shooting gallery", also home of NAOMI - NA Opiate Management Initiative(?)), there's a *massive* drug problem. It festers like the open sores on the people twitching on the streets day in & day out.
In amongst this festering cesspool are a good number of children being raised.
A lot of the people there (disproportionate) are Natives, a legacy of the Residential School system that forcibly removed children from their communities, educated (and assaulted and raped and murdered) them at church-run schools, shattering communities (kids lost ability to speak native languages: they were beaten for speaking it). They could no longer communicate with their own parents. They obviously were no longer able to be good parents themselves.
This went on until, what, the 1980's is when the last one closed I think. So at least 3 generations went through this. And the legacy is mind-fucking. It was brutal, nearly genocidal.
Some teachers today (like the one in the link of my other reply) are dealing with the repercussions of that policy.
It's the same neighbourhood where Robert (Willie) Pickton picked up 50 prostitutes, murdered them, butchered them, fed the evidence to the pigs on his pig farm, and the police didn't even notice a thing. Caught him on a property search for a firearms violation.
It's a little section of hell on earth, right in the centre of beautiful, affluent Vancouver, BC.
Okay, I got to rambling there a bit, but someone has to teach (or try to teach) kids with this kind of background. No one will have a lot of success, even if there was one-on-one training. It's tragic.
What makes you think the problem is that students are "out of spec"?
Because some have learning disabilities, some are poorly fed (hinders learning, attention, focus, etc.), some have drug-abusing, party-animal parents. There are a lot of problems without even bringing sheer stupidity (of some children (stupid adults start young)) or bad genetics into the discussion.
A well run school in the modern fashion with a good, well taught curriculum doesn't have this sort of problem even if its students tend to have issues at home.
That I don't believe. Take a well-run school, with a good curriculum, place it in the downtown-east side of Vancouver, and it will not be as productive as one placed on the west side:
An East Vancouver elementary school teacher has generated a surprising response after writing an open letter calling attention to the desperate poverty of some of her young students. [...] I have a little boy [student] who's like, 'Ms. Gelson you said you're getting me shoes right?' Because I said I could probably find them," she said.... and it was raining. [...] Gelson said she also feels she has to bring snacks for some of her students [...] She dips into the snack drawer for the students several times a day.
Those kids were behind the 8-ball from the moment they were born (before that, in many cases: inadequate nutrition as fetus can have life-long effects, see Fetal Alcohol Syndrome).
Even if the school spends less per student than typical US schools do.
I don't doubt US schools are like US health care: a metric shit-tonne of money is spent yet many are without any benefits.
I'm not arguing for opening up the money faucets (though I can think of a lot worse things to spend money on), just that until teachers can pick & choose their students, they cannot be expected to have the same reliable output of an engineer, who gets to specify with great detail what he/she works with. Simple logic, really.
I don't think throwing more money at the problem is a solution.
Probably true.
My point is: teachers must work with humans, teachers do not control all aspects of students' lives.
Engineers have total control over spec's for materiel: bad shipments can be sent back, reforged. Can't melt down students and make new ones to the teachers' minimum requirements.
Therefore, the comparison to engineers and falling bridges isn't apt: teachers don't design students and can only work with what arrives in their classes.
And, this story is about spending educational money on computers for kids, which has been shown (as linked to by previous poster) to not have much, if any, positive effect on learning.
The difference is that bridges are much more expensive than students.
Yes, but teachers cannot reject students; engineers can set minimum standards for their materiel.
I can understand the teachers' reluctance to be held accountable, but I don't respect it. Don't sign up for the job, if you're not willing to stand behind what you do with what you're given.
Um, so an engineer told to make a bridge with old shoe laces and 2x4s should either quit (leaving someone else to do the job: it is mandatory that it be done), be somehow forced to magically make a worthy bridge, or be blamed if the bridge cannot support truck traffic?
Kids ain't bridges and cannot be melted down and reforged into flawless steel. Someone has to work with what they're given.
And they cannot control the home situation: whether violence, poor diet, poor discipline, etc.
Engineers can control all aspects of their projects: they work with inanimate items. Major difference.
When is the last time you heard an engineer claiming that although his bridge fell down, he shouldn't be held accountable?
I appreciate what you're saying (and how you stated it), but comparing teachers to engineers isn't very valid.
My proposal is more like if the engineers had to be responsible for 30, 35, 40 projects (students) at once, and the materials they have to work with are enough steel & rivets & cable for 25 bridges, plus some 2x4s, twine, and some... bananas (being the troubled students).
Engineers under such circumstances would most certainly not want to be held accountable for the bridges not made of steel that collapse.
Well, by North America, I cannot speak to the situation in Mexico.
But in Canada & USA, one can take their unlocked phone to another carrier after a contract is over, but there is a price disincentive against doing so.
If the new carrier offers either 1, 2, or 3 year plans, all with a new phone, or PAYG, then the incentive is to take the "free" new phone, not bring the unlocked one along. PAYG being a rip-off for anything but the most casual usage, of course.
Until carriers in NA are forced to have plans with different prices for "free" phones vs bring-your-own phones, there will not be much incentive to switch carriers and continue using the previous phone.
BTW, Wind Mobile in Canada will give you - for free - your network unlock code after 3 months of service. I've unlocked 2 Android phones that way. Now we can travel internationally and just plug in any cheap SIM, or switch to competition and simply get a SIM.
The "greenies" were openly celebrating Fukushima while totally ignoring the SIXTEEN THOUSAND HUMANS DEAD in the tsunami.
Bull. Shit.
Greenies were NOT "celebrating" Fukushima. Nor were they ignoring the 20,000 or more dead from the tsunami, that's ridiculous bordering on stupid.
But they also were NOT ignoring the long term problems with multiple meltdowns, fuel pool prompt criticalities, etc. They did point out the meltdown of shutdown reactors (remember, the fuel rods slammed into place immediately; reactors *still* melted down).
There was some "I told you so" from the "greenies", and it appears that they were correct: when nukes go bad, they can go *very* bad. 30 more years until cleanup, at least.
They were also correct in that when the regulators become industry promoters they fail at their original mission.
Sure no-one has died... yet. But it's likely some people will get cancer in the coming decades from ingesting hot particles. But like cigarettes, we won't be able to point to the one cigarette (one ingested hot particle) that caused it.
That does not ignore that other power generation also causes death, it merely points out that, in this case, the El Reg flak was idiotic to claim the radiation wouldn't escape the property line. And, when it did, he did not revise his claims but doubled down (I refuse to go find a link, but you can: Lewis Page at TheRegister.co.uk).
tl;dr version:
Utterly ignoring the Fukushima problem (pro-nuke shills) is every bit as bad as "greenies" wanting no nukes evar. Same-same lack of basis in reality.
The tsunami & meltdowns were a story that went from incredibly, indescribably bad to worse and worse and, impossibly... worse.
Left me with a sick feeling that wouldn't go away.
One of the worst parts (as someone not directly affected, and bringing a technical angle into it) was reading in El Reg stories by their resident pro-nuke shill about how "radiation cannot escape even the fence surrounding Fukushima's property". Written *before* the first explosion.
And a full page of "yeah! Greenies want us to all live in caves and freeze in the dark" comments getting way more thumbs up than down. I'm pro-nuke myself, but this ignored the reality of the problem as much as the worst "greenies" do in the opposite direction.
This was followed by more nuke-shill posts doubling down on the stupid after the explosions, *never* acknowledging the seriousness of the situation, including the bravery of the guys on the ground working to fix the problems.
So, on top of the incredible sense of loss I felt as a member of the human race, I also felt loss at the stupidity of highly educated, technically aware people whom I figured should've known better.
To top all that off, my best friend I've ever had took sick, was hit by a vehicle, then, a week later (two weeks post-tsunami) died. I should add, this best friend ever was my dog. I didn't know how true the old cliche is; A Dog is a Man's Best Friend.
The losses seemed to keep piling up and I was depressed for a long time.
The maximal POST request size is typically limited to 8 MB, which when filled with a set of multi-collisions would consume about four hours of CPU time on an i7 core. Luckily, this time can not be exhausted because it is limited by the max_input_time (default configuration: -1, unlimited), Ubuntu and several BSDs: 60 seconds) configuration parameter. If the max_input_time parameter is set to -1 (theoretically: unlimited), it is bound by the max_execution_time configuration parameter (default value: 30).
Socialism / Communism isn't a way of running a society. It is a method used to disrupt and destroy a society. The nuances and differences between socialism, communism and Progressivism are as meaningless as the nuances and differences between the effects of different types of nuclear weapons on a city. Socialism, Communism and Progressivism are a means to achieving totalitarianism, no more, no less.
My gawd, what a fucking retarded thing to say.
I suppose it indicates you're a strong supporter of fascism/capitalism, which using your moronic logic are the same damned thing?
Where the fuck do you idiots keep coming up with this shit? Do you not realize that semi-socialist countries are regularly voted best countries to live by that bastion of commie-lovers, The Economist Magazine?
a mustachioed 39-year-old British music hall magician.
Having said that, he may also have been a musician, but the magician part was how he used his interest in wireless technology:
He would use Morse code in "mind-reading" magic tricks to secretly communicate with a stooge. He worked out how to use a spark-gap transmitter to remotely ignite gunpowder. And in 1900, Maskelyne sent wireless messages between a ground station and a balloon 10 miles away. But, as author Sungook Hong relates in the book Wireless, his ambitions were frustrated by Marconi's broad patents, leaving him embittered towards the Italian. Maskelyne would soon find a way to vent his spleen.
Also, I've highlighted the most-relevant part to today's world: he was frustrated by overly-broad patents.
They insist their God, Science, can indeed answer the big questions of Life, the Universe and Everything.
Nonsense, where does anyone but the religious claim answers to "What is the meaning of life?"
The non-religious may tackle the "Why?" with something like "Why Not" or evolution, etc., or "just because", or "who knows?"
Which is why as an Agnostic I find all 'believers' suspect.
I find agnostics suspect: you're not sure about the Flying Spaghetti Monster? Really, you consider it a possibility that can't be dismissed outright?
What about my claim to be the 2nd coming of Jesus, testing all the puny humans on their ability to recognise my divinity, would you go, "Hmmm, it's possible, I cannot be sure"?
Yes, I have to check that show out. Caught 1 or 2 episodes of it and enjoyed them a lot.
I was so pissed at CBC for cancelling Intelligence without giving it a chance to wrap up. Idiots. I liked that the show started at the top of the hour and ran 15 minutes before the first commercial break. Also that they weren't afraid to run for several minutes with NO dialogue what-so-ever, yet still be riveting.
MI-5 (more properly known as Spooks but that couldn't be used in the US for fear of offending black people apparently)
I wondered about that. I thought they had to call it Spooks in UK because MI-5 was taken by the real MI-5. But that was pure speculation.
[MI-5] is somewhat hit or miss, but overall I enjoy what they do with the storilines, and how hard they are on their characters. I am currently enjoying Homeland as well.
MI-5 can be great, but it's not as consistent as Intelligence / Da Vinci's was.
Haven't seen Homeland. Cancelled my basic cable so get no TV now. If my stoopid ATSC TV tuner worked under Linux, or even in Windows inside VirtualBox, I'd watch some OTA TV. Is Homeland a CBC show?
Slashdot Mirror
"In terms of federal research, in 1980 the federal government provided about 70% of all dollars spent on basic research, but since then the government's share of basic research funding given to all entities has fallen to 57%."
You mean to tell me that this is part of the beef? That Great God Government (beat head three times on the floor in the direction of Washington) now has less control over what people can research?
Can someone explain to me why this is a bad thing?
Because governments used to invest in research that had long term payoff; corporate research tends toward short term payoff.
You've heard of, say, the Internet? Government research / funding to get it going to a critical mass. Space exploration and its derivative benefits? Government spending... Someone has to do basic science research, not just research into selling new shiny toys to consumers.
Also, it's idiotic to say,
now has less control over what people can research
it's not so much that government is dictating what can and cannot be researched (except by small government types like Republicans banning stem cell research of certain types), it's that the gov't isn't funding research directly.
Just to add to your post, the email *needs* your name & address.
From Mr Geist's blog:
The consultation is open until February 14, 2012. All it takes a single email with your name, address, and comments on the issue. The email can be sent to consultations@international.gc.ca. Alternatively, submissions can be sent by fax (613-944-3489) or mail (Trade Negotiations Consultations (TPP), Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada, Trade Policy and Negotiations Division II (TPW), Lester B. Pearson Building, 125 Sussex Drive, Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0G2).
Where's /. user "icebike"? I need his / her thoughts on this.
At least they can spell....
Austrailian is phonetically accurate, as pronounced in Australia.
Plus "Preview" is suspiciously Australian in appearance, and there isn't an accurate version of that word in English.
Perish the thought, I think I'm gonna faint.
I've been there; they barely even speak English.
(joking, just joking)
System / Administration / Computer Janitor:
Clean up a system so it's more like a freshly installed one.
Could be a handy feature. In fact, I used it for the first time inside a VM the other day to clean up from a slew of packages I'd installed whilst trying to compile ffmpeg + x264 + mp3, etc.
That will not work with Vista/7 due to the usage of NTFS junctions and such.
Not sure how NTFS handles junctions, but if they're like symbolic links,
or
*should* preserve them as links instead of copies of original file, unlinked.
HTH, YMMV, etc.
Newspapers in my area have started tabulating "value added" data on teachers, where they look at how much students *gained* over the course of the school year in a particular teacher's class. They've found that some teachers have much higher gains than others.
That could be a useful metric, assuming the newspaper has access to all students' grades from the previous year and through the "measurement" year. Not sure how they can do that though, would require compliance by each and every parent. (Assuming students' grades aren't posted openly for any & all to harvest.)
It's been suggested that teachers ought to be evaluated based on this, maybe given merit pay, etc.
Not a bad idea at first blush. But, class composition would need to be a truly random distribution, weighted for catchment area demographics: not fair to compare wealthy neighbourhoods to impoverished ones, for example.
Probably could be made to work. I'm skeptical, in that any large amount of resources spent on ensuring randomness and weighting schemes, as well as actual measurement would probably be best spent improving other things. I dunno, like healthy hot lunches or more teaching materials.
But if it could be shown to be efficient and effective, I'm not against it.
Guess how teachers' unions feel about that?
I'm not going to defend the teachers' union. On one hand, they and the police union in particular, piss me off to no end. On the other hand, the only thing worse than unions are no unions (since they came about through great struggle as a response to terrible working conditions).
I think of them as (sometimes) too much of a good thing...
Educators do have something similar they can do: they can fail a student. Whether they really will have the backbone to do so
I used to think this a solution, but now I'm not so sure. Failing a kid until he's old enough to drop out but still in grade 5... A bad situation. Might it be better to put him through to next class hoping he/she absorbs something, eventually? What's the value of being surrounded by peers instead of kids 2, 3, ... years younger? I have no answer to that one.
Back to the topic at hand, they're probably correct in rejecting the imposed technical solution to non-technical problems. As with patents, adding "on a computer" or "on the internet" isn't really adding value.
Cheers.
Some bridges are harder to build and some student harder to teach. Good engineers / teachers will overcome those challenges.
Not within a 10 month (or so) time frame given to them, and poor quality building materials.
Professional ones will at least tell you when they are not qualified and/or experienced enough to make the project work.
But unlike a civil engineering project, one cannot reject the materials nor the project. Well, one person can, but someone has to "make a bridge" (try to teach the poor students).
You realize that students drop out of engineering courses, right? So the engineers teaching the engineering courses are failures because some students drop out every semester?
Human psychology is, unlike say, steel, a non-determinate thing.
An engineer under such circumstances would test the bridges he'd built, learn which were stronger or weaker, and use the data to improve the results with his next batch of bridges. Teachers, or at least their unions, are actively hostile to the "testing" stage which is a prerequisite for improvement.
I'm not going to defend teachers' unions, but an engineer would only be able to make so good a bridge with duct tape & 2x4s, in the 10 month time frame he's given, and would very likely resent being tested or graded on the results of such bridges.
He wouldn't be able (keeping with the analogy) to say, "Only grade my work on the steel bridges." And the percentage that fail all reasonable tests would reflect poorly on him/her; which I saw is not fair.
Engineer didn't get to choose the materials... Just given scraps and told to make a bridge in 10 months...
Oh, just thought of another thing, so replying again...
What makes you think the problem is that students are "out of spec"?
In the case of the downtown east-side (home of North America's only government-run "shooting gallery", also home of NAOMI - NA Opiate Management Initiative(?)), there's a *massive* drug problem. It festers like the open sores on the people twitching on the streets day in & day out.
In amongst this festering cesspool are a good number of children being raised.
A lot of the people there (disproportionate) are Natives, a legacy of the Residential School system that forcibly removed children from their communities, educated (and assaulted and raped and murdered) them at church-run schools, shattering communities (kids lost ability to speak native languages: they were beaten for speaking it). They could no longer communicate with their own parents. They obviously were no longer able to be good parents themselves.
This went on until, what, the 1980's is when the last one closed I think. So at least 3 generations went through this. And the legacy is mind-fucking. It was brutal, nearly genocidal.
Some teachers today (like the one in the link of my other reply) are dealing with the repercussions of that policy.
It's the same neighbourhood where Robert (Willie) Pickton picked up 50 prostitutes, murdered them, butchered them, fed the evidence to the pigs on his pig farm, and the police didn't even notice a thing. Caught him on a property search for a firearms violation.
It's a little section of hell on earth, right in the centre of beautiful, affluent Vancouver, BC.
Okay, I got to rambling there a bit, but someone has to teach (or try to teach) kids with this kind of background. No one will have a lot of success, even if there was one-on-one training. It's tragic.
What makes you think the problem is that students are "out of spec"?
Because some have learning disabilities, some are poorly fed (hinders learning, attention, focus, etc.), some have drug-abusing, party-animal parents. There are a lot of problems without even bringing sheer stupidity (of some children (stupid adults start young)) or bad genetics into the discussion.
A well run school in the modern fashion with a good, well taught curriculum doesn't have this sort of problem even if its students tend to have issues at home.
That I don't believe. Take a well-run school, with a good curriculum, place it in the downtown-east side of Vancouver, and it will not be as productive as one placed on the west side:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2011/09/26/bc-poverty-kids-gelson-letter.html
An East Vancouver elementary school teacher has generated a surprising response after writing an open letter calling attention to the desperate poverty of some of her young students. ... and it was raining.
[...]
I have a little boy [student] who's like, 'Ms. Gelson you said you're getting me shoes right?' Because I said I could probably find them," she said.
[...]
Gelson said she also feels she has to bring snacks for some of her students [...] She dips into the snack drawer for the students several times a day.
Those kids were behind the 8-ball from the moment they were born (before that, in many cases: inadequate nutrition as fetus can have life-long effects, see Fetal Alcohol Syndrome).
Even if the school spends less per student than typical US schools do.
I don't doubt US schools are like US health care: a metric shit-tonne of money is spent yet many are without any benefits.
I'm not arguing for opening up the money faucets (though I can think of a lot worse things to spend money on), just that until teachers can pick & choose their students, they cannot be expected to have the same reliable output of an engineer, who gets to specify with great detail what he/she works with. Simple logic, really.
Cheers.
Then don't be a teacher.
I'm not a teacher. I don't personally know any teachers. I don't even have kids, never mind kids at school. I hated many of my teachers at school.
I chose not to be for similar reasons.
Because you refuse to accept that children aren't inanimate objects designed to engineering spec's?
Good choice for yourself and potential students...
I don't think throwing more money at the problem is a solution.
Probably true.
My point is: teachers must work with humans, teachers do not control all aspects of students' lives.
Engineers have total control over spec's for materiel: bad shipments can be sent back, reforged. Can't melt down students and make new ones to the teachers' minimum requirements.
Therefore, the comparison to engineers and falling bridges isn't apt: teachers don't design students and can only work with what arrives in their classes.
And, this story is about spending educational money on computers for kids, which has been shown (as linked to by previous poster) to not have much, if any, positive effect on learning.
The difference is that bridges are much more expensive than students.
Yes, but teachers cannot reject students; engineers can set minimum standards for their materiel.
I can understand the teachers' reluctance to be held accountable, but I don't respect it. Don't sign up for the job, if you're not willing to stand behind what you do with what you're given.
Um, so an engineer told to make a bridge with old shoe laces and 2x4s should either quit (leaving someone else to do the job: it is mandatory that it be done), be somehow forced to magically make a worthy bridge, or be blamed if the bridge cannot support truck traffic?
Kids ain't bridges and cannot be melted down and reforged into flawless steel. Someone has to work with what they're given.
And they cannot control the home situation: whether violence, poor diet, poor discipline, etc.
Engineers can control all aspects of their projects: they work with inanimate items. Major difference.
When is the last time you heard an engineer claiming that although his bridge fell down, he shouldn't be held accountable?
I appreciate what you're saying (and how you stated it), but comparing teachers to engineers isn't very valid.
My proposal is more like if the engineers had to be responsible for 30, 35, 40 projects (students) at once, and the materials they have to work with are enough steel & rivets & cable for 25 bridges, plus some 2x4s, twine, and some ... bananas (being the troubled students).
Engineers under such circumstances would most certainly not want to be held accountable for the bridges not made of steel that collapse.
Cheers...
Well, by North America, I cannot speak to the situation in Mexico.
But in Canada & USA, one can take their unlocked phone to another carrier after a contract is over, but there is a price disincentive against doing so.
If the new carrier offers either 1, 2, or 3 year plans, all with a new phone, or PAYG, then the incentive is to take the "free" new phone, not bring the unlocked one along. PAYG being a rip-off for anything but the most casual usage, of course.
Until carriers in NA are forced to have plans with different prices for "free" phones vs bring-your-own phones, there will not be much incentive to switch carriers and continue using the previous phone.
BTW, Wind Mobile in Canada will give you - for free - your network unlock code after 3 months of service. I've unlocked 2 Android phones that way. Now we can travel internationally and just plug in any cheap SIM, or switch to competition and simply get a SIM.
Bull. Shit.
Greenies were NOT "celebrating" Fukushima. Nor were they ignoring the 20,000 or more dead from the tsunami, that's ridiculous bordering on stupid.
But they also were NOT ignoring the long term problems with multiple meltdowns, fuel pool prompt criticalities, etc. They did point out the meltdown of shutdown reactors (remember, the fuel rods slammed into place immediately; reactors *still* melted down).
There was some "I told you so" from the "greenies", and it appears that they were correct: when nukes go bad, they can go *very* bad. 30 more years until cleanup, at least.
They were also correct in that when the regulators become industry promoters they fail at their original mission.
Sure no-one has died... yet. But it's likely some people will get cancer in the coming decades from ingesting hot particles. But like cigarettes, we won't be able to point to the one cigarette (one ingested hot particle) that caused it.
That does not ignore that other power generation also causes death, it merely points out that, in this case, the El Reg flak was idiotic to claim the radiation wouldn't escape the property line. And, when it did, he did not revise his claims but doubled down (I refuse to go find a link, but you can: Lewis Page at TheRegister.co.uk).
tl;dr version:
Utterly ignoring the Fukushima problem (pro-nuke shills) is every bit as bad as "greenies" wanting no nukes evar. Same-same lack of basis in reality.
The tsunami & meltdowns were a story that went from incredibly, indescribably bad to worse and worse and, impossibly... worse.
Left me with a sick feeling that wouldn't go away.
One of the worst parts (as someone not directly affected, and bringing a technical angle into it) was reading in El Reg stories by their resident pro-nuke shill about how "radiation cannot escape even the fence surrounding Fukushima's property". Written *before* the first explosion.
And a full page of "yeah! Greenies want us to all live in caves and freeze in the dark" comments getting way more thumbs up than down. I'm pro-nuke myself, but this ignored the reality of the problem as much as the worst "greenies" do in the opposite direction.
This was followed by more nuke-shill posts doubling down on the stupid after the explosions, *never* acknowledging the seriousness of the situation, including the bravery of the guys on the ground working to fix the problems.
So, on top of the incredible sense of loss I felt as a member of the human race, I also felt loss at the stupidity of highly educated, technically aware people whom I figured should've known better.
To top all that off, my best friend I've ever had took sick, was hit by a vehicle, then, a week later (two weeks post-tsunami) died. I should add, this best friend ever was my dog. I didn't know how true the old cliche is; A Dog is a Man's Best Friend.
The losses seemed to keep piling up and I was depressed for a long time.
Yeah, fuck you 2011, buh-bye.
I agree with others, this is not a Microsoft issue, it's an issue for all sysadmins.
Anyway, from http://packetstormsecurity.org/files/108209/n.runs-SA-2011.004.txt is this helpful bit to reduce your susceptibility to attack, if you're using PHP:
My gawd, what a fucking retarded thing to say.
I suppose it indicates you're a strong supporter of fascism/capitalism, which using your moronic logic are the same damned thing?
Where the fuck do you idiots keep coming up with this shit? Do you not realize that semi-socialist countries are regularly voted best countries to live by that bastion of commie-lovers, The Economist Magazine?
From TFS:
From TFA:
Having said that, he may also have been a musician, but the magician part was how he used his interest in wireless technology:
Also, I've highlighted the most-relevant part to today's world: he was frustrated by overly-broad patents.
Plus ca change...
Nonsense, where does anyone but the religious claim answers to "What is the meaning of life?"
The non-religious may tackle the "Why?" with something like "Why Not" or evolution, etc., or "just because", or "who knows?"
I find agnostics suspect: you're not sure about the Flying Spaghetti Monster? Really, you consider it a possibility that can't be dismissed outright?
What about my claim to be the 2nd coming of Jesus, testing all the puny humans on their ability to recognise my divinity, would you go, "Hmmm, it's possible, I cannot be sure"?
I was so pissed at CBC for cancelling Intelligence without giving it a chance to wrap up. Idiots. I liked that the show started at the top of the hour and ran 15 minutes before the first commercial break. Also that they weren't afraid to run for several minutes with NO dialogue what-so-ever, yet still be riveting.
I wondered about that. I thought they had to call it Spooks in UK because MI-5 was taken by the real MI-5. But that was pure speculation.
MI-5 can be great, but it's not as consistent as Intelligence / Da Vinci's was.
Haven't seen Homeland. Cancelled my basic cable so get no TV now. If my stoopid ATSC TV tuner worked under Linux, or even in Windows inside VirtualBox, I'd watch some OTA TV. Is Homeland a CBC show?
I wish my Android swipe-unlock-pattern would present itself at different locations on the screen so the unlock swipe pattern would be more randomised.
Hey, I should patent that!