I got one of these letters because of some stuff on my computer that they thought might have been the property of Macromedia. Comcast just says they're going to block access to this file unless I give a reason it's not a violation of the DMCA.
Not good, maybe, but it's not what you're describing.
Heh, I got one of these. They say that if you've got a reason for what you're doing that you can notify them and they'll notify the guys who made them send this out.
Perhaps I'm not speaking for the mainstream. My public school district (203 in Naperville) scored #1 in the world in science and #3 in math on some standardized tests we took (this was a few years back.) But the American education system is respected worldwide. Why else do you think we have so many foreign students coming to American colleges?
In my school, if you made it into the advanced classes, you got teachers who cared about teaching (usually) and students who cared about learning. If you didn't, then you were with folks who shared your less ambitious mindset.
I went to China recently to teach English. Teachers are respected there. Parents canceled their vacations so I could homestay at their house and their kids could get some extra practice. Everyone worked these kids hard with little time to play. (There were lots of good looking, intelligent 21 plus girls because fewer people had time to date in college. Ah, heaven! *grin* )
I think the first solution to our problems is stratification. Don't cancel the advanced classes! Forget 'ending social promotion' as the solution to all our problems. We don't need to hold some students back. We need to allow those students who can excell to do so. The effect, in the end, is the same, and more politically viable. The only real downside to this is that a High School diploma becomes devalued.
I've had other friends who are teachers. Trying to motivate American students in the inner cities is next to impossible, many times. They want to do only the work required to get a H.S. diploma and do auto repair or whatever. And you can make a halfway decent living that way. In other countries, manual labor pays dirt. These economies have no minimum wage laws. Kids have to work hard in school or they hit the ground, hard afterwards.
What America needs is a culture that respects education, both in school and (more importantly) outside of school. <sarcasm> And thankfully, those in political power are working on creating the viscious disparities of wealth that provide this motivation. </sarcasm> Yay!
Is the point of ending social promotion to make kids smarter or to increase the value of a H.S. diploma? It may do the latter, but I don't think it will do the former.
While I agree most of the lit classes I went to weren't anything I couldn't have learned out of school, the idea that it's not important for scientists to know how to communicate or understand communications is dangerous. I was really surprised that getting a degree in science didn't focus more on the philosophy and history of science, effect of biases, sources of error, etc. In short, they taught us to do lab and to read science-ese but not how to think scientifically.
I don't mind if people share files, as long as they don't make money off of it.
I don't mind if people violate the GPL as long as they don't make money off of it.
When people first started selling used books around the turn of the century, there was an effort to make that illegal too. It didn't work because people (including used book sellers, which included major retail chains) stood up and said they wouldn't be bullied. (Their lawyers said it, anyways).
Second;
There's a difference between charging people for carrying out a particular action (looking, listening, giving) and regulating trade.
Besides, intellectual property isn't a natural right to begin with. It was instituted in order to encourage works to be put into the public domain, and has since been hijacked so that those works stay in the private domain for a length of time much greater than what the public good would warrant. This was not a democratic action.
In a just legal system, the law codifies the popular perception of what is fair. In an unjust legal system, the law is used as a weapon by the powerful against the weak. I'd argue that copyright law has shifted to the latter, and people are justifiably angry. I see nothing democratic about current copyright law. It is the bastard child of a campaign finance contribution and a few hundred Washington polititians. The average Joe on the street didn't ask for copyrights to be extended. Disney did.
Americans are supposed to tell their government what the law is, not the other way around.
The law has little force if people don't believe in its legitimacy.
How is more expensive parking GOOD for resturaunts? I would think they would want going downtown to be as easy as possible so they have more customers. No parking IS encouragement to take the bus or taxi, as much as high prices are.
"We're going to see the evolution of this character and go places with Darth Vader we've never gone before,"
Are you trying to tell me that Episode 3 won't be set "a long time ago in a galaxy far far away."
Besides, if they show us the lightsaber duel and tell us how Anakin becomes Vader, why are we going to go watch the thing? The script is going to suck if Lucas wrote it. The guy's forgotten he can't do dialog.
Of course, there's always special effects.
And when our children ask us where we were when Episode 3 came out, we can tell them proudly "Watching 'Kill Bill 2'"
If it's any help, that'd probably be defined as 'liberal feminist' if it helps, though you probably knew that if you know foucault... went to school with a bunch of women's studies majors. By the end of college, we had what was called the 'western accent' (we were in the Western College Program at MU). People in the Western program... spoke... with... great...deliberation... because... every... word... had... meaning. *gah*
If you know how to break into a room, you can help people to shut the door. Most security folk are ex-hackers. It seems like Raven is in that catagory. Not that I know much about her outside of the article.
Well, that depends on why you want to fight a war. If you just want another planet's resources that you can use to replicate more of your own kind, then it doesn't matter if you ever return to your home world.
Ideas to help the domestic IT worker in developed western nations;
1. In America, both the Republicans and Democrats favor reducing limits on international trade. Sticking to the two party system will not solve the problem on the national level, and a third party will not take the oval office any time soon. Instead of trying to win the whole electoin, a third party should pick two or three popular trade related issues that the Democrats and Republicans carefully avoided (opposition to NAFTA, relinquishing soveirgnty to the WTO, etc) and concentrate its energy in 3 or 4 states, while taking donations from anyone in the US. If a third party could get enough electoral votes to choose who becomes the next president, that's powerful leverage in getting one of the two candidates to rethink their views. Of course, you try this once and the two major parties will close the 'loophole.'
2. Put tariffs on the importation of intellectual property the same as you do with goods.
3. Organize boycotts of any country with inadequate workers' rights. Workers in developed countries should not have to compete with slave labor or child labor. And since increasing the wages of farm workers, for example, increases the cost of living for everyone, this is relevant to the cost of living for IT workers. A person can get by pretty comfortably on $200 a month in Nanjing, but that doesn't work in the states. This will serve the added benefit of preventing developing nations from accumulating the capital to start competing with developed nations. While people might question the ethicality of this, a government is responsible for representing the interests of its citizens rather than just a few large corporations. God knows that China and India protect their economies, China via it's currency, price controls on agriculture and forced sales and labor restrictions. India, by forcing foreign countries in India to use Indian workers, etc.
4. Don't import from countries that don't respect our IP laws. China sells American movies like mad, and their attempts to stop this practice are all for show. While it's nice to be able to pick up a movie for 60 cents on the street, or a program for 40 cents, IP, patents etc. are major American exports. This is controversial, especially on Slashdot, since our IP laws are rather broken. but American companies should get some kind of return for the use of their material just as foreign countries want some kind of return for the use of their labor.
5. Work to keep foreign talent in the country. Lots of folks from developing nations try and school in developed countries. Our standards are more rigerously enforced (You can practically buy a degree in China). While keeping the best of these people in the states might not be to the advantage of IT workers already here, it could benefit us the same way the soviet "brain drain" did.
6. Inflation. America needs some to help pay down the debt and rectify the trade balance.
7. Cheap energy and reliable infrastructure. These are good answers that developing countries can give to the cheap labor costs of foreign countries, since the advantage of developed nations lies in their technology and automation. Cheap energy is especially important, since infrastructure nowadays becomes outdated rather quickly, and investing in it tends to tie a country to a soon-to-be-outdated technology. Nuclear power, fission research, wind and water power; that was one thing that FDR really got right. If your economy is in the can, relieve unemployment by building dams and similar apparatus (unless you're like Japan in which case you should work more on economic diversification to decrease investor risk and encourage stateside investment, but they're a special case)
Slashdot Mirror
However, there would be comparatively little selection on a gene that caused all of their teeth to fall out the minute they finished reproducing.
Given the fact that primates have culture, having an older relative who can teach you things, not to mention provide for you, can be helpful.
You can have it fast, accurate, or pretty. Pick any 2.
Hmm. I'd like "pretty" and "fast", but my girlfriend just wants "accurate".
Hundreds of millions of children are exploited for sexual purposes every year
Most of them by R. Kelly and Michael Jackson.
They don't ask you to admit to guilt.
I got one of these letters because of some stuff on my computer that they thought might have been the property of Macromedia. Comcast just says they're going to block access to this file unless I give a reason it's not a violation of the DMCA.
Not good, maybe, but it's not what you're describing.
Heh, I got one of these. They say that if you've got a reason for what you're doing that you can notify them and they'll notify the guys who made them send this out.
Angles would fit with trigonometry. The names of various shapes takes all of a few days to learn and memorize. Geometric proofs are next to useless.
Okay, caculating volumes of shapes, that may be useful.
Perhaps I'm not speaking for the mainstream. My public school district (203 in Naperville) scored #1 in the world in science and #3 in math on some standardized tests we took (this was a few years back.) But the American education system is respected worldwide. Why else do you think we have so many foreign students coming to American colleges?
In my school, if you made it into the advanced classes, you got teachers who cared about teaching (usually) and students who cared about learning. If you didn't, then you were with folks who shared your less ambitious mindset.
I went to China recently to teach English. Teachers are respected there. Parents canceled their vacations so I could homestay at their house and their kids could get some extra practice. Everyone worked these kids hard with little time to play. (There were lots of good looking, intelligent 21 plus girls because fewer people had time to date in college. Ah, heaven! *grin* )
I think the first solution to our problems is stratification. Don't cancel the advanced classes! Forget 'ending social promotion' as the solution to all our problems. We don't need to hold some students back. We need to allow those students who can excell to do so. The effect, in the end, is the same, and more politically viable. The only real downside to this is that a High School diploma becomes devalued.
I've had other friends who are teachers. Trying to motivate American students in the inner cities is next to impossible, many times. They want to do only the work required to get a H.S. diploma and do auto repair or whatever. And you can make a halfway decent living that way. In other countries, manual labor pays dirt. These economies have no minimum wage laws. Kids have to work hard in school or they hit the ground, hard afterwards.
What America needs is a culture that respects education, both in school and (more importantly) outside of school. <sarcasm> And thankfully, those in political power are working on creating the viscious disparities of wealth that provide this motivation. </sarcasm> Yay!
Is the point of ending social promotion to make kids smarter or to increase the value of a H.S. diploma? It may do the latter, but I don't think it will do the former.
What's the point of Geometry?
Now I know what a rhombus is?
Now I can do a geometrical proof?
Geometry is history, not math.
There has to be some other form of math that this time would be more effectivly devoted to.
Some type of logic course, perhaps.
"Proofs" are one of the few justifications people give for geometry, anyways.
While I agree most of the lit classes I went to weren't anything I couldn't have learned out of school, the idea that it's not important for scientists to know how to communicate or understand communications is dangerous. I was really surprised that getting a degree in science didn't focus more on the philosophy and history of science, effect of biases, sources of error, etc. In short, they taught us to do lab and to read science-ese but not how to think scientifically.
I had a friend who took a cop to court because of some illegal shit the cop did.
He won the case, but whenever a cop car was around, they pulled him over to check him out.
I always wondered what they put in his records.
... or it could play the theme from phantom. :)
Whadda ya mean the chandelier just crashed?
... or imagine no regulation on the internet, and using DDoS attacks to get rid of child porn.
... this guy gets paid by the acronym.
First;
I don't mind if people share files, as long as they don't make money off of it.
I don't mind if people violate the GPL as long as they don't make money off of it.
When people first started selling used books around the turn of the century, there was an effort to make that illegal too. It didn't work because people (including used book sellers, which included major retail chains) stood up and said they wouldn't be bullied. (Their lawyers said it, anyways).
Second;
There's a difference between charging people for carrying out a particular action (looking, listening, giving) and regulating trade.
Besides, intellectual property isn't a natural right to begin with. It was instituted in order to encourage works to be put into the public domain, and has since been hijacked so that those works stay in the private domain for a length of time much greater than what the public good would warrant. This was not a democratic action.
In a just legal system, the law codifies the popular perception of what is fair. In an unjust legal system, the law is used as a weapon by the powerful against the weak. I'd argue that copyright law has shifted to the latter, and people are justifiably angry. I see nothing democratic about current copyright law. It is the bastard child of a campaign finance contribution and a few hundred Washington polititians. The average Joe on the street didn't ask for copyrights to be extended. Disney did.
Americans are supposed to tell their government what the law is, not the other way around.
The law has little force if people don't believe in its legitimacy.
How is more expensive parking GOOD for resturaunts? I would think they would want going downtown to be as easy as possible so they have more customers. No parking IS encouragement to take the bus or taxi, as much as high prices are.
With its cache.
*ba dum bum*
What if didn't have to turn off your mobile phone when you travel by air?
What if didn't have to reread submissions before posting to Slashdot?
"We're going to see the evolution of this character and go places with Darth Vader we've never gone before,"
Are you trying to tell me that Episode 3 won't be set "a long time ago in a galaxy far far away."
Besides, if they show us the lightsaber duel and tell us how Anakin becomes Vader, why are we going to go watch the thing? The script is going to suck if Lucas wrote it. The guy's forgotten he can't do dialog.
Of course, there's always special effects.
And when our children ask us where we were when Episode 3 came out, we can tell them proudly "Watching 'Kill Bill 2'"
What's he gonna do. Hack me? :p
... crackers... backpackers... words mean what I want them to. *grin*
Hackers
If it's any help, that'd probably be defined as 'liberal feminist' if it helps, though you probably knew that if you know foucault... went to school with a bunch of women's studies majors. By the end of college, we had what was called the 'western accent' (we were in the Western College Program at MU). People in the Western program... spoke... with... great ...deliberation... because... every ... word... had ... meaning. *gah*
If you know how to break into a room, you can help people to shut the door. Most security folk are ex-hackers. It seems like Raven is in that catagory. Not that I know much about her outside of the article.
Well, that depends on why you want to fight a war. If you just want another planet's resources that you can use to replicate more of your own kind, then it doesn't matter if you ever return to your home world.
If you can't understand it and can't prove it, but you can build it and sell it, then patent it.
Ideas to help the domestic IT worker in developed western nations;
1. In America, both the Republicans and Democrats favor reducing limits on international trade. Sticking to the two party system will not solve the problem on the national level, and a third party will not take the oval office any time soon. Instead of trying to win the whole electoin, a third party should pick two or three popular trade related issues that the Democrats and Republicans carefully avoided (opposition to NAFTA, relinquishing soveirgnty to the WTO, etc) and concentrate its energy in 3 or 4 states, while taking donations from anyone in the US. If a third party could get enough electoral votes to choose who becomes the next president, that's powerful leverage in getting one of the two candidates to rethink their views. Of course, you try this once and the two major parties will close the 'loophole.'
2. Put tariffs on the importation of intellectual property the same as you do with goods.
3. Organize boycotts of any country with inadequate workers' rights. Workers in developed countries should not have to compete with slave labor or child labor. And since increasing the wages of farm workers, for example, increases the cost of living for everyone, this is relevant to the cost of living for IT workers. A person can get by pretty comfortably on $200 a month in Nanjing, but that doesn't work in the states. This will serve the added benefit of preventing developing nations from accumulating the capital to start competing with developed nations. While people might question the ethicality of this, a government is responsible for representing the interests of its citizens rather than just a few large corporations. God knows that China and India protect their economies, China via it's currency, price controls on agriculture and forced sales and labor restrictions. India, by forcing foreign countries in India to use Indian workers, etc.
4. Don't import from countries that don't respect our IP laws. China sells American movies like mad, and their attempts to stop this practice are all for show. While it's nice to be able to pick up a movie for 60 cents on the street, or a program for 40 cents, IP, patents etc. are major American exports. This is controversial, especially on Slashdot, since our IP laws are rather broken. but American companies should get some kind of return for the use of their material just as foreign countries want some kind of return for the use of their labor.
5. Work to keep foreign talent in the country.
Lots of folks from developing nations try and school in developed countries. Our standards are more rigerously enforced (You can practically buy a degree in China). While keeping the best of these people in the states might not be to the advantage of IT workers already here, it could benefit us the same way the soviet "brain drain" did.
6. Inflation. America needs some to help pay down the debt and rectify the trade balance.
7. Cheap energy and reliable infrastructure. These are good answers that developing countries can give to the cheap labor costs of foreign countries, since the advantage of developed nations lies in their technology and automation.
Cheap energy is especially important, since infrastructure nowadays becomes outdated rather quickly, and investing in it tends to tie a country to a soon-to-be-outdated technology.
Nuclear power, fission research, wind and water power; that was one thing that FDR really got right. If your economy is in the can, relieve unemployment by building dams and similar apparatus (unless you're like Japan in which case you should work more on economic diversification to decrease investor risk and encourage stateside investment, but they're a special case)