To really qualify for a Darwin award, don't you have to take yourself out BEFORE you get a chance to procreate? Although I certainly hope this guy never breeds, chances are he already has.
Matt Groening?!? I wish somebody had mentioned that to Charles Schultz! Peanuts is still being published 10 years after the creator's death! Sure, The Simpsons isn't nearly as good as it once was, but it's not totally bad yet either.
To the contrary, I'm often amazed at how incredibly good the Dutch (and most other Europeans) I have had contact with actually are at writing in English, considering it is a second or third language to them. My Italian friends scored 37% percentile in the verbal portion of US college entrance exams, meaning their written English was better than a third of US high school that were applying to college! (They claimed this was only because they knew all the Latin roots of English words.)
But communication isn't about following arbitrary complex rules -- it's about making yourself understood to your target audience. Clearly, like most groups that adopt their own jargon, these students are simply not interested in making themselves understood to their instructors. Also, the rules are grammar are in constant flux and are dictated by popular usage, not by the whims of academics.
As I've said before, there are 3 major problems facing our public schools that private schools don't have: 1) Lack of adequate and predictable funding. They're stuffing up to 30 kids into a single classroom; what more proof do you need? 2) Since the current educational fad is to "mainstream" all students, it is far to difficult to remove students that are disrupting the education of other students from the classroom, and 3) It is far to difficult to get rid of teachers that the administration knows are doing a bad job. Taxpayers are responsible for the first problem, egotistical and reactionary parents for the second, and the unions are really only responsible for the third problem. All three problems need to be fixed to achieve excellence in public education.
Try Australia; they'll welcome anyone who passes their entrance exam, which simply consists of subduing a crocodile with your bare hands. Wait a minute... when did they remove the requirement that you also be a convicted criminal?
College degrees are way overrated. I agree, but I'm also sure the contacts you made while attending MIT, Harvard, and Oxford have served you very well in advancing your career. I got my first job because two people that graduated before me had gone to work for a start up and recommended me; I followed one of them to my second job. I've also done consulting work with a couple other people I went to school with, and was given a job interview at HP based on one of my fraternity brother's recommendations. Yes, connections are more important than education (I really have not used anything I learned in college in the 28 years since graduation), but attending college is a great way to make those connections. On the down side, attending college does set you back hundreds of thousands of dollars in both in both college fees and lost wages, and it does take a very long time to make that up in increased wages.
No, really -- I want a list of everyone who actually invested in this scheme! I've got some great technology I'd like to sell them! I wonder if any of them would be interested in owning their own bridge...
The real question is what the goal of copyright law is. My take would be that one the original artist is dead, further extensions of the copyright on their work do very little to encourage them to produce more. The copyright on Micky Mouse should have died with Walt, not been extended to 75 years.
Interesting side question: J.D. Salinger just died after writing profusely (and profanely) for over 50 years. Much of that will now presumably be published. Does the copyright start on the date he finished writing it, or on the date it is originally published? In this case, copyright law has done absolutely nothing to encourage him to produce more... why should his works still be under copyright 50 years from now?
...it doesn't matter to Thomas-Rasset whether the damages are $25,000 or $1.92 million. That's what I've always felt about people suing me... If I'm going to declare bankruptcy to get out of the debt anyway, does it really matter how much they are suing me for? They are going to collect the same amount anyway! (This might not be true in this case, "Intentional Torts" may not be dischargable in bankruptcy, but IANAL so I couldn't tell you whether or not that applies to this case.)
As a side note, I once got out of a $500,000 lawsuit by taking the opposing lawyer outside, pointing to my old ragged motorhome, and telling him "That's my only asset; I'm living in it, and I'm pretty sure I owe more on it than it is worth... you're welcome to try to take it away from me, but you're going to have to find it first! Now, how much effort do you really want to put into this case?" Once you convince them their best case scenario will simply drive you into bankruptcy and they will collect nothing anyway, they're not so keen on taking cases on contingency anymore -- especially meritless ones.
So what he's saying is that aliens will be complete flipping assholes too? I sincerely hope any species sophisticated enough to cross the vast reaches of space and visit us would be several orders of magnitude more enlightened then the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Keith Olbermann, and virtually every commentator on Fox News!
I resent that remark! I'm a socially retarded slashdotter, and I _have_ actually reproduced! Unfortunately, my daughter, although computer adept, is a jock, a cheerleader, and extremely popular with other kids! Where did I go wrong?!?
I'd expect the school to keep him the hell away from my kids!!! As long as he has no contact with my kids, I really don't care what happens to him. I suspect "counseling" means "we tell him not to do it, then continue to mainstream him in with the other kids".
There are currently 3 major problems with the US public education system that private schools don't have: 1) Lack of adequate and predictable funding. My daughter is in a 3rd grade class with 27 kids... makes it more than a little difficult to learn with even mild ADHD. 2) Schools cannot effectively remove kids that disrupt the learning process and prevent classmates from learning 3) School cannot effectively get rid of teachers that are doing a bad job.
My sisters were home schooled, and are much more enlightened and much more loved by their peers than I am. The only problem they had? Not growing up being subjected to bullies, they couldn't understand why another child would want to be mean to them for no reason!
This is as bad as requiring all cars to have catalytic converters. It is acceptable for Government to mandate minimum acceptable results, but not to mandate the methods used to achieve those results! Most states in the US don't have any problem with you schooling your children any way you want, as long as the children take the same achievement tests that public school students do. Oregon is very home-schooling friendly (just register you kids with the Northwest Educational Services District, and you can do whatever you want), and my kid sisters were home schooled in Virginia (which means they were forced to have extreme Christian Fundamentalists are peers, because apparently that's what the overwhelming majority of home school families in Virginia are). They were correct to grant this family asylum; many home schoolers are motivated by religious beliefs. (On the down side, Oregon insists on murder trials for parents that fail to provide medical intervention for their children because of their religious beliefs. I'm a Buddhist, but I think we should respect parent's beliefs -- even if they are wrong!)
It's not a PC; it's an iTouch with a bigger screen for people with poor eyesight (remember, the baby boomers are getting old now). Lack of support for Flash is and epic fail; are you sure this is Apple's fault, and not Adobe's fault for it's reticence to license or port the latest versions of Flash to non-PC platforms? (Lack of latest Flash support on my Wii and Android phone also pisses me off.) Lack of true mulitasking is also a fail, but I assume just like MS-DOS and the original Mac, that will be fixed at a later date -- all it requires is a (major) software update.
I don't see anything about the hardware that precludes you from using a stylus. If you really think this is a huge market, then write and app for that and distribute styluses; you'll be rich!
Your criticism of the expansion capability is also valid; does this thing still not have a user-replaceable battery? Most phones now have flash card expansion slots, why not this? I suspect you can get a single USB connection via the 30-pin connector just like every smartphone out on the market, so it might be possible to tether it to a PC or a USB hub and get the add on flash drive, USB disk, and other USB device support you want. Also, it does have Bluetooth; in theory, anything that can be done over USB can also be done over bluetooth, albeit more slowly.
Wait... Ann Coulter has a vagina? Where does he keep it... in a jar in his closet?
You don't get major record labels and video producers to provide content for you iTunes store without at least giving lip service to DRM. Apple is trying to walk the razor's edge between what the content providers want and what the customers want; as a result, they are not going to completely please either group.
In social animals, it is the survival of the group that is driving evolution, not the survival of individual or their genes. If the survival of each individual's genes were paramount, there would be no homosexuality and no parents killing their own children, 'cause those are pretty much dead-end paths from the standpoint of survival of the individual. Another way of thinking of this is that altruism really does have survival value; just like with army ants, being willing to sacrifice individuals for the good of the group is a good evolutionary strategy.
I've always felt that viruses might be the driving force in evolution; they are very good at taking genes from one organism and splicing them into another. Also, one of the first traits that would have evolved after the split into two sexes would have been the ability to choose mates with traits complementary to your own, thus for higher species there is actually some intelligence driving evolution forward.
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To really qualify for a Darwin award, don't you have to take yourself out BEFORE you get a chance to procreate? Although I certainly hope this guy never breeds, chances are he already has.
I don't know about that, I've always kinda liked Dysfunctional Family Circus!
Matt Groening?!? I wish somebody had mentioned that to Charles Schultz! Peanuts is still being published 10 years after the creator's death! Sure, The Simpsons isn't nearly as good as it once was, but it's not totally bad yet either.
That's why, as an old Interlisp developer, I always put a "]" at the end of every paragraph when I'm composing in English...
To the contrary, I'm often amazed at how incredibly good the Dutch (and most other Europeans) I have had contact with actually are at writing in English, considering it is a second or third language to them. My Italian friends scored 37% percentile in the verbal portion of US college entrance exams, meaning their written English was better than a third of US high school that were applying to college! (They claimed this was only because they knew all the Latin roots of English words.)
But communication isn't about following arbitrary complex rules -- it's about making yourself understood to your target audience. Clearly, like most groups that adopt their own jargon, these students are simply not interested in making themselves understood to their instructors. Also, the rules are grammar are in constant flux and are dictated by popular usage, not by the whims of academics.
As I've said before, there are 3 major problems facing our public schools that private schools don't have: 1) Lack of adequate and predictable funding. They're stuffing up to 30 kids into a single classroom; what more proof do you need? 2) Since the current educational fad is to "mainstream" all students, it is far to difficult to remove students that are disrupting the education of other students from the classroom, and 3) It is far to difficult to get rid of teachers that the administration knows are doing a bad job.
Taxpayers are responsible for the first problem, egotistical and reactionary parents for the second, and the unions are really only responsible for the third problem. All three problems need to be fixed to achieve excellence in public education.
Try Australia; they'll welcome anyone who passes their entrance exam, which simply consists of subduing a crocodile with your bare hands. Wait a minute... when did they remove the requirement that you also be a convicted criminal?
College degrees are way overrated. I agree, but I'm also sure the contacts you made while attending MIT, Harvard, and Oxford have served you very well in advancing your career. I got my first job because two people that graduated before me had gone to work for a start up and recommended me; I followed one of them to my second job. I've also done consulting work with a couple other people I went to school with, and was given a job interview at HP based on one of my fraternity brother's recommendations. Yes, connections are more important than education (I really have not used anything I learned in college in the 28 years since graduation), but attending college is a great way to make those connections. On the down side, attending college does set you back hundreds of thousands of dollars in both in both college fees and lost wages, and it does take a very long time to make that up in increased wages.
No, really -- I want a list of everyone who actually invested in this scheme! I've got some great technology I'd like to sell them! I wonder if any of them would be interested in owning their own bridge...
The real question is what the goal of copyright law is. My take would be that one the original artist is dead, further extensions of the copyright on their work do very little to encourage them to produce more. The copyright on Micky Mouse should have died with Walt, not been extended to 75 years.
Interesting side question: J.D. Salinger just died after writing profusely (and profanely) for over 50 years. Much of that will now presumably be published. Does the copyright start on the date he finished writing it, or on the date it is originally published? In this case, copyright law has done absolutely nothing to encourage him to produce more... why should his works still be under copyright 50 years from now?
...it doesn't matter to Thomas-Rasset whether the damages are $25,000 or $1.92 million. That's what I've always felt about people suing me... If I'm going to declare bankruptcy to get out of the debt anyway, does it really matter how much they are suing me for? They are going to collect the same amount anyway! (This might not be true in this case, "Intentional Torts" may not be dischargable in bankruptcy, but IANAL so I couldn't tell you whether or not that applies to this case.)
As a side note, I once got out of a $500,000 lawsuit by taking the opposing lawyer outside, pointing to my old ragged motorhome, and telling him "That's my only asset; I'm living in it, and I'm pretty sure I owe more on it than it is worth... you're welcome to try to take it away from me, but you're going to have to find it first! Now, how much effort do you really want to put into this case?" Once you convince them their best case scenario will simply drive you into bankruptcy and they will collect nothing anyway, they're not so keen on taking cases on contingency anymore -- especially meritless ones.
The French have a sign for victory? I was not aware of this. Neither are 99% of the French... it is very rarely used!
Am I the only one that expects that over 90% of the footage will consist of closeups of chimpanzee genitalia?
How can I schedule an interview with a 419 scammer, and am I allowed to bring a baseball bat?
So what he's saying is that aliens will be complete flipping assholes too? I sincerely hope any species sophisticated enough to cross the vast reaches of space and visit us would be several orders of magnitude more enlightened then the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Keith Olbermann, and virtually every commentator on Fox News!
I resent that remark! I'm a socially retarded slashdotter, and I _have_ actually reproduced! Unfortunately, my daughter, although computer adept, is a jock, a cheerleader, and extremely popular with other kids! Where did I go wrong?!?
I'd expect the school to keep him the hell away from my kids!!! As long as he has no contact with my kids, I really don't care what happens to him. I suspect "counseling" means "we tell him not to do it, then continue to mainstream him in with the other kids".
There are currently 3 major problems with the US public education system that private schools don't have: 1) Lack of adequate and predictable funding. My daughter is in a 3rd grade class with 27 kids... makes it more than a little difficult to learn with even mild ADHD. 2) Schools cannot effectively remove kids that disrupt the learning process and prevent classmates from learning 3) School cannot effectively get rid of teachers that are doing a bad job.
My sisters were home schooled, and are much more enlightened and much more loved by their peers than I am. The only problem they had? Not growing up being subjected to bullies, they couldn't understand why another child would want to be mean to them for no reason!
I think I've heard this sort of thing around here before... "There is but one true God, and his name is Linus!"
This is as bad as requiring all cars to have catalytic converters. It is acceptable for Government to mandate minimum acceptable results, but not to mandate the methods used to achieve those results! Most states in the US don't have any problem with you schooling your children any way you want, as long as the children take the same achievement tests that public school students do. Oregon is very home-schooling friendly (just register you kids with the Northwest Educational Services District, and you can do whatever you want), and my kid sisters were home schooled in Virginia (which means they were forced to have extreme Christian Fundamentalists are peers, because apparently that's what the overwhelming majority of home school families in Virginia are). They were correct to grant this family asylum; many home schoolers are motivated by religious beliefs. (On the down side, Oregon insists on murder trials for parents that fail to provide medical intervention for their children because of their religious beliefs. I'm a Buddhist, but I think we should respect parent's beliefs -- even if they are wrong!)
It's not a PC; it's an iTouch with a bigger screen for people with poor eyesight (remember, the baby boomers are getting old now). Lack of support for Flash is and epic fail; are you sure this is Apple's fault, and not Adobe's fault for it's reticence to license or port the latest versions of Flash to non-PC platforms? (Lack of latest Flash support on my Wii and Android phone also pisses me off.) Lack of true mulitasking is also a fail, but I assume just like MS-DOS and the original Mac, that will be fixed at a later date -- all it requires is a (major) software update.
I don't see anything about the hardware that precludes you from using a stylus. If you really think this is a huge market, then write and app for that and distribute styluses; you'll be rich!
Your criticism of the expansion capability is also valid; does this thing still not have a user-replaceable battery? Most phones now have flash card expansion slots, why not this? I suspect you can get a single USB connection via the 30-pin connector just like every smartphone out on the market, so it might be possible to tether it to a PC or a USB hub and get the add on flash drive, USB disk, and other USB device support you want. Also, it does have Bluetooth; in theory, anything that can be done over USB can also be done over bluetooth, albeit more slowly.
Wait... Ann Coulter has a vagina? Where does he keep it... in a jar in his closet?
You don't get major record labels and video producers to provide content for you iTunes store without at least giving lip service to DRM. Apple is trying to walk the razor's edge between what the content providers want and what the customers want; as a result, they are not going to completely please either group.
Lawyers for both sides have run up and estimated £40 million in legal fees... sounds like the lawyers have already won.
In social animals, it is the survival of the group that is driving evolution, not the survival of individual or their genes. If the survival of each individual's genes were paramount, there would be no homosexuality and no parents killing their own children, 'cause those are pretty much dead-end paths from the standpoint of survival of the individual. Another way of thinking of this is that altruism really does have survival value; just like with army ants, being willing to sacrifice individuals for the good of the group is a good evolutionary strategy.
I've always felt that viruses might be the driving force in evolution; they are very good at taking genes from one organism and splicing them into another. Also, one of the first traits that would have evolved after the split into two sexes would have been the ability to choose mates with traits complementary to your own, thus for higher species there is actually some intelligence driving evolution forward.