Maybe this reflects one of the differences between the US and the UK. A significant portion of my education, back in the 60's, and of my son's education (ongoing) was/is related to social skills. I'm not saying that it's the schools responsibility to deal with episodes which happen at MacD's but that behviour will, inevitably, be part of a pattern which is repeated in school which is their responsibility, both social, and, in the UK, legal.
So, back in the real world, when my son was being bullied, both in and out of school, it was the school which dealt with it, in co-ordination with all the students and parents involved. It wasn't a witch hunt, it wasn't trial of the century, it was simply the forum where issues like that can be resolved in a non-confruntational manner.
they're teaching children how to behave. If you take your line to it's logical conclusion then teachers shouldn't step in when pupils are fighting because that's teaching them how to behave.
90% of what you learn in school is about social skills, or 'how to behave'. Most of it you learn from your peers, but teachers, especially the good ones, will be leading the way.
So causing someone to 'crash emotionally under the pressure' is fine? It's their fault for not being tough enough?
Oh, I met lots like you when I was thirteen, many who said it was my fault for not being 'man enough', for being different, for not being good at sports, for taking pleasure and pride in learning. Believe me, the kicks, the punches, were nothing compared to the psychological hurts. I almost welcomed them because after they had finished at least they left me alone. Bruising fades but even now, in my fifties, I bear the scars of the taunting.
Does the school have the right to tell them ANYTHING about how they'll behave there? No, but is does have the need to teach them how to behave there. Education should be about a lot more than the three 'R's, it's where you learn social skills as well.
Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me This is the biggest load of bullshit ever. Words hurt, really hurt and the damage done by psychological bullying is far deeper than physical bullying.
Schools here in the UK have as part of their remit to tackle the serious problem of bullying in whatever form it may take. I applaud this initiative.
At the risk of getting modded down for a 'me too' post can I endorse what you're saying. It's a well established fact about job interviews that the interviewers tend to prefer copies of themselves, rather than the best for the post. I'm sure a similar situation will apply here.
Furthermore there's the nerd factor. We techies will always be seen as 'a bit strange'. When I joined the organisation I'm with now I was give an indoctrination course which included examples of unconcious prejudice. One of the examples given was
Oh, he's a computer programmer, they're always different I'm sure there are many of us/.ers who know that one very well.
But why go for a named product. We Brits pay in GBP the same price as the Yanks in USD for many IT products (and music CDs) with the exchange rate currently ~2:1. If life consisted entirely of listening to iTunes on an iPod whilst eating a Big Mac (shudder!) then these would be good markers.
I am not an economist but for me, in real terms, the price of a kilo of rice seems to be a universal index.
This is really disturbing that the EU is trying to legislate what amounts to luxury goods and services, in light of all the other problems in the world. (Empahsis mine) What the !*&^! has that got to do with anything! Soverign states have the right to control commerce within their boundaries. Norway, France, and Germany (not the EU as others have pointed out) have concerns about hardware lock in. End of story. Or do you think that all commerce should stop because GWB is trying to write himself a place in the history books?
It's food, not a drug, so it doesn't require testing anymore than prunes would do if marketed as a cure for constipation (which they're rather good at!) From TFA
The Food and Drug Administration takes a neutral position, policing food packages to make sure that companies do not try to equate probiotic products with disease-curing drugs (unless they have scientific evidence to back up a claim). One scholarly group that has addressed the topic recently, the American Academy of Microbiology, said in a 2006 report that "at present, the quality of probiotics available to consumers in food products around the world is unreliable."
Once you separate the wheat from the chaff in TFA the new tech is
The microrobot's design is based on the E. coli bacterium, complete with flagella that will propel it through the body. Scientists will make the flagella out of human hair in the preliminary research stages, and eventually they want to try using Kevlar.
The theory behind the microrobot's propulsion system is modeled after turbine and helicopter blades, Friend said.
"In and of itself, the idea is not especially new, but it has always fallen down around the propulsion system," he said. So, at the end of the day, what we have is another step towards a working microbot, not the finished product.
GUIs are detestable for many reasons I will not elaborate here That's a very bold statement to go unsupported. If GUIs are so detestable why have they been the primary interface for every computer outside the server room for the last twenty five years or so? Just because you prefer a command line....
that nowadays all his actions are watched and recorded. I live in the UK, which, I believe, has the highest ratio of CCTV cameras per head of population in the world. To me it's no surprise that when I log in at the Marriot I'm watched. Fortunately the first thing I do is establish a VPN tunnel to my company's network where I'm being watched by the CIO.
Further than that, welcome to the modern world, cue the cliches (1984, quis custodiet,...)
From TFA
That craft, as the site says, will be "designed to take a small number of astronauts on a suborbital journey into space." The pace is deliberate, with commercial trips starting as early as 2010 285 ft today, commercial sub orbital space in three years time. That doesn't sound like a deliberate pace, it sounds a bit rushed to me.
The difference is that an academic institution's primary goal further knowledge, a pharmacutical company's primary goal is to enrich its share holders.
I'm not so dumb as to believe that all academic institutions are run with the purest of motives, or that all pharmacutical companies are run by money grabbing bastards but I would still prefer it if the control of significant discoveries like this may turn out to be were in academic hands.
Ok, so MegaCorp has 5,000 MS Office users. Whilst learning the new interface they will lose, on average, ten hours productivity. Each employer costs $40ph. Total costs on conversion above and beyond licensing/installation is $2,000,000.
And I don't think my guestimates are thatfar out. The $40ph is based on my (UK) costings - not my wages, what it costs the company I work for to employ me. The ten hours is plucked from the void but I don't think anyone who's worked on desktop support will feel it's that unreasonable.
I don't know about the US, and IANAL, but here in the UK there's the offense of 'Driving without due care and attention'. Whilst driving while using a laptop is not specifically illegal the courts would use 'due care and attention' in the same way that they would for those caught reading whilst driving - or in on recent famous case, applying make-up
From TFA
the In-Car Router will function in around 95 percent of the country, The last time I looked vast tracts of the USA was wide open spaces with vast amounts of not very much. I realise this will be irrelevant to 99% of the Avis customers but will it realy work in the middle of North Dacota? the Arizona Desert? Yellowstone? (Ok, maybe Yellowstone, but you get my point.)
But it's generally true that what the US does today we Europeans will do next year. Furthermore, if it's found that the change in Daylight Savings does have energy use benefits, then I can see that the benefits outweigh any drawbacks. The good thing is that when we get around to doing it our US colleages will have found all the problems!
Slashdot Mirror
It all adds up. If airplane designers aren't weight concious at all times then they're not airplane designers for long.
Maybe this reflects one of the differences between the US and the UK. A significant portion of my education, back in the 60's, and of my son's education (ongoing) was/is related to social skills. I'm not saying that it's the schools responsibility to deal with episodes which happen at MacD's but that behviour will, inevitably, be part of a pattern which is repeated in school which is their responsibility, both social, and, in the UK, legal.
So, back in the real world, when my son was being bullied, both in and out of school, it was the school which dealt with it, in co-ordination with all the students and parents involved. It wasn't a witch hunt, it wasn't trial of the century, it was simply the forum where issues like that can be resolved in a non-confruntational manner.
- pay attention in class
- don't run in the corridors
- attend the required lessons
they're teaching children how to behave. If you take your line to it's logical conclusion then teachers shouldn't step in when pupils are fighting because that's teaching them how to behave.90% of what you learn in school is about social skills, or 'how to behave'. Most of it you learn from your peers, but teachers, especially the good ones, will be leading the way.
So causing someone to 'crash emotionally under the pressure' is fine? It's their fault for not being tough enough?
Oh, I met lots like you when I was thirteen, many who said it was my fault for not being 'man enough', for being different, for not being good at sports, for taking pleasure and pride in learning. Believe me, the kicks, the punches, were nothing compared to the psychological hurts. I almost welcomed them because after they had finished at least they left me alone. Bruising fades but even now, in my fifties, I bear the scars of the taunting.
but words will never hurt me This is the biggest load of bullshit ever. Words hurt, really hurt and the damage done by psychological bullying is far deeper than physical bullying.
Schools here in the UK have as part of their remit to tackle the serious problem of bullying in whatever form it may take. I applaud this initiative.
emacs vs vi
Thanks rrkap
A very clear and understandable answer.
Furthermore there's the nerd factor. We techies will always be seen as 'a bit strange'. When I joined the organisation I'm with now I was give an indoctrination course which included examples of unconcious prejudice. One of the examples given was Oh, he's a computer programmer, they're always different I'm sure there are many of us
But why go for a named product. We Brits pay in GBP the same price as the Yanks in USD for many IT products (and music CDs) with the exchange rate currently ~2:1. If life consisted entirely of listening to iTunes on an iPod whilst eating a Big Mac (shudder!) then these would be good markers.
I am not an economist but for me, in real terms, the price of a kilo of rice seems to be a universal index.
What the !*&^! has that got to do with anything! Soverign states have the right to control commerce within their boundaries. Norway, France, and Germany (not the EU as others have pointed out) have concerns about hardware lock in. End of story. Or do you think that all commerce should stop because GWB is trying to write himself a place in the history books?
The theory behind the microrobot's propulsion system is modeled after turbine and helicopter blades, Friend said.
"In and of itself, the idea is not especially new, but it has always fallen down around the propulsion system," he said. So, at the end of the day, what we have is another step towards a working microbot, not the finished product.
that nowadays all his actions are watched and recorded. I live in the UK, which, I believe, has the highest ratio of CCTV cameras per head of population in the world. To me it's no surprise that when I log in at the Marriot I'm watched. Fortunately the first thing I do is establish a VPN tunnel to my company's network where I'm being watched by the CIO.
...)
Further than that, welcome to the modern world, cue the cliches (1984, quis custodiet,
The difference is that an academic institution's primary goal further knowledge, a pharmacutical company's primary goal is to enrich its share holders.
I'm not so dumb as to believe that all academic institutions are run with the purest of motives, or that all pharmacutical companies are run by money grabbing bastards but I would still prefer it if the control of significant discoveries like this may turn out to be were in academic hands.
- Any monies derived from it can be fed back into further research
- Megacorp can't steal the idea and patent it for themselves
Universities have budgets to manage and need to behave in a business like way just like everyone else but they are not Big Business.Ok, so MegaCorp has 5,000 MS Office users. Whilst learning the new interface they will lose, on average, ten hours productivity. Each employer costs $40ph. Total costs on conversion above and beyond licensing/installation is $2,000,000.
And I don't think my guestimates are thatfar out. The $40ph is based on my (UK) costings - not my wages, what it costs the company I work for to employ me. The ten hours is plucked from the void but I don't think anyone who's worked on desktop support will feel it's that unreasonable.
Nice link Weasel. Thanks. If I had the points, and could moderate and post in the same discussion....
I don't know about the US, and IANAL, but here in the UK there's the offense of 'Driving without due care and attention'. Whilst driving while using a laptop is not specifically illegal the courts would use 'due care and attention' in the same way that they would for those caught reading whilst driving - or in on recent famous case, applying make-up
But it's generally true that what the US does today we Europeans will do next year. Furthermore, if it's found that the change in Daylight Savings does have energy use benefits, then I can see that the benefits outweigh any drawbacks.
The good thing is that when we get around to doing it our US colleages will have found all the problems!