And if you're an American with a strange sense of romanticism ("I can help save this person from military service/the 'third world'/their parents...") DON'T marry someone so they can stay in the US.
1.) It is a federal felony to fraudulently marry someone to get them a green card.
2.) You'll really be married. No matter how much you think you're doing it just for the green card. Divorce is expensive, complicated, and takes longer than you think. Plus being married often makes it a lot harder to date.;-)
None of this is to say that if you, an American, fall in love with someone from another country, or you, an international student, fall in love with an American, you shouldn't get married. But get married for the right reasons, not the green card.
It *really* is critical that geeks communicate with their Members of Congress, and even more their State Senators & Representatives, and local school and library boards. (Yes, this is a US-centric post.)
Why? Congress is NOT the only one considering content-based restrictions on Internet speech or mandatory Internet filtering in schools and libraries. (Remember all the/. stories about the local referendum on library filtering in Holland, Michigan? Most places don't hold a referendum. The board decides.)
You can figure out who your Member of Congress is using this zip code based tool. Some states have similar tools, but probably the easiest way to figure out who your local representatives are is to call your Congressperson's office (the DC and local number will be on the Web) and ask them.
TIPS for Geeks Communicating With Elected Officials:
1. Write a letter and send it Snail Mail. If this sounds too awful, the second best thing to do is pick up the phone and call. Most officials (or their staff) get how easy it is to e-mail and discount e-mailed messages.
2. Limit yourself to one topic. You can write them every Friday on a new topic, but a long letter with everything you've ever disapproved of will be seen as a letter from a nutcase. That's true for calls, too.
3. EDIT. Make your points short, clear, and polite. One or 2 pages should be enough space to make your point. Check your spelling. Check your grammar.
4. Identify yourself. In a letter, include your home address so they know you're a constituent.
5. Ok, this isn't about the letter, but it's even more important: Register to vote, and then ACTUALLY vote. In local elections, people who regularly vote are likely to get a lot of attention from candidates. In smaller communities, they still knock on the doors regular voters. If you meet a candidate, you can ASK QUESTIONS about what they think of Internet censorship, copyright, 'net taxes, or anything else you care about.
As a former plaintiff's lawyer for civil rights cases, I sure wish it was as easy to win millions for the victims of harassment as GMHowell seems to think.
Standard Disclaimer: I am not your lawyer.
The fact is, if you have a business of more employees than you can count on one hand, you should probably have policies regarding personal use of the phone, Internet, and other office resources.
This does NOT mean just write them down and stick 'em in a file cabinet. That's how you get in serious trouble with plaintiff's lawyers. What you SHOULD, do is this:
Tell your employees what kind of behavior you expect of them. Enforce it. Don't tolerate harassment -- sexual or otherwise.
Your employees are not stupid. You can explain that a flirtatious UPS driver, or even going out for drinks with the office after work, are different from employees making frequent sexual comments about other employees, different from turning a blind eye to employees who send sexually explicit URLs around the office or spend time at work surfing those sites, and different from employees who hit on other employees and give them worse work assignments after being rejected.
That last thing -- that's where most employers who get nailed in lawsuits really get nailed. People who end an on-the-job romance (or refuse to have one in the first place) shouldn't have to worry that they're going to get lousy assignments, no more promotions, or lose their job as a result. As an employer, you need to see to it that those things don't happen.
Women and girls are socialized to look for peer reinforcement and approval of our decisions in a different way than men and boys are. This isn't a black and white thing as some have suggested: think of it more like 2 parallel, overlapping bell curves. There's more space at the end of the curve marked 'geek' in the male bell curve than the female, even though any given woman may well be geekier than any given man.
Gender bias is usually, IMO, subconcious & unintentional, but still damn real. When I was in law school, I had my resume reviewed by career services. My previous jobs had been divided between social service/education and (more recently) telcomm policy. I was obviously computer savvy (in the early 1990s when few lawyers were), and still, I was advised to look for family law jobs, not 'tax' or other 'more technical' fields.
Low Power Radio, also known as Microradio, is a new radio service recently adopted by the Federal Communications Commission. Unlike the current centrally-programmed stations that sound the same no matter where they are located, this service would be intensely local. A radio license would be available to entrepreneurs, community groups, high schools, labor unions, and churches, and anyone who would like to reach out to a small geographically-concentrated group of individuals. (For more info, check out http://www.mediaaccess.org/programs/lpfm/fctsht.ht ml)
Naturally this bugs the broadcasters, who claim that this would cause all kinds of technical problems for current radio signals. This isn't true. The engineer who studied this for the Media Access Project found that less than 1.6% of listeners would suffer interference in current radio signals. (http://www.mediaaccess.org/programs/lpfm/raptest. html)
Still, Congress is considering overruling the FCC's decision to create and license LPFM stations. (http://www.mediaaccess.org/programs/lpfm/webcong. html)
Too bad for the 700+ groups who applied for LPFM licenses during the first application period. (Which only allowed applications from 10 states!) (http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Mass_Media/News_Releas es/2000/nrmm0029.html) At the end of August, the application process will be opened to communities in 10 more states.
Slashdot Mirror
And if you're an American with a strange sense of romanticism ("I can help save this person from military service/the 'third world'/their parents...") DON'T marry someone so they can stay in the US.
1.) It is a federal felony to fraudulently marry someone to get them a green card.
2.) You'll really be married. No matter how much you think you're doing it just for the green card. Divorce is expensive, complicated, and takes longer than you think. Plus being married often makes it a lot harder to date. ;-)
None of this is to say that if you, an American, fall in love with someone from another country, or you, an international student, fall in love with an American, you shouldn't get married. But get married for the right reasons, not the green card.
Why? Congress is NOT the only one considering content-based restrictions on Internet speech or mandatory Internet filtering in schools and libraries. (Remember all the /. stories about the local referendum on library filtering in Holland, Michigan? Most places don't hold a referendum. The board decides.)
You can figure out who your Member of Congress is using this zip code based tool. Some states have similar tools, but probably the easiest way to figure out who your local representatives are is to call your Congressperson's office (the DC and local number will be on the Web) and ask them.
TIPS for Geeks Communicating With Elected Officials:
1. Write a letter and send it Snail Mail. If this sounds too awful, the second best thing to do is pick up the phone and call. Most officials (or their staff) get how easy it is to e-mail and discount e-mailed messages.
2. Limit yourself to one topic. You can write them every Friday on a new topic, but a long letter with everything you've ever disapproved of will be seen as a letter from a nutcase. That's true for calls, too.
3. EDIT. Make your points short, clear, and polite. One or 2 pages should be enough space to make your point. Check your spelling. Check your grammar.
4. Identify yourself. In a letter, include your home address so they know you're a constituent.
5. Ok, this isn't about the letter, but it's even more important: Register to vote, and then ACTUALLY vote. In local elections, people who regularly vote are likely to get a lot of attention from candidates. In smaller communities, they still knock on the doors regular voters. If you meet a candidate, you can ASK QUESTIONS about what they think of Internet censorship, copyright, 'net taxes, or anything else you care about.
Liza
Standard Disclaimer: I am not your lawyer.
The fact is, if you have a business of more employees than you can count on one hand, you should probably have policies regarding personal use of the phone, Internet, and other office resources.
This does NOT mean just write them down and stick 'em in a file cabinet. That's how you get in serious trouble with plaintiff's lawyers. What you SHOULD, do is this:
Your employees are not stupid. You can explain that a flirtatious UPS driver, or even going out for drinks with the office after work, are different from employees making frequent sexual comments about other employees, different from turning a blind eye to employees who send sexually explicit URLs around the office or spend time at work surfing those sites, and different from employees who hit on other employees and give them worse work assignments after being rejected.
That last thing -- that's where most employers who get nailed in lawsuits really get nailed. People who end an on-the-job romance (or refuse to have one in the first place) shouldn't have to worry that they're going to get lousy assignments, no more promotions, or lose their job as a result. As an employer, you need to see to it that those things don't happen.
What does that make me, about 57 in Internet years? 64 if they're weighted by gender? ;)
Women and girls are socialized to look for peer reinforcement and approval of our decisions in a different way than men and boys are. This isn't a black and white thing as some have suggested: think of it more like 2 parallel, overlapping bell curves. There's more space at the end of the curve marked 'geek' in the male bell curve than the female, even though any given woman may well be geekier than any given man.
Gender bias is usually, IMO, subconcious & unintentional, but still damn real. When I was in law school, I had my resume reviewed by career services. My previous jobs had been divided between social service/education and (more recently) telcomm policy. I was obviously computer savvy (in the early 1990s when few lawyers were), and still, I was advised to look for family law jobs, not 'tax' or other 'more technical' fields.
Fortunately, I was too stubborn to listen. :)
Liza
Naturally this bugs the broadcasters, who claim that this would cause all kinds of technical problems for current radio signals. This isn't true. The engineer who studied this for the Media Access Project found that less than 1.6% of listeners would suffer interference in current radio signals. (http://www.mediaaccess.org/programs/lpfm/raptest. html)
Still, Congress is considering overruling the FCC's decision to create and license LPFM stations. (http://www.mediaaccess.org/programs/lpfm/webcong. html)
Too bad for the 700+ groups who applied for LPFM licenses during the first application period. (Which only allowed applications from 10 states!) (http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Mass_Media/News_Releas es/2000/nrmm0029.html) At the end of August, the application process will be opened to communities in 10 more states.