No way. Intel made a comeback? You mean that whenever one side comes out with a newer chip, they are beating the other side? This completely blows my mind. Completely. Look, give AMD time to react. I don't think many people have considered them out of the running even for a second.
AMD is certainly not out of the running, but this not one of those times where the product release schedule allows one party to leapfrog the other for a short time. Realistically, AMD has had time to react to some degree, and if you look at the roadmaps, there is not a lot of hope for them to be in the lead again anytime in the near future. They fumbled in their attempt to shrink their fabrication process and now seem to be a full shrink or more behind Intel. If both companies roadmaps hold true, AMD better hope Moore's law has an anomaly.
Looking at the field objectively (I don't care what processor I have and don't have any loyalty to either company) AMD might be something to seriously consider again, if they do things right, in a year and half or more.
Thankfully the church here in Ireland doesn't hold the same sway it used to but we're still 95% Roman Catholic.
When the organized Christian churches of Ireland merged and were subsumed by the Roman christians, was terrible, terrible time. The early Irish christian writings held such promise and were so progressive. Then, for the sake of unity and power, became followers of that self admitted pedophile, animal raper so-called saint, who seems to have had more influence on the everyday beliefs of "christians" than Jesus did.
By banning child pornography in any form we discourage its creation by at least scaring SOME people into not using it.
Umm, okay. To get back on topic, how can you create a domain name that is child porn, rather than just links to a site that contains child porn? Anyone who thinks "9-K~~.ie" is child porn should get help, not try to dictate laws to the rest of us.
your right to free speech does not: 1. extend to other countries/p>
I disagree. Freedom of expression is, in my opinion, a basic human right, whether or not particular governments feel like recognizing it.
2. usually does not extend to material unsuitable for minors, depending on the situation and audience.
Usually does not? A right applies everywhere or nowhere. Laws are merely imperfect, or subjective interpretations of conflicting rights. As for a domain name, it is pretty specious to argue that the name, itself can justifiably be banned without infringing on the basic human right to free expression. Who's rights are in conflict here?
3. does not extend to other things, like slander, libel, false advertising, misrepresentation, etc.
All of the above are instances where a person's right to fee speech is limited because it conflicts with other human rights belonging to other person's. They are also all examples of intentionally inaccurate expression used to mislead someone. There is no evidence that this is the case with the domain names in question.
mostly your right to free speech is there to criticize the government(your own government)...
No, the right exists independent of any given use. Criticism of the government is one of the most important and thus highly protected uses in most legal systems.
...it's not there so you can download child porn.
If you can present a domain name that is child-porn by itself, without any other content and tell me how it is harming a child, I'll be glad to concede this point. I hope you're an ASCII art wizard.
If you want to get upset, having a nazi.xx domain is illegal in most European countries. but as far as I know it is legal in the US.
I support the rights of nazis to express themselves. It is certainly reasonable as an emergency measure to restrict that free speech in some places, for a limited time, but I know of no such justification in the US. Do you think it is appropriate to ban all speech you disagree with? You seem to have some funny ideas about rights.
I personally find domains like IHR.ORG and VHO.ORG far more offensive, they belong to Holocaust denial groups. Relastically we should ban those domains...
I find nothing offensive about IHR.ORG. Why would that offend you? Now the content on the sites might offend me, but that has nothing to do with the domain itself. Of course banning all content that is offensive is stupid as well, but that is not what we're talking about. You seem to fail to understand that if you want content illegal, you should make that content illegal. Domain names themselves contain very little in the way of content, being limited in length and composed only of certain characters. You might as well ban phone numbers that belong to businesses you don't like.
But I think it's very unprofessional for a teacher to sue their students over something like this.
I'm not sure I agree. We don't know if the parents were willing to deal with the matter privately and it was not, technically, a school related matter unless they did this at school. It may or may not have been the best way to deal with the issue.
You focus so strongly on our lack of knowledge regarding the consequences of this crime, and you do make a good point: I don't really know exactly what happened. However, neither do you, and you tend to assume the worst case scenario again and again and again.
If you re-read my posts you'll see I never once claim that she did take harm. There is a significant difference between reserving judgement because you don't know, and making assumptions either good or bad. You're responding to a thread entitled "Should be fired right now" which started when someone argued, even though they don't have the facts, the teacher should be fired anyway. If you paid attention, you'd note I argue that there could be reasons that would make her actions justified. To which you replied with the obvious statement that maybe there aren't.
However, like I said, so many myspaces are of dubious validity that it would be extremely unprofessional for an employer to judge a potential candidate by their myspace alone.
So? Are you arguing that school boards never act unprofessionally or are you arguing that because the school board members are unprofessional this assistant principal should not be compensated for a crime that exploited that unprofessional, but legal behavior.
Besides of which, who would do enough research on a candidate to be able to find their myspace, only to casually dismiss them when they find out they may possibly be a lesbian?
Have you ever been to Texas? The school board members do not want to lose their jobs, and hiring someone that it can be shown they might have known was a lesbian, or who the public might think they should have known was a lesbian could do just that.
Anyone to takes a myspace profile's word over the word of their loved one is looking for an excuse to get upset. If my father trusted my myspace more then me, I think their is a much bigger problem at work.
What portion of the population do you think know that just anyone can create a MySpace or even any Web page without providing proof of their identity? I'm guessing it is something like 50% if you took a survey. It may very well be reasonable to think or be emotionally crippled by the fear that a loved one has been living a double life and lying to you for years if you see what you think amounts to reasonable evidence of that. You can't just assume a member of the public will have the same technical savvy you do.
...they should have been giving a punishment within the school's administrative power...
You're making assumptions again. You don't know the particulars. It may be, that being punished by the school would not redress the damage they caused. It may even be inappropriate for the school to have acted in this case.
Parent's can instill all the morality in the world into their kids, but the kids will eventually make stupid decisions- sometimes this will involve someone else.
It is called responsibility. If neither kids nor parents are held legally responsible for their actions, then the legal system collapses and we'll have gangs of criminal children working for big companies within a year. These kids made decisions that were stupid, but they were also plainly unethical and they either knew that or should have by now unless they have brain damage.
Parent's shouldn't be terrified of being sued because their children will slip up eventually, and like I said, it's not exactly uncommon for students to attempt to take revenge on their administrators.
Yes they should. parents should understand the seriousness of taking full r
At first it is counterintuitive to put your kids second, but the best way that you can provide a safe, stable, and reassuring environment for your children to grow up in is to ensure that the primary relationship in the family/household is stable and healthy.
There is no such thing as a "primary relationship." You have a relationship with your spouse, parents, coworkers, and each of your children. Those relationships will affect one another. It is possible that solving problems with your spouse will benefit your children, even more so than spending more time with them. It is also possible that focusing on your spouse too much and not enough on your children will lead them to resent you and cause new problems. You can't just focus on one relationship and expect it to fix others.
If the parents are in sync, then they will be able to work together to provide for the kids, and the kids will have a strong example to emulate.
Maybe, in some cases. That does not make it so in all cases.
If the parents are not in sync and their relationship is out of whack, it can create stress and uncertainty for the spouses which will be translated to the children.
This is possible. It is also possible to be "in synch" with your spouse you will have two parents neglecting or emotionally damaging the children instead of one.
Like the previous poster said, it's hard to be an effective parenting team when you're divorced. At that point your family has already disintegrated.
If your goal is to maintain a family no matter what, then this is great. If, however, your goal is to maximize the happiness and fulfill the potential of all the people involved, sometimes a divorce is best for the children. I know people that I will not say were 100% the good half of their marriage, but pretty damned close to it. Their divorces were very much in the best interests of the children. Physical abuse is an extreme example, but their is a whole range of situations and you have to remember that avoiding divorce and having a certain set of people living together is not an admirable goal, by itself.
you were suppossed to only log when you were actually watching the tv, just simply leaving it running in another room did not qualify.
Heh, this was when I was poor and just out of school. The other room, was the bathroom. Cram 30 drunks in a studio apartment and someone will be watching it:)
Re:Correlation, not causation
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IT and Divorce?
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· Score: 1
It's not the job, it's the people that are attracted to it that are predisposed to divorce. IT attracts loner types.
I suggest, perhaps, it is the exact opposite. IT attracts people with few social skills, who have had fewer relationships, but who have spent more time living alone and most of whom are more flexible and less likely to divorce. How many people do you know in IT who have divorced? From the people I know, I'm looking at something like 10%, much, much lower than the 55% or so that is the average in the U.S.
... I've seen plenty of presentations where the content has been so obscured by all the bells and whistles the user has added. While they're fixing the bug, maybe Microsoft can add a 'View Presentation in Minimalist Mode' option to Powerpoint.
Sadly, Apple's Keynote program is even worse for this. Whenever I make a presentation that is not PR nonsense I have to restrain myself from using the cool transitions and the like which distract others from the content. Usually, I find a handful of slides with real graphs and information, combined with good notes and a lot of discussion is much more productive.
What would I want to watch an empty TV channel for?
I used to be able to get a channel that had signal/jitter trace displayed on it with my old cable service. I'd often leave it on just for fun, especially if people were over. Since I hardly ever watched TV (basic cable comes with a cable modem) I was doubly amused when one of the ratings companies asked me to be one of their participants. For a few bucks a month I'd write in a few episodes of the Simpsons, some historical documentary, and a dozen hours of "oscilloscope channel." I'm sure they tossed that out when compiling their results, but it still amused me.
Actually, I think many marriage councilors recommend never putting your spouse second. Second is exactly where the kids belong. It's kind of like when the oxygen masks on an airplane pop-out. You put on your own mask before helping others. You can't help anyone if you pass out. The same is true with family.
I think you're slightly right, but mostly wrong. Your analogy is correct, if you fail you can't help anyone. That is why you have to take care of yourself first. After that, however, making a rule about putting your kids or your spouse first seems insane. They are people. Treat them as such. Sometimes one will need you more than the other and sometimes it will be the other way around.
It's hard to help the kids if you're getting divorced.
Sometimes getting a divorce is the best thing you can do for your children.
I know in this day and age of self-help books and weekend mental health seminars everyone wants a simple slogan or rule that will solve all their problems. There isn't one. Marriage, divorce, children, and many other factors can all be the right or wrong thing for you at a given time. Personally, I think marriage itself is dangerous. Everyone has preconceptions about what it entails and no two people have the same preconceptions. It often leads to people assuming their relationship does not need any work on their part anymore because they made a permanent commitment, which in turn leads to a divorce. Just as often it leads to people who grow apart and simply are no longer compatible staying together out of a feeling of religious or social obligation, despite making one another unhappy and it preventing them from forming other, happy relationships. And when they do meet someone that makes them happy it is marred by guilt and often deceit as extramarital affairs are frowned upon by society.
For those of you without wacky religious ideas, consider having a long term relationship without getting married or making a long term commitment. Every day you can know in your heart that you're staying with someone because they do make you happy and know that the same is true for the other person. Just make sure to deal with the legal issues in a society that assumes people will get married and bases a lot of laws on that presumption.
Move to Belgium, where many beers start at 8% alcohol. The strongest I've seen so far was about 11%, where the yeast finishes poisoning itself with it ethanolic effluent...;-)
There is a place near here, in Warren, MI (USA) called the Kuhnhenn brewery and they have and old ale that comes in at 13.5% and a barley wine at 14.5% and they are amazingly tasty, unlike most beers in the same alcohol content range. If you ever find yourself in Detroit, duck, then jump in a cab and get over there. There's no need to go to Belgium for strong beers.
So, from the people I know in the field, I'm going to have to guess the divorce rate is lower among IT people than the general population. It is what 55% in the US now? Sure people neglect their spouses because their career interferes, but that isn't limited to the IT profession.
I'm not really a developer. Sure I code occasionally, but that is not the core of my job. I do, however, work at a development house. We're a small company and we are really, really picky about who we hire. There are a handful of people who have come to us from MS. They all seem to like it here much more and have settled in for the long haul and occasionally grumble about how bad things were at MS by comparison. We don't have anyone from Google, but we've had several people leave here to go work for Google. They all seem pretty happy with it there.
Based solely on my impressions from these people, I'd much rather be at Google than MS. I'm sure, however, that your experience will depend upon what you'd be doing at each place and with whom. Good luck.
My parents raised me right, but as a kid I still did some bad things...
No they didn't. Unless you have some sort of serious mental problem, if you did "bad things" they failed to raise you properly.
I dont see why they should be held liable for my actions when they took every reasonable step to make sure I had a good set of morals in place and that I was responsivle[sic]. I acted out sometime, Kids will be kids, boys will be boys. It's not their fault.
You're making excuses, but they don't hold up. Imagine I were to legally take away the majority of your rights, including your right to choose where you want to live, if you have a job and what it is, who you can talk to, what you're allowed to say, what you can eat, and I'm allowed to physically punish you when you do things I disagree with. You have no right to free speech. If you do speak in an illegal manner that causes harm to others, are you responsible? I say no. Without a right, you can't be held responsible for abusing that right.
These children's parents have the right to control their free speech, and a corresponding responsibility to do so. When children break the law, the parents are responsible to pay society and individuals for that. If the children want to take responsibility, fine, they can work and pay back their parents any money they lose in the lawsuit. For that matter, the parents can force them to do so. Legally, this is proper in my opinion.
What is the precedent? In earlier days, if students started passing around notes about this teacher, were the parents held responsible?
Yes. Parents are legally responsible. Luckily, since passing around notes is generally not a crime, generally nothing came of it. If, however, one of the notes happened to say, "I'm going to stab you in the face if you don't sleep with my gang" then yes, the parent was held legally responsible for the criminal threat.
Emotion pain and suffering as a result of a criminal act, certainly is damage.
If she really wants to sue, she can show where she has lost money as a result of being called a lesbian. Oh wait, she hasn't.
First, she wasn't called a lesbian. Someone impersonated her and contacted others claiming to be a her and a lesbian and interested in meeting them. Second, how do you know she didn't lose a job because of this? Third, if some kid breaks the law, then the parent is responsible for that action and all its consequences. Maybe that means they have to publish a public apology and redaction in the local newspaper or maybe that means they pay her $10K a year to compensate for the principal job she was not offered as a result of this. Whatever the damages, she has a right to them an since none of us know what those damages were, none of us has a reasonable basis to say this suit is baseless. Claiming she should be fired for taking people who obviously broke the law to court, as the post I responded to said, is just idiotic.
Have you seen the teacher's fake myspace? Do you know her friends or family? Do you know her?
No. That is why I'm not making wild assumptions that she took no harm from this and has no just cause, unlike the poster I was responding to.
Do you know her? In case you haven't noticed, Myspace is a cesspool of fake pages, joke pages, and satirical pages mixed with immature attention-whoring. I seriously doubt that the teacher's myspace was realistic looking, and even if it was, no one who actually knew her would take it seriously.
Employers have been known to search MySpace before hiring, especially in education where MySpace is more popular than in most professions. If the page was satire, then that is fine. All they needed was some indication that it was that and not an attempt to lie to people including her real contact information. From what I've read what they posted was identity theft, not satire.
At worst it might prompt a few simple questions like... well... "is this your myspace?"
Really? That is the worst that can happen? There is no possibility that someone hiring for another school, looking for a principal did not google her name, see this page, and just move on to the next candidate because they did not want to deal with the issue? There is no possibility some kid at the school did not pull it up, and then their parents saw it and assumed it was legitimate? There is no possibility that that person then showed it to her significant other, who then believed she had been lying to him for years, causing a great deal of emotional trauma? Where do you suppose all the harassing e-mail and phone calls she got came from? I don't think you have any idea what the "worst that could happen" is.
Kids have always held grudges against their administrators, and have always tried to take revenge in little ways. This is nothing new, and this is nothing sinister.
Yes and when they break the law to get that revenge, either by egging their car or publishing slander the parents have always been legally responsible for that action.
This is kids being kids, and holding a parent liable for it is both ridiculus and dangerous.
Who do you think should be held responsible when minors break the law? Should they be given carte blanche to break the law without consequences? Should a minor without the basic right to go where they want, get a job if they want, and eat what they want be then held responsible for their actions? You can't have responsibility without rights. Since the parent has the rights, which they then may grant, the parent also has the responsibility, which they may then pass on. If a kid breaks my Windows, the parent is responsible to pay for it and if they decide to teach their child personal responsibility by making the child work to pay for it, well that is up to them.
Ask any parent- it's absolutely impossible to know what their kid is doing at all times.
It is not impossible, but it is very, very, very hard. And parent stupid enough to try to rule their children by brute force will fail, but that is not my problem. If the parent teaches them ethics and what is and is not the right thing to do, then they won't have any problems. If they don't teach them that lying, homophobia, and impersonating others is wrong, well then the parent is responsible for the consequences of that.
Should parents be punished when a kid draws a funny caricature of their teacher and gets caught?
what? becoming a parent means you have to look over your children's shoulders 24/7 until they're 18...
Only if that is the only way you can prevent them from breaking the law. Of course some people prefer teaching them ethics and personal responsibility, but you have to deal with whatever limitation you have.
It seems to me that that is what you're proposing, and it's the stupidest idea I've heard in a long time.
What is the alternative? Punish the kids? They can't be responsible, because they don't have rights. If you're legally not allowed to choose for yourself where to live, what you do, what you eat, or even get a job, how can you be held responsible for your actions? Or punish no one? Why should I suffer damage because you had children and then failed to teach them right from wrong. Should I not be given compensation when someone commits a crime that damages what is mine?
You send a pretty poor message about personal responsibility to kids by punishing their parents until they turn 18.
No, the parents send a pretty poor message. If a child breaks my window, the parent is responsible for paying for it, because they are responsible for the child. The child, however, has very limited rights and it is up to the parent to make sure they are held responsible for the action. A lot of parents, for example, will force them to work until the money for the window is repaid long with some amount of punitive work. At that point, however, it is between the parent and child. That is what being a parent is all about.
I mean, would YOU enjoy it if someone brought suit against you, personally, for not restraining or even becoming involved with what your brother or sister said about someone? Although the legal responsibility is different from parent to child, it still takes a "personal" civil offense and makes it a "group" offense. I find that scary.
No. Legal guardians have almost complete authority over someone in the eyes of the law. That person has very little in the way of rights. You can forcible move them where you want, make them do what you want and eat what you give them. Rights and responsibility go hand in hand. If you are in charge of their rights, you also are responsible for what they do.
The law recognizes that parents are responsible for the actions of their children, rightfully so. Ideally, this should not be based upon age and the transfer of rights all at once at an arbitrary age is certainly less than ideal, but all of this is info parents knew before they decided to have children. This isn't taking a "personal" offense and making it a "group" offense, it is assigning responsibility for an act on the person who has the authority and rights.
So long as you don't take responsibility for another person, withholding from them basic human rights, you don't have to worry about being held responsible for that person's actions.
At no time is she in any danger by this myspace page, and any judge will recognize that. It's all completely harmless. At no time is she at risk for a financial loss by the page, and she won't be in the future. Nobody can prove any harm was done whatsoever.
What makes you think this? Did her husband leave her because of this page? Do you know? Did her boyfriend break up with her? Did her mother cry after reading it? Employers have been known to check myspace before hiring people. Did a school pass on offering her a job as principal there because they did not want to deal with the controversy surrounding hiring a lesbian? Again, do you know, or are you just assuming?
I would pull my kids out of the school immediately (whether they have anything to do with this or not), and/or go to the superintendant and complain.
Great way to teach them to take responsibility for their actions. They broke the law. If you, as a parent, failed to teach them ethics, such as the ethics about lying, maybe you should be held legally responsible for any damage that causes to society until they are old enough to make their own decisions. For that matter do you even know if the parents were approached before the lawsuit? Supposedly these kids had caused problems before. Maybe legal action was the only way she felt the kids would actually be taught a lesson given the lack of response from the parents. You don't know. I don't know. Maybe then, you should stop making assertions until you do know.
But you cannot monitor EVERYTHING your child does.
True, which is why it is important to teach your children ethics and how to make good decisions. Someone who tries to control their children's behavior through micromanagement and force will fail miserably.
I'm sure these kids are probably over the age of 12, which by then they should probably know right from wrong.
Unless their parents did not teach them both right from wrong and personal responsibility.
I'd say give these kids 120 hours of community service and let them learn from their mistakes. Having their parents "sued into the poor house" seems a little extreme to me.
Since this is a civil suit, community service is unlikely unless it is a settlement. In this case the children and parents are both responsible for the actions they took. The children performed the action and the parents are responsible for punishing them. They have very limited legal rights, however, thus their legal responsibility is similarly limited (or should be). The parents should be held legally responsible. Now I'm not sure how much real damage was done and the punishment should fit the crime. How about a myspace page and an ad in the local paper advertising the parents as unable to control their bratty, obnoxious, lying, homophobic kids and being to incompetent to teach them proper ethics? Maybe with some embarrassing pictures and stories about the kids included in the page?
I don't mean to be a Johnny-Come-Lately, but isn't there other ways to improve a civilization/country/etc without computers?
Sure there are. But just because there are other ways does not make this method any less beneficial.
Why is that when Linux is mentioned, it's like being touched by the Hand of God (or Allah for that matter) ?
Most things we can give or subsidize the cost of for developing nations have negative consequences. Giving them food, destroys the local market and kills their agricultural sector. Giving them GM crops that grow faster and better makes them dependent upon the companies who own the patent on that crop and who can later demand fees for its use. Giving them cheap Windows based PCs, may help in the short term, but it makes them dependent upon IP from an abusive foreign monopoly in the long term.
Linux is a win-win situation because by nature it ships with all the blueprints and tools needed with the only strings being used to stop it from being exploited in ways that hurt the end user. It gives them access to technology and information and provides a secure foundation for them to build upon without undercutting any local development. Rather, it encourages local development.
Imagine if instead of shipping food to African nations at below the market value, we shipped them a complete chain of tools and machinery needed to build from the ground up the entire industrial foundation for agricultural equipment and fertilizers. Basically, we gave them the whole setup of factories and education and patents we have. Then they would not be dependent upon us and could grow their own food the same way we do.
To do that would be prohibitively expensive for agriculture, but for software development, Linux is that complete chain, with no strings attached. That is why it is so well regarded by those interested in helping developing nations.
Can't really claim MS is a monopoly anymore if there's 100 million systems running a non-MS OS.
Why not? Monopolies are defined by markets, not products. Mac OS X, for example, is not in the same market as Windows because Apple does not sell it to computer manufacturers, like Sony or Dell who are the main customers for Microsoft. The fact that the largest "competitor" is a nonprofit scheme that bypasses the traditional markets and is produced collaboratively by those who would normally buy such a computer component is actually strong evidence by itself of MS's monopoly.
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No way. Intel made a comeback? You mean that whenever one side comes out with a newer chip, they are beating the other side? This completely blows my mind. Completely. Look, give AMD time to react. I don't think many people have considered them out of the running even for a second.
AMD is certainly not out of the running, but this not one of those times where the product release schedule allows one party to leapfrog the other for a short time. Realistically, AMD has had time to react to some degree, and if you look at the roadmaps, there is not a lot of hope for them to be in the lead again anytime in the near future. They fumbled in their attempt to shrink their fabrication process and now seem to be a full shrink or more behind Intel. If both companies roadmaps hold true, AMD better hope Moore's law has an anomaly.
Looking at the field objectively (I don't care what processor I have and don't have any loyalty to either company) AMD might be something to seriously consider again, if they do things right, in a year and half or more.
Thankfully the church here in Ireland doesn't hold the same sway it used to but we're still 95% Roman Catholic.
When the organized Christian churches of Ireland merged and were subsumed by the Roman christians, was terrible, terrible time. The early Irish christian writings held such promise and were so progressive. Then, for the sake of unity and power, became followers of that self admitted pedophile, animal raper so-called saint, who seems to have had more influence on the everyday beliefs of "christians" than Jesus did.
By banning child pornography in any form we discourage its creation by at least scaring SOME people into not using it.
Umm, okay. To get back on topic, how can you create a domain name that is child porn, rather than just links to a site that contains child porn? Anyone who thinks "9-K~~.ie" is child porn should get help, not try to dictate laws to the rest of us.
your right to free speech does not: 1. extend to other countries/p>
I disagree. Freedom of expression is, in my opinion, a basic human right, whether or not particular governments feel like recognizing it.
2. usually does not extend to material unsuitable for minors, depending on the situation and audience.
Usually does not? A right applies everywhere or nowhere. Laws are merely imperfect, or subjective interpretations of conflicting rights. As for a domain name, it is pretty specious to argue that the name, itself can justifiably be banned without infringing on the basic human right to free expression. Who's rights are in conflict here?
3. does not extend to other things, like slander, libel, false advertising, misrepresentation, etc.
All of the above are instances where a person's right to fee speech is limited because it conflicts with other human rights belonging to other person's. They are also all examples of intentionally inaccurate expression used to mislead someone. There is no evidence that this is the case with the domain names in question.
mostly your right to free speech is there to criticize the government(your own government)...
No, the right exists independent of any given use. Criticism of the government is one of the most important and thus highly protected uses in most legal systems.
If you can present a domain name that is child-porn by itself, without any other content and tell me how it is harming a child, I'll be glad to concede this point. I hope you're an ASCII art wizard.
If you want to get upset, having a nazi.xx domain is illegal in most European countries. but as far as I know it is legal in the US.
I support the rights of nazis to express themselves. It is certainly reasonable as an emergency measure to restrict that free speech in some places, for a limited time, but I know of no such justification in the US. Do you think it is appropriate to ban all speech you disagree with? You seem to have some funny ideas about rights.
I personally find domains like IHR.ORG and VHO.ORG far more offensive, they belong to Holocaust denial groups. Relastically we should ban those domains...
I find nothing offensive about IHR.ORG. Why would that offend you? Now the content on the sites might offend me, but that has nothing to do with the domain itself. Of course banning all content that is offensive is stupid as well, but that is not what we're talking about. You seem to fail to understand that if you want content illegal, you should make that content illegal. Domain names themselves contain very little in the way of content, being limited in length and composed only of certain characters. You might as well ban phone numbers that belong to businesses you don't like.
But I think it's very unprofessional for a teacher to sue their students over something like this.
I'm not sure I agree. We don't know if the parents were willing to deal with the matter privately and it was not, technically, a school related matter unless they did this at school. It may or may not have been the best way to deal with the issue.
You focus so strongly on our lack of knowledge regarding the consequences of this crime, and you do make a good point: I don't really know exactly what happened. However, neither do you, and you tend to assume the worst case scenario again and again and again.
If you re-read my posts you'll see I never once claim that she did take harm. There is a significant difference between reserving judgement because you don't know, and making assumptions either good or bad. You're responding to a thread entitled "Should be fired right now" which started when someone argued, even though they don't have the facts, the teacher should be fired anyway. If you paid attention, you'd note I argue that there could be reasons that would make her actions justified. To which you replied with the obvious statement that maybe there aren't.
However, like I said, so many myspaces are of dubious validity that it would be extremely unprofessional for an employer to judge a potential candidate by their myspace alone.
So? Are you arguing that school boards never act unprofessionally or are you arguing that because the school board members are unprofessional this assistant principal should not be compensated for a crime that exploited that unprofessional, but legal behavior.
Besides of which, who would do enough research on a candidate to be able to find their myspace, only to casually dismiss them when they find out they may possibly be a lesbian?
Have you ever been to Texas? The school board members do not want to lose their jobs, and hiring someone that it can be shown they might have known was a lesbian, or who the public might think they should have known was a lesbian could do just that.
Anyone to takes a myspace profile's word over the word of their loved one is looking for an excuse to get upset. If my father trusted my myspace more then me, I think their is a much bigger problem at work.
What portion of the population do you think know that just anyone can create a MySpace or even any Web page without providing proof of their identity? I'm guessing it is something like 50% if you took a survey. It may very well be reasonable to think or be emotionally crippled by the fear that a loved one has been living a double life and lying to you for years if you see what you think amounts to reasonable evidence of that. You can't just assume a member of the public will have the same technical savvy you do.
You're making assumptions again. You don't know the particulars. It may be, that being punished by the school would not redress the damage they caused. It may even be inappropriate for the school to have acted in this case.
Parent's can instill all the morality in the world into their kids, but the kids will eventually make stupid decisions- sometimes this will involve someone else.
It is called responsibility. If neither kids nor parents are held legally responsible for their actions, then the legal system collapses and we'll have gangs of criminal children working for big companies within a year. These kids made decisions that were stupid, but they were also plainly unethical and they either knew that or should have by now unless they have brain damage.
Parent's shouldn't be terrified of being sued because their children will slip up eventually, and like I said, it's not exactly uncommon for students to attempt to take revenge on their administrators.
Yes they should. parents should understand the seriousness of taking full r
At first it is counterintuitive to put your kids second, but the best way that you can provide a safe, stable, and reassuring environment for your children to grow up in is to ensure that the primary relationship in the family/household is stable and healthy.
There is no such thing as a "primary relationship." You have a relationship with your spouse, parents, coworkers, and each of your children. Those relationships will affect one another. It is possible that solving problems with your spouse will benefit your children, even more so than spending more time with them. It is also possible that focusing on your spouse too much and not enough on your children will lead them to resent you and cause new problems. You can't just focus on one relationship and expect it to fix others.
If the parents are in sync, then they will be able to work together to provide for the kids, and the kids will have a strong example to emulate.
Maybe, in some cases. That does not make it so in all cases.
If the parents are not in sync and their relationship is out of whack, it can create stress and uncertainty for the spouses which will be translated to the children.
This is possible. It is also possible to be "in synch" with your spouse you will have two parents neglecting or emotionally damaging the children instead of one.
Like the previous poster said, it's hard to be an effective parenting team when you're divorced. At that point your family has already disintegrated.
If your goal is to maintain a family no matter what, then this is great. If, however, your goal is to maximize the happiness and fulfill the potential of all the people involved, sometimes a divorce is best for the children. I know people that I will not say were 100% the good half of their marriage, but pretty damned close to it. Their divorces were very much in the best interests of the children. Physical abuse is an extreme example, but their is a whole range of situations and you have to remember that avoiding divorce and having a certain set of people living together is not an admirable goal, by itself.
you were suppossed to only log when you were actually watching the tv, just simply leaving it running in another room did not qualify.
Heh, this was when I was poor and just out of school. The other room, was the bathroom. Cram 30 drunks in a studio apartment and someone will be watching it :)
It's not the job, it's the people that are attracted to it that are predisposed to divorce. IT attracts loner types.
I suggest, perhaps, it is the exact opposite. IT attracts people with few social skills, who have had fewer relationships, but who have spent more time living alone and most of whom are more flexible and less likely to divorce. How many people do you know in IT who have divorced? From the people I know, I'm looking at something like 10%, much, much lower than the 55% or so that is the average in the U.S.
Sadly, Apple's Keynote program is even worse for this. Whenever I make a presentation that is not PR nonsense I have to restrain myself from using the cool transitions and the like which distract others from the content. Usually, I find a handful of slides with real graphs and information, combined with good notes and a lot of discussion is much more productive.
What would I want to watch an empty TV channel for?
I used to be able to get a channel that had signal/jitter trace displayed on it with my old cable service. I'd often leave it on just for fun, especially if people were over. Since I hardly ever watched TV (basic cable comes with a cable modem) I was doubly amused when one of the ratings companies asked me to be one of their participants. For a few bucks a month I'd write in a few episodes of the Simpsons, some historical documentary, and a dozen hours of "oscilloscope channel." I'm sure they tossed that out when compiling their results, but it still amused me.
Actually, I think many marriage councilors recommend never putting your spouse second. Second is exactly where the kids belong. It's kind of like when the oxygen masks on an airplane pop-out. You put on your own mask before helping others. You can't help anyone if you pass out. The same is true with family.
I think you're slightly right, but mostly wrong. Your analogy is correct, if you fail you can't help anyone. That is why you have to take care of yourself first. After that, however, making a rule about putting your kids or your spouse first seems insane. They are people. Treat them as such. Sometimes one will need you more than the other and sometimes it will be the other way around.
It's hard to help the kids if you're getting divorced.
Sometimes getting a divorce is the best thing you can do for your children.
I know in this day and age of self-help books and weekend mental health seminars everyone wants a simple slogan or rule that will solve all their problems. There isn't one. Marriage, divorce, children, and many other factors can all be the right or wrong thing for you at a given time. Personally, I think marriage itself is dangerous. Everyone has preconceptions about what it entails and no two people have the same preconceptions. It often leads to people assuming their relationship does not need any work on their part anymore because they made a permanent commitment, which in turn leads to a divorce. Just as often it leads to people who grow apart and simply are no longer compatible staying together out of a feeling of religious or social obligation, despite making one another unhappy and it preventing them from forming other, happy relationships. And when they do meet someone that makes them happy it is marred by guilt and often deceit as extramarital affairs are frowned upon by society.
For those of you without wacky religious ideas, consider having a long term relationship without getting married or making a long term commitment. Every day you can know in your heart that you're staying with someone because they do make you happy and know that the same is true for the other person. Just make sure to deal with the legal issues in a society that assumes people will get married and bases a lot of laws on that presumption.
Move to Belgium, where many beers start at 8% alcohol. The strongest I've seen so far was about 11%, where the yeast finishes poisoning itself with it ethanolic effluent... ;-)
There is a place near here, in Warren, MI (USA) called the Kuhnhenn brewery and they have and old ale that comes in at 13.5% and a barley wine at 14.5% and they are amazingly tasty, unlike most beers in the same alcohol content range. If you ever find yourself in Detroit, duck, then jump in a cab and get over there. There's no need to go to Belgium for strong beers.
So, from the people I know in the field, I'm going to have to guess the divorce rate is lower among IT people than the general population. It is what 55% in the US now? Sure people neglect their spouses because their career interferes, but that isn't limited to the IT profession.
I'm not really a developer. Sure I code occasionally, but that is not the core of my job. I do, however, work at a development house. We're a small company and we are really, really picky about who we hire. There are a handful of people who have come to us from MS. They all seem to like it here much more and have settled in for the long haul and occasionally grumble about how bad things were at MS by comparison. We don't have anyone from Google, but we've had several people leave here to go work for Google. They all seem pretty happy with it there.
Based solely on my impressions from these people, I'd much rather be at Google than MS. I'm sure, however, that your experience will depend upon what you'd be doing at each place and with whom. Good luck.
My parents raised me right, but as a kid I still did some bad things...
No they didn't. Unless you have some sort of serious mental problem, if you did "bad things" they failed to raise you properly.
I dont see why they should be held liable for my actions when they took every reasonable step to make sure I had a good set of morals in place and that I was responsivle[sic]. I acted out sometime, Kids will be kids, boys will be boys. It's not their fault.
You're making excuses, but they don't hold up. Imagine I were to legally take away the majority of your rights, including your right to choose where you want to live, if you have a job and what it is, who you can talk to, what you're allowed to say, what you can eat, and I'm allowed to physically punish you when you do things I disagree with. You have no right to free speech. If you do speak in an illegal manner that causes harm to others, are you responsible? I say no. Without a right, you can't be held responsible for abusing that right.
These children's parents have the right to control their free speech, and a corresponding responsibility to do so. When children break the law, the parents are responsible to pay society and individuals for that. If the children want to take responsibility, fine, they can work and pay back their parents any money they lose in the lawsuit. For that matter, the parents can force them to do so. Legally, this is proper in my opinion.
What is the precedent? In earlier days, if students started passing around notes about this teacher, were the parents held responsible?
Yes. Parents are legally responsible. Luckily, since passing around notes is generally not a crime, generally nothing came of it. If, however, one of the notes happened to say, "I'm going to stab you in the face if you don't sleep with my gang" then yes, the parent was held legally responsible for the criminal threat.
Is THAT the new standard for damage?
Emotion pain and suffering as a result of a criminal act, certainly is damage.
If she really wants to sue, she can show where she has lost money as a result of being called a lesbian. Oh wait, she hasn't.
First, she wasn't called a lesbian. Someone impersonated her and contacted others claiming to be a her and a lesbian and interested in meeting them. Second, how do you know she didn't lose a job because of this? Third, if some kid breaks the law, then the parent is responsible for that action and all its consequences. Maybe that means they have to publish a public apology and redaction in the local newspaper or maybe that means they pay her $10K a year to compensate for the principal job she was not offered as a result of this. Whatever the damages, she has a right to them an since none of us know what those damages were, none of us has a reasonable basis to say this suit is baseless. Claiming she should be fired for taking people who obviously broke the law to court, as the post I responded to said, is just idiotic.
Have you seen the teacher's fake myspace? Do you know her friends or family? Do you know her?
No. That is why I'm not making wild assumptions that she took no harm from this and has no just cause, unlike the poster I was responding to.
Do you know her? In case you haven't noticed, Myspace is a cesspool of fake pages, joke pages, and satirical pages mixed with immature attention-whoring. I seriously doubt that the teacher's myspace was realistic looking, and even if it was, no one who actually knew her would take it seriously.
Employers have been known to search MySpace before hiring, especially in education where MySpace is more popular than in most professions. If the page was satire, then that is fine. All they needed was some indication that it was that and not an attempt to lie to people including her real contact information. From what I've read what they posted was identity theft, not satire.
At worst it might prompt a few simple questions like... well... "is this your myspace?"
Really? That is the worst that can happen? There is no possibility that someone hiring for another school, looking for a principal did not google her name, see this page, and just move on to the next candidate because they did not want to deal with the issue? There is no possibility some kid at the school did not pull it up, and then their parents saw it and assumed it was legitimate? There is no possibility that that person then showed it to her significant other, who then believed she had been lying to him for years, causing a great deal of emotional trauma? Where do you suppose all the harassing e-mail and phone calls she got came from? I don't think you have any idea what the "worst that could happen" is.
Kids have always held grudges against their administrators, and have always tried to take revenge in little ways. This is nothing new, and this is nothing sinister.
Yes and when they break the law to get that revenge, either by egging their car or publishing slander the parents have always been legally responsible for that action.
This is kids being kids, and holding a parent liable for it is both ridiculus and dangerous.
Who do you think should be held responsible when minors break the law? Should they be given carte blanche to break the law without consequences? Should a minor without the basic right to go where they want, get a job if they want, and eat what they want be then held responsible for their actions? You can't have responsibility without rights. Since the parent has the rights, which they then may grant, the parent also has the responsibility, which they may then pass on. If a kid breaks my Windows, the parent is responsible to pay for it and if they decide to teach their child personal responsibility by making the child work to pay for it, well that is up to them.
Ask any parent- it's absolutely impossible to know what their kid is doing at all times.
It is not impossible, but it is very, very, very hard. And parent stupid enough to try to rule their children by brute force will fail, but that is not my problem. If the parent teaches them ethics and what is and is not the right thing to do, then they won't have any problems. If they don't teach them that lying, homophobia, and impersonating others is wrong, well then the parent is responsible for the consequences of that.
Should parents be punished when a kid draws a funny caricature of their teacher and gets caught?
Is drawing a funny caricature a crime?
Amen.
what? becoming a parent means you have to look over your children's shoulders 24/7 until they're 18...
Only if that is the only way you can prevent them from breaking the law. Of course some people prefer teaching them ethics and personal responsibility, but you have to deal with whatever limitation you have.
It seems to me that that is what you're proposing, and it's the stupidest idea I've heard in a long time.
What is the alternative? Punish the kids? They can't be responsible, because they don't have rights. If you're legally not allowed to choose for yourself where to live, what you do, what you eat, or even get a job, how can you be held responsible for your actions? Or punish no one? Why should I suffer damage because you had children and then failed to teach them right from wrong. Should I not be given compensation when someone commits a crime that damages what is mine?
You send a pretty poor message about personal responsibility to kids by punishing their parents until they turn 18.
No, the parents send a pretty poor message. If a child breaks my window, the parent is responsible for paying for it, because they are responsible for the child. The child, however, has very limited rights and it is up to the parent to make sure they are held responsible for the action. A lot of parents, for example, will force them to work until the money for the window is repaid long with some amount of punitive work. At that point, however, it is between the parent and child. That is what being a parent is all about.
I mean, would YOU enjoy it if someone brought suit against you, personally, for not restraining or even becoming involved with what your brother or sister said about someone? Although the legal responsibility is different from parent to child, it still takes a "personal" civil offense and makes it a "group" offense. I find that scary.
No. Legal guardians have almost complete authority over someone in the eyes of the law. That person has very little in the way of rights. You can forcible move them where you want, make them do what you want and eat what you give them. Rights and responsibility go hand in hand. If you are in charge of their rights, you also are responsible for what they do.
The law recognizes that parents are responsible for the actions of their children, rightfully so. Ideally, this should not be based upon age and the transfer of rights all at once at an arbitrary age is certainly less than ideal, but all of this is info parents knew before they decided to have children. This isn't taking a "personal" offense and making it a "group" offense, it is assigning responsibility for an act on the person who has the authority and rights.
So long as you don't take responsibility for another person, withholding from them basic human rights, you don't have to worry about being held responsible for that person's actions.
At no time is she in any danger by this myspace page, and any judge will recognize that. It's all completely harmless. At no time is she at risk for a financial loss by the page, and she won't be in the future. Nobody can prove any harm was done whatsoever.
What makes you think this? Did her husband leave her because of this page? Do you know? Did her boyfriend break up with her? Did her mother cry after reading it? Employers have been known to check myspace before hiring people. Did a school pass on offering her a job as principal there because they did not want to deal with the controversy surrounding hiring a lesbian? Again, do you know, or are you just assuming?
I would pull my kids out of the school immediately (whether they have anything to do with this or not), and/or go to the superintendant and complain.
Great way to teach them to take responsibility for their actions. They broke the law. If you, as a parent, failed to teach them ethics, such as the ethics about lying, maybe you should be held legally responsible for any damage that causes to society until they are old enough to make their own decisions. For that matter do you even know if the parents were approached before the lawsuit? Supposedly these kids had caused problems before. Maybe legal action was the only way she felt the kids would actually be taught a lesson given the lack of response from the parents. You don't know. I don't know. Maybe then, you should stop making assertions until you do know.
But you cannot monitor EVERYTHING your child does.
True, which is why it is important to teach your children ethics and how to make good decisions. Someone who tries to control their children's behavior through micromanagement and force will fail miserably.
I'm sure these kids are probably over the age of 12, which by then they should probably know right from wrong.
Unless their parents did not teach them both right from wrong and personal responsibility.
I'd say give these kids 120 hours of community service and let them learn from their mistakes. Having their parents "sued into the poor house" seems a little extreme to me.
Since this is a civil suit, community service is unlikely unless it is a settlement. In this case the children and parents are both responsible for the actions they took. The children performed the action and the parents are responsible for punishing them. They have very limited legal rights, however, thus their legal responsibility is similarly limited (or should be). The parents should be held legally responsible. Now I'm not sure how much real damage was done and the punishment should fit the crime. How about a myspace page and an ad in the local paper advertising the parents as unable to control their bratty, obnoxious, lying, homophobic kids and being to incompetent to teach them proper ethics? Maybe with some embarrassing pictures and stories about the kids included in the page?
I don't mean to be a Johnny-Come-Lately, but isn't there other ways to improve a civilization/country/etc without computers?
Sure there are. But just because there are other ways does not make this method any less beneficial.
Why is that when Linux is mentioned, it's like being touched by the Hand of God (or Allah for that matter) ?
Most things we can give or subsidize the cost of for developing nations have negative consequences. Giving them food, destroys the local market and kills their agricultural sector. Giving them GM crops that grow faster and better makes them dependent upon the companies who own the patent on that crop and who can later demand fees for its use. Giving them cheap Windows based PCs, may help in the short term, but it makes them dependent upon IP from an abusive foreign monopoly in the long term.
Linux is a win-win situation because by nature it ships with all the blueprints and tools needed with the only strings being used to stop it from being exploited in ways that hurt the end user. It gives them access to technology and information and provides a secure foundation for them to build upon without undercutting any local development. Rather, it encourages local development.
Imagine if instead of shipping food to African nations at below the market value, we shipped them a complete chain of tools and machinery needed to build from the ground up the entire industrial foundation for agricultural equipment and fertilizers. Basically, we gave them the whole setup of factories and education and patents we have. Then they would not be dependent upon us and could grow their own food the same way we do.
To do that would be prohibitively expensive for agriculture, but for software development, Linux is that complete chain, with no strings attached. That is why it is so well regarded by those interested in helping developing nations.
Can't really claim MS is a monopoly anymore if there's 100 million systems running a non-MS OS.
Why not? Monopolies are defined by markets, not products. Mac OS X, for example, is not in the same market as Windows because Apple does not sell it to computer manufacturers, like Sony or Dell who are the main customers for Microsoft. The fact that the largest "competitor" is a nonprofit scheme that bypasses the traditional markets and is produced collaboratively by those who would normally buy such a computer component is actually strong evidence by itself of MS's monopoly.