they're much less likely to go through a window / door / wall and injure an innocent bystander
Some interesting empirical testing at the The Box O' Truth - or for shotguns specifically (page through to "next page").
And take heed of the advice at Box O' Truth that "Unless you expect to be attacked by little birds, do not use birdshot". Basically, if it's good enough to do quick and debilitating damage to the perp, it's also going to penetrate quite few sheets of drywall (unless it hits a family member sooner of course).
if you've never heard a shotgun go off while you're holding it, in my experience you are more likely to pause as you recover from the shock of the sound.
And remember, the sound will impact you a lot more when its echoing off of the walls of an enclosed room and you're not wearing hearing protection. You might consider test firing in a (partially) enclosed area w/o hearing protection to familiarize yourself with this -- but your ears may not appreciate this.
So, there is a giant conspiracy where almost all businesses in the US got together and agreed to sacrifice profits for a few years by reducing productivity -- all to make "Obama look bad".? This is an interesting theory -- it's not "all about money" for capitalists, it's "all about making Obama look bad". Personally, I'm going with the capitalists being "all about money" as that fits human nature better (most people, esp. capitalists, will not stick to principles for more than a few seconds if they actually have to sacrifice something for it beyond the time spent pontificating anonymously).
You may want to get your tin foil hat adjusted - I think it's too tight and may be cutting off circulation to one of your cores.
Okay, you got me at "no cubicles" as they are the biggest productivity killer I've seen. I've been in software development for many years and more and more developers end up sitting in cubicle bays every decade here in the US. There's some small gain in "information flow by osmosis" but I find that's more than offset by distractions (and, most of that "information flow by osmosis" is lost quickly - new hires can't replay the tapes of the "over the cubicle wall" conversations where they could have read the written design documentation describing the "whys" and "alternatives considered" that is now increasingly non-existent).
What I'm curious about though is how the "by the hour" model works -- esp. with "after 8PM" and other premiums? I don't understand how one can "stop working" on an interesting problem - even if I shut off the computer and/or leave the office, my brain is still working on it. If I leave an interesting or vexing problem (new design/development or tracking down a mystifying problem that's not in my code but is somewhere in the big system) unsolved, it's quite common for me to wake up two or three hours after going to bed with an "ah ha" experience (and, usually, a pretty good idea) so obviously my brain is working on the problem while I appear to be "asleep". Does one charge for that time when one's brain is unavoidably working on the problem (while "asleep" even)? If so, how does one know how much of the time the brain was working on the problem was before the start of a bank holiday or after the start (presumably changing at midnight)?
Well, of course no one is "wired" to handle "excessive" work (since, by definition, "excessive" is just that -- but varies from person to person, environment to environment).
Einstein often worked long hours - perhaps he would have been more productive if he had taken five weeks vacation a year and worked Monday through Friday 8AM-5PM with lunch from 12 to 1 and a ten minute break at 10AM and 3PM the rest of the time?
People who truly enjoy what they are doing and have certain personality types can often work very long hours and be more productive per hour by doing so. I've had jobs (at startups) where I loved what I was doing and worked effectively 70+ hours a week (usually engrossed in interesting or puzzling problems when I realized I'd been at work for 14 hours and should probably go home). I've also worked at boring and unrewarding jobs where productivity dropped precipitously within 30 minutes after I walked in the door.
I only recall a few days in my life where I was "mandated to work overtime" - it just happens. In those cases where it was mandated by a misguided VP or Director, myself (and others) began to work 40 hours a week plus just the mandated overtime. Within a couple weeks the VP or Director stopped mandatory overtime, apparently having realized that those who were getting the work done were now working less and those who were not getting work done were just around the office more hours distracting those who usually got work done (and both groups were substantially grumpier). So, yes, in these cases individual and team productivity did drop.
Basically, if work is an interesting hobby that someone happens to pay you to do and you're a healthy high energy individual, 40 hours a week is a cinch. Working on an assembly line (or the IT equivalent) rarely falls in that category.
My response was simply opining on if his belief in ID would likely impact his job performance.
Clearly, at least under federal law, anyone can be fired for almost any reason, no matter how irrelevant, unless it was done because they are a member of a protected class (race, religion...) or in retaliation for certain acts (such as union organizing). (Yes, it's more complicated than this of course -- law makers and regulators need to justify their existence by writing tomes of rules and imposing them on their subjects).
If his job was to do things like write navigation code or code to dig through radio signals to remove noise, his views on ID, however unfounded and (IMHO) ignorant, would not seem to impact his ability to do his job in any way.
If his job was to write code to model evolutionary processes in space aliens and he kept invoking his Would_The_FSM_ID_Allow_This() method throughout his code, his beliefs in ID would become relevant.
There is so much whining about "needing more donors", but the really easy way to insure that is to allow for payment for organs. I think quite a few people will sign donor cards if they think their family may get $50K for their liver or something. We might want to have an additional level of review (a panel of Independence doctors and more exhaustive tests) to declare brain death for a "donor for pay" to reduce the chances of abuse.
In the US, MVNO's such as Ting (and Republic Wireless if they ever get out of Beta) who use the "buy your phone, no contracts" model will likely force the "big guys" to offer this model in the end. I think the resulting transparency is attractive to many, though not all, customers.
Innovation in smartphones has been rapid in the past few years and people tend to want newer/faster/shinier more frequently in such an environment. However, as the feature/performance innovation curve flattens out a bit, I think people will be quite annoyed at effectively being "forced" into a new phone (since, once they are out of contract, they usually keep paying the same rate even though the phone subsidy is paid off) and a new contract when they are still quite happy with their existing phone -- especially because they usually still have to pay a substantial amount up front to get a new smartphone. I expect that many of these people will be quite receptive to looking for alternatives that prevent them from being trapped yet again.
Don't many anorexics believe they are fat when in fact they are emaciated?
It seems like perhaps it's not the desire to be skinny that is the core problem but the inability to realize what reality is -- and that's a mental problem that seems likely to manifest itself in some other destructive way anyway.
I don't see how banning thin models will help this. It seems likely that these same people will be delusional about something else and then act destructively on that delusion. Perhaps they will think they are not sufficiently tanned when they are roasting their skin in to melanoma or that they are "big boned" (or, just "curvy") when they in fact they are 150 pounds overweight or that they aren't rich enough so will rob a bnak when in fact they are quite comfortable financially.
We can't (nor should we try) to ban all speech or expression which may cause those people who are unable to objectively evaluate their own state to do stupid stuff.
In any event, if thin models are to be banned, "plus size" models should obviously be banned as well because they glorify unhealthy body weight and cause obese people to "feel better" about themselves rather than acknowledging they have a serious health problem that needs attention and probably difficult action on their part to resolve.
Religious free speech harms many by advocating positions that cause people to not act in their best interests. This includes such activities as PRAYING for something to help them rather than spending that time DOING something to help themselves (esp. when they do something like eschew doctors and rely on religion to cure their cancer resulting in their unnecessary early demise and possibly significantly more pain in their final days than necessary).
Or should political speech encouraging or protesting gun control (each side claims the outcome the other side promotes harms people) be banned?
Should people be banned from such religious or political speech or required to somehow "take credit" (i.e., pay for the damage they cause - as anything else isn't really "taking credit" if they continue to spout such nonsense).
The fact it causes "harm" just isn't sufficient reason to ban speech IMHO.
building up a potential competitor for future jobs
I would hope that this would not be a factor in recommendations or endorsements among technical colleagues. Of course, the inaccuracies would be more than enough to decline giving a reference.
When giving a reference, I try to imagine that the person I'm talking to hires the person we are talking about (independent of if I give a positive, lukewarm or, even, a negative recommendation) and, two years hence, I'm interviewing with the same company and they remember both the content of my reference and how the person turned out. I'd like to hear:
Oh yes, I don't recall if you remember giving a reference for Jake a couple years ago. We hired him and it turns out you were spot on with the reference you gave. [ "We are so happy we hired him as you recommended." | "We really wish we had weighed your reference more highly and not hired him." ]
A private school would have no choice but to do the upgrades -- just as McDonald's has no choice but to meet accessibility laws (regardless of if they've ever had a customer who needed such features).
The problem is that public entities (schools) get exempted from accessibility laws that apply to the private sector until someone actually needs access. Then, when they need arises, it leads to absurd claims of that it costs $250K a year to "educate" one kid. In fact, the attitude of the school should be "oh, I guess we now need to meet the same rules as private businesses that offer access to the public - damn, we almost got away with out doing the upgrades". Anyway, simply make it a condition that schools are only eligible for vouchers if they meet current building and safety codes (you know, things like sprinkler systems, CO alarms, stairs that don't collapse due to rotting timbers, accessibility requirements).
Some kids also get after school tutoring and some have parents who help them during the school year -- all outside of the school system as well.
At a minimum, the HIGHEST score of the prior year's end-of-year test and the current year's beginning-of-year test should be used to compare to the student's end-of-year test for the current year.
We tried judging on test scores, but this just made teachers coach their students for the test
A High School degree implies (well, did before they became devalued by erosion of standards) mastery of some basic skills (such as math and English) that an employer can count on and some basic skills that are useful for life (such as computing compound interest, understanding supply and demand, and understanding the political system).
Interestingly, as long as prospective employers give tests, contractor licensing includes passing tests, the SAT is used in college admission determinations, and the DMV uses multiple choice tests, Test Taking is actually a skill useful for life and should be taught as such.
Basic mastery of things like math, science, and English can be tested with a multiple choice test fairly well at the 1st through 12th grade level. Spending a lot of time "teaching to the test" is inefficient (just teach the material, spend a little bit of time on "test taking skills", and make some in-class tests similar in form to that which will be seen on standardized tests) unless (1) the teachers know what is going to be in the tests or (2) the tests are poorly written and not testing what they should be testing. The solution to both of these is fairly obvious.
In looking at the material and assignments given in the later stages of elementary school today, they really don't look much different from what I personally experienced [undisclosed] decades ago before "new education" (social promotion, "it's not the answer that matters, it's how you worked with others to get it", excessive concern about students' "psyche" and so on) had fully polluted the system. Perhaps what is thought to be "teaching to the test" is just what used to be "teaching" (and resulted in a generation that figured out how to set foot on the moon, that developed the transistor, that could write a coherent paragraph if they had a high school diploma, and could, assuming they had graduated from sixth grade, multiply 3x4x2x10 in their head when their boss asked them to get enough cans of a product to fill an order for 10 cases).
kid in a wheelchair who costs the school $250,000 a year to educate
You have picked an absurd example.
A kid who is just in a wheelchair doesn't cost $250K a year to educate. Something else is very wrong with that student and you must be confusing other types of basic care for education. If a student requires $250K a year to "educate", they are probably not "educable" and possibly only minimally "trainable". The K-12 system is not meant as a babysitting or basic care service - most (perhaps all) states have a curriculum to be covered and understood in each grade. If an individual child has no possibility of ever being able to master a reasonable subset of that curriculum, the K-12 system is an inappropriate place for them.
These care costs won't end magically when the student graduates from high school and will, in most cases, continue until the person's death (and likely increase over time as complications set in). If society chooses to bear these costs (nearly $3,000,000 just for the 12 years from 1st through 12th grade), presumably they will also choose to bear these costs after the person graduates - these "basic care" needs should come from whatever budget society decides to provide for that purpose, not from the education/voucher budget.
It's very rare that someone with that level of disability can ever provide their own care from "earned income" as an adult.
A test when the students start and a test when they end.
Actually, for those students who attended the same district/state, a test at the start of the year is unnecessary as the test at the end of last year should be adequate (admittedly, there might have been some summer school unaccounted for by this). Comparing "beginning of year" tests to "end of year" tests can lead to gaming as students figure out (perhaps with the tacit approval of teachers) that if they just fill in the bubbles to make pretty pictures on the beginning of year test, even a lame attempt on the end of year test will show a immense improvement.
Also, all these tests have to have an impact on the student, not just the teachers, so the students have a strong motivation to do well on them. Perhaps, for example, make the student's grade in a subject depend 15% on his/her standardized test results. In some cases, the students have absolutely no motivation (I imagine this varies from district to district and state to state though) to perform well on the tests and, if they want to "screw the mean teacher" they actually have a motivation to perform poorly.
As far as small claims court, it's very rare for a $50 claim to be pushed up by the defendant except on appeal.
Anyway, I understand -- it sounds like you really don't care enough about your $50 and can't find enough other people to make it an attractive class action suit.
If a company is going to spend $10M to defend a $50 case, they must be concerned about a very large class -- in which case, launch a class action suit (hint, if you can't find a lawyer to take it, maybe your case is weak).
okay - my proposal certainly allows for this -- as long as the person you're suing also spends a $1M dollars. The cases you describe are really probably best dealt with as class action suits (once we fix that broken system also). Obviously you would be out your $1M and would owe up to $1M to the other party (for their expenses) of course if you lose.
Generally, though it's just rich asses who spend that kind of energy on a $50 claim when they could have probably won it in small claims court (for those states that have one) for a few hours of their own effort.
You describe a problem with our civil justice system. Yes, it's broken.
We need to establish "loser pays" so if you win, AA pays your legal bills (of course you pay theirs if you lose - so you probably want to read the contract carefully before launching a suit).
Of course, there need to be limits on how much each party can be reimbursed for their legal expenses if they should win. If your dog pees on my lawn and I have to sue you to get you to pay for the grass replacement, I can't expect to be reimbursed for $1M legal expenses for a case involving $50 of actual damages.
I like the idea of a system where the loser pays the legal expenses of the winner up to a cap of what the loser himself spent. To enforce this, each party files an itemized accounting with the court monthly as to what their legal expenses for the month were and what they expect to spend next month. The amounts (but not the itemization) would be available to all parties so they can adjust their level of "legal intensity" accordingly. After the trial is over, the detailed spending records become public (or at least available to all parties) and motions can be filed demanding proof of payment etc and contesting the "reasonableness" or integrity of the monthly filings. Judge would have some discretion on these matters if one party was acting in bad faith or "gaming" the system (such as, for example, reporting expenses late to surprise the opponent).
To be clear, AA didn't deny the child entry to anything but their own (privately owned) aircraft. Agreed, it was probably a stupid PR move and I imagine this situation will prompt AA to "clarify" their procedures/and or training in dealing with such cases.
Similar, but there's a big difference here. The proofreader can catch every actual error so a sloppy writer can be saved by a proofreader. A tester can't test every case (assuming that they are not going through the code line by line, but that's really a development job) so a tester can't save a sloppy programmer, just mitigate the damage they do. Yes, testing is VERY important, but you can't test quality into a software product - you have to develop it in.
Things like stress testing, edge case testing, and user acceptance testing are not something that your typical programmer performs day to day and may be completely missing from her tool set.
Stress testing and edge case testing are exactly the sort of testing I expect software developers to do some of and be good at. They should know what the tricky bits are and know how to bend the system to make things fail in minutes and hours instead of months of testing. Without that intimate knowledge of the internals (again, testers could have that, but it's very rare), a lot of stress testing just keeps testing the same thing over and over - not very useful.
Slashdot Mirror
Some interesting empirical testing at the The Box O' Truth - or for shotguns specifically (page through to "next page").
And take heed of the advice at Box O' Truth that "Unless you expect to be attacked by little birds, do not use birdshot". Basically, if it's good enough to do quick and debilitating damage to the perp, it's also going to penetrate quite few sheets of drywall (unless it hits a family member sooner of course).
And remember, the sound will impact you a lot more when its echoing off of the walls of an enclosed room and you're not wearing hearing protection. You might consider test firing in a (partially) enclosed area w/o hearing protection to familiarize yourself with this -- but your ears may not appreciate this.
So, there is a giant conspiracy where almost all businesses in the US got together and agreed to sacrifice profits for a few years by reducing productivity -- all to make "Obama look bad".? This is an interesting theory -- it's not "all about money" for capitalists, it's "all about making Obama look bad". Personally, I'm going with the capitalists being "all about money" as that fits human nature better (most people, esp. capitalists, will not stick to principles for more than a few seconds if they actually have to sacrifice something for it beyond the time spent pontificating anonymously).
You may want to get your tin foil hat adjusted - I think it's too tight and may be cutting off circulation to one of your cores.
Okay, you got me at "no cubicles" as they are the biggest productivity killer I've seen. I've been in software development for many years and more and more developers end up sitting in cubicle bays every decade here in the US. There's some small gain in "information flow by osmosis" but I find that's more than offset by distractions (and, most of that "information flow by osmosis" is lost quickly - new hires can't replay the tapes of the "over the cubicle wall" conversations where they could have read the written design documentation describing the "whys" and "alternatives considered" that is now increasingly non-existent).
What I'm curious about though is how the "by the hour" model works -- esp. with "after 8PM" and other premiums? I don't understand how one can "stop working" on an interesting problem - even if I shut off the computer and/or leave the office, my brain is still working on it. If I leave an interesting or vexing problem (new design/development or tracking down a mystifying problem that's not in my code but is somewhere in the big system) unsolved, it's quite common for me to wake up two or three hours after going to bed with an "ah ha" experience (and, usually, a pretty good idea) so obviously my brain is working on the problem while I appear to be "asleep". Does one charge for that time when one's brain is unavoidably working on the problem (while "asleep" even)? If so, how does one know how much of the time the brain was working on the problem was before the start of a bank holiday or after the start (presumably changing at midnight)?
Well, of course no one is "wired" to handle "excessive" work (since, by definition, "excessive" is just that -- but varies from person to person, environment to environment).
Einstein often worked long hours - perhaps he would have been more productive if he had taken five weeks vacation a year and worked Monday through Friday 8AM-5PM with lunch from 12 to 1 and a ten minute break at 10AM and 3PM the rest of the time?
People who truly enjoy what they are doing and have certain personality types can often work very long hours and be more productive per hour by doing so. I've had jobs (at startups) where I loved what I was doing and worked effectively 70+ hours a week (usually engrossed in interesting or puzzling problems when I realized I'd been at work for 14 hours and should probably go home). I've also worked at boring and unrewarding jobs where productivity dropped precipitously within 30 minutes after I walked in the door.
I only recall a few days in my life where I was "mandated to work overtime" - it just happens. In those cases where it was mandated by a misguided VP or Director, myself (and others) began to work 40 hours a week plus just the mandated overtime. Within a couple weeks the VP or Director stopped mandatory overtime, apparently having realized that those who were getting the work done were now working less and those who were not getting work done were just around the office more hours distracting those who usually got work done (and both groups were substantially grumpier). So, yes, in these cases individual and team productivity did drop.
Basically, if work is an interesting hobby that someone happens to pay you to do and you're a healthy high energy individual, 40 hours a week is a cinch. Working on an assembly line (or the IT equivalent) rarely falls in that category.
Yes, but there would be no employees at the DMV (well, except the prison DMV) to assist you. Oh, wait, maybe that's actually a good thing.
a.k.a. Regulatory Capture
My response was simply opining on if his belief in ID would likely impact his job performance.
Clearly, at least under federal law, anyone can be fired for almost any reason, no matter how irrelevant, unless it was done because they are a member of a protected class (race, religion...) or in retaliation for certain acts (such as union organizing). (Yes, it's more complicated than this of course -- law makers and regulators need to justify their existence by writing tomes of rules and imposing them on their subjects).
It depends on his job.
If his job was to do things like write navigation code or code to dig through radio signals to remove noise, his views on ID, however unfounded and (IMHO) ignorant, would not seem to impact his ability to do his job in any way.
If his job was to write code to model evolutionary processes in space aliens and he kept invoking his Would_The_FSM_ID_Allow_This() method throughout his code, his beliefs in ID would become relevant.
Unfortunately no.
There is so much whining about "needing more donors", but the really easy way to insure that is to allow for payment for organs. I think quite a few people will sign donor cards if they think their family may get $50K for their liver or something. We might want to have an additional level of review (a panel of Independence doctors and more exhaustive tests) to declare brain death for a "donor for pay" to reduce the chances of abuse.
Market based solution FTW.
In the US, MVNO's such as Ting (and Republic Wireless if they ever get out of Beta) who use the "buy your phone, no contracts" model will likely force the "big guys" to offer this model in the end. I think the resulting transparency is attractive to many, though not all, customers.
Innovation in smartphones has been rapid in the past few years and people tend to want newer/faster/shinier more frequently in such an environment. However, as the feature/performance innovation curve flattens out a bit, I think people will be quite annoyed at effectively being "forced" into a new phone (since, once they are out of contract, they usually keep paying the same rate even though the phone subsidy is paid off) and a new contract when they are still quite happy with their existing phone -- especially because they usually still have to pay a substantial amount up front to get a new smartphone. I expect that many of these people will be quite receptive to looking for alternatives that prevent them from being trapped yet again.
Don't many anorexics believe they are fat when in fact they are emaciated?
It seems like perhaps it's not the desire to be skinny that is the core problem but the inability to realize what reality is -- and that's a mental problem that seems likely to manifest itself in some other destructive way anyway.
I don't see how banning thin models will help this. It seems likely that these same people will be delusional about something else and then act destructively on that delusion. Perhaps they will think they are not sufficiently tanned when they are roasting their skin in to melanoma or that they are "big boned" (or, just "curvy") when they in fact they are 150 pounds overweight or that they aren't rich enough so will rob a bnak when in fact they are quite comfortable financially.
We can't (nor should we try) to ban all speech or expression which may cause those people who are unable to objectively evaluate their own state to do stupid stuff.
In any event, if thin models are to be banned, "plus size" models should obviously be banned as well because they glorify unhealthy body weight and cause obese people to "feel better" about themselves rather than acknowledging they have a serious health problem that needs attention and probably difficult action on their part to resolve.
Is any form of free speech harmless?
Religious free speech harms many by advocating positions that cause people to not act in their best interests. This includes such activities as PRAYING for something to help them rather than spending that time DOING something to help themselves (esp. when they do something like eschew doctors and rely on religion to cure their cancer resulting in their unnecessary early demise and possibly significantly more pain in their final days than necessary).
Or should political speech encouraging or protesting gun control (each side claims the outcome the other side promotes harms people) be banned?
Should people be banned from such religious or political speech or required to somehow "take credit" (i.e., pay for the damage they cause - as anything else isn't really "taking credit" if they continue to spout such nonsense).
The fact it causes "harm" just isn't sufficient reason to ban speech IMHO.
I would hope that this would not be a factor in recommendations or endorsements among technical colleagues. Of course, the inaccuracies would be more than enough to decline giving a reference.
When giving a reference, I try to imagine that the person I'm talking to hires the person we are talking about (independent of if I give a positive, lukewarm or, even, a negative recommendation) and, two years hence, I'm interviewing with the same company and they remember both the content of my reference and how the person turned out. I'd like to hear:
But, fortunately(?), most of us won't care because we won't be around.
A private school would have no choice but to do the upgrades -- just as McDonald's has no choice but to meet accessibility laws (regardless of if they've ever had a customer who needed such features).
The problem is that public entities (schools) get exempted from accessibility laws that apply to the private sector until someone actually needs access. Then, when they need arises, it leads to absurd claims of that it costs $250K a year to "educate" one kid. In fact, the attitude of the school should be "oh, I guess we now need to meet the same rules as private businesses that offer access to the public - damn, we almost got away with out doing the upgrades". Anyway, simply make it a condition that schools are only eligible for vouchers if they meet current building and safety codes (you know, things like sprinkler systems, CO alarms, stairs that don't collapse due to rotting timbers, accessibility requirements).
Some kids also get after school tutoring and some have parents who help them during the school year -- all outside of the school system as well.
At a minimum, the HIGHEST score of the prior year's end-of-year test and the current year's beginning-of-year test should be used to compare to the student's end-of-year test for the current year.
A High School degree implies (well, did before they became devalued by erosion of standards) mastery of some basic skills (such as math and English) that an employer can count on and some basic skills that are useful for life (such as computing compound interest, understanding supply and demand, and understanding the political system).
Interestingly, as long as prospective employers give tests, contractor licensing includes passing tests, the SAT is used in college admission determinations, and the DMV uses multiple choice tests, Test Taking is actually a skill useful for life and should be taught as such.
Basic mastery of things like math, science, and English can be tested with a multiple choice test fairly well at the 1st through 12th grade level. Spending a lot of time "teaching to the test" is inefficient (just teach the material, spend a little bit of time on "test taking skills", and make some in-class tests similar in form to that which will be seen on standardized tests) unless (1) the teachers know what is going to be in the tests or (2) the tests are poorly written and not testing what they should be testing. The solution to both of these is fairly obvious.
In looking at the material and assignments given in the later stages of elementary school today, they really don't look much different from what I personally experienced [undisclosed] decades ago before "new education" (social promotion, "it's not the answer that matters, it's how you worked with others to get it", excessive concern about students' "psyche" and so on) had fully polluted the system. Perhaps what is thought to be "teaching to the test" is just what used to be "teaching" (and resulted in a generation that figured out how to set foot on the moon, that developed the transistor, that could write a coherent paragraph if they had a high school diploma, and could, assuming they had graduated from sixth grade, multiply 3x4x2x10 in their head when their boss asked them to get enough cans of a product to fill an order for 10 cases).
You have picked an absurd example.
A kid who is just in a wheelchair doesn't cost $250K a year to educate. Something else is very wrong with that student and you must be confusing other types of basic care for education. If a student requires $250K a year to "educate", they are probably not "educable" and possibly only minimally "trainable". The K-12 system is not meant as a babysitting or basic care service - most (perhaps all) states have a curriculum to be covered and understood in each grade. If an individual child has no possibility of ever being able to master a reasonable subset of that curriculum, the K-12 system is an inappropriate place for them.
These care costs won't end magically when the student graduates from high school and will, in most cases, continue until the person's death (and likely increase over time as complications set in). If society chooses to bear these costs (nearly $3,000,000 just for the 12 years from 1st through 12th grade), presumably they will also choose to bear these costs after the person graduates - these "basic care" needs should come from whatever budget society decides to provide for that purpose, not from the education/voucher budget.
It's very rare that someone with that level of disability can ever provide their own care from "earned income" as an adult.
Actually, for those students who attended the same district/state, a test at the start of the year is unnecessary as the test at the end of last year should be adequate (admittedly, there might have been some summer school unaccounted for by this). Comparing "beginning of year" tests to "end of year" tests can lead to gaming as students figure out (perhaps with the tacit approval of teachers) that if they just fill in the bubbles to make pretty pictures on the beginning of year test, even a lame attempt on the end of year test will show a immense improvement.
Also, all these tests have to have an impact on the student, not just the teachers, so the students have a strong motivation to do well on them. Perhaps, for example, make the student's grade in a subject depend 15% on his/her standardized test results. In some cases, the students have absolutely no motivation (I imagine this varies from district to district and state to state though) to perform well on the tests and, if they want to "screw the mean teacher" they actually have a motivation to perform poorly.
As far as small claims court, it's very rare for a $50 claim to be pushed up by the defendant except on appeal.
Anyway, I understand -- it sounds like you really don't care enough about your $50 and can't find enough other people to make it an attractive class action suit.
If a company is going to spend $10M to defend a $50 case, they must be concerned about a very large class -- in which case, launch a class action suit (hint, if you can't find a lawyer to take it, maybe your case is weak).
okay - my proposal certainly allows for this -- as long as the person you're suing also spends a $1M dollars. The cases you describe are really probably best dealt with as class action suits (once we fix that broken system also). Obviously you would be out your $1M and would owe up to $1M to the other party (for their expenses) of course if you lose.
Generally, though it's just rich asses who spend that kind of energy on a $50 claim when they could have probably won it in small claims court (for those states that have one) for a few hours of their own effort.
You describe a problem with our civil justice system. Yes, it's broken.
We need to establish "loser pays" so if you win, AA pays your legal bills (of course you pay theirs if you lose - so you probably want to read the contract carefully before launching a suit).
Of course, there need to be limits on how much each party can be reimbursed for their legal expenses if they should win. If your dog pees on my lawn and I have to sue you to get you to pay for the grass replacement, I can't expect to be reimbursed for $1M legal expenses for a case involving $50 of actual damages.
I like the idea of a system where the loser pays the legal expenses of the winner up to a cap of what the loser himself spent. To enforce this, each party files an itemized accounting with the court monthly as to what their legal expenses for the month were and what they expect to spend next month. The amounts (but not the itemization) would be available to all parties so they can adjust their level of "legal intensity" accordingly. After the trial is over, the detailed spending records become public (or at least available to all parties) and motions can be filed demanding proof of payment etc and contesting the "reasonableness" or integrity of the monthly filings. Judge would have some discretion on these matters if one party was acting in bad faith or "gaming" the system (such as, for example, reporting expenses late to surprise the opponent).
To be clear, AA didn't deny the child entry to anything but their own (privately owned) aircraft. Agreed, it was probably a stupid PR move and I imagine this situation will prompt AA to "clarify" their procedures/and or training in dealing with such cases.
Similar, but there's a big difference here. The proofreader can catch every actual error so a sloppy writer can be saved by a proofreader. A tester can't test every case (assuming that they are not going through the code line by line, but that's really a development job) so a tester can't save a sloppy programmer, just mitigate the damage they do. Yes, testing is VERY important, but you can't test quality into a software product - you have to develop it in.
Stress testing and edge case testing are exactly the sort of testing I expect software developers to do some of and be good at. They should know what the tricky bits are and know how to bend the system to make things fail in minutes and hours instead of months of testing. Without that intimate knowledge of the internals (again, testers could have that, but it's very rare), a lot of stress testing just keeps testing the same thing over and over - not very useful.