I have seen laptops, that if you popped the battery off to tamper with the BIOS, or if you forgot your password, you have to ship the unit in to have the BIOS reset. I am not sure if anyone has found an exploit on those yet, but that is a step in the direction of security.
And, yep, it is darned inconvenient for the average Joe. It has a home in the corporate and government worlds though.
It is only illegal if you have not contributed to their masters' coffers. Once you have paid the fee, you are free to do certain activities. If you want to do more aggressive activities, you simply pay more fees. They have a legal staff standing by to help you, and in case you get caught, they can mark anything classified for national security reasons.
OMG! You are making sense, and your first name seems to be Richard. You Heretic! How dare you suggest employers do anything to help their employees, especially if it might make them better employees. Next thing you know, they will start feeling good about themselves. Oh, and where does that go? No good I tell you! No good at all. Employees feeling good, being healthy and expecting their employers to do what is right. Gads!
Thus, your crop does not 'half' every year. If there's 200 seeds per cob, you can pick the best 3 or 4 cobs for planting, and eat the rest. You'll still have a good crop next year.
What?!?!? Three or four? I know and have worked with plenty of corn farmers. They are not planting hundreds of seeds, or even thousand, but tens to hundreds of thousands at the least. The cross pollination and the genetic alterations might not show up (and probably will not be noticeable to the untrained eye/gadget) for years. Farmers have been sued out of business already for this very kind of cross-pollination. The farmer does not have the legal means to fight a monster like one of these companies. And, these companies know they can snag more farmland and more farmers by the fear factor alone. These are very strong arm tactics. These companies have already been down this road when their product winds up growing in someone else's field. They go in and clean the farmer (victim) out. This is the same problem we worry about in open source. That commercial code might be injected as a viral *improvement* that can then be used to sue the open source out of business. Farmers do not have the tools to re-write genetic code for their crops, nor do they have the tools to control what is installed from other fields.
The other problem is the huge lack of knowledge we have about what impact this might have on the population/environment at large. Same problems with a product called corn syrup, or another product called partially hydrogenated vegetable oil. Both of these were brought into the market with not enough testing and both are turning out to be rather bad for you. The big difference is you can shut down production of these. Once GMO is in the wild, it is there. If it is designed to be dominant, then it will continue to be there.
Not true. It is, in the end, not a fundamental right,
Ok. Bad news, Good news. First, the bad news. There are no fundamental rights. There is no right to life, happiness, medicine, food, sleep, shelter, or anything. There is not even a right to a planet to live on.
Now for the good news. We get to define our rights as a society. We get to decide that life should be cherished or not. We decide that health care is a right or not. We get to decide how long a copyright lasts or not. We also get to abdicate those choices to those who are willing to put forth the effort to trump our desired rights with their desired rights.
A classic case is medicine. Certain countries have legislatively decided that a certain minimal amount of care is a fundamental right for their citizens. Other countries have decided it is only a right for those whom they feel can not afford it and yet other countries don't seem to think that health care is at all a right.
If we, the people, were as a majority serious enough about copyright and patent problems, they would go away as we would choose that path. As it is a few of us are aware of the serious problems with our current system and the extreme abusiveness many of the users of it. The average person has not been impacted yet or in other ways made aware enough as of yet to think about this before Monday Night Football. That is the way many of the rich and powerful want it. A docile flock of sheep to work and buy. This can be very profitable and easy for those already there. Almost like serfs who think they are free.
I believe that copyright and patents have their place, but the current system is so abusive that the risk of writing potentially conflicting code makes the entry into the market prohibitively expensive (if you are truly managing risk), or highly speculative if you are not. Who knows what legal minefield you might trip over reinventing some obvious software method.
The real answer to most of our problems is for the general electorate to stand up and demand proper actions. It probably will not happen, as the current leadership has enough understanding of how to keep people just pacified enough to maintain the status quo. But, given how much new technology is coming out designed solely to control the masses (not necessarily the belligerent and dangerous ones only), I expect that the current equilibrium will become much more strained as a more unbalanced socio-economic situation develops in the next 20 to 30 years.
You all can mod the parent post troll, but think about this first (okay, his language and terms are very crude!).
How many places could continue working, or harvesting without these illegal/undocumented workers. They are not only from Mexico, but from Asia, Europe (esp eastern), Africa and other places. Most, if not all have broken the laws in their own countries, and many have broken the law to come here. Many break the law again by accepting a stolen SSN, or living illegally (overcrowded housing, hazardous materials, illegal substances, etc.)
There have been many occasions where a rumor of INS agents being in the area caused more than half of the *legally* employed workers to not show up for work in factories, restaurants and other locations.
On the flip side, I have worked with many legally immigrants, and they have almost always been very hard working good people. Many of the legal immigrants that I know are as frustrated by this illegal issue as many of us are. True, everyone ought to have a chance at making it in life, but not illegally!
So, what is the answer to the problem? Well, some people give lip service to amnesty followed by tougher laws as the answer. Some people want to just kick them out and then make it much tougher and more severe to get back in. Some think the answer is to spread our wealth to other countries as fast as possible (20 to 50 years minimum) to reduce or eliminate the need.
Of course, there are huge communities of illegals and their brethren who would like nothing better than to see all of them allowed in for a quick fix. It has many advantages, from increasing political power for *them* whomever they may be, to it brings more of their culture to their area, and they can then move the culture that was there out by displacing it. Many of them think it is a noble gesture, and in some of their countries where they have come from, most of us can not begin to imagine living with the hardships, even if we see the them first hand.
Of, course, there are plenty in that same group who have criminal intent, and would like nothing more than to increase the power of their organizations. That is fairly easy to do by bringing people in illegally and then holding them as *slaves*. Many of the people brought in that way are victims of crime as well. They are told they will be taken care of and they will get legal citizenship. You might think that nobody should fall for that anymore, but there are plenty of desperate and naive people in this world.
Then, there is *us*. Our economy thrives on these illegals. They work for less and thus bring down the cost of labor. This ought to bring down the price of goods, though for some reason, the fat cats at the top keep getting fatter and prices do not seem to fall commensurate to the fall in worker's wages. So many of us look at the short term solutions (and then get mad at our leaders doing the same - pots, meet kettles) and then spend more for less. I know that schools suffer from the lack of tax base from illegal employees. They suffer from the lowered wages. All areas of public service, health care and general life suffer from these illegal immigrants. And, they can tell you how much our level of suffering is still a dream they wish to reach.
The solution is not simple, and it is not able to be pulled together in a sound bite, nor a post here on slashdot (at least one which more than a few dozen people will read). The solution to our immigration issues actually has its roots in our financial issues in general.
Why do so many people willingly transfer their wealth to others by carrying credit card balances, buying cheap (as in low quality) merchandise? Why do so many people let their health suffer instead of spending that extra 45 minutes a day to exercise? Why do so many people do what feels real good now, but will cause problems in the future, and hence ultimately feel very much not good?
The answer is that we the people (not each individual) as a whole no longer t
We already have companies that devote most of their energy to this. We call them marketing companies. They have a pretty good idea of how the average consumer (and an even better idea by demographic) will respond to a given stimulus. They also have a pretty good idea how well a product will sell in a given market. Companies do not spend billions of dollars per year on marketing without many facts to back it up. Kind of the same issue we have with Spammers and their Chums.
I do not think the software will be used to predict individual behavior so much (though I am certain the day is coming where that will be possible rather precisely) as it is going to be used to predict group behavior. Individuals can have a butterfly effect, but masses tend to behave more predictably.
Well, I am pretty sure this is not a CRC error this time. Sounds more like they are applying quantum computing to their business model. Now, they can make all claims simultaneously, claim they are anything and everything and never have to settle on state of existence. As a bonus, their PR dept can claim the company has working knowledge with successful quantum engine development (and maybe hint that it is a current part of their OS)
I wonder how Brazil's Linux initiative is coming along? Are they not worried about ticking Cisco off? Is this part of a larger move towards real independence by a number of countries (independence from the US's draconian IP laws)? Anyone with real insight inside Brazil know any of these things (or,since this is slashdot, speculation)? I have not kept track, so I do not know what is going on with that.
We had a similar rule, but I was writing the games, so I got around it. Three of us (we used the name Awesome Threesome Software) wrote, played or designed graphics for the games. One of the other students used to get mad at us and do things like pull our power cable. We built a *network* for the model IIIs using the cassette jacks, and *took* over his computer. He left us alone after we told him we could do the same thing to his grades. Like other bullies, he just needed to be stood up to in a way he could understand (and that is how we decided to name ourselves Awesome Threesome Software).
Funny part is, I still have a model III computer. It is great for the kids to tool around with doing whatever they want. It still works! However, once the 5 1/4" floppies are all bad, that is it. No more Model III. I wrote my first games on it, and my youngest son is completely into game design.
Yeah, there is so much better out there now for everything, but the Model III was so simple to learn and write on.
Unless I am missing something, if you turn off most of the stuff that makes Vista better than XP, what do you have beyond XP?
Serious question. I have used Vista, and am immensely unsatisfied with my experience (3GB Ram, 5600+ processor, Graphics Card) and still slower, clunkier and more prone to crash (as well as applications not working on it). I can not just recompile my applications for the new kernel. I can not just download new drivers. I can not just compile out parts of the OS I am not using, nor will ever use. So, I can not change my experience. What I am I getting for my money and time?
NPR is a moderate news post. They piss off both sides. They also deal with many subjects that almost no other news outlet will deal with, as they are not mainstream news (sex, violence, pestilence, gore,...) If you sit to the right, they look left (so we know where you sit), and if you sit to the left, they look right. That is the way news used to be. Balanced. Maybe not entirely fair, but balanced. I have heard as much news on NPR that was pro-neo-con as I have that was pro-humanity, and normally, those were balanced with later news on the same subject from the other side.
Yeah, I know that many will disagree, but if you are up North, then they are all Southerners. I don't have time to live my life sitting on an extreme side of life waiting for an honest understanding, so NPR is one of my news sources (as the WSJ, Reuters for short tags, BBC, NBC, CBS, ABC and Google). NPR does better at getting deeper into a story than most do, though in many cases the stories are not interesting to people who are self-centric.
I'm going to solve the Earth's energy problem and get rich at the same time. All I need to do is build a trans-solar-system pipeline from that moon to the Earth to bring all of that beautiful methane here. Voila. No concerns for a very long time. As far as global warming goes, its a double win. Soon all of my Alaskan and Canadian beach front property on the northern shores will be prime warm vacation land. And to top it all off, I have a pipeline to attach a space elevator to to bring people up to the hotel/mid-stations in orbit for extra profit!!!
This post is not being spell checked or proof-read, sorry, out of time
This is inconsistent with your earlier position. If it's ALL about parents teaching their kids proper "morality" as you claimed, from practical perspective it doesn't matter how they vote because a child that hasn't been properly trained by their parents will fail no matter how "good" the school is. Secondly, you're assuming individual parents have complete voting control over the school boards and legislature. They don't. There are these things called "lobbies". Pretending they don't control the voting process is an ignorant cop-out.
Whoa! I never said you would walk in and get your way. Now, it is not that easy. You actually have to work at it, you know, lobby - the word you used, convince others of the merits of your opinions. Sure, there are others out there who may be more experienced and definitely more aware of what is going on, but you still have to do the work to get the reward. This i snot some kind of lottery you can win with a five dollar ticket. I also said in my original post that a child was not ruined for life for starting off in a bad home, just that they were handicapped compared to others in good homes and were normally in trouble in school. I also said that I have seen children change when their environment at home changed.
You CAN measure the content of the entire atmosphere just by sampling the air in Kansas because there isn't a wide variation of gasses across the entirety of the atmosphere (air in Kansas is pretty much the same as air everywhere else). - You are joking, right?
So, in essence you are saying the air over Los Angeles is the same as the air over Kansas, no pollutants, no ocean wind, no influence from the vast water vapor producer right next door? And the air in China's major cities is the same as it is over Kansas, you can see for miles, no pollution,.. Get the idea yet? And, the air over Kansas is the same temperature as it is over the antarctic. In case you did not know, temperature of the air impacts what can stay aloft in the air, and how much. But even with all of those differences, the air in the most different parts of the world is vastly more similar than two children in a classroom.
So you favor third-party classroom auditing? An auditor goes in completely announced, watches the class for several days and interviews and tests the students. What is wrong with THAT metric?
Actually, over time is meant throughout the year, and the method is teacher observation, peer review, and management review. Testing is good to a limited (rather limited) extent, but has only assisted in dragging the real education down the drain. You may not get this, but the teachers *must* teach to the test. They must first get as many kids as possible ready to achieve a certain minimum score on the test. Their jobs are on the line, funding for the school is on the line, parental approval is on the line. The only thing that is not on the line with current testing is a real education. Testing in no way provides an encouragement for provide a better education. Only to make sure kids can burp up more facts, irregardless of whether or not they understand or can apply those facts.
Bullshit. As a freshman high school student *I* taught the Computer Literacy class at my high school because the assigned teacher was a complete dipshit. I TA'd for him and taught the whole class. I set up the lab, made the curriculum, designed assignments, graded the papers, everything. I trained two other TA's to teach the classes I wasn't in. One of the seniors taught the Music Theory class I was in. Another senior basically taught Auto Shop. AP Physics was essentially run by the students. I could go on. And I attended one of the top 3 public high schools in the state of California.
You were a late bloomer, I started teaching in 7th grade, science, and computers. I wrote the computer curriculum, and assisted on the science. I was teaching $100.00/ho
You really need to understand that Rush Limbaugh is an entertainer, not a news source. He even claims so himself. He does not quite go so far as to say that he feeds off of nut jobs views like yours, but he has said that they are the reason he is so successful. All he has to do is imply some innuendo and people like yourself grab it and run all the way with it. He has said the truth does not matter, only opinion.
Why do you think that under the same rules of financial management, Bush Sr lost to a resounding "It's the economy stupid!" Bush Sr had a good grasp of world events, and a good grasp of intelligence, but he failed miserably at internal affairs and the economy. I haven'
t a clue as to what Bush Jr is good at except lining his masters pockets. Reaganomics was a disaster for most of the people in the country. The only real economic successes that happened during the 80s were based upon research and coming of age of engineering done in the 60s and 70s (computers, networking, biology, energy, design), and almost ALL of that was started by big government research programs... NASA, NSA, DARPA,... True, mostly defense related, but the technology was started by big government, NOT PRIVATE FIRMS. It was later picked up by and carried forward by private firms. The republicans destroyed the economy starting in the 70s and Carter inherited a huge mess. There was no way to stop the events of the late 70s or 80s after the seeds were sown. Heck, the republicans even seem to have worked it out that the hostages in Iran became political toys to be held longer until Carter was weakened to the point of being unabel to govern. Thats what you get with modern day Republicans. Fear mongering, back stabbing, Lying thieves. These are not the republicans of my grandpas generation. The big dot com bubble bursts, the housing bubble and most other bubbles are more of the same republican led economic concepts. Laissez Faire DOES NOT WORK. Greed kills it. For some strange reason they think the concept of Good Old Dollar profit is all it takes to steer a country. They seem to have no clue about consequences, responsibilities, side-effects, real-world valuation, long-term planning or luck. If the republicans were left to their own devices, most places would be unlivable due to pollution, and medical care would only be available for the wealthy, as would education, and other necessary aspects of modern life. They can't seem to understand that society is not just a bunch of individuals, that is works best by these individuals helping lift each other up. They only see society as a tool to get what they want.
I wonder if there is any way for the shareholders and the employees to go after the owners for gross negligence, like was done with a certain energy company.
Translation: It it all the fault of the parents, not the schools.
Correct. You may not understand this, but you and I hire the public school system teachers. We vote for the school boars, the legislature and either demand answer or not for the issues at stake. It is our responsibility to put pressure where it is needed to cause fundamental change, or to overlook it and blame those we put in a bad position with our laws and rules.
What do you propose as alternative metrics? Should we just take the teacher's word for it?
I said in another post that standards testing ought to be a small part of the puzzle, not the rudder. Merely a piece of many pieces to be used as input. One of the problems with demanding metrics is the sheer lack of availability of these metrics in this environment. There have been many different IQ tests, personality profile tests, cognitive awareness tests, etc. (ad nausea). They have all failed. For one reason. You can no more measure the sum of a child's progress, book smarts, social smarts and street smarts with a battery of *standardized* test than you can measure the Earth's atmosphere by taking temperatures in Kansas.
You do not need to take the teacher's word for it. Successful kids have things in common, from the way they carry on conversations to the way they pursue their own interests. They may not do these things the same way, but they do things to achieve what they want to achieve. Prolonged observation of students while in classes at school (not a testing snapshot of one to a few days) gives much better insight into the development of the child. And, if you use testing, you are more testing the success of the parents much more than you are testing the success of the teacher. Why don't you hold the parents to the same standard, after all, they are the primary educators of their children. Teachers might get 4 hours per day useful time, parents have the opportunity in most cases for far more per day. The parents are the ones responsible for teaching the ethics, morality, priorities and such that make children successful students.
You didn't say anything about teachers because you have a vested interest in the system since you and your parents teach.
Hmm. Where have I heard that before? lol. How about, I leave the teachers out because they matter very little when the parents are not parenting. Ahh. Do you understand that? Most people don't.
Some people value health insurance, pension benefits, and job security more than pay.
Most teachers make less money per year and have worse benefits and less retirement than people in the non-academic world. That argument of yours is misinformed. I have been on the state wide negotiating committees and I have seen what different counties get in pay and benefits. If you are teaching because you think any of those are better on the teaching side, you are completely unaware of the commercial side. My wife as an assistant store manager makes much more money and much better benefits than any of the teachers in our state or the states around us (Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky).
Some people don't like the corporate world and are more comfortable in an academic setting.
I think you have a collegiate setting confused with K-12 settings. K-12 has become rather corporate anymore. Not the same as working in a large office building out of a cubicle as far as space and layout go. Teachers are filling all kinds of information out now (like little administrators) and filing reports and following inane rules, aoh yeah, they even have tons of meetings to make sure they can not be as productive so they can fill out forms on how they are being productive. I have worked both sides. Maybe you might see it as different, but being professional is being professional, only kids have no interest in their job.
Explain to me how it's a GOOD thing that you can't fire teachers for b
Your experience is where parents need to take an active role in the school system. But, you will be hard pressed to find that many dynamic individuals with strong people and communication skills willing to step that far down to teach. but, I know what you are talking about. I have experienced it, my kids have experienced it and that is one reason I take so much interest in the schools still. I know most of the people on the school board, the principals and the administration as well as the teachers. All of the teachers know us by name and all of them know of our expectations. The really neat thing is most of them allow us (the parents) to come in and help make the class more dynamic. But, this is all about pushing back to make the primary mission of the school to be educating students and paying the real price, not trying to mass produce diplomas for the lowest bid.
Dress codes I am for to eliminate certain dress (or lack thereof) issues. Grade levels I am against. The current grade (A-F) system I am against. Set hours I am against, but this is a very expensive change to fix.
My experience teaches me that kids have many different levels of achievement. Science, math, reading, writing, creativity, social, physical, organizational, etc.. are all aspects that different kids advance and understand in different ways. I prefer a kind of Montessori system. As far as kids being disciplined and respectful, those have nothing to do with thinking inside or outside the box. They merely have to do with well, being organized and respectful. I have worked with people whose organizational system was 1 foot over and two inches deep. Et voile, it was there. I never would have found it, but they could. I also have worked with people who had everything in neurotically neat rows and stacks. And if you moved anything, even a quarter inch, they would freak. Most of us are somewhere in between. Of those two traits though, the respectful part is far more important.
I think the current school setup encourages those who think different to act out. There is a good movie out about a young lady who wants to play varsity soccer that shows this kind of behavior in a glaringly obvious way.
Society who also reaps the biggest part of the education dividend
Children who rarely know what is good for them
Politicians who are only not accountable because the public is to caught up in other issues (that are far less meaningful and far reaching).
I do not disagree with you. Which is why private schools are once again taking off. And they are not cheap. So, again the divide between those who have and those who have not (or can not afford) gets wider.
Slashdot Mirror
Jeez. I had to read that twice. Hahaha! I could see my wife doing that though.
InnerWeb
I have seen laptops, that if you popped the battery off to tamper with the BIOS, or if you forgot your password, you have to ship the unit in to have the BIOS reset. I am not sure if anyone has found an exploit on those yet, but that is a step in the direction of security.
And, yep, it is darned inconvenient for the average Joe. It has a home in the corporate and government worlds though.
InnerWeb
Who is Paris Hilton?
InnerWeb
It is only illegal if you have not contributed to their masters' coffers. Once you have paid the fee, you are free to do certain activities. If you want to do more aggressive activities, you simply pay more fees. They have a legal staff standing by to help you, and in case you get caught, they can mark anything classified for national security reasons.
[/humor]InnerWeb
OMG! You are making sense, and your first name seems to be Richard. You Heretic! How dare you suggest employers do anything to help their employees, especially if it might make them better employees. Next thing you know, they will start feeling good about themselves. Oh, and where does that go? No good I tell you! No good at all. Employees feeling good, being healthy and expecting their employers to do what is right. Gads!
[/humor]InnerWeb
Oops. That is what I get for skipping through the list. Forget RTFM, must RTFPs!
InnerWeb
Thus, your crop does not 'half' every year. If there's 200 seeds per cob, you can pick the best 3 or 4 cobs for planting, and eat the rest. You'll still have a good crop next year.
What?!?!? Three or four? I know and have worked with plenty of corn farmers. They are not planting hundreds of seeds, or even thousand, but tens to hundreds of thousands at the least. The cross pollination and the genetic alterations might not show up (and probably will not be noticeable to the untrained eye/gadget) for years. Farmers have been sued out of business already for this very kind of cross-pollination. The farmer does not have the legal means to fight a monster like one of these companies. And, these companies know they can snag more farmland and more farmers by the fear factor alone. These are very strong arm tactics. These companies have already been down this road when their product winds up growing in someone else's field. They go in and clean the farmer (victim) out. This is the same problem we worry about in open source. That commercial code might be injected as a viral *improvement* that can then be used to sue the open source out of business. Farmers do not have the tools to re-write genetic code for their crops, nor do they have the tools to control what is installed from other fields.
The other problem is the huge lack of knowledge we have about what impact this might have on the population/environment at large. Same problems with a product called corn syrup, or another product called partially hydrogenated vegetable oil. Both of these were brought into the market with not enough testing and both are turning out to be rather bad for you. The big difference is you can shut down production of these. Once GMO is in the wild, it is there. If it is designed to be dominant, then it will continue to be there.
InnerWeb
Not true. It is, in the end, not a fundamental right,
Ok. Bad news, Good news. First, the bad news. There are no fundamental rights. There is no right to life, happiness, medicine, food, sleep, shelter, or anything. There is not even a right to a planet to live on.
Now for the good news. We get to define our rights as a society. We get to decide that life should be cherished or not. We decide that health care is a right or not. We get to decide how long a copyright lasts or not. We also get to abdicate those choices to those who are willing to put forth the effort to trump our desired rights with their desired rights.
A classic case is medicine. Certain countries have legislatively decided that a certain minimal amount of care is a fundamental right for their citizens. Other countries have decided it is only a right for those whom they feel can not afford it and yet other countries don't seem to think that health care is at all a right.
If we, the people, were as a majority serious enough about copyright and patent problems, they would go away as we would choose that path. As it is a few of us are aware of the serious problems with our current system and the extreme abusiveness many of the users of it. The average person has not been impacted yet or in other ways made aware enough as of yet to think about this before Monday Night Football. That is the way many of the rich and powerful want it. A docile flock of sheep to work and buy. This can be very profitable and easy for those already there. Almost like serfs who think they are free.
I believe that copyright and patents have their place, but the current system is so abusive that the risk of writing potentially conflicting code makes the entry into the market prohibitively expensive (if you are truly managing risk), or highly speculative if you are not. Who knows what legal minefield you might trip over reinventing some obvious software method.
The real answer to most of our problems is for the general electorate to stand up and demand proper actions. It probably will not happen, as the current leadership has enough understanding of how to keep people just pacified enough to maintain the status quo. But, given how much new technology is coming out designed solely to control the masses (not necessarily the belligerent and dangerous ones only), I expect that the current equilibrium will become much more strained as a more unbalanced socio-economic situation develops in the next 20 to 30 years.
InnerWeb
You all can mod the parent post troll, but think about this first (okay, his language and terms are very crude!).
How many places could continue working, or harvesting without these illegal/undocumented workers. They are not only from Mexico, but from Asia, Europe (esp eastern), Africa and other places. Most, if not all have broken the laws in their own countries, and many have broken the law to come here. Many break the law again by accepting a stolen SSN, or living illegally (overcrowded housing, hazardous materials, illegal substances, etc.)
There have been many occasions where a rumor of INS agents being in the area caused more than half of the *legally* employed workers to not show up for work in factories, restaurants and other locations.
On the flip side, I have worked with many legally immigrants, and they have almost always been very hard working good people. Many of the legal immigrants that I know are as frustrated by this illegal issue as many of us are. True, everyone ought to have a chance at making it in life, but not illegally!
So, what is the answer to the problem? Well, some people give lip service to amnesty followed by tougher laws as the answer. Some people want to just kick them out and then make it much tougher and more severe to get back in. Some think the answer is to spread our wealth to other countries as fast as possible (20 to 50 years minimum) to reduce or eliminate the need.
Of course, there are huge communities of illegals and their brethren who would like nothing better than to see all of them allowed in for a quick fix. It has many advantages, from increasing political power for *them* whomever they may be, to it brings more of their culture to their area, and they can then move the culture that was there out by displacing it. Many of them think it is a noble gesture, and in some of their countries where they have come from, most of us can not begin to imagine living with the hardships, even if we see the them first hand.
Of, course, there are plenty in that same group who have criminal intent, and would like nothing more than to increase the power of their organizations. That is fairly easy to do by bringing people in illegally and then holding them as *slaves*. Many of the people brought in that way are victims of crime as well. They are told they will be taken care of and they will get legal citizenship. You might think that nobody should fall for that anymore, but there are plenty of desperate and naive people in this world.
Then, there is *us*. Our economy thrives on these illegals. They work for less and thus bring down the cost of labor. This ought to bring down the price of goods, though for some reason, the fat cats at the top keep getting fatter and prices do not seem to fall commensurate to the fall in worker's wages. So many of us look at the short term solutions (and then get mad at our leaders doing the same - pots, meet kettles) and then spend more for less. I know that schools suffer from the lack of tax base from illegal employees. They suffer from the lowered wages. All areas of public service, health care and general life suffer from these illegal immigrants. And, they can tell you how much our level of suffering is still a dream they wish to reach.
The solution is not simple, and it is not able to be pulled together in a sound bite, nor a post here on slashdot (at least one which more than a few dozen people will read). The solution to our immigration issues actually has its roots in our financial issues in general.
Why do so many people willingly transfer their wealth to others by carrying credit card balances, buying cheap (as in low quality) merchandise? Why do so many people let their health suffer instead of spending that extra 45 minutes a day to exercise? Why do so many people do what feels real good now, but will cause problems in the future, and hence ultimately feel very much not good?
The answer is that we the people (not each individual) as a whole no longer t
We already have companies that devote most of their energy to this. We call them marketing companies. They have a pretty good idea of how the average consumer (and an even better idea by demographic) will respond to a given stimulus. They also have a pretty good idea how well a product will sell in a given market. Companies do not spend billions of dollars per year on marketing without many facts to back it up. Kind of the same issue we have with Spammers and their Chums.
I do not think the software will be used to predict individual behavior so much (though I am certain the day is coming where that will be possible rather precisely) as it is going to be used to predict group behavior. Individuals can have a butterfly effect, but masses tend to behave more predictably.
InnerWeb
Well, I am pretty sure this is not a CRC error this time. Sounds more like they are applying quantum computing to their business model. Now, they can make all claims simultaneously, claim they are anything and everything and never have to settle on state of existence. As a bonus, their PR dept can claim the company has working knowledge with successful quantum engine development (and maybe hint that it is a current part of their OS)
InnerWeb
I wonder how Brazil's Linux initiative is coming along? Are they not worried about ticking Cisco off? Is this part of a larger move towards real independence by a number of countries (independence from the US's draconian IP laws)? Anyone with real insight inside Brazil know any of these things (or ,since this is slashdot, speculation)? I have not kept track, so I do not know what is going on with that.
InnerWeb
We had a similar rule, but I was writing the games, so I got around it. Three of us (we used the name Awesome Threesome Software) wrote, played or designed graphics for the games. One of the other students used to get mad at us and do things like pull our power cable. We built a *network* for the model IIIs using the cassette jacks, and *took* over his computer. He left us alone after we told him we could do the same thing to his grades. Like other bullies, he just needed to be stood up to in a way he could understand (and that is how we decided to name ourselves Awesome Threesome Software).
Ahh, to be young and fancy-free again. lol
InnerWeb
Sounds familiar.
Funny part is, I still have a model III computer. It is great for the kids to tool around with doing whatever they want. It still works! However, once the 5 1/4" floppies are all bad, that is it. No more Model III. I wrote my first games on it, and my youngest son is completely into game design.
Yeah, there is so much better out there now for everything, but the Model III was so simple to learn and write on.
InnerWeb
Unless I am missing something, if you turn off most of the stuff that makes Vista better than XP, what do you have beyond XP?
Serious question. I have used Vista, and am immensely unsatisfied with my experience (3GB Ram, 5600+ processor, Graphics Card) and still slower, clunkier and more prone to crash (as well as applications not working on it). I can not just recompile my applications for the new kernel. I can not just download new drivers. I can not just compile out parts of the OS I am not using, nor will ever use. So, I can not change my experience. What I am I getting for my money and time?
InnerWeb
NPR is a moderate news post. They piss off both sides. They also deal with many subjects that almost no other news outlet will deal with, as they are not mainstream news (sex, violence, pestilence, gore, ...) If you sit to the right, they look left (so we know where you sit), and if you sit to the left, they look right. That is the way news used to be. Balanced. Maybe not entirely fair, but balanced. I have heard as much news on NPR that was pro-neo-con as I have that was pro-humanity, and normally, those were balanced with later news on the same subject from the other side.
Yeah, I know that many will disagree, but if you are up North, then they are all Southerners. I don't have time to live my life sitting on an extreme side of life waiting for an honest understanding, so NPR is one of my news sources (as the WSJ, Reuters for short tags, BBC, NBC, CBS, ABC and Google). NPR does better at getting deeper into a story than most do, though in many cases the stories are not interesting to people who are self-centric.
InnerWeb
I'm going to solve the Earth's energy problem and get rich at the same time. All I need to do is build a trans-solar-system pipeline from that moon to the Earth to bring all of that beautiful methane here. Voila. No concerns for a very long time. As far as global warming goes, its a double win. Soon all of my Alaskan and Canadian beach front property on the northern shores will be prime warm vacation land. And to top it all off, I have a pipeline to attach a space elevator to to bring people up to the hotel/mid-stations in orbit for extra profit!!!
InnerWeb
[idiot tag]This is humor[/idiot tag]This post is not being spell checked or proof-read, sorry, out of time
This is inconsistent with your earlier position. If it's ALL about parents teaching their kids proper "morality" as you claimed, from practical perspective it doesn't matter how they vote because a child that hasn't been properly trained by their parents will fail no matter how "good" the school is. Secondly, you're assuming individual parents have complete voting control over the school boards and legislature. They don't. There are these things called "lobbies". Pretending they don't control the voting process is an ignorant cop-out.
Whoa! I never said you would walk in and get your way. Now, it is not that easy. You actually have to work at it, you know, lobby - the word you used, convince others of the merits of your opinions. Sure, there are others out there who may be more experienced and definitely more aware of what is going on, but you still have to do the work to get the reward. This i snot some kind of lottery you can win with a five dollar ticket. I also said in my original post that a child was not ruined for life for starting off in a bad home, just that they were handicapped compared to others in good homes and were normally in trouble in school. I also said that I have seen children change when their environment at home changed.
You CAN measure the content of the entire atmosphere just by sampling the air in Kansas because there isn't a wide variation of gasses across the entirety of the atmosphere (air in Kansas is pretty much the same as air everywhere else). - You are joking, right?
So, in essence you are saying the air over Los Angeles is the same as the air over Kansas, no pollutants, no ocean wind, no influence from the vast water vapor producer right next door? And the air in China's major cities is the same as it is over Kansas, you can see for miles, no pollution,.. Get the idea yet? And, the air over Kansas is the same temperature as it is over the antarctic. In case you did not know, temperature of the air impacts what can stay aloft in the air, and how much. But even with all of those differences, the air in the most different parts of the world is vastly more similar than two children in a classroom.
So you favor third-party classroom auditing? An auditor goes in completely announced, watches the class for several days and interviews and tests the students. What is wrong with THAT metric?
Actually, over time is meant throughout the year, and the method is teacher observation, peer review, and management review. Testing is good to a limited (rather limited) extent, but has only assisted in dragging the real education down the drain. You may not get this, but the teachers *must* teach to the test. They must first get as many kids as possible ready to achieve a certain minimum score on the test. Their jobs are on the line, funding for the school is on the line, parental approval is on the line. The only thing that is not on the line with current testing is a real education. Testing in no way provides an encouragement for provide a better education. Only to make sure kids can burp up more facts, irregardless of whether or not they understand or can apply those facts.
Bullshit. As a freshman high school student *I* taught the Computer Literacy class at my high school because the assigned teacher was a complete dipshit. I TA'd for him and taught the whole class. I set up the lab, made the curriculum, designed assignments, graded the papers, everything. I trained two other TA's to teach the classes I wasn't in. One of the seniors taught the Music Theory class I was in. Another senior basically taught Auto Shop. AP Physics was essentially run by the students. I could go on. And I attended one of the top 3 public high schools in the state of California.
You were a late bloomer, I started teaching in 7th grade, science, and computers. I wrote the computer curriculum, and assisted on the science. I was teaching $100.00/ho
AC, put down the drugs. Step away from the computer. Your rights to post are being revoked.
I can't believe someone missed that, even on slashdot.
InnerWeb
You really need to understand that Rush Limbaugh is an entertainer, not a news source. He even claims so himself. He does not quite go so far as to say that he feeds off of nut jobs views like yours, but he has said that they are the reason he is so successful. All he has to do is imply some innuendo and people like yourself grab it and run all the way with it. He has said the truth does not matter, only opinion.
Why do you think that under the same rules of financial management, Bush Sr lost to a resounding "It's the economy stupid!" Bush Sr had a good grasp of world events, and a good grasp of intelligence, but he failed miserably at internal affairs and the economy. I haven' t a clue as to what Bush Jr is good at except lining his masters pockets. Reaganomics was a disaster for most of the people in the country. The only real economic successes that happened during the 80s were based upon research and coming of age of engineering done in the 60s and 70s (computers, networking, biology, energy, design), and almost ALL of that was started by big government research programs... NASA, NSA, DARPA, ... True, mostly defense related, but the technology was started by big government, NOT PRIVATE FIRMS. It was later picked up by and carried forward by private firms. The republicans destroyed the economy starting in the 70s and Carter inherited a huge mess. There was no way to stop the events of the late 70s or 80s after the seeds were sown. Heck, the republicans even seem to have worked it out that the hostages in Iran became political toys to be held longer until Carter was weakened to the point of being unabel to govern. Thats what you get with modern day Republicans. Fear mongering, back stabbing, Lying thieves. These are not the republicans of my grandpas generation. The big dot com bubble bursts, the housing bubble and most other bubbles are more of the same republican led economic concepts. Laissez Faire DOES NOT WORK. Greed kills it. For some strange reason they think the concept of Good Old Dollar profit is all it takes to steer a country. They seem to have no clue about consequences, responsibilities, side-effects, real-world valuation, long-term planning or luck. If the republicans were left to their own devices, most places would be unlivable due to pollution, and medical care would only be available for the wealthy, as would education, and other necessary aspects of modern life. They can't seem to understand that society is not just a bunch of individuals, that is works best by these individuals helping lift each other up. They only see society as a tool to get what they want.
[rant off]I wonder if there is any way for the shareholders and the employees to go after the owners for gross negligence, like was done with a certain energy company.
InnerWeb
Ohh, what fun. Here I go...
Translation: It it all the fault of the parents, not the schools.
Correct. You may not understand this, but you and I hire the public school system teachers. We vote for the school boars, the legislature and either demand answer or not for the issues at stake. It is our responsibility to put pressure where it is needed to cause fundamental change, or to overlook it and blame those we put in a bad position with our laws and rules.
What do you propose as alternative metrics? Should we just take the teacher's word for it?
I said in another post that standards testing ought to be a small part of the puzzle, not the rudder. Merely a piece of many pieces to be used as input. One of the problems with demanding metrics is the sheer lack of availability of these metrics in this environment. There have been many different IQ tests, personality profile tests, cognitive awareness tests, etc. (ad nausea). They have all failed. For one reason. You can no more measure the sum of a child's progress, book smarts, social smarts and street smarts with a battery of *standardized* test than you can measure the Earth's atmosphere by taking temperatures in Kansas.
You do not need to take the teacher's word for it. Successful kids have things in common, from the way they carry on conversations to the way they pursue their own interests. They may not do these things the same way, but they do things to achieve what they want to achieve. Prolonged observation of students while in classes at school (not a testing snapshot of one to a few days) gives much better insight into the development of the child. And, if you use testing, you are more testing the success of the parents much more than you are testing the success of the teacher. Why don't you hold the parents to the same standard, after all, they are the primary educators of their children. Teachers might get 4 hours per day useful time, parents have the opportunity in most cases for far more per day. The parents are the ones responsible for teaching the ethics, morality, priorities and such that make children successful students.
You didn't say anything about teachers because you have a vested interest in the system since you and your parents teach.
Hmm. Where have I heard that before? lol. How about, I leave the teachers out because they matter very little when the parents are not parenting. Ahh. Do you understand that? Most people don't.
Some people value health insurance, pension benefits, and job security more than pay.
Most teachers make less money per year and have worse benefits and less retirement than people in the non-academic world. That argument of yours is misinformed. I have been on the state wide negotiating committees and I have seen what different counties get in pay and benefits. If you are teaching because you think any of those are better on the teaching side, you are completely unaware of the commercial side. My wife as an assistant store manager makes much more money and much better benefits than any of the teachers in our state or the states around us (Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky).
Some people don't like the corporate world and are more comfortable in an academic setting.
I think you have a collegiate setting confused with K-12 settings. K-12 has become rather corporate anymore. Not the same as working in a large office building out of a cubicle as far as space and layout go. Teachers are filling all kinds of information out now (like little administrators) and filing reports and following inane rules, aoh yeah, they even have tons of meetings to make sure they can not be as productive so they can fill out forms on how they are being productive. I have worked both sides. Maybe you might see it as different, but being professional is being professional, only kids have no interest in their job.
Explain to me how it's a GOOD thing that you can't fire teachers for b
Your experience is where parents need to take an active role in the school system. But, you will be hard pressed to find that many dynamic individuals with strong people and communication skills willing to step that far down to teach. but, I know what you are talking about. I have experienced it, my kids have experienced it and that is one reason I take so much interest in the schools still. I know most of the people on the school board, the principals and the administration as well as the teachers. All of the teachers know us by name and all of them know of our expectations. The really neat thing is most of them allow us (the parents) to come in and help make the class more dynamic. But, this is all about pushing back to make the primary mission of the school to be educating students and paying the real price, not trying to mass produce diplomas for the lowest bid.
InnerWeb
Good comment, Good points.
Dress codes I am for to eliminate certain dress (or lack thereof) issues. Grade levels I am against. The current grade (A-F) system I am against. Set hours I am against, but this is a very expensive change to fix.
My experience teaches me that kids have many different levels of achievement. Science, math, reading, writing, creativity, social, physical, organizational, etc.. are all aspects that different kids advance and understand in different ways. I prefer a kind of Montessori system. As far as kids being disciplined and respectful, those have nothing to do with thinking inside or outside the box. They merely have to do with well, being organized and respectful. I have worked with people whose organizational system was 1 foot over and two inches deep. Et voile, it was there. I never would have found it, but they could. I also have worked with people who had everything in neurotically neat rows and stacks. And if you moved anything, even a quarter inch, they would freak. Most of us are somewhere in between. Of those two traits though, the respectful part is far more important.
I think the current school setup encourages those who think different to act out. There is a good movie out about a young lady who wants to play varsity soccer that shows this kind of behavior in a glaringly obvious way.
InnerWeb
I do not disagree with you. Which is why private schools are once again taking off. And they are not cheap. So, again the divide between those who have and those who have not (or can not afford) gets wider.
InnerWeb