Sadly, the NAEP scores are dependant on the current curriculum of the standardized tests and material provided to public schools in the United States.
This material has gotten worse since the time I was in school, by a factor of a few grades at least.
Where I was taught algebra in grade school and calculus in junior/senior high school, now algebra is taken junior or senior of high school and calculus is rarely if ever taught at all.
The NAEP standardized scoring is dependant on the overall grades and performance of children on the current curriculum of the national schools of that time. When the curriculum gets easier, so does the weighted system of the NAEP scores.
So the 5% and 2% increase in the 10 years since NCLB was introduced looks great on paper, but when you consider the watering down of our materials in the average of 8-16% overall, that shows a different picture.
Basically put, a 200 point score of today, would likely equate to a 170 before 2000.
Before it gets out of hand, I'd look to set up four things.
1. Set up a proper split environment. Even if you don't have the hardware for it, set it up in such a way that when the hardware becomes available, you can move it appropriately. That being, a standard dev -> qa -> stress -> prod infrastructure.
2. Set up a good revision control. I've started to really enjoy using GIT for this, as there's other software like gitolite that can give you fine-grained access control to your repositories. However, feel free to use subversion or any other well contained revision control platform.
3. Set up a good method for deployment. My suggestion? Try puppet. It's free, and it's powerful, and if you get it configured, adding new systems to it is exceedingly easy to do.
4. Packaging for your deployment. If you are installing a bunch of software (scripts, job control, etc) package it and give it a revision, then it's easy to upgrade systems with the 'new package', or revert it to the 'previous package' instead of having to manually copy around files or (re)editing them.
And if I'm off the street, new to the company and see your line:
processCommandLineArguments(&argc, &argv);
Sure, I know what the function -likely- does, based on the name.
Now how about the other questions.
1. why does it need to process the command line arguments.
2. what are the command line arguments that you are passing in.
3. what is the error control of that function if given improper values.
4. what is the error control of that function if given too many values.
5. how many arguments total can it handle.
6. what is the syntax it expects for the arguments
7. are there any global variables being defined or redefined in that function.
You take a lot of things for granted that a lot of other developers will be looking for.
This, is why documentation is needed. I don't believe at all it's an admission of defeat. I believe it's an earmark of a beautiful programmer.
Just because your code is insanely clean and documented, in itself, does not mean you should omit the block of description for variable calls, error return calls, exceptions, limits, and any global declarations. And while including this into a centralized wiki is good, I'm sure coders will not be inspired to cross-reference a program with a wiki and keep doing searches for function names. It breaks down their train of thought and frankly slows down productivity.
Assuming others can just understand it without the documents would be arrogance.
Empower Teachers. Get parents involved. Make it so if the parents don't care about the education of their child, that child warefare is called in to ask the tough questions on why.
Depower the children. When little johnny can verbally threaten the teachers with murder, and get nothing more than a detention or (gasp) suspension, then there's a problem.
When the child can dictate the terms on HOW they learn in class, then there's a problem.
When the 'no child left behind' guidelines pumps out idiots and forces the brilliant children to hide what they can do to 'fit in, there's a problem.
When America shows that zero education, but being able to run 200 meters in 25 seconds, or kicking a ball 50 meters is more important than understanding the underlying principles of how metaphysics or quantum string theory works, there's a problem.
When an actor or a sports player gets 100 times the pay of an 8 year college graduate with a PhD, there's a problem.
The problem? A total degradation of our value system and morals. When people no longer give a shit and can think of no one but themselves, this is what happens.
We've made our bed, now we live in it.
Nope. I'm saying 'neither side' not because it's two competing scientific theories.
I'm saying it because both are based on faith.
One is based on belief, the other one is hope. Both fail on the scientific principle... as of today.
Not really, no. If you lock down SSH sufficiently, then it's pretty much bulletproof.
1. Lock down specific users@ip to be able to ssh in.
2. Enforce privilege separation and all the other paranoid protection in the sshd_config.
3. Put in some type of brute force protection like fail2ban.
4. Enforce non-dictionary passwords.
When your computer model sufficiently proves, repeatedly, that a human being raises up as the destination of 'adaptation' from simple bacteria, I'll believe your proof of full scale Evolution.
Until then, I'll call it what it is. Mutations and Adaptations.
Solid proof is needed for OR against the theory. And frankly, neither side has irrefutable proof.
I will say, I have learned my lesson about hiring young people without a degree. A degree shows you can think 4+ years ahead to a goal, and work hard to get there. If you don't have a degree, have a good reason why, and let them know why you can follow through on things.
Wrong. A 4+ year college education generally means that someone is good at working at the grind, not really thinking outside of the box, and thrives well in a boxed-lunch instead of fishing for themselves.
Same if you 'require' a 3.8 out of a 4.0 GPA. Bully for that. Know how many people cheat on their tests and day to day assignments? They have groups in Sororities & Fraternities that are dedicated specifically for the ideals of cheating. So that big happy GPA? Yea, you're hiring the entire Fraternity, not the individual. Congratulations.
Then how about the dedication of that 4+ year degree? Ok sure, you proved someone can do grunt work and might... might mind you... be able to do work that they may hate. But I'm sorry, if I'm going to be working for a company, I wouldn't want to work somewhere that I'd have to have a requirement to do 'stuff I hate' the majority of the time. A few times? Sure, that's expected. But nearly all the time? Nope. That's stressful for me, that's stressful for my boss, that's stressful for my co-workers, and that's stressful all around. No job is worth a heart attack.
So, do you really want to hire that diamond in the rough? Then look for their overall skill, their broad experience. You want a good Linux admin? Make sure it just doesn't have 'Linux' on their resume. Even if they're Red Hat certified, it won't matter jack. They better have database background, VMWare, application background, a decent programming background, middleware, and so forth so that they have a basic understanding of how memory/cpu/disk performs and know both sides of the fence on how to fix it. They also should have UNIX experience outside the base 'Linux' skill-set, because frankly if you don't have that, you're limited in background. It would suck if you know 'Just Linux' and helped with some application and suddenly the VP of technology decides that having a Solaris T4-4 would be a great thing!.
That's something a crash course on Solaris just won't help you. And while not knowing Solaris is a hardship, if you knew a few OTHER UNIX systems, like HPUX, AIX, Ultrix, BSD, Dynix, SCO, Tru64, etc, then you'd have a stronger background to know what would have to be concentrated on for conversion or hot-spots to worry about. While the base idea of 'UNIX is UNIX' is true, knowing the differences between them is something that can't easily be taught.
Yet I would wager bets that if 80% of Americans could convince their co-patriots to vote for a single person not on the ballet ticket, and they did, infact, select said person who was just a common off the street joe, that it would find a way to be overturned and the 'next winner' who was either of the 2 man running horse would be selected.
Voting and free choice does no good with the ballot box is staged.
It's like this. I fill a barrel full of red apples for apple dunking. You don't like red apples, only green ones.
My answer? Well son, you have free choice to select any apple in that barrel you want, but hey, maybe that rare green apple will be selected. Who knows, someone may have put it in there. Of course, you also have the free choice to not dunk for apples at all.
Then you dunk in the apples and miraculously a green apple is found. They immediately pull it out of your mouth, look at it and say 'oh sorry son, this one had a worm'. But hey, there's still a bunch of red apples you can choose, it's a FREE SELECTION after all.
Don't believe me? Guess we'll just have to wait for the 'free choice of the people' to select someone other than the default lying bureaucrat. Good luck with that. Because you see, why the majority of people agree that the bureaucrat is a lying sack, to convince the majority of the people that voting for a single entity NOT on the ballot box is like the hunt for the white stag. Just won't happen, which is why the American government allows us to select who we want on the ballot. It's something that they know will never amount to anything, but allows us the perception of freedom of choice.
The quality of the stuff out there is just horrible.
Having worked under several hats, the latest being as a system architect, I can tell you exactly why this happens.
We start with some upper management who have this 'nifty idea' that they must have for the business. Ok, fine... now let's get the ball rolling!
First, you have the budgetary committee. Without any input what so ever from the technical groups that make up the technology and know what is or isn't possible, they work with vendors on a parachute budget for the project.
Secondly, with this locked in budget in hand, they introduce it to the system architects and project management. The project management are giving timetables saying 'we need this done by this time, no exceptions'. They then pass that timetable, as well as the budget, to the afore-mentioned system architect.
Introduce stroke-approaching WTF moment for the architect....
Third. The architect goes back to the project manager saying 'We can't build the specs for the money in the time allowed'. The manager goes 'oh, right'. They go to the budgetary committee and bring this up, and once they realize the bottom figure is wayyyy out in left field, they come back with 'that's impossible, we need this done, with the results of this, for the money you originally quoted us'. So... head back to the system architect...
Forth, the architect then, to un-bury himself from the absolute disaster sitting in his face, tell the project manager what will be required to minimally meet the ends. This generally requires a ton of over-seas consultants, paid to grind the wheel 24/7, at the lowest dollar, to get it to work on outdated hardware to meet the end core/cpu/memory requirements and still 'work'.
Fifth, the consultants are hired, you're lucky if they understand english sufficiently to understand the nuances of day to day communication. They also take shortcuts, because they either don't know the right way, don't want to spend time on the right way, or are told that doing the 'right way' is not time efficient for the cost. So now, we have crappy code being tossed in, usually undocumented.
Sixth, the dev work is slammed in, marginally tested, and quick-shotted through QA because the upper management are in a time crunch and don't have the time to deal with all that 'quality assurance nonsense'. So this work is now fast-tracked to production in a non-fully tested workflow.
Seventh, it's been live for a while, things break randomly without reason, but it's ok, a restart of the application always 'fixes' it. So what if you have to bounce the app every 2-3 weeks to free up that memory leak. It works, in the budget... well, maybe for a few hundred thousand more... but it's done, it provides the 'nifty feature' that the share-holders were promised by the upper management, and the things that don't work are being pushed on...
three guesses...
The management who pushed the idea? Nope.
The budgetary committee who gave the low-end figures out of their butt? Nope.
The project manager who gave the tight time-frame for the project without major input from the technical people? Nope.
I know... the IT professionals who are still at the company like the system architect, network team, dba team, san management team, and the security group who are left holding the bag of the big pile of steaming crap? Yup.
Soo... when things evidently break so bad to be noticed, and management are told to 'fix' it it will take more money, more time, and more hardware. Shock, awe, and bafflement is shown, bonuses/raises are crushed because the IT professionals obviously can't do their job right, and maybe a few heads roll because management have their golden parachute and are not held to blame for the project they initially started up.
That. Is why the 'stuff out there is just horrible'.
It's not any one thing, it's how business runs, because these yahoos frank
I'm not disagreeing that a free-form environment nourishes children's growth, what I am disagreeing with is the fact that free-form does not equate to un-monitored.
Too many parents today frankly don't watch their children which ultimately equates to them getting into places or into things that they shouldn't be.
So, sure, I'm all for letting that infant crawl around unheeded and explore and discover. But would you allow them into the cat litter, eating the cat poop? Maybe open the door and let them crawl into traffic? After all, that's freedom of exploration, right?
A parent has to know what limits to place on exactly what is 'freedom' for a child to explore. They have no boundries. It's the parent to provide them to the child in a safe and comfortable environment. It's about time parents do so and stop pushing that responsibility on TV or their older children.
Children, not morons. Children need to be protected. Adult morons can kill themselves, with my blessing. Just as long as they don't take anyone else with them.
Good point.
So how about parents take their responsibility and PROTECT THEIR CHILDREN.
You know... like... watch their children so they don't get into... chemicals... poisons... sharp objects... flammable materials... guns or other deadly weapons... anything outside of their agegroup...
And you know... maybe... oh, WATCH your children and not have the TV or their siblings do it for you might be a good first step to that.
I'm tired of parents blaming other parties when they should spend more time looking in a mirror.
I remember asking my parents what leafs taste like, and them opening up the encyclopedia with me and looking for answers, ergo, helping me find my own answers. Why didn't I just put it in my mouth? Because before I learned to walk, I remember my parents repeatedly telling me to never put anything in my mouth that wasn't already recognized as belonging there.
I was able to understand that at the age of 2.
Maybe if parents actually spent time with their children and raised them instead of sitting them in-front of a TV or having their older siblings do their work for them, we'd not have as many 'child problems'. But no, the answer couldn't be as simple as that...
I'm not saying that a ban on this toy is appropriate. I'm certain the packaging is appropriately labeled with age restrictions and warnings. It's just not as simple as "parents who don't read warnings".
No, but more times than not it tends to be 'parents who don't watch children'.
Instead of bigger, what phones should allow are expanded screen options.
Video cards allow going over multiple screens.
So have phones with fold-out screens. either a 1x2 or 2x2 option.
So like: [][]
or [][] [][]
Where the screens will 'flip out' from the phone.
This will give people who want those 'bigger screens' what they want, and allow those who want the phone to remain 'small' what they want as well.
The only cost will be a thicker phone for the foldout screen.
Another option of course, being a 'snapon' screen you could add on (which honestly would probably be not only safer, but leave you a more physically stable phone).
Slashdot Mirror
Sadly, the NAEP scores are dependant on the current curriculum of the standardized tests and material provided to public schools in the United States.
This material has gotten worse since the time I was in school, by a factor of a few grades at least.
Where I was taught algebra in grade school and calculus in junior/senior high school, now algebra is taken junior or senior of high school and calculus is rarely if ever taught at all.
The NAEP standardized scoring is dependant on the overall grades and performance of children on the current curriculum of the national schools of that time. When the curriculum gets easier, so does the weighted system of the NAEP scores.
So the 5% and 2% increase in the 10 years since NCLB was introduced looks great on paper, but when you consider the watering down of our materials in the average of 8-16% overall, that shows a different picture.
Basically put, a 200 point score of today, would likely equate to a 170 before 2000.
Funny how our education ranking has dropped considerably once the 'No Child Left Behind' bill went into service.
Enforcing everyone passes education at the detriment of our more intelligent children does us no good.
Before it gets out of hand, I'd look to set up four things.
1. Set up a proper split environment. Even if you don't have the hardware for it, set it up in such a way that when the hardware becomes available, you can move it appropriately. That being, a standard dev -> qa -> stress -> prod infrastructure.
2. Set up a good revision control. I've started to really enjoy using GIT for this, as there's other software like gitolite that can give you fine-grained access control to your repositories. However, feel free to use subversion or any other well contained revision control platform.
3. Set up a good method for deployment. My suggestion? Try puppet. It's free, and it's powerful, and if you get it configured, adding new systems to it is exceedingly easy to do.
4. Packaging for your deployment. If you are installing a bunch of software (scripts, job control, etc) package it and give it a revision, then it's easy to upgrade systems with the 'new package', or revert it to the 'previous package' instead of having to manually copy around files or (re)editing them.
Hope that helps.
So you're saying we should castrate Mafia lords and it'd solve our problem?
The problem is that the Mafia lords lick their balls right? Sorry, having trouble following the metaphor.
*grin*
;)
Actually, #7 covered that since it would be considered global to the calling function
Before the Indians were met.
There, fixed that for you.
Ok.
And if I'm off the street, new to the company and see your line:
processCommandLineArguments(&argc, &argv);
Sure, I know what the function -likely- does, based on the name.
Now how about the other questions.
1. why does it need to process the command line arguments.
2. what are the command line arguments that you are passing in.
3. what is the error control of that function if given improper values.
4. what is the error control of that function if given too many values.
5. how many arguments total can it handle.
6. what is the syntax it expects for the arguments
7. are there any global variables being defined or redefined in that function.
You take a lot of things for granted that a lot of other developers will be looking for.
This, is why documentation is needed. I don't believe at all it's an admission of defeat. I believe it's an earmark of a beautiful programmer. Just because your code is insanely clean and documented, in itself, does not mean you should omit the block of description for variable calls, error return calls, exceptions, limits, and any global declarations. And while including this into a centralized wiki is good, I'm sure coders will not be inspired to cross-reference a program with a wiki and keep doing searches for function names. It breaks down their train of thought and frankly slows down productivity.
Assuming others can just understand it without the documents would be arrogance.
Does this mean we'll need new car insurance for termites and weevils?
Want a direction to the start of a solution?
Empower Teachers. Get parents involved. Make it so if the parents don't care about the education of their child, that child warefare is called in to ask the tough questions on why.
Depower the children. When little johnny can verbally threaten the teachers with murder, and get nothing more than a detention or (gasp) suspension, then there's a problem.
When the child can dictate the terms on HOW they learn in class, then there's a problem.
When the 'no child left behind' guidelines pumps out idiots and forces the brilliant children to hide what they can do to 'fit in, there's a problem.
When America shows that zero education, but being able to run 200 meters in 25 seconds, or kicking a ball 50 meters is more important than understanding the underlying principles of how metaphysics or quantum string theory works, there's a problem.
When an actor or a sports player gets 100 times the pay of an 8 year college graduate with a PhD, there's a problem.
The problem? A total degradation of our value system and morals. When people no longer give a shit and can think of no one but themselves, this is what happens. We've made our bed, now we live in it.
Nope. I'm saying 'neither side' not because it's two competing scientific theories. I'm saying it because both are based on faith. One is based on belief, the other one is hope. Both fail on the scientific principle... as of today.
Leaving port 22 open is just asking for abuse.
Not really, no. If you lock down SSH sufficiently, then it's pretty much bulletproof.
1. Lock down specific users@ip to be able to ssh in.
2. Enforce privilege separation and all the other paranoid protection in the sshd_config.
3. Put in some type of brute force protection like fail2ban.
4. Enforce non-dictionary passwords.
Problem solved.
When your computer model sufficiently proves, repeatedly, that a human being raises up as the destination of 'adaptation' from simple bacteria, I'll believe your proof of full scale Evolution. Until then, I'll call it what it is. Mutations and Adaptations. Solid proof is needed for OR against the theory. And frankly, neither side has irrefutable proof.
I will say, I have learned my lesson about hiring young people without a degree. A degree shows you can think 4+ years ahead to a goal, and work hard to get there. If you don't have a degree, have a good reason why, and let them know why you can follow through on things.
Wrong. A 4+ year college education generally means that someone is good at working at the grind, not really thinking outside of the box, and thrives well in a boxed-lunch instead of fishing for themselves.
Same if you 'require' a 3.8 out of a 4.0 GPA. Bully for that. Know how many people cheat on their tests and day to day assignments? They have groups in Sororities & Fraternities that are dedicated specifically for the ideals of cheating. So that big happy GPA? Yea, you're hiring the entire Fraternity, not the individual. Congratulations.
Then how about the dedication of that 4+ year degree? Ok sure, you proved someone can do grunt work and might... might mind you... be able to do work that they may hate. But I'm sorry, if I'm going to be working for a company, I wouldn't want to work somewhere that I'd have to have a requirement to do 'stuff I hate' the majority of the time. A few times? Sure, that's expected. But nearly all the time? Nope. That's stressful for me, that's stressful for my boss, that's stressful for my co-workers, and that's stressful all around. No job is worth a heart attack.
So, do you really want to hire that diamond in the rough? Then look for their overall skill, their broad experience. You want a good Linux admin? Make sure it just doesn't have 'Linux' on their resume. Even if they're Red Hat certified, it won't matter jack. They better have database background, VMWare, application background, a decent programming background, middleware, and so forth so that they have a basic understanding of how memory/cpu/disk performs and know both sides of the fence on how to fix it. They also should have UNIX experience outside the base 'Linux' skill-set, because frankly if you don't have that, you're limited in background. It would suck if you know 'Just Linux' and helped with some application and suddenly the VP of technology decides that having a Solaris T4-4 would be a great thing!.
That's something a crash course on Solaris just won't help you. And while not knowing Solaris is a hardship, if you knew a few OTHER UNIX systems, like HPUX, AIX, Ultrix, BSD, Dynix, SCO, Tru64, etc, then you'd have a stronger background to know what would have to be concentrated on for conversion or hot-spots to worry about. While the base idea of 'UNIX is UNIX' is true, knowing the differences between them is something that can't easily be taught.
Complete myth. Never happened. It's also a matter of law that patents don't apply in cases of accidental contamination.
Bzzzt. Thanks for playing
http://www.percyschmeiser.com/conflict.htm
We can rebuild him... we have the technology... better... stronger... faster...
Yes, I believe he was hoping for a picture of that rim... oh shot...
Sorry. misread that.
Yet I would wager bets that if 80% of Americans could convince their co-patriots to vote for a single person not on the ballet ticket, and they did, infact, select said person who was just a common off the street joe, that it would find a way to be overturned and the 'next winner' who was either of the 2 man running horse would be selected.
Voting and free choice does no good with the ballot box is staged.
It's like this. I fill a barrel full of red apples for apple dunking. You don't like red apples, only green ones.
My answer? Well son, you have free choice to select any apple in that barrel you want, but hey, maybe that rare green apple will be selected. Who knows, someone may have put it in there. Of course, you also have the free choice to not dunk for apples at all.
Then you dunk in the apples and miraculously a green apple is found. They immediately pull it out of your mouth, look at it and say 'oh sorry son, this one had a worm'. But hey, there's still a bunch of red apples you can choose, it's a FREE SELECTION after all.
Don't believe me? Guess we'll just have to wait for the 'free choice of the people' to select someone other than the default lying bureaucrat. Good luck with that. Because you see, why the majority of people agree that the bureaucrat is a lying sack, to convince the majority of the people that voting for a single entity NOT on the ballot box is like the hunt for the white stag. Just won't happen, which is why the American government allows us to select who we want on the ballot. It's something that they know will never amount to anything, but allows us the perception of freedom of choice.
The quality of the stuff out there is just horrible.
Having worked under several hats, the latest being as a system architect, I can tell you exactly why this happens.
We start with some upper management who have this 'nifty idea' that they must have for the business. Ok, fine... now let's get the ball rolling!
First, you have the budgetary committee. Without any input what so ever from the technical groups that make up the technology and know what is or isn't possible, they work with vendors on a parachute budget for the project.
Secondly, with this locked in budget in hand, they introduce it to the system architects and project management. The project management are giving timetables saying 'we need this done by this time, no exceptions'. They then pass that timetable, as well as the budget, to the afore-mentioned system architect.
Introduce stroke-approaching WTF moment for the architect....
Third. The architect goes back to the project manager saying 'We can't build the specs for the money in the time allowed'. The manager goes 'oh, right'. They go to the budgetary committee and bring this up, and once they realize the bottom figure is wayyyy out in left field, they come back with 'that's impossible, we need this done, with the results of this, for the money you originally quoted us'. So... head back to the system architect...
Forth, the architect then, to un-bury himself from the absolute disaster sitting in his face, tell the project manager what will be required to minimally meet the ends. This generally requires a ton of over-seas consultants, paid to grind the wheel 24/7, at the lowest dollar, to get it to work on outdated hardware to meet the end core/cpu/memory requirements and still 'work'.
Fifth, the consultants are hired, you're lucky if they understand english sufficiently to understand the nuances of day to day communication. They also take shortcuts, because they either don't know the right way, don't want to spend time on the right way, or are told that doing the 'right way' is not time efficient for the cost. So now, we have crappy code being tossed in, usually undocumented.
Sixth, the dev work is slammed in, marginally tested, and quick-shotted through QA because the upper management are in a time crunch and don't have the time to deal with all that 'quality assurance nonsense'. So this work is now fast-tracked to production in a non-fully tested workflow.
Seventh, it's been live for a while, things break randomly without reason, but it's ok, a restart of the application always 'fixes' it. So what if you have to bounce the app every 2-3 weeks to free up that memory leak. It works, in the budget... well, maybe for a few hundred thousand more... but it's done, it provides the 'nifty feature' that the share-holders were promised by the upper management, and the things that don't work are being pushed on...
three guesses...
The management who pushed the idea? Nope.
The budgetary committee who gave the low-end figures out of their butt? Nope.
The project manager who gave the tight time-frame for the project without major input from the technical people? Nope.
I know... the IT professionals who are still at the company like the system architect, network team, dba team, san management team, and the security group who are left holding the bag of the big pile of steaming crap? Yup.
Soo... when things evidently break so bad to be noticed, and management are told to 'fix' it it will take more money, more time, and more hardware. Shock, awe, and bafflement is shown, bonuses/raises are crushed because the IT professionals obviously can't do their job right, and maybe a few heads roll because management have their golden parachute and are not held to blame for the project they initially started up.
That. Is why the 'stuff out there is just horrible'.
It's not any one thing, it's how business runs, because these yahoos frank
The intel graphics driver is notorious for hanging when you do a lot of 3D rendering.
If you have an nvidia card, my suggestion is grabbing the binary driver from 'www.nvidia.com' for Linux and installing it.
It has a runtime installer that will automatically update your xwindow configuration.
So you basically download it, run/install it, then restart your Xwindow environment and you should be golden.
I'm not disagreeing that a free-form environment nourishes children's growth, what I am disagreeing with is the fact that free-form does not equate to un-monitored.
Too many parents today frankly don't watch their children which ultimately equates to them getting into places or into things that they shouldn't be.
So, sure, I'm all for letting that infant crawl around unheeded and explore and discover. But would you allow them into the cat litter, eating the cat poop? Maybe open the door and let them crawl into traffic? After all, that's freedom of exploration, right?
A parent has to know what limits to place on exactly what is 'freedom' for a child to explore. They have no boundries. It's the parent to provide them to the child in a safe and comfortable environment. It's about time parents do so and stop pushing that responsibility on TV or their older children.
Children, not morons. Children need to be protected. Adult morons can kill themselves, with my blessing. Just as long as they don't take anyone else with them.
Good point.
So how about parents take their responsibility and PROTECT THEIR CHILDREN.
You know... like... watch their children so they don't get into...
chemicals...
poisons...
sharp objects...
flammable materials...
guns or other deadly weapons...
anything outside of their agegroup...
And you know... maybe... oh, WATCH your children and not have the TV or their siblings do it for you might be a good first step to that.
I'm tired of parents blaming other parties when they should spend more time looking in a mirror.
Huh.
I remember asking my parents what leafs taste like, and them opening up the encyclopedia with me and looking for answers, ergo, helping me find my own answers. Why didn't I just put it in my mouth? Because before I learned to walk, I remember my parents repeatedly telling me to never put anything in my mouth that wasn't already recognized as belonging there.
I was able to understand that at the age of 2.
Maybe if parents actually spent time with their children and raised them instead of sitting them in-front of a TV or having their older siblings do their work for them, we'd not have as many 'child problems'. But no, the answer couldn't be as simple as that...
I'm not saying that a ban on this toy is appropriate. I'm certain the packaging is appropriately labeled with age restrictions and warnings. It's just not as simple as "parents who don't read warnings".
No, but more times than not it tends to be 'parents who don't watch children'.
Instead of bigger, what phones should allow are expanded screen options.
Video cards allow going over multiple screens.
So have phones with fold-out screens. either a 1x2 or 2x2 option.
So like:
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or
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Where the screens will 'flip out' from the phone.
This will give people who want those 'bigger screens' what they want, and allow those who want the phone to remain 'small' what they want as well.
The only cost will be a thicker phone for the foldout screen.
Another option of course, being a 'snapon' screen you could add on (which honestly would probably be not only safer, but leave you a more physically stable phone).
And you don't think the RIAA and MPAA will be using this to get around the legislation that judged that IPs are not indicative of people?
I meant exactly as I said it.