To work on my 1995 Chevrolet K1500 I have to have both SAE and Metric tools. Generally (but not always) the major mechanical parts are held together with SAE, but cowlings, trim, brakes (could be argued that brakes are major mechanical parts), etc... are all metric. I suppose, though, that it's probably because those parts are made outside of the US.
Van`dal`ism
n. 1. The spirit or conduct of the Vandals; ferocious cruelty; hostility to the arts and literature, or willful destruction or defacement of any object of beauty or value.
Defacement.. of any object of.. value. You could argue the value part easily, and I wouldn't think it would be terribly difficult to argue the defacement side either. Technically, when you delete a file, the file still exists. And when you wipe it, there is still some residual memory left on the platter.
Of course, who has the time and money to argue trivial points like this in court? Maybe if I win the lottery...
Re:It's Gone Beyond Science Fiction into Mainstrea
on
Open Source Life?
·
· Score: 1
I would agree with that, and being a MegaCorp, Inc. hater myself, I imagine it was a bit of a ploy by Monsanto to gain points in the "media trial" early on.
Mis-statement... can you tell I spent a good part of my career working for MegaCorp, Inc?
Re:It's Gone Beyond Science Fiction into Mainstrea
on
Open Source Life?
·
· Score: 1
The 95-98% was determined to be a mis-statement by Monsanto. The highest he had was 8% in one of his six fields, the lowest was 0% (Percy Schmeiser's speech).
The problem with the ruling of the Canadian Supreme Court was that it left the door open for Monsanto to sue other farmers who were the victim of wreckless GM farming, allowing other fields to be cross polinated.
...insert obligatory "not trying to troll" comment here...
Seriously, national defense contracts aren't about developing weapons for yesterday or today's events, they're for the foreseable future, and having a technological advantage of potential threats. If you have the ability to see into the future, I'm sure the gubment would love to hire you to aid in the selection of defense contracts.
Re:It's Gone Beyond Science Fiction into Mainstrea
on
Open Source Life?
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
The problem with that, and what Mr. Schmeiser has discussed all along, is twofold.
He never aquired Monsanto seeds, rather his crop was naturally populated with the GM seeds
What your comment suggests is that this man should incur an extra expense every year of testing the seeds for cross polination, rather than go about farming as he always has.
How would you like to be forced by a Supreme Court ruling to pay to test the grass in your front yard because someone in the vicinity of 0-100 miles from your house created and patented their own grass.. a cross, ah, of Bluegrass, Kentucky Bluegrass, Featherbed Bent, and Northern California Sensemilia? You shouldn't be forced to incur that expense because some irresponsible person allowed their grass to be cross polinated or simply to be carried as seed in the belly of a bird, and neither should he.
Technically, it's not an illegal search if the ask and you say yes. That's where most citizens drop the ball.... if they ask, ask them back "What happens if I say no?"
Add to that (at least in Texas) the cop has to be able to prove probable cause to have pulled you over in the first place (I read my police officer fiance's work crap). They have to put that PC on the report, or it becomes invalid. Of course, there are a lot of silly laws that can provide that probable cause such as tail lights not within the required range from the ground, tire pressure too low, etc... As it turns out, most judges will throw it out if those are the PC, and cops know that.
Imagine this scenario. Homeowner sees suspicious looking person walking up and down the street, looking at their house each time. Homeowner thinks maybe thief casing the place and calls the police. Police come out, ask the guy for ID to check for any warrants (easiest way to get them to leave, also to record info in case house is burglarized). Suspicious person won't prove identity, and no law has been broken. Police leave, house is burglarized. Homeowner has just become yet another one spilling out the all too common phrase "Those police won't do anything for us. I pay taxes to pay their salary blah blah blah blah...". So whose best interest is this law supporting? Law abiding taxpayers, who, in majority, want this sort of law in place.
Have you had any trouble with them? I have a few PS games that eventually freeze up while running on my PS2... one of them is MLB 200? (I think 2002). I've got quite a few others that do it as well.
Someone else mentioned earlier that it's a moot point. I already had a PS to play the other ones, so I just hold on to it.
Well, we've already seen an example of smaller privatized schools turning out children with better educations. The problem with the mix and match system of public and private schools we have now is private schools can be very expensive. Of course, they can also offer scholarships for gifted atheletes, as Westbury Christian in Houston did for Hakeem Olajuwan's two brothers Taju and Afis.
I assume you mean a privatized school system similar to how privatized prison systems work, whereby the gubment pays ABC, Inc. to run the school system for them. I can see how that would probably clean up some of the poor spending decisions made my school officials. But I can also see that as an opportunity for a different group of corrupt people to line their pockets as well.
If, however, you mean something more along the lines of privately funded private schools, or the school voucher program, I don't think either is a good idea, as it will support even more seperation between the haves and the have-nots.
Publically funded privately run schools might be a step in the right direction though. I'm going to go do some research on the successes/failures of privatized prisons now;)
Or, go look at Perspective: The new jailbird jingle where you can start your research on the NET Act. Signed by Bill Clinton 1997, it makes peer-to-peer (P2P) pirates liable for $250,000 in fines and subject to prison terms of up to three years. Up to three years of jail time for copyriight infringement.
I write this not because I'm a supporter of either party, but because I'm tired of the finger pointing. They're all doing it, most are corrupt, and only active and educated voters can change it. And here's a hint... neither Bush nor Kerry are going to be your friend in the copyright law fights.
Nah, do you remember when huge satellite dishes were popular? You could aim at any satellite and get free HBO/Showtime/Playboy. Then the FBI started arresting folks who were "stealing" (I know, it's the wrong word, but it's what was used at the time also) paid programming. Some of these folks actually went to jail, and it's still happening Officer Jailed, although not on the scale that it was in the mid 80's.
Their plan is always to make an example of a few, so that the many will be deterred. Any reasonable person realizes that plan doesn't work... otherwise there wouldn't be any illegal drugs in the US. Of course, nobody ever accused a senator of being reasonable...
Not to mention the reason behind a public education system in the first place. The basis for public education is that an educated population increases the value of the nation as a whole, it creates "better" citizens, and reduces crime.
I should mention I wholly agree with your comments regarding education being equal for all children regardless of their home life. Education used to be only for the wealthy or for religious purposes. Most (if not all) schools now offer basic and advanced classes to avoid at least quite a bit of the problems associated with apathetic students holding the class back. That, to me, is a much better solution than simply releasing the apathetic students from having to go to school.
Another comment earlier in this thread was related to the education systems in China, India, and Japan. While it's true that those programs have disastrous results for students who don't excel, they have another common thread: their education systems are based on memorizaion, while ours is based on problem solving. Our children might not be able to memorize all of our tax law or all of the syntax associated with a programming language, but typically they have the ability to figure it out.
Well, the.Net platform is something like that. But here's the key.
The idea is to make development of enterprise web applications easier, so they've built in controls like the datagrid, repeater, even a table with extra properties. The.Net platform on the server renders these controls to whatever browser. If the user happens to be using IE6+, then the controls are built in. If not, it renders HTML so any browser can use the same functionality. It also renders javascript for both.
You have to remember, no matter what browser you're using, it's still rendering the pages client side... it has to. On the client side, you still have the ability to deny any controls or executable code that a website wants you to download.
I agree that M$ has used some shady tactics in the past, and they will probably do so in the future. But the.Net platform, at least so far, is unable to do anything that any other previous technology can't do either. Their goal was to make enterprise web applications so easy to code that nobody in their right mind would want to use Java/PHP/CGI, and would come running in droves back to the M$ coding platforms.
ADTI accepts money from Microsoft, but Brown refuses to say how much. "We don't talk about money with anybody... but we'll accept money from anybody," he said.
I'm sure money has nothing to do with it. I'm also sure that MS can pay much more than the open source community can, and that's what counts.
You missed my point. It's not that our education system is the cause of our problems... it's a result of them. Education starts and continues at home. From the several family members I have that are teachers/administrators (and one that's an ISD police officer) I constantly hear stories about parents of children who blame the school system for not being able to correct bad behavior. Or it's the schools fault for not doing something to help each and every child learn long division, but there's too much homework and how can little Johnny play little league and basketball every day, have dinner, and still have time to learn schoolwork through repitition?
The main point I was trying to make was the apathy that's more and more prevalent in the US toward educational values. It all starts with parenting, and has to continue through that same venue.
The money problem in schools stems from the idea that it's entertaining to spend $75 on a seat at a football game, but nobody is going to pay to watch a teacher. Teachers know they're underappreciated monetarily, but they're not teaching because they want to be rich... they're teaching because they want to help. But they can't if parents don't do their part as well.
parenting (or lack thereof), which I think is the leading killer of a solid education.
I completely agree with you that learning starts at home, and continues there. The same goes with one's ability to interact socially... the difference between being a bad or good person.
Our educators won't be able to turn out innovators while two things are happening to their detriment.... more and more children are not being educated at home, and budgets are being cut.
It is unrelated to talent or quality. It's all about money. Period.
But the article mentioned says "don't worry, Americans are the best innovators" which is a farce. And we're not going to be turning out waves of innovators given the current status of both our education system and the apathetic state of parenting here.
Slashdot Mirror
To work on my 1995 Chevrolet K1500 I have to have both SAE and Metric tools. Generally (but not always) the major mechanical parts are held together with SAE, but cowlings, trim, brakes (could be argued that brakes are major mechanical parts), etc... are all metric. I suppose, though, that it's probably because those parts are made outside of the US.
8.33
water 1L = 1KG
sea water 1L = 0.90 to 1.040KG
white gas 1L = 0.7 KG
styropor 1L = 0.02 KG
You were saying?
Funny, because the apostrophe is also used to form possesives in nouns. Make sure you're correct when you correct someone else.
IANAL, but could
physically altering tangible property
be construed as vandalism?
Van`dal`ism
n. 1. The spirit or conduct of the Vandals; ferocious cruelty; hostility to the arts and literature, or willful destruction or defacement of any object of beauty or value.
Defacement.. of any object of.. value. You could argue the value part easily, and I wouldn't think it would be terribly difficult to argue the defacement side either. Technically, when you delete a file, the file still exists. And when you wipe it, there is still some residual memory left on the platter.
Of course, who has the time and money to argue trivial points like this in court? Maybe if I win the lottery...
I would agree with that, and being a MegaCorp, Inc. hater myself, I imagine it was a bit of a ploy by Monsanto to gain points in the "media trial" early on.
Mis-statement... can you tell I spent a good part of my career working for MegaCorp, Inc?
The 95-98% was determined to be a mis-statement by Monsanto. The highest he had was 8% in one of his six fields, the lowest was 0% (Percy Schmeiser's speech).
The problem with the ruling of the Canadian Supreme Court was that it left the door open for Monsanto to sue other farmers who were the victim of wreckless GM farming, allowing other fields to be cross polinated.
...insert obligatory "not trying to troll" comment here...
Seriously, national defense contracts aren't about developing weapons for yesterday or today's events, they're for the foreseable future, and having a technological advantage of potential threats. If you have the ability to see into the future, I'm sure the gubment would love to hire you to aid in the selection of defense contracts.
What your comment suggests is that this man should incur an extra expense every year of testing the seeds for cross polination, rather than go about farming as he always has.
How would you like to be forced by a Supreme Court ruling to pay to test the grass in your front yard because someone in the vicinity of 0-100 miles from your house created and patented their own grass.. a cross, ah, of Bluegrass, Kentucky Bluegrass, Featherbed Bent, and Northern California Sensemilia? You shouldn't be forced to incur that expense because some irresponsible person allowed their grass to be cross polinated or simply to be carried as seed in the belly of a bird, and neither should he.
Technically, it's not an illegal search if the ask and you say yes. That's where most citizens drop the ball.... if they ask, ask them back "What happens if I say no?"
Add to that (at least in Texas) the cop has to be able to prove probable cause to have pulled you over in the first place (I read my police officer fiance's work crap). They have to put that PC on the report, or it becomes invalid. Of course, there are a lot of silly laws that can provide that probable cause such as tail lights not within the required range from the ground, tire pressure too low, etc... As it turns out, most judges will throw it out if those are the PC, and cops know that.
Imagine this scenario. Homeowner sees suspicious looking person walking up and down the street, looking at their house each time. Homeowner thinks maybe thief casing the place and calls the police. Police come out, ask the guy for ID to check for any warrants (easiest way to get them to leave, also to record info in case house is burglarized). Suspicious person won't prove identity, and no law has been broken. Police leave, house is burglarized. Homeowner has just become yet another one spilling out the all too common phrase "Those police won't do anything for us. I pay taxes to pay their salary blah blah blah blah...". So whose best interest is this law supporting? Law abiding taxpayers, who, in majority, want this sort of law in place.
Have you had any trouble with them? I have a few PS games that eventually freeze up while running on my PS2... one of them is MLB 200? (I think 2002). I've got quite a few others that do it as well.
Someone else mentioned earlier that it's a moot point. I already had a PS to play the other ones, so I just hold on to it.
Well, we've already seen an example of smaller privatized schools turning out children with better educations. The problem with the mix and match system of public and private schools we have now is private schools can be very expensive. Of course, they can also offer scholarships for gifted atheletes, as Westbury Christian in Houston did for Hakeem Olajuwan's two brothers Taju and Afis.
;)
I assume you mean a privatized school system similar to how privatized prison systems work, whereby the gubment pays ABC, Inc. to run the school system for them. I can see how that would probably clean up some of the poor spending decisions made my school officials. But I can also see that as an opportunity for a different group of corrupt people to line their pockets as well.
If, however, you mean something more along the lines of privately funded private schools, or the school voucher program, I don't think either is a good idea, as it will support even more seperation between the haves and the have-nots.
Publically funded privately run schools might be a step in the right direction though. I'm going to go do some research on the successes/failures of privatized prisons now
Or, go look at Perspective: The new jailbird jingle where you can start your research on the NET Act. Signed by Bill Clinton 1997, it makes peer-to-peer (P2P) pirates liable for $250,000 in fines and subject to prison terms of up to three years. Up to three years of jail time for copyriight infringement.
I write this not because I'm a supporter of either party, but because I'm tired of the finger pointing. They're all doing it, most are corrupt, and only active and educated voters can change it. And here's a hint... neither Bush nor Kerry are going to be your friend in the copyright law fights.
Nah, do you remember when huge satellite dishes were popular? You could aim at any satellite and get free HBO/Showtime/Playboy. Then the FBI started arresting folks who were "stealing" (I know, it's the wrong word, but it's what was used at the time also) paid programming. Some of these folks actually went to jail, and it's still happening Officer Jailed, although not on the scale that it was in the mid 80's.
Their plan is always to make an example of a few, so that the many will be deterred. Any reasonable person realizes that plan doesn't work... otherwise there wouldn't be any illegal drugs in the US. Of course, nobody ever accused a senator of being reasonable...
It's a tough call.... civil liberties, or more taxes. I'll vote for the Libertarian party ;)
Not to mention the reason behind a public education system in the first place. The basis for public education is that an educated population increases the value of the nation as a whole, it creates "better" citizens, and reduces crime.
I should mention I wholly agree with your comments regarding education being equal for all children regardless of their home life. Education used to be only for the wealthy or for religious purposes. Most (if not all) schools now offer basic and advanced classes to avoid at least quite a bit of the problems associated with apathetic students holding the class back. That, to me, is a much better solution than simply releasing the apathetic students from having to go to school.
Another comment earlier in this thread was related to the education systems in China, India, and Japan. While it's true that those programs have disastrous results for students who don't excel, they have another common thread: their education systems are based on memorizaion, while ours is based on problem solving. Our children might not be able to memorize all of our tax law or all of the syntax associated with a programming language, but typically they have the ability to figure it out.
History of public education in the US
The Merrow Report (PBS)
A Nation at Risk: Report of the National Commission on Excellence
The Pedigree of an Idea
a bit less unlikely and somewhat more likely
Was that from the Department of Redundency Department?
....this just in.....
...more at 11....
The problem of offshore outsourcing seems to be rapidly fixing itself.
Well, the .Net platform is something like that. But here's the key.
.Net platform on the server renders these controls to whatever browser. If the user happens to be using IE6+, then the controls are built in. If not, it renders HTML so any browser can use the same functionality. It also renders javascript for both.
.Net platform, at least so far, is unable to do anything that any other previous technology can't do either. Their goal was to make enterprise web applications so easy to code that nobody in their right mind would want to use Java/PHP/CGI, and would come running in droves back to the M$ coding platforms.
The idea is to make development of enterprise web applications easier, so they've built in controls like the datagrid, repeater, even a table with extra properties. The
You have to remember, no matter what browser you're using, it's still rendering the pages client side... it has to. On the client side, you still have the ability to deny any controls or executable code that a website wants you to download.
I agree that M$ has used some shady tactics in the past, and they will probably do so in the future. But the
ADTI accepts money from Microsoft, but Brown refuses to say how much. "We don't talk about money with anybody ... but we'll accept money from anybody," he said.
I'm sure money has nothing to do with it. I'm also sure that MS can pay much more than the open source community can, and that's what counts.
Bah... I do the same thing. Lately it's my frustration with being forced to write all new webapps with C#.... grrrrrr........
Oops, I don't want to start a whole new offtopic thread about PHB's and their ability to buy into hype in magazine articles...
You missed my point. It's not that our education system is the cause of our problems... it's a result of them. Education starts and continues at home. From the several family members I have that are teachers/administrators (and one that's an ISD police officer) I constantly hear stories about parents of children who blame the school system for not being able to correct bad behavior. Or it's the schools fault for not doing something to help each and every child learn long division, but there's too much homework and how can little Johnny play little league and basketball every day, have dinner, and still have time to learn schoolwork through repitition?
The main point I was trying to make was the apathy that's more and more prevalent in the US toward educational values. It all starts with parenting, and has to continue through that same venue.
The money problem in schools stems from the idea that it's entertaining to spend $75 on a seat at a football game, but nobody is going to pay to watch a teacher. Teachers know they're underappreciated monetarily, but they're not teaching because they want to be rich... they're teaching because they want to help. But they can't if parents don't do their part as well.
Then you missed the following in my comment...
parenting (or lack thereof), which I think is the leading killer of a solid education.
I completely agree with you that learning starts at home, and continues there. The same goes with one's ability to interact socially... the difference between being a bad or good person.
Our educators won't be able to turn out innovators while two things are happening to their detriment.... more and more children are not being educated at home, and budgets are being cut.
It is unrelated to talent or quality. It's all about money. Period.
But the article mentioned says "don't worry, Americans are the best innovators" which is a farce. And we're not going to be turning out waves of innovators given the current status of both our education system and the apathetic state of parenting here.