"He said real world scenario. Can you really say interview's aren't contrived situations?"
Can you really say interviews don't happen in this real world or that they don't end up on quite real consequences (like you ending employed or unemployed)?
"That is all well and good, if physics happens to be the only class that a student takes in that semester, and the student's brain has been properly calibrated to just "get" physics."
So you do expect high qualifications at physics even if your brain hasn't been properly calibrated to just "get" physics??? Even a 'C' means "this student "gets" physics good enough".
"Show me one real world scenario where notes and resource materials are not made available to employees."
Sure! As soon as you show me one real world scenario when the scope of a problem is limited in advance to whatever fits last semester knowledege or, heck, where you are told in advance "attention, please: this is not merely 'living as life goes' but a problem; these are boundary conditions and data values -there are no uneeded values and the provided values are guaranteed to allow for a proper and unique answer; oh, and you are expected to resolve it with techniques and knowledge from this given discipline".
"But in that particular school the teachers are more interested in if you know how to solve the problem than if you got the correct answer"
Any teacher everywhere should focus on your abstraction process more than on the tactical resolution; that's for granted.
"I once had every answer wrong on a test and I still got an 8 because they way I got to the answer was different (not how it was thought) and correct"
*BUT* no teacher should focus exclusively on your abstraction process *disregarding* the results. An 8 (out of ten, I'll suppose) is way out of deserved unless quite specific local conditions bias the case (you being dyslexic *might* be the case here) a 5 out of ten (or a "C") should be compromise enough and that only if the know how probes brilliant.
One important point with regards to problem resolution is attention to details: being unable to focus enough such as you properly reason a problem *and* properly follow procedures as to reach the proper solution in clearly not enough.
Others have flagged "real life" in order to support things like notes, calculators or even "team-resolving" your tests. Well, "real life" won't give you high marks if you fail at a problem's solution, even if your thinking process is proper of a genious.
"When you are dyslexic it is very hard to remember information like telephone numbers, list of words or formulas."
My previous comment was not meant to be referred to people with disabilities. On the other hand, disabilities are, well, disabilities.
I am not expert to tell if dislexia affects someone's ability for practical understandment and applying complex factual/technical knowledge, but *if* that were the case (and that's a reasonable assumption unless hard data is provided negating it), then my previous point still would hold and it certainly *does* hold with regards of people without such disabilites: holding factual knowledge at hand in your mind (like some formula or some constant) does help in problem resolution because:
a) It enwiders your mental map (when you know something at heart you can apply it much better that if you only have a liminary knowledge. The mnemonic process helps on the fixation of the related abstract concepts).
b) Lets your mind focus on the underlying problem instead of "tactical" minutiae (try to resolve a complex problem when everybody around is distracting you every moment. Having to go after some data is just the same only at minor scale).
c) Tactically is faster to extract something out of your mind than looking for it elsewhere. On a time-limited scenario (as a test can be) that can make a clear difference.
"(for example allow them to submit an expression such as 112*121/11 instead of computing the result)"
That's the problem when you have a life of using calculators. If you were even slightly comfortable at using your brains (you know, the part of your body you are expected to exercise at a University), you would have seen immediatly you don't need a calculator for something as simple as 112*121/11 (hint: 121=11*11, therefore 112*121/11=112*11 -of course, you'll probably say you need a calculator for 121*11 too).
"Yeah, no one would want a calculator for a question like that"
Don't do such a question, then:
"A student is given 1,000 cubic centimeters of ethanol ice that's initially at -164 degrees Celsius. Said student is instructed to heat the ice until it melts and continue heating until it eventually reaches a temperature of +36C throughout. How many total calories did this require?"
"Having read the article, and being a US Gov't employee, let me just say that Cooney has unnecessarily confused the issue."
Let's see.
"Some of the 50 examples he lists are duplicates ("1. SENSITIVE", "17. SENSITIVE (SENS)", "40. SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED (SBU)" are all the same thing"
Which seems to be exactly (part of) his point. If they are all the same thing, why they have four different names? Make it more complex than needed and you'll have it more fragile than needed.
I'm with you. It's not just an "identification token": it's a *misused* identification token.
"Because not much more information than your social security number and your name are required to open a credit card account in your name".
Which is the real problem: an identification token -which your SSN certainly is, shouldn't be used that way. Just look around you: there's a world beyond USA and it seems it's only USA the one having problems with disclosed SSNs. Have you thought why?
"The problem is that the SSN is so closely tagged to everything you do, just knowing it makes stealing an identity way too easy."
That's exactly my point. I could accept that common use of SSN would make nowadays for easy identity *tracking* but never identity *theft*, which is made so easy because you are using your SSN as an auth token, not an identity one.
"This seems to be more an example of Zynga taking advantage of economies of scale, and entering new game genres to eliminate competition. Which is a monopoly."
I think you should reestudy the definition of "monopoly".
" If only one user in three will misuse the line, but the other two use it reasonably, they will still come out with a profit."
What do you mean, "misuse"? Using it as per the contract conditions is "misuse" in your book?
But there is a "catch": at $350/month (almost) no one is going to use it. So even if it produces slight loses they can go to the marketing budget: "Electric Power Board of Chattanooga: the fastest Internet connection you home can get".
"Um, if you have root then what is the point of compiling and surreptitiously installing compromised code on the machine, YOU ALREADY HAVE FUCKING ROOT!"
The key word is "surreptitiously", as in you don't want them to know they are rooted.
"Protecting and classifying sensitive information such as social security numbers shouldn't be that hard"
I know the historical context that makes social security numbers to be declared "sensitive information" in the USA but when will you start to attack the real problem?
Your social security number is an identification token; it should be the exact opposite to sensitive information! No wonder you have so many problems related to SSNs.
"If your mechanic thinks that "The Little Mermaid" was a Shakespearean drama, that really doesn't affect his ability to fix your car. Same with this."
Yes. It's only you don't get into Shakespeare in order to become a better mechanic but to be a better human being.
Your mechaninc being an insect instead of a human being is an idea that probably some people with more power, money and influence than you and me will find quite worthwhile.
"There are no corporations in an anarchy -- no government to issue corporate charters."
Do not call corporations then. But is it anarchy to forbid associations of free men to pursue common interests?
If anarchy is not to forbid them, are you sure they won't appear? And once they appear how is anarchy to protect the lessen associations (specially the one-man ones) not to be subordinated to the dictations of the bigger ones?
"Some nations (eg. Germany), do not allow a copyright owner to abandon, sell, transfer, etc. their "moral rights" to a work."
Something going into the public domain doesn't mean the author abandons their moral rights. Moral rights are "natural" and basically cover just the concepts of authorship and untampering. "Hamlet" is still a work by Shakespeare and it's well into the public domain; and you can't take "Hamlet", change it so Hamlet marries Ophelia and still call it "Shakespeare's work" even if "Hamlet" is in the public domain.
"So, is it legal to fill up the media with 100% pirated stuff??"
By what Sal Zeta states, the Italian model seems quite the same than the Spanish one, only worse, since the RIAA-likes came with it later. Then the answer is no, you can't.
In Spain, copying artistic media (music, books, films, etc.) for private use without direct revenue (basically everything that goes from a private person to another private person, even through p2p) is legal under the assumption that culture/art is a major right that can't lightly be taken away (this way, you can copy music but you can't copy computer programs since they are not considered art forms).
But because of this, cultural/artistical artifacts worth special measures to protect them, so in late seventies/early eighties (so I think to remember, at least) with the rise of blank casettes for everbody, government decided that it would be good to raise kindof a "tax" (I don't know how to properly translate the legal term "canon") on blank media to make for a compensation for the money these people were not earning (note this: "were not earning" is quite a different thing than "were losing") due to private copies.
So, the "tax" on blank media is a compensation for the right you have to copy music etc. no matter if you, in fact, exercise such a right. But of course that's not a blanket for you being allowed to anything illegal: what you could do, you can do (you have the right here to copy, no matter if the copy is taxed or not), what you couldn't do (i.e.: make a copy and sell it) you still can't do.
Your "So, is it legal to fill up the media with 100% pirated stuff??" statement has a second reading, though: in countries like Spain and, so it seems, Italy, there's almost no way you can have something like "pirated stuff" (with the notable exception of computer programs) since almost any kind of copies you can make yourself aren't going to be "pirate" at all (still, I see them counted as "pirate" in international statistics. No wonder Spain always appears top-ranking as a "pirate" country).
That notwithstanding and pushed by the RIAA example (no matter that USA legal system is absolutly different with this regard to these guys), European RIAA-likes are pushing expensive marketing campagins to raise into public opinion the idea that these kinds of copies are, in fact, somehow illegal. They expect that when their message is properly damped public opinion it'll be easy for them and their money to make a change in legislation. After all, if everybody thinks it's illegal what's the problem with making it effectively illegal?
Slashdot Mirror
"He said real world scenario. Can you really say interview's aren't contrived situations?"
Can you really say interviews don't happen in this real world or that they don't end up on quite real consequences (like you ending employed or unemployed)?
"No notes for students tests memory, not comprehension."
No notes for students tests both memory *and* comprehension.
Re-read the first chapters from Descartes' "Discourse on the Method"... quite insigthful with regards of the value of proper memoristic abilities.
"That is all well and good, if physics happens to be the only class that a student takes in that semester, and the student's brain has been properly calibrated to just "get" physics."
So you do expect high qualifications at physics even if your brain hasn't been properly calibrated to just "get" physics??? Even a 'C' means "this student "gets" physics good enough".
"Show me one real world scenario where notes and resource materials are not made available to employees."
Sure! As soon as you show me one real world scenario when the scope of a problem is limited in advance to whatever fits last semester knowledege or, heck, where you are told in advance "attention, please: this is not merely 'living as life goes' but a problem; these are boundary conditions and data values -there are no uneeded values and the provided values are guaranteed to allow for a proper and unique answer; oh, and you are expected to resolve it with techniques and knowledge from this given discipline".
Tests are tests; "real life" is "real life".
"But in that particular school the teachers are more interested in if you know how to solve the problem than if you got the correct answer"
Any teacher everywhere should focus on your abstraction process more than on the tactical resolution; that's for granted.
"I once had every answer wrong on a test and I still got an 8 because they way I got to the answer was different (not how it was thought) and correct"
*BUT* no teacher should focus exclusively on your abstraction process *disregarding* the results. An 8 (out of ten, I'll suppose) is way out of deserved unless quite specific local conditions bias the case (you being dyslexic *might* be the case here) a 5 out of ten (or a "C") should be compromise enough and that only if the know how probes brilliant.
One important point with regards to problem resolution is attention to details: being unable to focus enough such as you properly reason a problem *and* properly follow procedures as to reach the proper solution in clearly not enough.
Others have flagged "real life" in order to support things like notes, calculators or even "team-resolving" your tests. Well, "real life" won't give you high marks if you fail at a problem's solution, even if your thinking process is proper of a genious.
"When you are dyslexic it is very hard to remember information like telephone numbers, list of words or formulas."
My previous comment was not meant to be referred to people with disabilities. On the other hand, disabilities are, well, disabilities.
I am not expert to tell if dislexia affects someone's ability for practical understandment and applying complex factual/technical knowledge, but *if* that were the case (and that's a reasonable assumption unless hard data is provided negating it), then my previous point still would hold and it certainly *does* hold with regards of people without such disabilites: holding factual knowledge at hand in your mind (like some formula or some constant) does help in problem resolution because:
a) It enwiders your mental map (when you know something at heart you can apply it much better that if you only have a liminary knowledge. The mnemonic process helps on the fixation of the related abstract concepts).
b) Lets your mind focus on the underlying problem instead of "tactical" minutiae (try to resolve a complex problem when everybody around is distracting you every moment. Having to go after some data is just the same only at minor scale).
c) Tactically is faster to extract something out of your mind than looking for it elsewhere. On a time-limited scenario (as a test can be) that can make a clear difference.
"(for example allow them to submit an expression such as 112*121/11 instead of computing the result)"
That's the problem when you have a life of using calculators. If you were even slightly comfortable at using your brains (you know, the part of your body you are expected to exercise at a University), you would have seen immediatly you don't need a calculator for something as simple as 112*121/11 (hint: 121=11*11, therefore 112*121/11=112*11 -of course, you'll probably say you need a calculator for 121*11 too).
"Yeah, no one would want a calculator for a question like that"
Don't do such a question, then:
"A student is given 1,000 cubic centimeters of ethanol ice that's initially at -164 degrees Celsius. Said student is instructed to heat the ice until it melts and continue heating until it eventually reaches a temperature of +36C throughout. How many total calories did this require?"
See? Same knowledge tested, no calculator needed.
"So, are you saying that if someone cannot remember formulas and other detail type of information then they don't understand the material?"
Yes.
"I disagree. There are many people who grasp very sophisticated concepts and need their "notes" to remember the formulas, etc to handle the math etc."
Then they study a bit more and magically they need their notes no more.
"Einstein himself failed math"
Einstein himself declared to be quite bad at maths.
"You have no idea what I would have done to have that kind of connectivity between our offices"
For that you should look at the contract conditions. Probably it has a "residential use only" so you can't use it to connect your offices.
"Having read the article, and being a US Gov't employee, let me just say that Cooney has unnecessarily confused the issue."
Let's see.
"Some of the 50 examples he lists are duplicates ("1. SENSITIVE", "17. SENSITIVE (SENS)", "40. SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED (SBU)" are all the same thing"
Which seems to be exactly (part of) his point. If they are all the same thing, why they have four different names? Make it more complex than needed and you'll have it more fragile than needed.
"No, it's not just an "identification token"."
I'm with you. It's not just an "identification token": it's a *misused* identification token.
"Because not much more information than your social security number and your name are required to open a credit card account in your name".
Which is the real problem: an identification token -which your SSN certainly is, shouldn't be used that way. Just look around you: there's a world beyond USA and it seems it's only USA the one having problems with disclosed SSNs. Have you thought why?
"The problem is that the SSN is so closely tagged to everything you do, just knowing it makes stealing an identity way too easy."
That's exactly my point. I could accept that common use of SSN would make nowadays for easy identity *tracking* but never identity *theft*, which is made so easy because you are using your SSN as an auth token, not an identity one.
"This seems to be more an example of Zynga taking advantage of economies of scale, and entering new game genres to eliminate competition. Which is a monopoly."
I think you should reestudy the definition of "monopoly".
No, being big is not "monopoly".
"I don't telecommute. I work for myself."
Then you are probably breaking your contract with the ISP if your use "home grade" connections for bussiness.
What are you smoking, that $350/mo for 1Gbit seems "high?"
I don't think they imply "$350/mo for 1Gbit" to be high but that "$350/mo" is.
" If only one user in three will misuse the line, but the other two use it reasonably, they will still come out with a profit."
What do you mean, "misuse"? Using it as per the contract conditions is "misuse" in your book?
But there is a "catch": at $350/month (almost) no one is going to use it. So even if it produces slight loses they can go to the marketing budget: "Electric Power Board of Chattanooga: the fastest Internet connection you home can get".
"Um, if you have root then what is the point of compiling and surreptitiously installing compromised code on the machine, YOU ALREADY HAVE FUCKING ROOT!"
The key word is "surreptitiously", as in you don't want them to know they are rooted.
"Protecting and classifying sensitive information such as social security numbers shouldn't be that hard"
I know the historical context that makes social security numbers to be declared "sensitive information" in the USA but when will you start to attack the real problem?
Your social security number is an identification token; it should be the exact opposite to sensitive information! No wonder you have so many problems related to SSNs.
"If your mechanic thinks that "The Little Mermaid" was a Shakespearean drama, that really doesn't affect his ability to fix your car. Same with this."
Yes. It's only you don't get into Shakespeare in order to become a better mechanic but to be a better human being.
Your mechaninc being an insect instead of a human being is an idea that probably some people with more power, money and influence than you and me will find quite worthwhile.
"Hmm? Obama's home country *IS* Kenya"
Is it? I thought there were a constitutional provision such as only people who's born in the USA could be elected president of such country.
And, by the way, how well could you expect for a president to defend the interests of the USA if is home country is a different one?
But, wait a minute, Wikipedia states that Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii... has been Hawaii conquered by Kenya recently?
Oh, I know, I know. By "Obama" you meant Barack Obama, Sr. which was born in Kenya, not Barack Obama, the POTUS, whose home country is USA.
You do know Sherlock Holmes is a fiction character, don't you?
"No, it would rely on people simply being people."
And what do you think people is now. No, I mean it.
The world is exactly what it is now by people simply being people since ages.
"There are no corporations in an anarchy -- no government to issue corporate charters."
Do not call corporations then. But is it anarchy to forbid associations of free men to pursue common interests?
If anarchy is not to forbid them, are you sure they won't appear? And once they appear how is anarchy to protect the lessen associations (specially the one-man ones) not to be subordinated to the dictations of the bigger ones?
"Some nations (eg. Germany), do not allow a copyright owner to abandon, sell, transfer, etc. their "moral rights" to a work."
Something going into the public domain doesn't mean the author abandons their moral rights. Moral rights are "natural" and basically cover just the concepts of authorship and untampering. "Hamlet" is still a work by Shakespeare and it's well into the public domain; and you can't take "Hamlet", change it so Hamlet marries Ophelia and still call it "Shakespeare's work" even if "Hamlet" is in the public domain.
"So, is it legal to fill up the media with 100% pirated stuff??"
By what Sal Zeta states, the Italian model seems quite the same than the Spanish one, only worse, since the RIAA-likes came with it later. Then the answer is no, you can't.
In Spain, copying artistic media (music, books, films, etc.) for private use without direct revenue (basically everything that goes from a private person to another private person, even through p2p) is legal under the assumption that culture/art is a major right that can't lightly be taken away (this way, you can copy music but you can't copy computer programs since they are not considered art forms).
But because of this, cultural/artistical artifacts worth special measures to protect them, so in late seventies/early eighties (so I think to remember, at least) with the rise of blank casettes for everbody, government decided that it would be good to raise kindof a "tax" (I don't know how to properly translate the legal term "canon") on blank media to make for a compensation for the money these people were not earning (note this: "were not earning" is quite a different thing than "were losing") due to private copies.
So, the "tax" on blank media is a compensation for the right you have to copy music etc. no matter if you, in fact, exercise such a right. But of course that's not a blanket for you being allowed to anything illegal: what you could do, you can do (you have the right here to copy, no matter if the copy is taxed or not), what you couldn't do (i.e.: make a copy and sell it) you still can't do.
Your "So, is it legal to fill up the media with 100% pirated stuff??" statement has a second reading, though: in countries like Spain and, so it seems, Italy, there's almost no way you can have something like "pirated stuff" (with the notable exception of computer programs) since almost any kind of copies you can make yourself aren't going to be "pirate" at all (still, I see them counted as "pirate" in international statistics. No wonder Spain always appears top-ranking as a "pirate" country).
That notwithstanding and pushed by the RIAA example (no matter that USA legal system is absolutly different with this regard to these guys), European RIAA-likes are pushing expensive marketing campagins to raise into public opinion the idea that these kinds of copies are, in fact, somehow illegal. They expect that when their message is properly damped public opinion it'll be easy for them and their money to make a change in legislation. After all, if everybody thinks it's illegal what's the problem with making it effectively illegal?