Subvert your authority? The nutrition policy is there to simply ensure the HEALTH of your child. Even WITH these policies, a dozen kids a day are sent to school undernourished, WTF do you think would happen otherwise?
no candy, no soda, is not strictly enforced, they just can't consume it on school premises unless they've been REWARDED to do so. This is a simple positive reinforcement system (instead of negative), that ACTUALLY WORKS, and is far and beyond proven, and is completely ineffective for the REST of the students if you allow yours to come to school and be able to ignore it.
"zero tolelrance" as I mentioned in several posts is more often than not uses to get EXACTLY THIS RESPONSE, because zero tolerance IS bad, we did claim otherwise here, just that we're claiming IN SUPPORT of strong nutritional programs, and PARENTAL enforcement (feed your kid or we'll send the law after you). We don;t dictate WHAT to feed your kid, only that it falls within a commonly accepted general nutrition program, or that YOUR CHOICE has been validated by a doctor and a nutrition plan submitted to the school.
If your kid is disposing of food before he gets to school, when you get a bill or two, you'll figure that out and DEAL WITH YOUR KID (either by changing his food, or changing his behavior). The school STILL NEEDS TO FEED HIM regardless and can not legally allow him to go without lunch, his choice or yours, so that argument is moot.
Sure, set the rules in your own house. Where DSS is involved, and potential lawsuits could be thrown at the school for failure to provide oversight of nutritional health, and when you have the choice to send your kids to public school or not, hell yes, the school not only has the right, but the obligation to ensure you're feeding you child properly. If you want to give your child soda and candy, do so in your own house. If you think nutrition in general is unimportant, and to fuck what your kid manages to rummage for himself, then i have some unifirmed officers who would love to come by and chat with you...
If the kid is not already on a free or assisted lunch program for one reason or another (you;d be surprised how easy it is to get discounted lunch provided daily, even for households raking in over $60K annually), their meals are monitored. Someone in the cafeteria is tasked with looking over shoulders to ensure that lunch boxes contain basic nutrition requirements (no hard rules, just common sense that A) its no stale/old/bad/should have been refrigerated/etc), B) that it is in a sufficient quality for the child and C) that its not something like a slice of bread with only mayo on it, and actually has some nutritional value). If the teacher sees a kid with an exceptionally poor meal, they discard it, and the kid gets a provided lunch from the cafe. The parent gets a bill every 2 weeks for these meals, and if patterns develop, DSS is alerted of potential neglect.
If the kid is vegetarian, or on some other non-normal diet, a doctors note is not only required, but a nutrition plan must accompany it. If the child is also to have food types limited by religion, allergy, or other health issue, that goes on file with the cafeteria and the school district.
The school is bound by state law to guarantee each kid gets a solid nutritional meal. Failure to be completely perfect in this application in the past got the state school system sued, and multiple individual districts and schools as well, and cost the state millions, thus the existence of the law. DSS can be harsh, especially when it comes to nutrition vs neglect.
No one is saying it;s not OK to give your child an odd diet, but if you do, it needs to be documented that your choice is to be enforced, and a nutritionist must be consulted and provide approval, or the school will follow its own standards in place.
You would be REALLY surprised to see how many kids, even those from wealthy families, come to school with complete crap for lunch... There's about 450 kids in my wife's building, and according to her, 10 or 15 times a day a kid is sent to the line to get food because what they brought is is ridiculously sub-par. There are assistance programs for families in need, both temporary and for the entire school year, and about a fourth of the class gets free lunch, and nearly half that again get some assistance, and its EASY to get... Failure to get that is a problem, and the state takes it personally.
Candy, soda and the like is not outright "banned" but is considered contraband. It's confiscated and given back on Friday after school is out (and only if they met their behavior plan goals otherwise its held to the next week, or until a parent conference). Sweets are used as a positive reward system, and allowing kids to freely have as much candy as they like would completely cripple that system as the bad kids simply say "I don't care, i already have candy, so doing something to get more is pointless"
It is against the law in this state for anyone other than the school nurse to issue medication of ANY KIND. If you want your kid to take some Tylenol at school, you need a) a doctors note and b) to have the pills given to the nurse. Even simply vitamins and cough drops are banned. Part of this is a saftey issue, the rest is a "if your kid needs pills, they're sick, and KEEP THEM THE FUCK HOME!"
Very recently they had an issue where a kid brought in a bunch of pills and was handing them out telling other kids they were candy, and a bunch of kids either got sick or had to be watched... Several of the parents are filing suit against the parent of the kid, and 3 tare threatening to sue the school as well for not "catching this sooner" even though the kid knowing hid the drugs, and it was the teachers that spotted him and reported it, and the school DID have a standing policy that was VERY strict (automatic 1 week suspension on the first case, and a report to DSS is automatic). It is VERY dangerous to allow any child under the age of say 15 to be trusted with pills at all, and even then in many states simply handing a child medication to not be taken immediately could violate other state health safety laws, and even run you afoul of DSS on its own.
My wife is a school teacher. I can tell you there have been several "zero tolerance" issues that have come through their school they have VEHEMENTLY disagreed with. How did they get them changed? By ENFORCING the law to the letter using only the maximum punishment every time... This got parents so in a bunch that the rule was overturned in days if not weeks.
It could be very well the case here. it could also be an issue of repetitive warnings and punishment escalations, as the entire story has not been reported, nor were any details about this child's history released...
The federal government, as well as the states, provide good models for "nutrition." No single teacher makes that determination, its a broad policy, based on a simple food group tree, or nutrition tree.
The school very well not only has the right, but in most states an obligation from parent services (DSS) to do exactly that, or they can be fined for not reporting poor nutrition or outright neglect.
Parents have the CHOICE to not send their kids to the local public district schools, or can explicitly get exceptions in writing (which the district usually backs with requirements of a doctors written approval of a nutrition plan if it differs too far from norms, and usually only in cases of religious or allergy based requirements). If you want free education, you must accept their terms. These are mostly COMMON SENSE rules for nutrition. Banning of candy and other contraband is typically done in lower grade levels to a) limit bullying, food trading, etc, and typically more important, b) using exceptions to the rule as positive reinforcement ("you can have this piece of candy because you...")
If you want to attend FREE school, you absolutely must abide by the state/district policies. Don't like it? You have a choice: Private school. Actually, there's another choice: Home school.
Yes, this policy is being abused, no it should not go this far, probably there's some subtext here not being reported (like continuous pastern of this issue, and singling out a particular student as an example). Possibly, this could even be an attempt explicitly to GET notice, so the law gets CHANGED! Very often, the best way to see a law overturned is to actually enforce the letter of the law, even if you don't agree with it, as doing so would actually create enough news and yelling that the law can be changed.
My wife's school has a pretty touch nutrition program. Nothing sold in the cafe is "questionable" on a nutrition standpoint. kids can't buy snacks unless they've already both bought and EATEN their meal (they have to get a pass from the cafeteria aide before they can enter a snack line). Snacks are limited to relatively healthy items, but things like chips are available, but again, only if the meal was actually eaten... Candy is not sold by the cafe, but it is available from teachers as a positive reward system. Parents are cautioned not to send certain snacks (especially candy) to the school, but kids can not be directly punished for it (a not is sent home the first few times, and contraband is confiscated if its a continuing problem).
What IS important to note: The PARENTS can actually get in some hot water if they're failing to either send a nutritious lunch, pay for a meal plan, or get on an "assisted" lunch program (for those having trouble affording it). They handle this by checking what kids are eating, and if the school feels the lunch is "dramatically poor" in nutritional quality, the kid is made to buy a meal at the cafe, and the parents get a bi-monthly bill for those meals. i.e. send you kid to lunch with some low-grade snack-as-a-meal, or fail to send one at all, and the parent is not only out the cost of what they sent (which likely will be thrown out by faceteria staff) but they get a bill for the meal the kid did eat. Failure to pay that bill (or get on an assistance or free lunch program for those that qualify) leads to added fees, late charges, and eventually collections (in the form of you kid can not return to the school until you pay, or fill out forms to get on a program).
Every kid that goes to public school in 8th grade and lower here is essentially guaranteed a good meal, regardless of who's paying for it. You would be flabbergasted at how many parents send their kids to school with little or no food and no money, and who would otherwise have NO ISSUES financially getting them a good meal. Many are simply lazy, others seem to not give a shit. The state has a responsibility to get involved. I'd much rather it be this way, including continual documentation of the neglect to provide a good meal, eventually leading to a DSS visit at home to find out why, and in the meantime the kid doesn't suffer...
banning candy (and sodas and other such pure sugar content items), is essentially done exclusively such that those can be used as positive rewards in other ways. Ensuring lunch actually includes basic nutrition (whether it be vegan, vegetarian, or other, many standard easily apply to what is and is not a fulling and nutritious lunch), that is important.
More to the point, its not the wait and the cost, its the fact that if you don;t release an app that takes advantage of a newly available API as soon as is possible (if not on launch day), then you loose market share to all the guys who DID code natively and beat you to the market. While you;re writing your app, they're already writing the updates to improve theirs...
Being a day late means a LOT to app store developers. Worse, if Adobe's code is buggy (or makes buggy code, or releases a compiler update that breaks your existing code), patching your code to accomodate becomes MUCH more difficult.
If Adobe was world renowned for stable, efficient, memory-light, secure code, it might be viable to use something like this, but accepting all of Adobe's faults, being relegated to code that simply will never be able to grasp full hardware performance, constantly being scrutinized by Apple, dealing with security implications, AND being late to market? WTF would anyone want this???
If all I did was create some general documents and spreadsheets, maybe the occasional presentation file, or a small database to more easily access content across multiple sources, I'd be fine with OO.
However, integrating rights management, auto-populating shared workspaces in SharePoint for document collaboration, group editing, live sharing, native embedding with cross document real time editing (embed a Visio object in Word, edit the Visio digram, open word, changes are already there), compatibility natively WITH Visio and Project, and more; all of these things we do DAILY around here, and OO is capable of onyl a tiny subset of these things, and with a learning curve vs users already trained in Office.
Yes, for free I can get a copy of an office suite (though use for business purposes is a grey area with some of them). Sure, I can save about $200 every 2 years per user by doing so. The loss in efficiency is 10 times that if not way more, just for my basic users who do document collaboration or document templates hosted on servers. The loss in training is easily measurable at somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 hours per employee.
Again, for home use, for simple uses, OO might be fine. For a real business, or for someone who makes complicated documents that other people need to be able to read, edit, comment, and respond to, in their native format, there is no other option.
People talk about standards... Sure, we could get office to export to oo32, and you could read the content, certainly edit the text, and maybe most of the formatting, but the other functions (embedded content, sharing, rights management, collaboration and more) are all lost, and that costs more than the office license, so i say to you people, FREE COSTS MORE MONEY.
The format is only proprietary in such a sense that you can not make an app without paying royalties that can open and edit natively the format in its entirety, but you CAN write tools that can open and import this format, and the documents how to do so ARE published by Microsoft.
As for archives: Documents to be archived are not required to be in editable formats, and in most cases that's actually not desirable anyway. A common export format like PDF is fine, if not document images... We don't archive.doc and docx files at all, our archive system batch converts and saves only a readable version.
Modify, replace with a new API, add functionality to an API, close an API completely, yes, and they have already done it a few times, and it has already caused developers to adapt. For Apple, they give most devs a good few weeks seeing it in Beta, and that gives good devs the abiltiy to react quick and be ready on revision launch, for others they're not far behind. If they have to rely on Adobe to act first, then and only then react to adobe, their apps will be broken for MUCH longer.
This more applies to new APIs than fixing existing ones, granted, but it's a serious disadvantage to devs to be behind the ball EVEN ONE DAY in this marketplace.
Point of failure: The VAST majority of apps in the apple store are COMPLETELY FREE, and there are NO restrictions on that. Apple only makes money if you choose to sell your app directly for money, and even then, they have the best terms for that in the market. EVERY other app store takes a bigger chunk...
Practical reason 1) Use of AIR means developers can not benefit from adjustments to Apple's APIs until Adobe does, meaning non-native devs can't have the same feature/function head start as mnative devs, putting them at an instant disadvantage when taking oportinuties from new functions. (aka, native apps will corner the market and become popular before AIR cathes up so devs can write similar apps)
practical reason 2) If apple makes an update that alters an API cal for security reasons, any apps coded in AIR can not take advantage of that change, and will remain broken, until not only Apple and the Dev make a code change, but the Dev has to wait on Adobe, meaning again, native apps have a significant market advantage to interpreted code.
Practical reason 3) cross compiled code is more bloated, more difficult to inspect for code flaws, harder to read by a human, lacks significant commenting by the developer (since it was only present in the original AIR code set, not the C code set pre-compile), and the developers are completely removed from seeing the direct results of their code efforts and lack the ability to performance tweak their code directly (they can make all the tweaks they want, but Adobe can very easily undo that work).
these are BIG reasons for any developer to stay the hell clear of intermediary apps. Yes, selling an app across multiple platforms is a plus, and tools that make that process more efficient can, in some cases, lead to better profitability, however, proper code architecture, and a native understanding of the local APIs is STILL NECESSARY as even cross compiled code between platforms can only take advantage of very basic functions, and code efficiency and specific feature use still need to be cross-coded for each platform individually.
There are a lot more small reasons to avoid these interpreter or cross-compile platforms, these are just a few, and hopefully this leads to some insight for you and others on this matter.
Apple has virtually zero profit for the store. A) it exists simply to support the device. B) the overhead is actually quite high, including not just the obvious hosting and approval system, but the dev tools, SDK, emulator, and more that all get developed at apple for zero profit, and developer support too. C) You can make free iPhone apps, no profit is required for apple AT ALL. D) for paid apps, they have the single best money-to-publisher ration in the business, and they provide a pre-screened advertising platform now too making free apps even easier and more profitable to make...
Any flash app can be made into a native app very easily, and very profitably. Apple doesn't have to get a penny other than the once a year $100 to publish the apps (any number of them). This is NOT ABOUT PROFIT, nor is it about market control, its about device stability, security, and user experience, which makes the device more attractive to buyers, and thus make the platform more profitable.
No. I want my 100+ hour games back damnit! I just want them without the 3-4 hour breaks between save points... Let me save ANY time ANYwhere (with some restrictions to prevent save points from being used as a cheat system).
There are a few core game types here: - 100+ hour "casual" games (Final Fantasy and company) These used to be 200+ hour games... These should be as complex as possible, drop the linear story line model, make them challenging, but replayabiltiy is not required. These games take lots of effort to make, and should typically be sold in the $60-80 range when new, never really coming belor $50 until a new game replaces it. - 40-50 hour action titles (god of war, Halo, etc) but also including most RTS. These have been getting shorter and shorter with less and less replayabiltiy, and simpler and simpler. STOP. you are KILLING this category! These games should be replayable with a few different characters in some cases, but OK if they're not. These are full games with long stories, as well as some replayability, and should carry top game pricing when new ($50-70). - competitive games with back story (racing games, fighting games, etc). Solo stroy line might be only a few hours long per character (in character oriented games), or might be a level/improvement system that takes hundreds of races to max out a car (GranTourismo). I call these instant gratification games. high adrenalin in short bursts, but a feeling of accomplishment and milestones to achieve. Most of the music games also fall into this class, as do almost all 2 and 4 player competitive titles. There might be 20 hours of actual "content" here. Depending on the complexity and replayability, these games should be $30-50. - Simple games. Replayabiltiy is the only real feature. These are fighting games, puzzle games, flash games, etc. These may oin the surface resmeble challenge games, but lack the backstory/single player mode with 20-40 hours of story. These should be under $20 typically (except when brand new and top at $40). - MMO. nuff siad. 1 thing though: If the monthly price is over $5, drop the game box price by $25 for each $5/month more. A $15/month MMO should be free to join, a $10/month MMO should have a $25 street price. They should ALL be free for the first 4 or 5 levels of common content or for up to 2 weeks (keeping some special missions locked, limited races, etc). Expansion packs should only be sold for games with low monthly fees, and expansion packs should include the full game for new subscribers. Significant content additions should be expected not less than quarterly with new race/class options or level cap increases twice yearly, and major expansions about every 18 months. (DDO is a great example of this now, but missed this mark BADLY its first 2 years).
Let me save the game state at ANY point, ANY time (even in mid combat). Forget "segments." Forget save points.
Give me "fallback" points every few hours apart, so that i have to be "careful" how I save, and I can only have 1 or 2 save points past some checkpoint in the story line and I can only save every 15 minutes or so (or if I save sooner than that my option is "save and quit" not just save, the idea I'm only saving because I have to walk away and handle LIFE).
I don't by FF games anymore because i can not invest the time WASTED loosing my place and starting over because some section of the game is a 4 or 5 hour story arc between save points and it takes me months to find a free block of time that long where the wife or kid does not insist on using the TV. I play instant gratification MMOs like CoH and DDO where I can log in for a quick 20 minute mission, a string of them for a couple hours, or a 6 hour late-night game marathon, and I can always quit at ANY time if the kid or wife needs me. Console games need to do this...
Welcome to MMO.... Little missions, complete choice in direction. Continually added content. Social interaction.
Console and single player games, and RTS, replayability is not a value add within reason. A great story, and captivating action without boring transitions is the way to go, keep them in the game, but almost as important, LET ME BAIL OUT ANYTIME I WANT. Save points that are inconstantly spread about, some 30 minutes apart, others 4 or 5 hours apart do nothing but piss me off. I need to be able to save and quit ANYWHERE ANYTIME in order for me to be able to complete a game. I can catch an hour here, an hour there, and I can't be bothered to worry about wasting 2 or 3 hours of gaming because I got interupted, and by the time I get back to it, someone wanted to watch a DVD in the console and killed my "pause" state...
I don't finish games because it's HARD to finish games. Or, alternately because the solo story is simply not as fun as the competitive modes (racing games, FPS, etc).
I play almost exclusively MMOs now, with the wife. We sold our games and controllers for the consoles and they're used exclusively as DVD players now. We're considdering a PS3 as a Blu-Ray player, but not until another price drop.
- Sony's example sets precedent. - Home brewers are NOT supported by NES nor can they sell their apps for a profit without possible legal action from Nintendo. - Apple gives away the dev tool, but you can ALSO use your own compiler and code management app. With the XBox, sure, they support indie devs for $100 (now), Apple always has. Those apps still have VERY STRICT RULES, and MUST be compiled in Microsoft's app, Apple offers much less restrictive options for devs. You are restricted to XNA, and you also need special hardware to use it beyond the free kit. At any point in the peer review process, if any Microsoft rep identified IP owned by another firm not properly licensed in your game, or if your code violates the rules of XBox Live, it is automatically rejected anyway.
All 3 examples you give are MORE restrictive than apple, and in markets you could call a tri-opoly, far from the opejn competitive landscape of smartphones. My argument is if it's illegal for Apple to do this, then break down Sony, Microsoft, and everyone else (Tivo and more).
Simple. ALL retail packages offered by apple are "upgrade" licenses only, and require the existaince of a full standard license to upgrade from. Apple only distributed FULL licenses on new hardware. This is NO different from Xbox or PS3, or any other mobile phone (since most also share similar hardware).
Apple chooses not to sell an open OS license for one VERY big reason: the could NEVER support the rapid adoption, nor could they rightfully support the mass array of issues people would have with untested hardware. Apple excels at providing amazing support, and a very consistent user experience. They could NOT do that across an open sale deployment, even when using a highly restrictive product list. More over, if they charged the $400-ish retail price OS X (including iLife) would claim on the market, it would be virtually impossible to custom build your own legally licensed rig for less than Apple already charges in the commodity and AIO system markets.
Add the PS3, X-Box, Nintendo's products, and almost every other single programable device on the market into that inquiry while you;re at it. Oh, wait, they already DID investigate such practices in a similar inquiry about 20 years ago, and rules that there WAS no impact, such that the vendor may do whatever they like with their own IP and place whatever restrictions they want on developers, 3rd party manufacturers for accessories, and resellers, so long as there is competition in the marketplace.
I could VERY easily argue that Apple's recent actions have not only not stifled competition, they have in fact INVIGORATED it, and their actions are one of the primary reasons Android has been so successful.
1) there's no mandate to use Apple's toolset, only to use C, C++, or Obj C as the native language the code was written in, through no use of interpreters or code generators. They do NOT require the use of X-Code.
2) There's no such thing as a monopoly on one's own product, there is only monopoly withing a MARKET, and the market is "mobile Computing Devices" of which appl ehas at best a 10% stake currently, and THRUVING competition. in fact, it could well be argued that their stance has ENHANCED competition as opposed to stifling it. They POLARIZED the market, thereby almost guaranteeing continued competition.
3) Apple is not "under investigation" the FTC has simply (reportedly, and unconfirmed), issued an "inquiry" which is simply a list of questions formed in a letter sent to multiple parties with the intent of assisting the DoJ and FTC to better understand the market space before they discuss the possibilities of a PRELIMINARY investigation that may or may not come later, which only then would be followed by a formal investigation is and only if the preliminary investigation showed a strong market impact.
The iPhone is not a market, it's a PRODUCT, perhaps even a PLATFORM. The "smartphone" market is not even seen by the FTC as a defined market, but instead is but a subset of the MOBILE COMPUTING DEVICE market, of which Apple has a mere 10%-ish segment.
Actually, for the PS3 platform, you actually have to buy a SPECIAL PS3, which used to be over $10K, but now is a bit over $2K, compared to the $399 street model the code will run on, not to mention the developer fees to acquire the SDK and custom and highly proprietary compilers.
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Subvert your authority? The nutrition policy is there to simply ensure the HEALTH of your child. Even WITH these policies, a dozen kids a day are sent to school undernourished, WTF do you think would happen otherwise?
no candy, no soda, is not strictly enforced, they just can't consume it on school premises unless they've been REWARDED to do so. This is a simple positive reinforcement system (instead of negative), that ACTUALLY WORKS, and is far and beyond proven, and is completely ineffective for the REST of the students if you allow yours to come to school and be able to ignore it.
"zero tolelrance" as I mentioned in several posts is more often than not uses to get EXACTLY THIS RESPONSE, because zero tolerance IS bad, we did claim otherwise here, just that we're claiming IN SUPPORT of strong nutritional programs, and PARENTAL enforcement (feed your kid or we'll send the law after you). We don;t dictate WHAT to feed your kid, only that it falls within a commonly accepted general nutrition program, or that YOUR CHOICE has been validated by a doctor and a nutrition plan submitted to the school.
If your kid is disposing of food before he gets to school, when you get a bill or two, you'll figure that out and DEAL WITH YOUR KID (either by changing his food, or changing his behavior). The school STILL NEEDS TO FEED HIM regardless and can not legally allow him to go without lunch, his choice or yours, so that argument is moot.
Sure, set the rules in your own house. Where DSS is involved, and potential lawsuits could be thrown at the school for failure to provide oversight of nutritional health, and when you have the choice to send your kids to public school or not, hell yes, the school not only has the right, but the obligation to ensure you're feeding you child properly. If you want to give your child soda and candy, do so in your own house. If you think nutrition in general is unimportant, and to fuck what your kid manages to rummage for himself, then i have some unifirmed officers who would love to come by and chat with you...
In our district, there are such rules.
If the kid is not already on a free or assisted lunch program for one reason or another (you;d be surprised how easy it is to get discounted lunch provided daily, even for households raking in over $60K annually), their meals are monitored. Someone in the cafeteria is tasked with looking over shoulders to ensure that lunch boxes contain basic nutrition requirements (no hard rules, just common sense that A) its no stale/old/bad/should have been refrigerated/etc), B) that it is in a sufficient quality for the child and C) that its not something like a slice of bread with only mayo on it, and actually has some nutritional value). If the teacher sees a kid with an exceptionally poor meal, they discard it, and the kid gets a provided lunch from the cafe. The parent gets a bill every 2 weeks for these meals, and if patterns develop, DSS is alerted of potential neglect.
If the kid is vegetarian, or on some other non-normal diet, a doctors note is not only required, but a nutrition plan must accompany it. If the child is also to have food types limited by religion, allergy, or other health issue, that goes on file with the cafeteria and the school district.
The school is bound by state law to guarantee each kid gets a solid nutritional meal. Failure to be completely perfect in this application in the past got the state school system sued, and multiple individual districts and schools as well, and cost the state millions, thus the existence of the law. DSS can be harsh, especially when it comes to nutrition vs neglect.
No one is saying it;s not OK to give your child an odd diet, but if you do, it needs to be documented that your choice is to be enforced, and a nutritionist must be consulted and provide approval, or the school will follow its own standards in place.
You would be REALLY surprised to see how many kids, even those from wealthy families, come to school with complete crap for lunch... There's about 450 kids in my wife's building, and according to her, 10 or 15 times a day a kid is sent to the line to get food because what they brought is is ridiculously sub-par. There are assistance programs for families in need, both temporary and for the entire school year, and about a fourth of the class gets free lunch, and nearly half that again get some assistance, and its EASY to get... Failure to get that is a problem, and the state takes it personally.
Candy, soda and the like is not outright "banned" but is considered contraband. It's confiscated and given back on Friday after school is out (and only if they met their behavior plan goals otherwise its held to the next week, or until a parent conference). Sweets are used as a positive reward system, and allowing kids to freely have as much candy as they like would completely cripple that system as the bad kids simply say "I don't care, i already have candy, so doing something to get more is pointless"
It is against the law in this state for anyone other than the school nurse to issue medication of ANY KIND. If you want your kid to take some Tylenol at school, you need a) a doctors note and b) to have the pills given to the nurse. Even simply vitamins and cough drops are banned. Part of this is a saftey issue, the rest is a "if your kid needs pills, they're sick, and KEEP THEM THE FUCK HOME!"
Very recently they had an issue where a kid brought in a bunch of pills and was handing them out telling other kids they were candy, and a bunch of kids either got sick or had to be watched... Several of the parents are filing suit against the parent of the kid, and 3 tare threatening to sue the school as well for not "catching this sooner" even though the kid knowing hid the drugs, and it was the teachers that spotted him and reported it, and the school DID have a standing policy that was VERY strict (automatic 1 week suspension on the first case, and a report to DSS is automatic). It is VERY dangerous to allow any child under the age of say 15 to be trusted with pills at all, and even then in many states simply handing a child medication to not be taken immediately could violate other state health safety laws, and even run you afoul of DSS on its own.
My wife is a school teacher. I can tell you there have been several "zero tolerance" issues that have come through their school they have VEHEMENTLY disagreed with. How did they get them changed? By ENFORCING the law to the letter using only the maximum punishment every time... This got parents so in a bunch that the rule was overturned in days if not weeks.
It could be very well the case here. it could also be an issue of repetitive warnings and punishment escalations, as the entire story has not been reported, nor were any details about this child's history released...
The federal government, as well as the states, provide good models for "nutrition." No single teacher makes that determination, its a broad policy, based on a simple food group tree, or nutrition tree.
The school very well not only has the right, but in most states an obligation from parent services (DSS) to do exactly that, or they can be fined for not reporting poor nutrition or outright neglect.
Parents have the CHOICE to not send their kids to the local public district schools, or can explicitly get exceptions in writing (which the district usually backs with requirements of a doctors written approval of a nutrition plan if it differs too far from norms, and usually only in cases of religious or allergy based requirements). If you want free education, you must accept their terms. These are mostly COMMON SENSE rules for nutrition. Banning of candy and other contraband is typically done in lower grade levels to a) limit bullying, food trading, etc, and typically more important, b) using exceptions to the rule as positive reinforcement ("you can have this piece of candy because you...")
If you want to attend FREE school, you absolutely must abide by the state/district policies. Don't like it? You have a choice: Private school. Actually, there's another choice: Home school.
Yes, this policy is being abused, no it should not go this far, probably there's some subtext here not being reported (like continuous pastern of this issue, and singling out a particular student as an example). Possibly, this could even be an attempt explicitly to GET notice, so the law gets CHANGED! Very often, the best way to see a law overturned is to actually enforce the letter of the law, even if you don't agree with it, as doing so would actually create enough news and yelling that the law can be changed.
My wife's school has a pretty touch nutrition program. Nothing sold in the cafe is "questionable" on a nutrition standpoint. kids can't buy snacks unless they've already both bought and EATEN their meal (they have to get a pass from the cafeteria aide before they can enter a snack line). Snacks are limited to relatively healthy items, but things like chips are available, but again, only if the meal was actually eaten... Candy is not sold by the cafe, but it is available from teachers as a positive reward system. Parents are cautioned not to send certain snacks (especially candy) to the school, but kids can not be directly punished for it (a not is sent home the first few times, and contraband is confiscated if its a continuing problem).
What IS important to note: The PARENTS can actually get in some hot water if they're failing to either send a nutritious lunch, pay for a meal plan, or get on an "assisted" lunch program (for those having trouble affording it). They handle this by checking what kids are eating, and if the school feels the lunch is "dramatically poor" in nutritional quality, the kid is made to buy a meal at the cafe, and the parents get a bi-monthly bill for those meals. i.e. send you kid to lunch with some low-grade snack-as-a-meal, or fail to send one at all, and the parent is not only out the cost of what they sent (which likely will be thrown out by faceteria staff) but they get a bill for the meal the kid did eat. Failure to pay that bill (or get on an assistance or free lunch program for those that qualify) leads to added fees, late charges, and eventually collections (in the form of you kid can not return to the school until you pay, or fill out forms to get on a program).
Every kid that goes to public school in 8th grade and lower here is essentially guaranteed a good meal, regardless of who's paying for it. You would be flabbergasted at how many parents send their kids to school with little or no food and no money, and who would otherwise have NO ISSUES financially getting them a good meal. Many are simply lazy, others seem to not give a shit. The state has a responsibility to get involved. I'd much rather it be this way, including continual documentation of the neglect to provide a good meal, eventually leading to a DSS visit at home to find out why, and in the meantime the kid doesn't suffer...
banning candy (and sodas and other such pure sugar content items), is essentially done exclusively such that those can be used as positive rewards in other ways. Ensuring lunch actually includes basic nutrition (whether it be vegan, vegetarian, or other, many standard easily apply to what is and is not a fulling and nutritious lunch), that is important.
BINGO.
More to the point, its not the wait and the cost, its the fact that if you don;t release an app that takes advantage of a newly available API as soon as is possible (if not on launch day), then you loose market share to all the guys who DID code natively and beat you to the market. While you;re writing your app, they're already writing the updates to improve theirs...
Being a day late means a LOT to app store developers. Worse, if Adobe's code is buggy (or makes buggy code, or releases a compiler update that breaks your existing code), patching your code to accomodate becomes MUCH more difficult.
If Adobe was world renowned for stable, efficient, memory-light, secure code, it might be viable to use something like this, but accepting all of Adobe's faults, being relegated to code that simply will never be able to grasp full hardware performance, constantly being scrutinized by Apple, dealing with security implications, AND being late to market? WTF would anyone want this???
Apple handles the rule, not the exception.
If all I did was create some general documents and spreadsheets, maybe the occasional presentation file, or a small database to more easily access content across multiple sources, I'd be fine with OO.
However, integrating rights management, auto-populating shared workspaces in SharePoint for document collaboration, group editing, live sharing, native embedding with cross document real time editing (embed a Visio object in Word, edit the Visio digram, open word, changes are already there), compatibility natively WITH Visio and Project, and more; all of these things we do DAILY around here, and OO is capable of onyl a tiny subset of these things, and with a learning curve vs users already trained in Office.
Yes, for free I can get a copy of an office suite (though use for business purposes is a grey area with some of them). Sure, I can save about $200 every 2 years per user by doing so. The loss in efficiency is 10 times that if not way more, just for my basic users who do document collaboration or document templates hosted on servers. The loss in training is easily measurable at somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 hours per employee.
Again, for home use, for simple uses, OO might be fine. For a real business, or for someone who makes complicated documents that other people need to be able to read, edit, comment, and respond to, in their native format, there is no other option.
People talk about standards... Sure, we could get office to export to oo32, and you could read the content, certainly edit the text, and maybe most of the formatting, but the other functions (embedded content, sharing, rights management, collaboration and more) are all lost, and that costs more than the office license, so i say to you people, FREE COSTS MORE MONEY.
The format is only proprietary in such a sense that you can not make an app without paying royalties that can open and edit natively the format in its entirety, but you CAN write tools that can open and import this format, and the documents how to do so ARE published by Microsoft.
As for archives: Documents to be archived are not required to be in editable formats, and in most cases that's actually not desirable anyway. A common export format like PDF is fine, if not document images... We don't archive .doc and docx files at all, our archive system batch converts and saves only a readable version.
...and you protect a drug addict from himself by removing the drugs too.
Modify, replace with a new API, add functionality to an API, close an API completely, yes, and they have already done it a few times, and it has already caused developers to adapt. For Apple, they give most devs a good few weeks seeing it in Beta, and that gives good devs the abiltiy to react quick and be ready on revision launch, for others they're not far behind. If they have to rely on Adobe to act first, then and only then react to adobe, their apps will be broken for MUCH longer.
This more applies to new APIs than fixing existing ones, granted, but it's a serious disadvantage to devs to be behind the ball EVEN ONE DAY in this marketplace.
Which is why I do, and have not bought a console game in about 4 years... :)
Point of failure: The VAST majority of apps in the apple store are COMPLETELY FREE, and there are NO restrictions on that. Apple only makes money if you choose to sell your app directly for money, and even then, they have the best terms for that in the market. EVERY other app store takes a bigger chunk...
Practical reason 1) Use of AIR means developers can not benefit from adjustments to Apple's APIs until Adobe does, meaning non-native devs can't have the same feature/function head start as mnative devs, putting them at an instant disadvantage when taking oportinuties from new functions. (aka, native apps will corner the market and become popular before AIR cathes up so devs can write similar apps)
practical reason 2) If apple makes an update that alters an API cal for security reasons, any apps coded in AIR can not take advantage of that change, and will remain broken, until not only Apple and the Dev make a code change, but the Dev has to wait on Adobe, meaning again, native apps have a significant market advantage to interpreted code.
Practical reason 3) cross compiled code is more bloated, more difficult to inspect for code flaws, harder to read by a human, lacks significant commenting by the developer (since it was only present in the original AIR code set, not the C code set pre-compile), and the developers are completely removed from seeing the direct results of their code efforts and lack the ability to performance tweak their code directly (they can make all the tweaks they want, but Adobe can very easily undo that work).
these are BIG reasons for any developer to stay the hell clear of intermediary apps. Yes, selling an app across multiple platforms is a plus, and tools that make that process more efficient can, in some cases, lead to better profitability, however, proper code architecture, and a native understanding of the local APIs is STILL NECESSARY as even cross compiled code between platforms can only take advantage of very basic functions, and code efficiency and specific feature use still need to be cross-coded for each platform individually.
There are a lot more small reasons to avoid these interpreter or cross-compile platforms, these are just a few, and hopefully this leads to some insight for you and others on this matter.
Apple has virtually zero profit for the store. A) it exists simply to support the device. B) the overhead is actually quite high, including not just the obvious hosting and approval system, but the dev tools, SDK, emulator, and more that all get developed at apple for zero profit, and developer support too. C) You can make free iPhone apps, no profit is required for apple AT ALL. D) for paid apps, they have the single best money-to-publisher ration in the business, and they provide a pre-screened advertising platform now too making free apps even easier and more profitable to make...
Any flash app can be made into a native app very easily, and very profitably. Apple doesn't have to get a penny other than the once a year $100 to publish the apps (any number of them). This is NOT ABOUT PROFIT, nor is it about market control, its about device stability, security, and user experience, which makes the device more attractive to buyers, and thus make the platform more profitable.
No. I want my 100+ hour games back damnit! I just want them without the 3-4 hour breaks between save points... Let me save ANY time ANYwhere (with some restrictions to prevent save points from being used as a cheat system).
There are a few core game types here:
- 100+ hour "casual" games (Final Fantasy and company) These used to be 200+ hour games... These should be as complex as possible, drop the linear story line model, make them challenging, but replayabiltiy is not required. These games take lots of effort to make, and should typically be sold in the $60-80 range when new, never really coming belor $50 until a new game replaces it.
- 40-50 hour action titles (god of war, Halo, etc) but also including most RTS. These have been getting shorter and shorter with less and less replayabiltiy, and simpler and simpler. STOP. you are KILLING this category! These games should be replayable with a few different characters in some cases, but OK if they're not. These are full games with long stories, as well as some replayability, and should carry top game pricing when new ($50-70).
- competitive games with back story (racing games, fighting games, etc). Solo stroy line might be only a few hours long per character (in character oriented games), or might be a level/improvement system that takes hundreds of races to max out a car (GranTourismo). I call these instant gratification games. high adrenalin in short bursts, but a feeling of accomplishment and milestones to achieve. Most of the music games also fall into this class, as do almost all 2 and 4 player competitive titles. There might be 20 hours of actual "content" here. Depending on the complexity and replayability, these games should be $30-50.
- Simple games. Replayabiltiy is the only real feature. These are fighting games, puzzle games, flash games, etc. These may oin the surface resmeble challenge games, but lack the backstory/single player mode with 20-40 hours of story. These should be under $20 typically (except when brand new and top at $40).
- MMO. nuff siad. 1 thing though: If the monthly price is over $5, drop the game box price by $25 for each $5/month more. A $15/month MMO should be free to join, a $10/month MMO should have a $25 street price. They should ALL be free for the first 4 or 5 levels of common content or for up to 2 weeks (keeping some special missions locked, limited races, etc). Expansion packs should only be sold for games with low monthly fees, and expansion packs should include the full game for new subscribers. Significant content additions should be expected not less than quarterly with new race/class options or level cap increases twice yearly, and major expansions about every 18 months. (DDO is a great example of this now, but missed this mark BADLY its first 2 years).
Let me save the game state at ANY point, ANY time (even in mid combat). Forget "segments." Forget save points.
Give me "fallback" points every few hours apart, so that i have to be "careful" how I save, and I can only have 1 or 2 save points past some checkpoint in the story line and I can only save every 15 minutes or so (or if I save sooner than that my option is "save and quit" not just save, the idea I'm only saving because I have to walk away and handle LIFE).
I don't by FF games anymore because i can not invest the time WASTED loosing my place and starting over because some section of the game is a 4 or 5 hour story arc between save points and it takes me months to find a free block of time that long where the wife or kid does not insist on using the TV. I play instant gratification MMOs like CoH and DDO where I can log in for a quick 20 minute mission, a string of them for a couple hours, or a 6 hour late-night game marathon, and I can always quit at ANY time if the kid or wife needs me. Console games need to do this...
Welcome to MMO.... Little missions, complete choice in direction. Continually added content. Social interaction.
Console and single player games, and RTS, replayability is not a value add within reason. A great story, and captivating action without boring transitions is the way to go, keep them in the game, but almost as important, LET ME BAIL OUT ANYTIME I WANT. Save points that are inconstantly spread about, some 30 minutes apart, others 4 or 5 hours apart do nothing but piss me off. I need to be able to save and quit ANYWHERE ANYTIME in order for me to be able to complete a game. I can catch an hour here, an hour there, and I can't be bothered to worry about wasting 2 or 3 hours of gaming because I got interupted, and by the time I get back to it, someone wanted to watch a DVD in the console and killed my "pause" state...
I don't finish games because it's HARD to finish games. Or, alternately because the solo story is simply not as fun as the competitive modes (racing games, FPS, etc).
I play almost exclusively MMOs now, with the wife. We sold our games and controllers for the consoles and they're used exclusively as DVD players now. We're considdering a PS3 as a Blu-Ray player, but not until another price drop.
- Sony's example sets precedent.
- Home brewers are NOT supported by NES nor can they sell their apps for a profit without possible legal action from Nintendo.
- Apple gives away the dev tool, but you can ALSO use your own compiler and code management app. With the XBox, sure, they support indie devs for $100 (now), Apple always has. Those apps still have VERY STRICT RULES, and MUST be compiled in Microsoft's app, Apple offers much less restrictive options for devs. You are restricted to XNA, and you also need special hardware to use it beyond the free kit. At any point in the peer review process, if any Microsoft rep identified IP owned by another firm not properly licensed in your game, or if your code violates the rules of XBox Live, it is automatically rejected anyway.
All 3 examples you give are MORE restrictive than apple, and in markets you could call a tri-opoly, far from the opejn competitive landscape of smartphones. My argument is if it's illegal for Apple to do this, then break down Sony, Microsoft, and everyone else (Tivo and more).
Simple. ALL retail packages offered by apple are "upgrade" licenses only, and require the existaince of a full standard license to upgrade from. Apple only distributed FULL licenses on new hardware. This is NO different from Xbox or PS3, or any other mobile phone (since most also share similar hardware).
Apple chooses not to sell an open OS license for one VERY big reason: the could NEVER support the rapid adoption, nor could they rightfully support the mass array of issues people would have with untested hardware. Apple excels at providing amazing support, and a very consistent user experience. They could NOT do that across an open sale deployment, even when using a highly restrictive product list. More over, if they charged the $400-ish retail price OS X (including iLife) would claim on the market, it would be virtually impossible to custom build your own legally licensed rig for less than Apple already charges in the commodity and AIO system markets.
Add the PS3, X-Box, Nintendo's products, and almost every other single programable device on the market into that inquiry while you;re at it. Oh, wait, they already DID investigate such practices in a similar inquiry about 20 years ago, and rules that there WAS no impact, such that the vendor may do whatever they like with their own IP and place whatever restrictions they want on developers, 3rd party manufacturers for accessories, and resellers, so long as there is competition in the marketplace.
I could VERY easily argue that Apple's recent actions have not only not stifled competition, they have in fact INVIGORATED it, and their actions are one of the primary reasons Android has been so successful.
1) there's no mandate to use Apple's toolset, only to use C, C++, or Obj C as the native language the code was written in, through no use of interpreters or code generators. They do NOT require the use of X-Code.
2) There's no such thing as a monopoly on one's own product, there is only monopoly withing a MARKET, and the market is "mobile Computing Devices" of which appl ehas at best a 10% stake currently, and THRUVING competition. in fact, it could well be argued that their stance has ENHANCED competition as opposed to stifling it. They POLARIZED the market, thereby almost guaranteeing continued competition.
3) Apple is not "under investigation" the FTC has simply (reportedly, and unconfirmed), issued an "inquiry" which is simply a list of questions formed in a letter sent to multiple parties with the intent of assisting the DoJ and FTC to better understand the market space before they discuss the possibilities of a PRELIMINARY investigation that may or may not come later, which only then would be followed by a formal investigation is and only if the preliminary investigation showed a strong market impact.
The iPhone is not a market, it's a PRODUCT, perhaps even a PLATFORM. The "smartphone" market is not even seen by the FTC as a defined market, but instead is but a subset of the MOBILE COMPUTING DEVICE market, of which Apple has a mere 10%-ish segment.
Thanks for playing.
Actually, for the PS3 platform, you actually have to buy a SPECIAL PS3, which used to be over $10K, but now is a bit over $2K, compared to the $399 street model the code will run on, not to mention the developer fees to acquire the SDK and custom and highly proprietary compilers.