Who was in a position to see what was happening at Columbine, understand it, and influence the social environment in the school? a) Parents b) Teachers c) other Students d) a and b
Who wasn't paying enough attention to what was going on in the school, knowing full well that childrens' minds are still developing and that they cannot teach each other socialization skills without close guidance (unless you think 'Lord of the Flies' was a social 'how-to' guide) ? a) Parents b) Teachers c) other Students d) a and b
Who bears the blame for the climate and culture that disenfranchised students and allowed them to drift into hopelessness and violence? a) Parents b) Teachers c) other Students d) a and b
Who is to blame for Columbine? a) the shooters b) Parents c) Teachers d) other Students e) a, b and c - but mostly a
At the end of the day, it is the individual who is responsible for his/her actions - but that doesn't let any of the rest off the hook. One can argue that Klebold and/or Harris were sociopathic - but most adolescents show signs of behavior remeniscent of sociopathy at some point - but from all the subsequent interviews with kids from the school, etc., there were lots of other issues at play. Sociopathy *might* have blown the thing up, but the environment at that school sounds like it was pretty toxic to start with.
To speculate wildly, I suggest this is due to the changing nature of computer use - in the business world, where I earn my living, management is still learning lessons in computer use that researchers figured out a long time ago.
Most business computer use *is* just about storing and organizing very dull data. Most accounting software STILL sucks (non-intuitive, complex UI; complete lack of interoperability; data lock-in; resource hogs...), fileservers are nothing but big file cabinets (and about as well organized) and document / content management is still in its infancy. These are the areas pretty much every company will be interested in, but they are areas where the relly gifted coders of the world have little interest in. So, we make due with whatever mess SAP, JD Edwards/Peoplesoft or Intuit feed us, and the IS groups (at least at my company) don't think about solving problems, but merely filter consultants and sales peoples' presentations for management.
Conventional wisdom is that developing a project internally is way more costly than buying 'off the shelf'. If 'off the shelf' is generally bloated and crappy and the cost of using it is in worker frustration rather than direct dollars spent, well, that's ok - managers authorize purchases without having to use the beasts they buy, and no budget I ever audited had a 'Pissed off user / wasted time' line item, so no one will ever be held accountable for wasting employees time by buying a punishingly poorly-designed software package.
So, puting a stop to the rant, the answer is that the user base is growing, but the intelligence of the technology user base is dropping, and therefore the expectations of that user base will drop, since they are less and less able to comprehend the true value in 'real computing' or figure out ways to make money doing such computing.
Users are generally stupid and don't really know what they want or understand what they have. Gee, you could have asked any tech support person that one...
Welcome to the club. Your (our) approach will pay off when a one of the following happens:
1. Coworker asks about a memo they were taken to task for not reading and complying with - "When did they send that out?" You forward it to him/her.
2. Coworker gripes that boss yelled at them for not replying to email promptly - when they have 144 'unread' emails and >1000 read ones in their inbox.
3. Coworker narcs you out for not providing crucial information, whereupon you forward the time stamped, return-receipted email you sent that has languished in coworkers inbox because s/he sorts email by subject line - and see #2
I try not to be too much of a screwup at work, but the coworker referenced above makes it much easier...
1. My own interpretations (IANAL) of what I have read on the supreme court interps. and my own predispositions lend me to the most 'liberal' interpretations of the Constitution. So, hard to admit, but I'll go with your reading, lacking any authoritative counterargument. Trespass, as far as I can tell, is in fact as you characterize it - to be illegal, you have to refuse to leave after being asked.
2. If you were representative of those who would ask my political opinions, you'd be less obnoxious than most others.
So, I have to (grudgingly) concede that your interpretation makes more sense than mine, although it still annoys the living crap out of me when I get a call from some political pollster who refuses to identify who they work for, except to tell me that they are exempt from the 'do not call' list, which I am on, and then presses me for information, etc. And I know full well that my name and phone number are thereafter listed in some database of 'live' phone numbers that can then be sold to whomever without my consent.
Hence, if you call me, I may still be very, very rude. Sorry about that, but there are a lot of a$$holes out there.
My reply on PS was snarky. Inappropriately so, if I expected a courteous, sincere response (which I got) - so I apologize for the tone of that part of my reply.
As far as your right to contact vs. mine to not be contacted, I think it breaks down to active versus passive. You may share your opinions on the web, for all to see. I may or may not read them and/or reply. You do not have a right to 'push content' unless I request it. So, if I ask to be contacted, you may call me, etc. If I do not, the most you can do is go to a public space (town square, internet, etc.) and speak to your hearts' content. However, trespassing on my property to knock on my door, especially with clearly posted signs indicating my unwillingness to be contacted, or calling my home at whatever hour you deem appropriate is not by any means a right, and I would challenge you to provide a precedent for such a right. The closest I could find was Watchtower Bible & Tract Society v. Village of Stratton, wherein the Supreme Court said that in effect, the government could not impose a tax on door-to-door petitioners (in this case Jehovas' Witneeses). The reasoning was that, "Door-to-door speech is a time-honored, valuable way for citizens to communicate with each other. The ordinance simply affects too much speech. Requiring a permit to go door-to-door to communicate religious and political speech "constitutes a dramatic departure from our national heritage and constitutional tradition." Plus, phone calls are in may ways more intrusive than door-to-door, due to their nature - one person can sit in comfort and 'bother' thousands of people, even without an auto-dialer. You state you don't call nonlisted numbers. If you are just calling a preexisting list of people who have indicated they want to hear from you, what is the problem?
This says, to me, that the government can't restrict the speech, but does not give the speaker the right to speak to me if I have taken steps (posting a sign, etc.) to not be spoken to.
You assert "In my opinion it's right that I am entitled to share my opinion with people unless they tell me they wouldn't like to hear it on their phone or at their house."
I counter, it is not your right to actively speak to someone who has not asked for your opinions, unless they have asked for them or indicated a willingness to listen, especially in a private space (residence). If you wait for me to go for a walk in the Town Square, however, you may approach me and try to start up a discussion pretty much without limit, until I tell you to leave me alone or if I am wearing a sandwich board saying "Don't speak to me" or similar.
What exactly is 'Political Science' ? Is politics in fact a science, or is it applying scientific methods (statistical analysis, etc.) to politics? Is this the science that tells politicians to listen to polls, sway in the wind, voters are herd animals, 'energizing the base with inflammatory rhetoric' is a good idea, etc.
Freedom of speech, etc. does not include the right to bother people. Going door-to-door is fine - you can see my 'no solicitors' sign and stay away. Calling my unlisted number via autodialer is deliberately circumventing my paid efforts to avoid talking to advocates like you. You may be a great, virtuous person, but if you have the 'right' to call me, so does the American Nazi party. Not going to play that one.
Try putting up a nice website with clear platforms, etc and include a 'question' email so I can ask you specific questions about your platforms and specific bills you want, and what pork you will not take, and make sure you answer my questions, and I'll vote for your candidate. Otherwise, stay off my radar, out of my yard, off my bandwidth, and away from me. You are *not* welcome in my space.
One thing that appears to be overlooked by both sides in this - the films were edited then distributed to the original requestor, but with no kind of disclosure (according to TFA) about what was done. Sure, the purchaser knows what they ordered, although they don' know what specifically was changed, 'cause they didn't WANT to know the 'bad bits' and no mention was ever made of sending customers a list of deleted scenes.
My point - if I re-edit Star Wars: ROTS and distribute an edited version without changing the credits to reflect the fact that the work a viewer is about to see is NOT George Lucas' masterwork, I am misrepresenting my product. If I do such a disclosure, then I am committing a crime against the owner of the IP - there are fairly complex rules about who gets credit in movie 'credits'.
Derivative works I have no problem with - but if I make minor, difficult to detect changes to a film (difficult for someone who has *never seen the original* by definition) and pass it off as the original (i.e., original credits, including 'editor'), is that 'the Right Thing' even if I am paid by the initial purchaser to do so?
Slashdot Mirror
High school flashback...
Who was in a position to see what was happening at Columbine, understand it, and influence the social environment in the school?
a) Parents
b) Teachers
c) other Students
d) a and b
Who wasn't paying enough attention to what was going on in the school, knowing full well that childrens' minds are still developing and that they cannot teach each other socialization skills without close guidance (unless you think 'Lord of the Flies' was a social 'how-to' guide) ?
a) Parents
b) Teachers
c) other Students
d) a and b
Who bears the blame for the climate and culture that disenfranchised students and allowed them to drift into hopelessness and violence?
a) Parents
b) Teachers
c) other Students
d) a and b
Who is to blame for Columbine?
a) the shooters
b) Parents
c) Teachers
d) other Students
e) a, b and c - but mostly a
At the end of the day, it is the individual who is responsible for his/her actions - but that doesn't let any of the rest off the hook. One can argue that Klebold and/or Harris were sociopathic - but most adolescents show signs of behavior remeniscent of sociopathy at some point - but from all the subsequent interviews with kids from the school, etc., there were lots of other issues at play. Sociopathy *might* have blown the thing up, but the environment at that school sounds like it was pretty toxic to start with.
To speculate wildly, I suggest this is due to the changing nature of computer use - in the business world, where I earn my living, management is still learning lessons in computer use that researchers figured out a long time ago.
Most business computer use *is* just about storing and organizing very dull data. Most accounting software STILL sucks (non-intuitive, complex UI; complete lack of interoperability; data lock-in; resource hogs...), fileservers are nothing but big file cabinets (and about as well organized) and document / content management is still in its infancy. These are the areas pretty much every company will be interested in, but they are areas where the relly gifted coders of the world have little interest in. So, we make due with whatever mess SAP, JD Edwards/Peoplesoft or Intuit feed us, and the IS groups (at least at my company) don't think about solving problems, but merely filter consultants and sales peoples' presentations for management.
Conventional wisdom is that developing a project internally is way more costly than buying 'off the shelf'. If 'off the shelf' is generally bloated and crappy and the cost of using it is in worker frustration rather than direct dollars spent, well, that's ok - managers authorize purchases without having to use the beasts they buy, and no budget I ever audited had a 'Pissed off user / wasted time' line item, so no one will ever be held accountable for wasting employees time by buying a punishingly poorly-designed software package.
So, puting a stop to the rant, the answer is that the user base is growing, but the intelligence of the technology user base is dropping, and therefore the expectations of that user base will drop, since they are less and less able to comprehend the true value in 'real computing' or figure out ways to make money doing such computing.
Users are generally stupid and don't really know what they want or understand what they have. Gee, you could have asked any tech support person that one...
YMMV.
Welcome to the club. Your (our) approach will pay off when a one of the following happens: 1. Coworker asks about a memo they were taken to task for not reading and complying with - "When did they send that out?" You forward it to him/her. 2. Coworker gripes that boss yelled at them for not replying to email promptly - when they have 144 'unread' emails and >1000 read ones in their inbox. 3. Coworker narcs you out for not providing crucial information, whereupon you forward the time stamped, return-receipted email you sent that has languished in coworkers inbox because s/he sorts email by subject line - and see #2 I try not to be too much of a screwup at work, but the coworker referenced above makes it much easier...
Frankly, I can only say two things:
1. My own interpretations (IANAL) of what I have read on the supreme court interps. and my own predispositions lend me to the most 'liberal' interpretations of the Constitution. So, hard to admit, but I'll go with your reading, lacking any authoritative counterargument. Trespass, as far as I can tell, is in fact as you characterize it - to be illegal, you have to refuse to leave after being asked.
2. If you were representative of those who would ask my political opinions, you'd be less obnoxious than most others.
So, I have to (grudgingly) concede that your interpretation makes more sense than mine, although it still annoys the living crap out of me when I get a call from some political pollster who refuses to identify who they work for, except to tell me that they are exempt from the 'do not call' list, which I am on, and then presses me for information, etc. And I know full well that my name and phone number are thereafter listed in some database of 'live' phone numbers that can then be sold to whomever without my consent.
Hence, if you call me, I may still be very, very rude. Sorry about that, but there are a lot of a$$holes out there.
My reply on PS was snarky. Inappropriately so, if I expected a courteous, sincere response (which I got) - so I apologize for the tone of that part of my reply.
As far as your right to contact vs. mine to not be contacted, I think it breaks down to active versus passive. You may share your opinions on the web, for all to see. I may or may not read them and/or reply. You do not have a right to 'push content' unless I request it. So, if I ask to be contacted, you may call me, etc. If I do not, the most you can do is go to a public space (town square, internet, etc.) and speak to your hearts' content. However, trespassing on my property to knock on my door, especially with clearly posted signs indicating my unwillingness to be contacted, or calling my home at whatever hour you deem appropriate is not by any means a right, and I would challenge you to provide a precedent for such a right. The closest I could find was Watchtower Bible & Tract Society v. Village of Stratton, wherein the Supreme Court said that in effect, the government could not impose a tax on door-to-door petitioners (in this case Jehovas' Witneeses). The reasoning was that, "Door-to-door speech is a time-honored, valuable way for citizens to communicate with each other. The ordinance simply affects too much speech. Requiring a permit to go door-to-door to communicate religious and political speech "constitutes a dramatic departure from our national heritage and constitutional tradition." Plus, phone calls are in may ways more intrusive than door-to-door, due to their nature - one person can sit in comfort and 'bother' thousands of people, even without an auto-dialer. You state you don't call nonlisted numbers. If you are just calling a preexisting list of people who have indicated they want to hear from you, what is the problem?
This says, to me, that the government can't restrict the speech, but does not give the speaker the right to speak to me if I have taken steps (posting a sign, etc.) to not be spoken to.
You assert "In my opinion it's right that I am entitled to share my opinion with people unless they tell me they wouldn't like to hear it on their phone or at their house."
I counter, it is not your right to actively speak to someone who has not asked for your opinions, unless they have asked for them or indicated a willingness to listen, especially in a private space (residence). If you wait for me to go for a walk in the Town Square, however, you may approach me and try to start up a discussion pretty much without limit, until I tell you to leave me alone or if I am wearing a sandwich board saying "Don't speak to me" or similar.
What exactly is 'Political Science' ? Is politics in fact a science, or is it applying scientific methods (statistical analysis, etc.) to politics? Is this the science that tells politicians to listen to polls, sway in the wind, voters are herd animals, 'energizing the base with inflammatory rhetoric' is a good idea, etc.
Freedom of speech, etc. does not include the right to bother people. Going door-to-door is fine - you can see my 'no solicitors' sign and stay away. Calling my unlisted number via autodialer is deliberately circumventing my paid efforts to avoid talking to advocates like you. You may be a great, virtuous person, but if you have the 'right' to call me, so does the American Nazi party. Not going to play that one.
Try putting up a nice website with clear platforms, etc and include a 'question' email so I can ask you specific questions about your platforms and specific bills you want, and what pork you will not take, and make sure you answer my questions, and I'll vote for your candidate. Otherwise, stay off my radar, out of my yard, off my bandwidth, and away from me. You are *not* welcome in my space.
One thing that appears to be overlooked by both sides in this - the films were edited then distributed to the original requestor, but with no kind of disclosure (according to TFA) about what was done. Sure, the purchaser knows what they ordered, although they don' know what specifically was changed, 'cause they didn't WANT to know the 'bad bits' and no mention was ever made of sending customers a list of deleted scenes.
My point - if I re-edit Star Wars: ROTS and distribute an edited version without changing the credits to reflect the fact that the work a viewer is about to see is NOT George Lucas' masterwork, I am misrepresenting my product. If I do such a disclosure, then I am committing a crime against the owner of the IP - there are fairly complex rules about who gets credit in movie 'credits'.
Derivative works I have no problem with - but if I make minor, difficult to detect changes to a film (difficult for someone who has *never seen the original* by definition) and pass it off as the original (i.e., original credits, including 'editor'), is that 'the Right Thing' even if I am paid by the initial purchaser to do so?