Because obviously someone uses a profane word because they lack the eloquence to call someone a bumbling ignorant uncultured swine of a simpleton. And obviously when someone wishes to damn someones soul to eternally burn in the fires of hell, they must say so in such verbage, instead of just simplifying it to "damn you" with the rest understood.
Obviously people use profane words because they lack the vocabulary to use others words, and NOT because certain words have three key features:
1. understood nearly universally within the culture 2. carry a weight to them, especially when said very sparsly 3. convey the point they are intended with little room for misunderstanding
True one could be complex with their insults and verbose with their exclamations, but that would truly render them useless. What good is it to call someone a hedonistic glutton if they don't understand what you're saying? You would feel good you've insulted someone who can't understand what you're saying, and that is a worthless act. At least if you call them a lazy fatass they understand that they need to get up and move, in your opinion.
I would argue that a well placed fuck or damn is more important than a good vocabulary. More so when you reserve your usage of them, as people notice when someone who rarely does so, curses.
Really? Because it's not like this hasn't happened before.. crews being gone for weeks or months at a time, no way to resupply, stuck in small cramped quarters....
and of course they weren't on wooden ships at the time either...
and of course in space there are no storms or shit that risk destroying your ship...
and of course they was strict mental profiling done beforehand to make sure everyone got along....
Personally I think we're just too stuck up to not try to reinvent the wheel because the old wheel doesn't fit our hip new lifestyle of personal space.:P
I have some karma to burn, and I feel there is not a better piece to do it on.
Great job rover team. The two rovers are a constant motivator for all engineers on how a project can still be done right in this world, and how much affect that can have. Nowadays it's depressing when you hear about all the flaws in products people actually sell, and how returning broken shit out of the box is the norm. In business we get delayed projects and stupid alterations at whims sometimes.
But the rovers were done right, and were done for science. And they're still chugging well past their expiration date. I regret I wasn't alive for the moon landings, but in my humble opinion, i sometimes feel as if this was the greater achievement of the two. Especially that they're still going.
For those who have read the book Snow Crash, which i would recommend, this sounds a lot like the information brokerage system there. Everyone uploads useful data and then people who use it pay money, except the people paying money are the advertisers targetting the people using the data.
A majority of the cost in the scenario you describe is because it's going through land that is already developed and expensive. I do not see why you couldn't build a railroad system that goes through undeveloped land cheaply for much lower. A connection between NYC and LA could be built with stations on the outskirts of each, and STILL be faster and economical, with the people travelling having to use busses or such for the last 10 miles or so.
Disclaimer: I do not hold the opinion i express in this post. In fact I hold no opinion on this topic whatsoever because I have not read enough to be informed. This is merely presented, like most of my posts, to be a devils advocate to promote looking at the converse arguments to any given statement.
You said that "Any argument that there might be privacy implications to voluntarily sharing data between allies, or that simply building the infrastructure and capability to do so creates an opportunity for abuse (with the implication that it should therefore not be done) are very weak arguments."
Let me propose a slight different view for you. Most countries have laws protecting their own citizens private rights, but not those that aren't their citizens. Now, if more than 2 countries have such a policy, then share information freely, it effectively gives both countries freedom to spy on their own people, without any reprecussions. They just ask their partner country to do it. In most cases they don't even need to ask, it's already in the databases somewhere, due to how vast most foreign policy spying is.
The privacy implication is that by sharing information, you are allowed to violate laws in your own country by letting countries where its not illegal do it then give you the ill gotten gains.
They linked to an image, therefore, they used the image, to show something. Just because they didn't host a copy of the image themselves doesn't mean they didn't use the image. If they linked to the blog or page shell, then it would be attribution, since that page is up there to be viewed.
A paper and pencil example would be the difference between me opening a book and showing someone a picture in it, and cutting out the picture and pasting it into a report. The first is the point of the book, the second is more likely to be infringements since all rights are reserved.
Two people walk through airport security, one gets through, the other doesn't.
One person is a normal citizen, who hears about the horrid things that happen to detainees and people at the hands of airport security, cannot miss their flight home to visit their grandma who is about to die from cancer, and only has the bare minimum time to get through security and onto the plane.
The other is an actual INTERPOL top 100 criminal. They have survived for years by being able to control their outward appearance and are a master a social engineering in order to avoid security or police in localities.
Guess which one gets through?
There's an old saying, only the bad hackers get caught. That applies to criminals. 99% of anti-criminal measures in place such as this will only stop the poorly conceived, the unintelligent, or the unlucky. It will do nothing about people determined, intelligent, and with a plan, which is the attributes the supposed terrorists who want to blow up planes have. I'm all for security measures that work, but these aren't it. And that is assuming you subscribe to the group that believes they really are supposed to help catch criminals instead of just promote a more.... federally empowered american government.
I'm not saying my stance, I'm just saying the sides you can view it from.
I think what he means is that if you are depending on your wireless connection for security, you're already doing something wrong.
One is because most secure practices can be implemented well separate of wireless, if you are concerned with security. And in fact relying on wireless encryption as your "only" form of security is something that even most non-savvy computer users can be taught not to do, so the experienced ones should have no excuse.
The other is that most "security" for wireless has already been broken and can be repeated in a near trivial amount of time, so if someone was dead set on sniffing your data, chances are they'd be able to do it.
In my defense, I run an open wireless network that is sectioned off, that instead of encryption relies on MAC addresses to allow into the normal section of the network. Everyone not on the list just gets to use the internet.
Allows friends to come over and connect happily to the web without messing with stuff, and if they need the network access adding their computer is a 10 second job.
At the university i attend as a CS major, there is a big push in the CS classes to use the Eclipse IDE, and trying to use any other one is frowned upon and teachers try to pressure you into switching due to some hidden policy.
My question is anyone have an earthly idea why eclipse is being pushed so much?
From what i've tried, there are other IDEs that are more widely used/accepted as efficient IDEs, and others that i just plain work faster in and are less full of clutter. So did eclipse use to be some industry standard at a forbes 500 or do they have marketing trolls or what?
That may be so, and paypal is more like a free money tree for them, than a hobby. In that regard they are treating it exactly like a business, maximum profit for least work. Not a good business, but a profitable one none the less.
However the GP said that castlecops was the one treating it not like a business. Still not sure what he meant.
"CastleCops needs to start treating what they are doing more like a business and less like a hobby."
Thank you for your very deep and wonderful insight! Obviously you have found the core of all their problems was that they obviously don't take what they are doing seriously, and because of that, the groups they are fighting against use sneaky tactics through third party companies to enact harm upon them.
Because that makes sense and is something they obviously could have stopped if they had only "treated it more like a business", whatever that means. No one knows, because you didn't even elaborate.
Actually the reason i can say that is because i've seen to and talked with people in the rest of the bible belt, and have friends in some of the other states, and on the whole, oklahoma isn't quite as extreme as some of the other bible belt areas.
Not to say we don't have our fruitcakes, we got plenty. It's just they are balanced by a higher percentage of rational educated people who care enough to use their voice and their time to make sure that the legislation does something in accordance with their wishes.
The fact that the gaming laws and other things DID pass in oklahoma is actually the point. Times are changing, and oklahoma has been losing it's bible belt stupidity at a pretty fast rate compared with the rest.
You know, this is one of the more amusing parts of slashdot, when two long standing and long defended beliefs of the system come into clash. The problem is, neither side reads what the other writes, even though they all say the same thing.
Belief #1 - Stupid people should get what they deserve.
The guy was a moron, he went out there with the intent to cause a disturbance, and did things he KNEW would get the police on his tail, in order to get his 15 minutes of fame.
Belief #2 - Repression of free speech is bad, no matter the reasons.
The guy was a college student and wasn't hurting anyone, he shouldn't have been touched. Police are barbarians and you all live in a police state.
Now, what both sides usually say at SOME POINT in their posts:
The police acted out of hand and tasers should NOT have been used, reguardless of how much of a moron the guy was being, which he was. They should have found peaceful means.
See slashdot! If you stop and read others posts, you really aren't arguing as much as you think you are!
Yes the kid was out of line, no one here is saying he wasn't, that i've seen post so far. Yes the police were out of line, no one here is saying they weren't, that i've seen post so far.
Tasers shouldn't be fucking used like they're the harmless way to immboilize anyone, and surely 4 policemen are enough to restrain a person without injury if they are a threat to others.
But seriously, the two fear mongering sides need to shut up and be intelligent. This isn't police state tactics, this is just a normal case of badly trained police using a taser out of jurisdiction.
If this were a police state, you never would have heard about this. Or that that kid existed. Even the senator was trying to help the kid calm down by answering his question. People were happy the annoyance was gone, not that the kid was tasered.
As an okie (person who lives in oklahoma), i'm always happy to see shit like this.
No state is perfect, and there are always morons and imbeciles, especially here in the bible belt, but oklahoma has always been a relatively common sense area of the union in this fucked up little world.
I'd almost say part of it is because we're on the edge of the bible belt. People around here are smart enough to know not to be morons with their religions, but also old fashioned enough to realize that PARENTING is done by the PARENT. And people who bitch otherwise are usually just lazy.
Seriously, all i am hearing is a bunch of bs and naysayers who are pulling numbers out of their butt. Either cough up numbers or shut up. There are not that many lottery winners compared to people who work and become millionaires. Heck, if you are part of the current generation, you will probably be a millionaire at some point before you die. It's not just about money, it's about assets, which include retirement.
The first million is not hard to make, all you need is some smarts and a little hard work, and a little frugality. In fact there are many places that can give you basic guidelines that w/o playing the stock market, if you start living decently and investing a little at age 20, you can hit a million before retirement. I think it was like 2k a year at most if you only invested from 16-30.
Most people just like to complain without being realistic.
I wish i had modpoints, because if there's one thing I absolutely cannot stand it is ignorant trolls who make it their goal in life to tell everyone else they are pointless and that they are wasting time, while contributing nothing to a discussion.
No one says that this is the biggest issue to discuss, only you. No one said there isn't other problems with the world, only you. No one said we should forget all other problems like cancer or shit and deal with this, only you.
And then you pretend to hide behind reason and a "wake up" call to the rest to explain your trollish assininity. No.
Don't post if you don't have something constructive. These are conversations to discuss a news post and it's merits/demerits, and the problem at hand. If you don't like it, fine, don't post. But don't waste everyone's time with posts saying why you're god on high and that what you think is the most important and how everyone should stop discussing this right now and that their opinions don't matter by making some half-assed analogy that doesn't even work for the way you use it.
Correct me if i'm wrong, but google did not SELL videos. It rented them. Are you going to say that OMFG, blockbuster is doing it wrong, why won't they let us keep the videos, we already paid for it! Sorry, just seems a little bland argument to me. Again, if i'm wrong please say so.
They've done this, it's called ap classes. Outside of electives like band, students who take all ap-accelerated coursework will rarely mesh with the "average/dumb" kids who chose not to, as most students who take ap take it every year they can, in any classes.
However, i will say that smart kids are a benefit to the entire class, and the class to them. Most try to help their friends or other students with work, just to keep busy, when they've done their own work. This gives the smarter students valuable experience in learning how to explain concepts to people who don't understand it, or don't see the same way they do, which translated into better work dealing w/ managers or underlings. Add to that the lesser students usually learn better when they have a smarter friend or helper in the class who can help translate it to a way they understand, as well as having others who can help besides the teacher means better use of class time.
What most of the people who support intelligent design don't realize is that this idea was already thought up, centuries ago.
In fact, it was a relatively important part of a book. This book was called candide. The character in question was, i believe, doctor pangloss. He made such wonderful observations such as, "We have legs so we can obviously wear pants." and "humans have noses so that they have a place to put their glasses".
While it's more of a satire of optimism, if you look at the basic argument, it's pretty much the same stuff, different millenium.
If they wanted to alienate a giant portion of their customer base.
If they wanted to remove their ability to charge for digital converters.
Currently you have MANY situations like my family's, in which we have close to 7 tv's in the house, with 9 outlets. 6 of those are analog, with only 1 digital. Of which you have to pay for the "privelege" of watching digital on that outlet via the set top box charges.
Why would they cut off their nose to spite their face, when they can currently work with what they have available?
90%+ of the internet "issues" with speed are the fault of the providers, not because their "infrastructures can't handle it". It has been proven again and again over the years that the service providers, whether they are cable internet or direct lines like dsl, have no need to upgrade thier infrastructure when they can oversell by a factor of 10, 100, and sometimes higher in certain areas, and receieve below the "minimum" level of complaints for change. Plus, iirc, wasn't there a big issue with the providers and congress over a decade ago in which they took millions, maybe billions, of government money in return for promised infrastructure upgrades, which never were realized?
I mean yeah, cable and dsl are cheaper and faster than modems, but compared to the technology that has been available for over the past decade or two, it should be a LOT more powerful and cheaper than it is now. It's all artificial shortages to keep the prices up and the profit margins high.
IANAL, but I believe the problem with this issue is that in the US of A, I do not think they can put you in jail for not giving up blood.
I'm not sure which law this would fall under, but I believe at the VERY least it would be under the 5th amendment of not giving evidence against yourself. Maybe there's an exception. If anyone knows i'd love to be corrected, as with all the privacy laws, and antilaws, that we have, it's hard telling what's illegal nowadays, and if a cop says do something, most people assume it's a crime not to, such as car searches.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah.... Let's go with that belief.
Because obviously someone uses a profane word because they lack the eloquence to call someone a bumbling ignorant uncultured swine of a simpleton. And obviously when someone wishes to damn someones soul to eternally burn in the fires of hell, they must say so in such verbage, instead of just simplifying it to "damn you" with the rest understood.
Obviously people use profane words because they lack the vocabulary to use others words, and NOT because certain words have three key features:
1. understood nearly universally within the culture
2. carry a weight to them, especially when said very sparsly
3. convey the point they are intended with little room for misunderstanding
True one could be complex with their insults and verbose with their exclamations, but that would truly render them useless.
What good is it to call someone a hedonistic glutton if they don't understand what you're saying?
You would feel good you've insulted someone who can't understand what you're saying, and that is a worthless act. At least if you call them a lazy fatass they understand that they need to get up and move, in your opinion.
I would argue that a well placed fuck or damn is more important than a good vocabulary. More so when you reserve your usage of them, as people notice when someone who rarely does so, curses.
Really? Because it's not like this hasn't happened before.. crews being gone for weeks or months at a time, no way to resupply, stuck in small cramped quarters....
:P
and of course they weren't on wooden ships at the time either...
and of course in space there are no storms or shit that risk destroying your ship...
and of course they was strict mental profiling done beforehand to make sure everyone got along....
Personally I think we're just too stuck up to not try to reinvent the wheel because the old wheel doesn't fit our hip new lifestyle of personal space.
I have some karma to burn, and I feel there is not a better piece to do it on.
Great job rover team.
The two rovers are a constant motivator for all engineers on how a project can still be done right in this world, and how much affect that can have. Nowadays it's depressing when you hear about all the flaws in products people actually sell, and how returning broken shit out of the box is the norm. In business we get delayed projects and stupid alterations at whims sometimes.
But the rovers were done right, and were done for science. And they're still chugging well past their expiration date. I regret I wasn't alive for the moon landings, but in my humble opinion, i sometimes feel as if this was the greater achievement of the two. Especially that they're still going.
Good job. And keep it up.
Being as the standard estimate used in the LoC/s standard (20 terabytes/sec), and it's a 7.68 terabit line, you can do some simple math.
.96 terabytes/sec in bandwidth, so you'd get the Library of Congress in around 21 seconds.
Assuming that a terabyte is 8 terabits, the line adds
So approximately 1/21 LoC/sec, or 2.85 LoC/min.
For those who have read the book Snow Crash, which i would recommend, this sounds a lot like the information brokerage system there. Everyone uploads useful data and then people who use it pay money, except the people paying money are the advertisers targetting the people using the data.
Why not?
A majority of the cost in the scenario you describe is because it's going through land that is already developed and expensive. I do not see why you couldn't build a railroad system that goes through undeveloped land cheaply for much lower. A connection between NYC and LA could be built with stations on the outskirts of each, and STILL be faster and economical, with the people travelling having to use busses or such for the last 10 miles or so.
Disclaimer: I do not hold the opinion i express in this post. In fact I hold no opinion on this topic whatsoever because I have not read enough to be informed. This is merely presented, like most of my posts, to be a devils advocate to promote looking at the converse arguments to any given statement.
You said that
"Any argument that there might be privacy implications to voluntarily sharing data between allies, or that simply building the infrastructure and capability to do so creates an opportunity for abuse (with the implication that it should therefore not be done) are very weak arguments."
Let me propose a slight different view for you.
Most countries have laws protecting their own citizens private rights, but not those that aren't their citizens.
Now, if more than 2 countries have such a policy, then share information freely, it effectively gives both countries freedom to spy on their own people, without any reprecussions. They just ask their partner country to do it. In most cases they don't even need to ask, it's already in the databases somewhere, due to how vast most foreign policy spying is.
The privacy implication is that by sharing information, you are allowed to violate laws in your own country by letting countries where its not illegal do it then give you the ill gotten gains.
I'm not sure I follow your assumption.
They linked to an image, therefore, they used the image, to show something.
Just because they didn't host a copy of the image themselves doesn't mean they didn't use the image.
If they linked to the blog or page shell, then it would be attribution, since that page is up there to be viewed.
A paper and pencil example would be the difference between me opening a book and showing someone a picture in it, and cutting out the picture and pasting it into a report. The first is the point of the book, the second is more likely to be infringements since all rights are reserved.
Ok, here's your scenario.
Two people walk through airport security, one gets through, the other doesn't.
One person is a normal citizen, who hears about the horrid things that happen to detainees and people at the hands of airport security, cannot miss their flight home to visit their grandma who is about to die from cancer, and only has the bare minimum time to get through security and onto the plane.
The other is an actual INTERPOL top 100 criminal. They have survived for years by being able to control their outward appearance and are a master a social engineering in order to avoid security or police in localities.
Guess which one gets through?
There's an old saying, only the bad hackers get caught. That applies to criminals. 99% of anti-criminal measures in place such as this will only stop the poorly conceived, the unintelligent, or the unlucky. It will do nothing about people determined, intelligent, and with a plan, which is the attributes the supposed terrorists who want to blow up planes have.
I'm all for security measures that work, but these aren't it. And that is assuming you subscribe to the group that believes they really are supposed to help catch criminals instead of just promote a more.... federally empowered american government.
I'm not saying my stance, I'm just saying the sides you can view it from.
I think what he means is that if you are depending on your wireless connection for security, you're already doing something wrong.
One is because most secure practices can be implemented well separate of wireless, if you are concerned with security. And in fact relying on wireless encryption as your "only" form of security is something that even most non-savvy computer users can be taught not to do, so the experienced ones should have no excuse.
The other is that most "security" for wireless has already been broken and can be repeated in a near trivial amount of time, so if someone was dead set on sniffing your data, chances are they'd be able to do it.
In my defense, I run an open wireless network that is sectioned off, that instead of encryption relies on MAC addresses to allow into the normal section of the network. Everyone not on the list just gets to use the internet.
Allows friends to come over and connect happily to the web without messing with stuff, and if they need the network access adding their computer is a 10 second job.
If god wanted us to cut back on cow consumption, they wouldn't be made of tasty meat. Who are you to argue with god's intelligent design?
-karmaburn
At the university i attend as a CS major, there is a big push in the CS classes to use the Eclipse IDE, and trying to use any other one is frowned upon and teachers try to pressure you into switching due to some hidden policy.
My question is anyone have an earthly idea why eclipse is being pushed so much?
From what i've tried, there are other IDEs that are more widely used/accepted as efficient IDEs, and others that i just plain work faster in and are less full of clutter. So did eclipse use to be some industry standard at a forbes 500 or do they have marketing trolls or what?
-Confused Student
1. Buy/rent that little floating oil platform/sovereign nation (forget the name, sea something?)
2. launch from there
3. profit!
I Filled in the ???s!
That may be so, and paypal is more like a free money tree for them, than a hobby.
In that regard they are treating it exactly like a business, maximum profit for least work. Not a good business, but a profitable one none the less.
However the GP said that castlecops was the one treating it not like a business. Still not sure what he meant.
No one questioned paypal's buffoonery
"CastleCops needs to start treating what they are doing more like a business and less like a hobby."
Thank you for your very deep and wonderful insight!
Obviously you have found the core of all their problems was that they obviously don't take what they are doing seriously, and because of that, the groups they are fighting against use sneaky tactics through third party companies to enact harm upon them.
Because that makes sense and is something they obviously could have stopped if they had only "treated it more like a business", whatever that means. No one knows, because you didn't even elaborate.
[/sarcasm]
Actually the reason i can say that is because i've seen to and talked with people in the rest of the bible belt, and have friends in some of the other states, and on the whole, oklahoma isn't quite as extreme as some of the other bible belt areas.
Not to say we don't have our fruitcakes, we got plenty. It's just they are balanced by a higher percentage of rational educated people who care enough to use their voice and their time to make sure that the legislation does something in accordance with their wishes.
The fact that the gaming laws and other things DID pass in oklahoma is actually the point. Times are changing, and oklahoma has been losing it's bible belt stupidity at a pretty fast rate compared with the rest.
You know, this is one of the more amusing parts of slashdot, when two long standing and long defended beliefs of the system come into clash.
The problem is, neither side reads what the other writes, even though they all say the same thing.
Belief #1 - Stupid people should get what they deserve.
The guy was a moron, he went out there with the intent to cause a disturbance, and did things he KNEW would get the police on his tail, in order to get his 15 minutes of fame.
Belief #2 - Repression of free speech is bad, no matter the reasons.
The guy was a college student and wasn't hurting anyone, he shouldn't have been touched. Police are barbarians and you all live in a police state.
Now, what both sides usually say at SOME POINT in their posts:
The police acted out of hand and tasers should NOT have been used, reguardless of how much of a moron the guy was being, which he was. They should have found peaceful means.
See slashdot! If you stop and read others posts, you really aren't arguing as much as you think you are!
Yes the kid was out of line, no one here is saying he wasn't, that i've seen post so far.
Yes the police were out of line, no one here is saying they weren't, that i've seen post so far.
Tasers shouldn't be fucking used like they're the harmless way to immboilize anyone, and surely 4 policemen are enough to restrain a person without injury if they are a threat to others.
But seriously, the two fear mongering sides need to shut up and be intelligent. This isn't police state tactics, this is just a normal case of badly trained police using a taser out of jurisdiction.
If this were a police state, you never would have heard about this. Or that that kid existed. Even the senator was trying to help the kid calm down by answering his question. People were happy the annoyance was gone, not that the kid was tasered.
As an okie (person who lives in oklahoma), i'm always happy to see shit like this.
No state is perfect, and there are always morons and imbeciles, especially here in the bible belt, but oklahoma has always been a relatively common sense area of the union in this fucked up little world.
I'd almost say part of it is because we're on the edge of the bible belt. People around here are smart enough to know not to be morons with their religions, but also old fashioned enough to realize that PARENTING is done by the PARENT. And people who bitch otherwise are usually just lazy.
Good job OK!
Citation please.
Seriously, all i am hearing is a bunch of bs and naysayers who are pulling numbers out of their butt.
Either cough up numbers or shut up. There are not that many lottery winners compared to people who work and become millionaires. Heck, if you are part of the current generation, you will probably be a millionaire at some point before you die. It's not just about money, it's about assets, which include retirement.
The first million is not hard to make, all you need is some smarts and a little hard work, and a little frugality. In fact there are many places that can give you basic guidelines that w/o playing the stock market, if you start living decently and investing a little at age 20, you can hit a million before retirement. I think it was like 2k a year at most if you only invested from 16-30.
Most people just like to complain without being realistic.
I wish i had modpoints, because if there's one thing I absolutely cannot stand it is ignorant trolls who make it their goal in life to tell everyone else they are pointless and that they are wasting time, while contributing nothing to a discussion.
No one says that this is the biggest issue to discuss, only you.
No one said there isn't other problems with the world, only you.
No one said we should forget all other problems like cancer or shit and deal with this, only you.
And then you pretend to hide behind reason and a "wake up" call to the rest to explain your trollish assininity. No.
Don't post if you don't have something constructive. These are conversations to discuss a news post and it's merits/demerits, and the problem at hand. If you don't like it, fine, don't post. But don't waste everyone's time with posts saying why you're god on high and that what you think is the most important and how everyone should stop discussing this right now and that their opinions don't matter by making some half-assed analogy that doesn't even work for the way you use it.
Thank you, have a nice day, and don't troll.
Except they didn't?
Correct me if i'm wrong, but google did not SELL videos. It rented them. Are you going to say that OMFG, blockbuster is doing it wrong, why won't they let us keep the videos, we already paid for it!
Sorry, just seems a little bland argument to me. Again, if i'm wrong please say so.
They've done this, it's called ap classes. Outside of electives like band, students who take all ap-accelerated coursework will rarely mesh with the "average/dumb" kids who chose not to, as most students who take ap take it every year they can, in any classes.
However, i will say that smart kids are a benefit to the entire class, and the class to them.
Most try to help their friends or other students with work, just to keep busy, when they've done their own work. This gives the smarter students valuable experience in learning how to explain concepts to people who don't understand it, or don't see the same way they do, which translated into better work dealing w/ managers or underlings. Add to that the lesser students usually learn better when they have a smarter friend or helper in the class who can help translate it to a way they understand, as well as having others who can help besides the teacher means better use of class time.
What most of the people who support intelligent design don't realize is that this idea was already thought up, centuries ago.
In fact, it was a relatively important part of a book.
This book was called candide.
The character in question was, i believe, doctor pangloss. He made such wonderful observations such as, "We have legs so we can obviously wear pants." and "humans have noses so that they have a place to put their glasses".
While it's more of a satire of optimism, if you look at the basic argument, it's pretty much the same stuff, different millenium.
Sure, they could do that.
If they wanted to alienate a giant portion of their customer base.
If they wanted to remove their ability to charge for digital converters.
Currently you have MANY situations like my family's, in which we have close to 7 tv's in the house, with 9 outlets. 6 of those are analog, with only 1 digital. Of which you have to pay for the "privelege" of watching digital on that outlet via the set top box charges.
Why would they cut off their nose to spite their face, when they can currently work with what they have available?
90%+ of the internet "issues" with speed are the fault of the providers, not because their "infrastructures can't handle it". It has been proven again and again over the years that the service providers, whether they are cable internet or direct lines like dsl, have no need to upgrade thier infrastructure when they can oversell by a factor of 10, 100, and sometimes higher in certain areas, and receieve below the "minimum" level of complaints for change. Plus, iirc, wasn't there a big issue with the providers and congress over a decade ago in which they took millions, maybe billions, of government money in return for promised infrastructure upgrades, which never were realized?
I mean yeah, cable and dsl are cheaper and faster than modems, but compared to the technology that has been available for over the past decade or two, it should be a LOT more powerful and cheaper than it is now. It's all artificial shortages to keep the prices up and the profit margins high.
IANAL, but I believe the problem with this issue is that in the US of A, I do not think they can put you in jail for not giving up blood.
I'm not sure which law this would fall under, but I believe at the VERY least it would be under the 5th amendment of not giving evidence against yourself. Maybe there's an exception. If anyone knows i'd love to be corrected, as with all the privacy laws, and antilaws, that we have, it's hard telling what's illegal nowadays, and if a cop says do something, most people assume it's a crime not to, such as car searches.