As opposed to the US, where a paramilitary team will invade your home with grenades and assault rifles if an informant claims that you are growing illegal plants there?
It's not a popular notion, but it's unreasonable to expect privacy in public acts like searches conducted through a third party website (Google).
It is reasonable to demand privacy in your search history. I do not want my health insurance company to know that I was searching for information about a particular kind of disease. I do not want my bank to know that I was searching for information about bankruptcy proceedings. I do not want anyone to know about the sort of pornography that I search for.
To put things in perspective, the law mandates that video rental records be private. Now, if walking into a video store and renting a video is something that we can do with an expectation of privacy, a web search is certainly something we should expect to be private.
I had thought so, but my spellchecker actually insisted that "Florine" was the right spelling. I guess that's what I get for relying on a spellchecker:(
You know, it is not all that hard to test for the presence of radioisotopes. Take a Geiger counter to your local tea shop and scan the Japanese teas if you are really concerned...
Nothing is guaranteed in life; if I tell you that drinking coffee reduces your chance of getting Alzheimer's by 90%, that does not mean that you will definitely not get Alzheimer's if you drink coffee. This is not math, where a single counterexample is sufficient.
If I remember correctly, tea will only achieve half the concentration of caffeine that coffee will. Of course, tea has many other benefits, such as protection against cancer, and neuroprotective effects (even some protection against lead poisoning). You should, however, keep in mind that tea can be dangerous in too large a quantity; tea plants absorb quite a bit of Florine from the soil, and lower-quality, older tea leaves can have very high concentrations (these are what you get with Lipton etc.). Japanese teas tend to have less Florine because of the low Florine levels in Japanese soil, and white tea has lower concentrations because the leaves are so young.
Microsoft: What do you think gives you the right to install your own bootloader, Mr. Mafia Guy?
Scammer: I am deploying my own Linux Distro!
Microsoft: $99 please!
This is the classic "I am not creative enough to imagine how these features could have evolved and therefore evolution must be false" argument. It is not at all hard to understand how eggs could have developed a very thin shell which offered some amount of protection and which did not require a tooth to break, but for which a primitive tooth or even just a little bump was helpful in getting a baby out of the egg faster than its siblings; nor is it hard to imagine how these features could have evolution together, with ever stronger shells and better formed egg tooth shapes gradually emerging. Honestly, this may be the worst example of "irreducible complexity" I have ever heard of; I am not a biologist, and even I can see a possible way for an egg shell and an egg tooth to have evolved.
These arguments are tired and played out. I thought these sorts of arguments had died when a biologist managed to demonstrate that even a mousetrap does not exhibit "irreducible complexity."
There is no scientific debate about the theory of evolution; why, then, should any such debate be taught in a science classroom? A science teacher who is "skeptical" of evolution had better have some extraordinary proof that there is a problem with the theory, or else they should not be teaching science.
Which email client has encryption installed out of the box?
Outlook, Thunderbird, the mail client in OS X, Evolution, and KMail all come to mind -- they all at least support S/MIME out of the box. Now, I think S/MIME is not appropriate for the typical PC user's email and the PGP's web-of-trust approach is a lot better, but it is not as though there is no encryption option available in popular email clients.
find out how to generate keys
This is definitely the weakest link in the chain for email encryption -- I do not think any of the clients I mentioned above have an automatic key generation process. Maybe Google should submit a patch to Thunderbird instead of working on better ways to let people know that they have been compromised (or perhaps in conjunction with that).
somehow get my public key to all of the people that I want to communicate with?
S/MIME does this automatically when you send signed email to people.
Absolutely yes, since math education is about learning how to think rigorously and logically. There are requirements for four years of humanities; why should those subjects receive more attention?
If someone has little proficiency for math and no interest is there any point in forcing them to sit through calculus?
If someone has little proficiency in analyzing literature, is there any point in forcing them to sit through English classes? Why bother with 12 years of education in any subject?
I can't say that is an awful thing for a mechanic, or a truckdriver, or even a non-techinical professional like my real estate agent
Society as a whole benefits from an educated population, and that means education across the board -- math, science, humanities, languages, etc. This is especially true of a society where we vote for representatives, and where everyone is supposed to be able to run for office. One of the ways people can be disenfranchised is by being denied a good education.
understanding of the material was not the only grade criteria.
That is exactly my point. I was too young to really understand this back in high school, but there is more to school that learning what you are being taught: you are also supposed to learn how to follow instructions and do what you are told. A student who does not bow to authority and do as they are told is considered to be as bad as a student who is unable to learn the material no matter how hard they try.
I also slept through school, and I barely passed my classes -- despite having excellent scores on my exams. I was told that not doing my homework was the reason for my low grades, and that my understanding of the material was not relevant.
German high school is 13 years (though moving to 12 years), so it is not totally compareable. Also you do not really learn calculus but just to do some standard tasks from calculus without understanding them.
Sure, but at least in the state of New York, a person could graduation high school having taken only eleven years of math courses; a student who passes their classes is allowed to take no math courses during their final year of high school.
Grades should be based on participation, and how 'far' a student move forward in the subject.
So what do you do when you have a student who aces every exam you throw at him, but never does homework and routinely cuts class? The problem is that no single grading standard could possibly be fair to all students, and if you give the student who aces exams without putting in any effort, you get a flood of complaints from other students and their parents about how unfair it is -- unfair that they have to work hard to understand the material.
Of course, there is a deeper issue here than being "fair," and that is the issue of why we have an education system in the first place. We do not send kids to high school so that they can learn the subjects they are taught; actually, learning is a side effect, and most people forget what they were taught in high school pretty quickly. The purpose of our high school education system is to condition people to do as they are told, whether they are told to do a boring, repetitive task or a fun and exciting task. There is no room for a student whose mind works differently and who learns by doing different things, and especially no room for a bright student who cannot work their way through the boredom.
I was told as much when I was in middle school and high school. If you do not do your homework, you get an F -- regardless of how well you understand the material, and regardless of whether or not you can demonstrate that understanding beyond any doubt. The standard answer is a complete dismissal of the idea that homework is pointless once you have internalized the material: "Well if it is so easy for you, just get it out of the way!"
Our education is great for the 1% who can afford private school, private tutors, and so forth. For the majority who need to go to public schools, our education system is terrible. The article points to the successes of those whose parents could afford to give them the best education money can buy.
My German friends were expected to be able to solve calculus problems in order to graduate high school. Calculus was considered college level when I went to high school, and still is. Girls achieving parity with boys in math is a great step forward...except that there are a large number of schools where there is no option for students who are ready to go beyond algebra and trigonometry.
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As opposed to the US, where a paramilitary team will invade your home with grenades and assault rifles if an informant claims that you are growing illegal plants there?
It's not a popular notion, but it's unreasonable to expect privacy in public acts like searches conducted through a third party website (Google).
It is reasonable to demand privacy in your search history. I do not want my health insurance company to know that I was searching for information about a particular kind of disease. I do not want my bank to know that I was searching for information about bankruptcy proceedings. I do not want anyone to know about the sort of pornography that I search for.
To put things in perspective, the law mandates that video rental records be private. Now, if walking into a video store and renting a video is something that we can do with an expectation of privacy, a web search is certainly something we should expect to be private.
I had thought so, but my spellchecker actually insisted that "Florine" was the right spelling. I guess that's what I get for relying on a spellchecker :(
You know, it is not all that hard to test for the presence of radioisotopes. Take a Geiger counter to your local tea shop and scan the Japanese teas if you are really concerned...
Nothing is guaranteed in life; if I tell you that drinking coffee reduces your chance of getting Alzheimer's by 90%, that does not mean that you will definitely not get Alzheimer's if you drink coffee. This is not math, where a single counterexample is sufficient.
If I remember correctly, tea will only achieve half the concentration of caffeine that coffee will. Of course, tea has many other benefits, such as protection against cancer, and neuroprotective effects (even some protection against lead poisoning). You should, however, keep in mind that tea can be dangerous in too large a quantity; tea plants absorb quite a bit of Florine from the soil, and lower-quality, older tea leaves can have very high concentrations (these are what you get with Lipton etc.). Japanese teas tend to have less Florine because of the low Florine levels in Japanese soil, and white tea has lower concentrations because the leaves are so young.
He might have friends who are working for the government, and who might not suspect that a colleague would steal their papers.
The government wouldn't waste time doing a background check just because you flew to modern-day Democratic Russia.
Now they just do it whenever you buy an airplane ticket?
It will be released but not all the hardware vendors will sign on
Why would a hardware vendor turn down an opportunity to:
That is where this is going. We are just seeing the first step of a major attack on user freedom here.
If you get a signing key, you will be registered, and any malware can be tracked back to you. So "anyone" cannot do this.
So all it really takes is a stolen credit card?
the scammer would have to first appear legit
Microsoft: What do you think gives you the right to install your own bootloader, Mr. Mafia Guy? Scammer: I am deploying my own Linux Distro! Microsoft: $99 please!
This is the classic "I am not creative enough to imagine how these features could have evolved and therefore evolution must be false" argument. It is not at all hard to understand how eggs could have developed a very thin shell which offered some amount of protection and which did not require a tooth to break, but for which a primitive tooth or even just a little bump was helpful in getting a baby out of the egg faster than its siblings; nor is it hard to imagine how these features could have evolution together, with ever stronger shells and better formed egg tooth shapes gradually emerging. Honestly, this may be the worst example of "irreducible complexity" I have ever heard of; I am not a biologist, and even I can see a possible way for an egg shell and an egg tooth to have evolved.
These arguments are tired and played out. I thought these sorts of arguments had died when a biologist managed to demonstrate that even a mousetrap does not exhibit "irreducible complexity."
There is no scientific debate about the theory of evolution; why, then, should any such debate be taught in a science classroom? A science teacher who is "skeptical" of evolution had better have some extraordinary proof that there is a problem with the theory, or else they should not be teaching science.
Which email client has encryption installed out of the box?
Outlook, Thunderbird, the mail client in OS X, Evolution, and KMail all come to mind -- they all at least support S/MIME out of the box. Now, I think S/MIME is not appropriate for the typical PC user's email and the PGP's web-of-trust approach is a lot better, but it is not as though there is no encryption option available in popular email clients.
find out how to generate keys
This is definitely the weakest link in the chain for email encryption -- I do not think any of the clients I mentioned above have an automatic key generation process. Maybe Google should submit a patch to Thunderbird instead of working on better ways to let people know that they have been compromised (or perhaps in conjunction with that).
somehow get my public key to all of the people that I want to communicate with?
S/MIME does this automatically when you send signed email to people.
...encrypting your email?
I agree, it would be utterly horrible if money actually increased in value over time.
Spoken like someone who has never had to repay a loan...
Yeah, nothing like a currency that doesn't scale with a growing population...
They can but is that an awful thing?
Absolutely yes, since math education is about learning how to think rigorously and logically. There are requirements for four years of humanities; why should those subjects receive more attention?
If someone has little proficiency for math and no interest is there any point in forcing them to sit through calculus?
If someone has little proficiency in analyzing literature, is there any point in forcing them to sit through English classes? Why bother with 12 years of education in any subject?
I can't say that is an awful thing for a mechanic, or a truckdriver, or even a non-techinical professional like my real estate agent
Society as a whole benefits from an educated population, and that means education across the board -- math, science, humanities, languages, etc. This is especially true of a society where we vote for representatives, and where everyone is supposed to be able to run for office. One of the ways people can be disenfranchised is by being denied a good education.
understanding of the material was not the only grade criteria.
That is exactly my point. I was too young to really understand this back in high school, but there is more to school that learning what you are being taught: you are also supposed to learn how to follow instructions and do what you are told. A student who does not bow to authority and do as they are told is considered to be as bad as a student who is unable to learn the material no matter how hard they try.
Out of curiosity, where did you go to school?
I also slept through school, and I barely passed my classes -- despite having excellent scores on my exams. I was told that not doing my homework was the reason for my low grades, and that my understanding of the material was not relevant.
German high school is 13 years (though moving to 12 years), so it is not totally compareable. Also you do not really learn calculus but just to do some standard tasks from calculus without understanding them.
Sure, but at least in the state of New York, a person could graduation high school having taken only eleven years of math courses; a student who passes their classes is allowed to take no math courses during their final year of high school.
Grades should be based on participation, and how 'far' a student move forward in the subject.
So what do you do when you have a student who aces every exam you throw at him, but never does homework and routinely cuts class? The problem is that no single grading standard could possibly be fair to all students, and if you give the student who aces exams without putting in any effort, you get a flood of complaints from other students and their parents about how unfair it is -- unfair that they have to work hard to understand the material.
Of course, there is a deeper issue here than being "fair," and that is the issue of why we have an education system in the first place. We do not send kids to high school so that they can learn the subjects they are taught; actually, learning is a side effect, and most people forget what they were taught in high school pretty quickly. The purpose of our high school education system is to condition people to do as they are told, whether they are told to do a boring, repetitive task or a fun and exciting task. There is no room for a student whose mind works differently and who learns by doing different things, and especially no room for a bright student who cannot work their way through the boredom.
I was told as much when I was in middle school and high school. If you do not do your homework, you get an F -- regardless of how well you understand the material, and regardless of whether or not you can demonstrate that understanding beyond any doubt. The standard answer is a complete dismissal of the idea that homework is pointless once you have internalized the material: "Well if it is so easy for you, just get it out of the way!"
Our education is great for the 1% who can afford private school, private tutors, and so forth. For the majority who need to go to public schools, our education system is terrible. The article points to the successes of those whose parents could afford to give them the best education money can buy.
My German friends were expected to be able to solve calculus problems in order to graduate high school. Calculus was considered college level when I went to high school, and still is. Girls achieving parity with boys in math is a great step forward...except that there are a large number of schools where there is no option for students who are ready to go beyond algebra and trigonometry.
What is the point of asking kindergarden students to log in? Just set up computers without a log in, and reimage the hard drives nightly.