"Believe it not (and apparently you don't), his view is normal and commonly held."
Normal, sure. Commonly held? Prove it.
All we have at this point is you saying "it's not commonly held" and someone else saying "yes it is." I don't care how many stories you have or how many people you've talked to, the plural of "anecdote" is not "evidence". So unless you can point to a study, I'm not taking your word for it.
"Most universities also have a "Student Code of Conduct," which defines cheating as a violation, and often outlines punishment ranging from "throwing out the work" to "explusion from the university/college." Cheating on a test also breaks that agreement,"
Correct. Thus, the students who cheated should be expelled. However, there's absolutely no criteria here to force the honest students to retake the exam as they did not violate the contract.
You're one of these idiots that think that everything has to be in writing and have a signature to be considered a "contract". There are such things as verbal contracts. Furthermore, a legal "contract" is different from an agreement between students and the university that the professor is required to abide. Law enforcement and the courts don't necessarily come into play here. It could be as simple as a requirement from the dean's office.
"Right or wrong wrt the decision, it's ultimately caused by the cheaters."
No, it's not. The cheaters didn't force the professor to give a mandatory retake. The cheaters didn't force the professor to use a test to which the answer key was widely available. The cheaters cheated on their own exam.
If the professor decided to expel the entire class because there were a lot of cheaters, it would be the professor's fault, not the cheaters'. If the professor decided to SHOOT the entire class because there were a lot of cheaters, same thing.
This bullshit "it's the fault of the cheaters" is what the lazy professor wants you to think so that you won't go over his head and file a complaint with the department head, or the dean of the university, and force him to actually put some work into making the tests in the future rather than giving the exact same exam year after year.
Your chances of winning probably wouldn't be large if the university wanted to fight it. However, the university has more at stake here. They don't want to be known as the university that randomly creates mandatory retake exams whenever the grade statistics don't look "right". Thus, the university is likely to settle out of court. Generally something along the lines of "you get to keep your original test grade, don't have to take a retake, some money so you'll go away, and sign this NDA"
There's also the matter of accreditation. If the accreditation agency sees that a university is assigning a lot of mandatory retakes, they're going to look really freaking hard at just what exactly is going on. The university doesn't want to lose accreditation for not adhering to their own test policy, or for failing to prevent cheating so much that they have to schedule lots of mandatory retakes.
At any real college (that is, one where the professors don't copy their presentations and tests straight from the fucking book publisher) there's really no chance in hell a professor could get away with a mandatory retake. The department head wouldn't allow it, the registrar wouldn't allow it, the dean wouldn't allow it, etc.
Rampant cheating is not grounds for a mandatory retake. If someone cheated in the course, they're failed and removed from the course. Everyone who did NOT cheat retains their test score and progresses in the course as normal. If you're not sure who cheated then you MUST assume that they did NOT cheat and allow them to retain their test score and progress as normal. It is absolutely unacceptable to even accuse someone of cheating without damning evidence. The mere accusation of cheating can have huge consequences on someone's career.
Re:What's the deal with the rush of TSA stories re
on
TSA Pats Down 3-Year-Old
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· Score: 4, Insightful
"The problem now is that TSA has gone from annoyance theatre to dangerous and vile theatre."
I don't see why there's a problem here. This is a good thing. They've gone and done something that the everyone is actually complaining about. The airline industry is complaining about it, the general public is complaining about it, everyone except the TSA is complaining about it. The government will do something about it because now there's actually a significant opposition to it.
Previously it was 90% of people that were willing to give up their rights and submit to bullshit searches because they stupidly thought that this would protect them from terrorists, and 10% of people that complained. Obviously, this didn't help stop the TSA. Now, the numbers are reversed. The 90% of people who think that this is an invasion of privacy will hopefully be enough to stop this bullshit.
There's a difference here. The doctoral committee is more interested in whether or not it's been published before. Also, they don't expect you to do more work simply because you already did some awhile back. If your entire thesis is comprised of your prior works then that's just fine.
I'm going to call bullshit on this. This would have resulted in him flunking literally the entire course, which is not something a professor can do without expecting to loose his tenure.
I've seen stupid uses of it, but none that severe.
It's not necessitate proof of anything. Are the NSA's applications actually bulletproof? They might distribute their coding practices but I'm pretty sure they don't distribute their source code or their applications. Therefore, no evaluation of their security can be made. Therefore, there's no evidence to show anything about the quality of their practices.
I'm not saying they're wrong. In fact, evaluation of other, open, software indicates that security does stem from good coding practices. I'm just saying that there's really no reason to point to the NSA as an example of being quality.
You have demonstrated that you: A) Do not know what you're talking about B) Are unwilling to do even the most basic research.
Therefore, I will not waste my time responding to you in the future.
"Look around for what "scientists" say are impossible today. -A method for transmutation of elements -System for sending power wirelessly"
Absolutely incorrect. Transmutation of elements actually happens inside nuclear reactors and in nature during radioactive decay.
Transmitting power wirelessly is also done today. Radio, electric light, etc. are all applications of this. Electromagnetic induction was discovered one hell of a long time ago and has been used in many applications since.
No scientist today says that those things are impossible. You are either making shit up or you are not researching your argument. In either case, you should shut up.
No, I propose that the electric company upgrade their infrastructure to handle the capacity.
Of course, this creates problems. What if one guy is running an MRI machine or something that sucks up insane amounts of juice? Obviously the electric company shouldn't be required to upgrade their infrastructure to accommodate that load. So where do we draw the line?
The issue is that we're not talking about one guy on the block "using up all the internet". It's the fact that bandwidth usage is increasing for EVERYONE. Games are distributed electronically, movies are streamed, music is streamed, web pages have more and more content that you can download, etc. This isn't one guy with grow lamps causing a brownout. It's everyone on the block that wants to turn on their lights at reasonable times that's causing the problem. This more closely models internet usage.
Also, there's no talk here of guaranteed electricity or bandwidth. ISPs promise "up to" such and such a limit. This means that they can give you absolutely no service because 0kb/s is still "up to" 30MB/s (or whatever the fuck they advertise). This would be like the electric company promising you "up to" some power and then not giving you enough to even run your lights. If the electric company did this, people would be rioting until it was fixed. (It's happened before)
In either case, the solution is not to implement throttling.
We can debate all day about whether or not the government should regulate the internet, but I think we can all agree that competition would result in better service for everyone. Once some company actually makes good on a plan that contains a real SLA (including minimum speeds and uptime) they'll start raking in money like none other. The problem is that there is no competition. The barrier to entry is huge, and you have large companies like comcast that have monopolies in large areas of the US and lawyers to make sure it stays that way.
Thus, I propose that the government needs to regulate the internet only to the point that it spurs lots of competition. Congress needs to introduce laws that make it easier for new ISPs to start up and limit how much control a single company can have regarding broadband service in any given area. That way, the free market takes over and we can finally get some good fucking internet service.
I suspect that you're trolling, but on the off chance that you're just a moron that doesn't know how to use a screwdriver, let me explain.
You likely can't sharped the end because it's a somewhat more brittle material, because it's a harder material. They do this so that you can drive screws without having the tip wear off. Also, why the hell are you making screwdrivers into punches? GO BUY A PUNCH! They cost about $5 it'll last longer than a screwdriver-punch anyway.
I also suspect you one of the people that complains about the poor quality of crescent wrenches after using them as a hammer.
The funny part is that this DOESN'T hurt Microsoft at all. If anything it would encourage more people to buy the kinekt (or whatever stupid ass name they gave it). The layman buys the device and doesn't care/know that they can use it in other applications. The geek buys it BECAUSE they can use it in other applications. There's no downside to Microsoft's profit here.... at all.
Microsoft is just making the assumption that any changes hurt their revenue stream because they're too fucking stupid to think more than 10 seconds in front of their face.
Alright, the issue here is that if you don't make the ring fucking HUGE then you actually end up with the Coriolis effect causing extreme nausea and all the astronauts vomiting. So your "solution" would: A) Cost a fuckload of money. B) Be completely impractical to get into space and install C) Not work anyway.
I find it funny that every Tom, Dick, and Harry without a high school education thinks that they're a brilliant engineer whenever they read about some problem that hundreds of experienced engineers couldn't solve. Seriously, take ten seconds and go google your idea BEFORE touting it as the magical solution that all of these foolish NASA engineers didn't think of.
Except that rape is forced upon the victim. No one forced you to scarf down Twinkies until you were too fat to stand up.
If you have some kind of medical condition that makes it extremely hard for you to maintain a healthy weight, that's one thing. But the fact is that the vast majority of obesity isn't caused by some medical condition, but by people eating too much and being too lazy to exercise.
This is what I've been telling people for years. If you make something visible on the internet then you also give up all rights to keep that information secret. The INTERNET IS PUBLIC.
I'm appalled at how many people I see running around complaining of "facebook stalking". It's not stalking if you put something in a publicly viewable area. It's like complaining that someone is reading the "wanted ad" you placed on a billboard in a common area.
"Which is why I wish my phone had SOME physical buttons, say, for ANSWERING and HANGING UP. It's a bit ridiculous to have to take my gloves off to answer a call by swiping across the screen."
What's worse, the crappy phone with an obvious flaw or the idiot who buys the crappy phone anyway?
"Then there are the users. I had one who would randomly delete things. Like drivers. Her system would just stop working in weird and inscrutable ways, and of course she had no idea what she did. I finally gave up and forced her onto a Mac. I have had to deal with fewer than one issue per *year* since. That is another big improvement, and I think it comes down to the nice separation between system and user permissions; she cannot delete system things willy-nilly."
I had a user that had the odd habit of smacking himself in the face with a hammer. The legal department was getting a little concerned about all the injuries, so I have him a foam pool-noodle to replace the hammer. Now he doesn't have to go to the ER as often.
See? Pool noodles are better than hammers because it doesn't hurt as much when you smack yourself in the face.
If you find mac software limiting and bizarre then why in the hell did you buy apple hardware?
Unless you're going to use apple software there's no point in buying apple hardware. It's based on the intel architecture, and you can find better hardware for cheaper prices.
"That is why we don't have computer-piloted cars/planes/etc."
Yeah, that and the fact that making a computer-driven car is such a hideously difficult task that there's no way in hell it can possibly be accomplished in the next 5 years, minimum. The DARPA challenge contestants have cars fucking filled with all sorts of computer hardware and outfitted with millions upon millions of dollars of top-of-the-line sensors. LIDAR, IR, ultra -sonic, visible-light cameras, crazy-accurate GPS, etc. These cars are driven on closed courses with only the most basic obstacles. The most complicated thing they had to do was pass another remote-controlled car. These things are built by teams of professors and industry experts and are funded by companies with more money than god.
The result of this? Half of them don't work half the time, most of them have trouble telling the difference between a road and their own ass, they confuse bushes for rocks, and at least one likes to spontaneously crash into walls for no apparent reason. You'd have to be drunk to think that we're anywhere close to these things becoming capable of driving PEOPLE around.
Liability is a concern, but at this point is has about as much to do with the lack of hyper-intelligent cars as does the alignment of the planets.
"Although the tax rate for companies in the USA is allegedly 35%, there are many rules that companies can follow in order to avoid paying rates even half of that." Or how about this: "Citizens outraged about the fact that businesses are using completely legitimate and legal strategies to avoid giving huge sums of money to the government"
This is ridiculous. You might as well bitch about the fact that you persons can deduct donations on their taxes. I mean, they're donating and therefore they're AVOIDING PAYING TAXES!!!!! THEY'RE COSTING THE GOVERNMENT MONEY!!! OH NOEZ!!!
Do I think that there should be loopholes like this for companies? No. Do I fault a business for acting in their best financial interest while using only legal and ethical means? Of course not. Is it unethical to use a widely known "loophole" to save money? No.
Slashdot Mirror
"Believe it not (and apparently you don't), his view is normal and commonly held."
Normal, sure. Commonly held? Prove it.
All we have at this point is you saying "it's not commonly held" and someone else saying "yes it is." I don't care how many stories you have or how many people you've talked to, the plural of "anecdote" is not "evidence". So unless you can point to a study, I'm not taking your word for it.
"Most universities also have a "Student Code of Conduct," which defines cheating as a violation, and often outlines punishment ranging from "throwing out the work" to "explusion from the university/college." Cheating on a test also breaks that agreement,"
Correct. Thus, the students who cheated should be expelled. However, there's absolutely no criteria here to force the honest students to retake the exam as they did not violate the contract.
You're one of these idiots that think that everything has to be in writing and have a signature to be considered a "contract". There are such things as verbal contracts. Furthermore, a legal "contract" is different from an agreement between students and the university that the professor is required to abide. Law enforcement and the courts don't necessarily come into play here. It could be as simple as a requirement from the dean's office.
"Right or wrong wrt the decision, it's ultimately caused by the cheaters."
No, it's not. The cheaters didn't force the professor to give a mandatory retake. The cheaters didn't force the professor to use a test to which the answer key was widely available. The cheaters cheated on their own exam.
If the professor decided to expel the entire class because there were a lot of cheaters, it would be the professor's fault, not the cheaters'.
If the professor decided to SHOOT the entire class because there were a lot of cheaters, same thing.
This bullshit "it's the fault of the cheaters" is what the lazy professor wants you to think so that you won't go over his head and file a complaint with the department head, or the dean of the university, and force him to actually put some work into making the tests in the future rather than giving the exact same exam year after year.
Your chances of winning probably wouldn't be large if the university wanted to fight it. However, the university has more at stake here. They don't want to be known as the university that randomly creates mandatory retake exams whenever the grade statistics don't look "right". Thus, the university is likely to settle out of court. Generally something along the lines of "you get to keep your original test grade, don't have to take a retake, some money so you'll go away, and sign this NDA"
There's also the matter of accreditation. If the accreditation agency sees that a university is assigning a lot of mandatory retakes, they're going to look really freaking hard at just what exactly is going on. The university doesn't want to lose accreditation for not adhering to their own test policy, or for failing to prevent cheating so much that they have to schedule lots of mandatory retakes.
At any real college (that is, one where the professors don't copy their presentations and tests straight from the fucking book publisher) there's really no chance in hell a professor could get away with a mandatory retake. The department head wouldn't allow it, the registrar wouldn't allow it, the dean wouldn't allow it, etc.
Rampant cheating is not grounds for a mandatory retake. If someone cheated in the course, they're failed and removed from the course. Everyone who did NOT cheat retains their test score and progresses in the course as normal. If you're not sure who cheated then you MUST assume that they did NOT cheat and allow them to retain their test score and progress as normal. It is absolutely unacceptable to even accuse someone of cheating without damning evidence. The mere accusation of cheating can have huge consequences on someone's career.
"The problem now is that TSA has gone from annoyance theatre to dangerous and vile theatre."
I don't see why there's a problem here. This is a good thing. They've gone and done something that the everyone is actually complaining about. The airline industry is complaining about it, the general public is complaining about it, everyone except the TSA is complaining about it. The government will do something about it because now there's actually a significant opposition to it.
Previously it was 90% of people that were willing to give up their rights and submit to bullshit searches because they stupidly thought that this would protect them from terrorists, and 10% of people that complained. Obviously, this didn't help stop the TSA. Now, the numbers are reversed. The 90% of people who think that this is an invasion of privacy will hopefully be enough to stop this bullshit.
"if the courses are so similar that you can reuse substantial parts of your prior work, then why should you get course credit?"
Because they're required courses? No one in their right mind takes two identical courses.
There's a difference here. The doctoral committee is more interested in whether or not it's been published before. Also, they don't expect you to do more work simply because you already did some awhile back. If your entire thesis is comprised of your prior works then that's just fine.
I'm going to call bullshit on this. This would have resulted in him flunking literally the entire course, which is not something a professor can do without expecting to loose his tenure.
I've seen stupid uses of it, but none that severe.
All that says is that they accept it as the "standard charging port". Of course, they're still free to make phones with NON-standard ports.
It's not necessitate proof of anything. Are the NSA's applications actually bulletproof? They might distribute their coding practices but I'm pretty sure they don't distribute their source code or their applications. Therefore, no evaluation of their security can be made. Therefore, there's no evidence to show anything about the quality of their practices.
I'm not saying they're wrong. In fact, evaluation of other, open, software indicates that security does stem from good coding practices. I'm just saying that there's really no reason to point to the NSA as an example of being quality.
You have demonstrated that you:
A) Do not know what you're talking about
B) Are unwilling to do even the most basic research.
Therefore, I will not waste my time responding to you in the future.
"Look around for what "scientists" say are impossible today.
-A method for transmutation of elements
-System for sending power wirelessly"
Absolutely incorrect. Transmutation of elements actually happens inside nuclear reactors and in nature during radioactive decay.
Transmitting power wirelessly is also done today. Radio, electric light, etc. are all applications of this. Electromagnetic induction was discovered one hell of a long time ago and has been used in many applications since.
No scientist today says that those things are impossible. You are either making shit up or you are not researching your argument. In either case, you should shut up.
No, I propose that the electric company upgrade their infrastructure to handle the capacity.
Of course, this creates problems. What if one guy is running an MRI machine or something that sucks up insane amounts of juice? Obviously the electric company shouldn't be required to upgrade their infrastructure to accommodate that load. So where do we draw the line?
The issue is that we're not talking about one guy on the block "using up all the internet". It's the fact that bandwidth usage is increasing for EVERYONE. Games are distributed electronically, movies are streamed, music is streamed, web pages have more and more content that you can download, etc. This isn't one guy with grow lamps causing a brownout. It's everyone on the block that wants to turn on their lights at reasonable times that's causing the problem. This more closely models internet usage.
Also, there's no talk here of guaranteed electricity or bandwidth. ISPs promise "up to" such and such a limit. This means that they can give you absolutely no service because 0kb/s is still "up to" 30MB/s (or whatever the fuck they advertise). This would be like the electric company promising you "up to" some power and then not giving you enough to even run your lights. If the electric company did this, people would be rioting until it was fixed. (It's happened before)
In either case, the solution is not to implement throttling.
We can debate all day about whether or not the government should regulate the internet, but I think we can all agree that competition would result in better service for everyone. Once some company actually makes good on a plan that contains a real SLA (including minimum speeds and uptime) they'll start raking in money like none other. The problem is that there is no competition. The barrier to entry is huge, and you have large companies like comcast that have monopolies in large areas of the US and lawyers to make sure it stays that way.
Thus, I propose that the government needs to regulate the internet only to the point that it spurs lots of competition. Congress needs to introduce laws that make it easier for new ISPs to start up and limit how much control a single company can have regarding broadband service in any given area. That way, the free market takes over and we can finally get some good fucking internet service.
I didn't say that it was impossible to simulate gravity in space, moron.
I said that to make the idea work, the ring has to be HUGE. And that getting a HUGE ring into space is IMPRACTICAL.
I suspect that you're trolling, but on the off chance that you're just a moron that doesn't know how to use a screwdriver, let me explain.
You likely can't sharped the end because it's a somewhat more brittle material, because it's a harder material. They do this so that you can drive screws without having the tip wear off. Also, why the hell are you making screwdrivers into punches? GO BUY A PUNCH! They cost about $5 it'll last longer than a screwdriver-punch anyway.
I also suspect you one of the people that complains about the poor quality of crescent wrenches after using them as a hammer.
The funny part is that this DOESN'T hurt Microsoft at all. If anything it would encourage more people to buy the kinekt (or whatever stupid ass name they gave it).
The layman buys the device and doesn't care/know that they can use it in other applications. The geek buys it BECAUSE they can use it in other applications. There's no downside to Microsoft's profit here.... at all.
Microsoft is just making the assumption that any changes hurt their revenue stream because they're too fucking stupid to think more than 10 seconds in front of their face.
Alright, the issue here is that if you don't make the ring fucking HUGE then you actually end up with the Coriolis effect causing extreme nausea and all the astronauts vomiting. So your "solution" would:
A) Cost a fuckload of money.
B) Be completely impractical to get into space and install
C) Not work anyway.
I find it funny that every Tom, Dick, and Harry without a high school education thinks that they're a brilliant engineer whenever they read about some problem that hundreds of experienced engineers couldn't solve. Seriously, take ten seconds and go google your idea BEFORE touting it as the magical solution that all of these foolish NASA engineers didn't think of.
Except that rape is forced upon the victim. No one forced you to scarf down Twinkies until you were too fat to stand up.
If you have some kind of medical condition that makes it extremely hard for you to maintain a healthy weight, that's one thing. But the fact is that the vast majority of obesity isn't caused by some medical condition, but by people eating too much and being too lazy to exercise.
This is what I've been telling people for years. If you make something visible on the internet then you also give up all rights to keep that information secret. The INTERNET IS PUBLIC.
I'm appalled at how many people I see running around complaining of "facebook stalking". It's not stalking if you put something in a publicly viewable area. It's like complaining that someone is reading the "wanted ad" you placed on a billboard in a common area.
"Which is why I wish my phone had SOME physical buttons, say, for ANSWERING and HANGING UP. It's a bit ridiculous to have to take my gloves off to answer a call by swiping across the screen."
What's worse, the crappy phone with an obvious flaw or the idiot who buys the crappy phone anyway?
"Then there are the users. I had one who would randomly delete things. Like drivers. Her system would just stop working in weird and inscrutable ways, and of course she had no idea what she did. I finally gave up and forced her onto a Mac. I have had to deal with fewer than one issue per *year* since. That is another big improvement, and I think it comes down to the nice separation between system and user permissions; she cannot delete system things willy-nilly."
I had a user that had the odd habit of smacking himself in the face with a hammer. The legal department was getting a little concerned about all the injuries, so I have him a foam pool-noodle to replace the hammer. Now he doesn't have to go to the ER as often.
See? Pool noodles are better than hammers because it doesn't hurt as much when you smack yourself in the face.
If you find mac software limiting and bizarre then why in the hell did you buy apple hardware?
Unless you're going to use apple software there's no point in buying apple hardware. It's based on the intel architecture, and you can find better hardware for cheaper prices.
"That is why we don't have computer-piloted cars/planes/etc."
Yeah, that and the fact that making a computer-driven car is such a hideously difficult task that there's no way in hell it can possibly be accomplished in the next 5 years, minimum. The DARPA challenge contestants have cars fucking filled with all sorts of computer hardware and outfitted with millions upon millions of dollars of top-of-the-line sensors. LIDAR, IR, ultra -sonic, visible-light cameras, crazy-accurate GPS, etc. These cars are driven on closed courses with only the most basic obstacles. The most complicated thing they had to do was pass another remote-controlled car. These things are built by teams of professors and industry experts and are funded by companies with more money than god.
The result of this? Half of them don't work half the time, most of them have trouble telling the difference between a road and their own ass, they confuse bushes for rocks, and at least one likes to spontaneously crash into walls for no apparent reason. You'd have to be drunk to think that we're anywhere close to these things becoming capable of driving PEOPLE around.
Liability is a concern, but at this point is has about as much to do with the lack of hyper-intelligent cars as does the alignment of the planets.
Of course, let's look at it another way.
"Although the tax rate for companies in the USA is allegedly 35%, there are many rules that companies can follow in order to avoid paying rates even half of that."
Or how about this:
"Citizens outraged about the fact that businesses are using completely legitimate and legal strategies to avoid giving huge sums of money to the government"
This is ridiculous. You might as well bitch about the fact that you persons can deduct donations on their taxes. I mean, they're donating and therefore they're AVOIDING PAYING TAXES!!!!! THEY'RE COSTING THE GOVERNMENT MONEY!!! OH NOEZ!!!
Do I think that there should be loopholes like this for companies? No.
Do I fault a business for acting in their best financial interest while using only legal and ethical means? Of course not.
Is it unethical to use a widely known "loophole" to save money? No.