CPS has a big budget problem, just like the rest of Illinois. CPS also has a very poor relationship with the public teachers union, the teachers went on strike last year and shut the district down.

Where exactly is CPS going to find people who are passionate and knowledgeable about CS who also want to teach in a public district in Illinois? Stipends and training are nice but I don't feel like forcing students to take a CS course, taught by a teacher who may have no real experience in CS, is going to encourage anyone already not determined to go to university for CS to change their mind. It may actually dissuade potential CS majors.

While legality might be relevant to you in determining the level of asshatery, legality is not relevant in determining if a person or group is an activist.

I understand what you are saying, you don't like Anonymous and you think they are asshats because they go on DDOS rampages against anyone who makes them upset, much like children throw fits when they don't get what they want.

I still don't think you can say they aren't activists because you don't agree with their goals and methods. Well you can say whatever you want, but it doesn't make it so.

Who are you arguing with? Who is going to backpedal?

Based on your comment it seems that you don't support the idea that the courts act in the best interest of the corporations. That's my stance too. Pretty sure thats the stance of everyone in this thread. I'm not sure who your comments are directed at.

Does a teller at JP Morgan think about the ethical implications of their work?
Does a cashier at WalMart think about the ethical implications of their work?

In both examples a person that is in no way responsible for the overall direction of the company is facilitating the daily operations of the company that will commit unethical acts.

We cant just ask Engineers to sacrifice their careers because some whiny Journalist/Engineer is having a moral crisis. Our entire society is unethical. We buy clothes that were made by people working for less than $100 a month, living in concrete rooms smaller than most jail cells, who were forced into that labor by their parents. We shop at companies who are lobbying to oppress workers rights. We use electronics made by children and people who would rather kill themselves than continue working at Foxconn.

Get off of your fucking high horse and stop acting like an Engineer is any different than a Banker or a CEO or a cashier. We are all players in the same fuckedup game.

Just because they do things you don't agree with doesn't mean they aren't activists. Being an activist, criminal, and "asshat" are not mutually exclusive and depending on your viewpoint a lot of activists are asshats. I'm sure that in the US there were some white southerners who considered MLK Jr. to be an asshat. Lot's of people consider Greenpeace and PETA to be both activists and asshats. Lots of people consider the ACLU to be activists and asshats. Lots of people dont.

I don't assume that the prosecutors and judges are overreacting because they don't understand technology. I think they understand completely that it is in the corporation's best interests to have disproportionate penalties for online activism compared to meatspace activism. They already lost the fight in meatspace, protests get a lot of coverage and it is really bad PR to see police pepper spraying protesters. I think they have the clear goal of establishing that online protests/activism will not be tolerated and the penalties will be much more severe than a meatspace protest.

Imagine if online protests become an accepted form of civil disobedience? It would be much more difficult to control the masses because they could participate anonymously from their couch. Compare that to an old fashioned protest where people have to miss work and travel and stay outside and sometimes tolerate brutal police action. The masses complaints might actually be addressed instead of ignored.

The objective here isn't to punish anyone proportionally to the crimes they committed. The whole point of online activists having the book thrown at them is to deter future activists.

The corporations already feel like meatspace activists have too many rights, so it is imperative to set a precedent that online activism will be dealt with harshly.

Because it isn't clear from TFA: The US was in control of the sub when it was scuttled by Hawaii. It had been captured when Japan surrendered.

This is really cool because it's a piece of history and an engineering accomplishment but the only reason it was 'lost' was because the US sank it and then pretended that they forgot where they sank it so that they didn't have to give it back and have the Soviets study it.

The cause is that society emphasizes success in your career, whether it be academic or professional, over your personal relationships and life. The effect is that test scores are high and the amount of "scoring" is low.

Most people consider Japan's population growth to be an issue compromising their economic future. There is a fear that there will not be enough young workers to pay into the social safety net programs for the old. The growth problems are usually attributed to the pressures of Japanese society. There is a lot of pressure to study, get into a good school, study, get into a good university, study, and then get a good job then work your ass off. Where is there time to develop relationships and social skills? I have heard Japanese people say "There isn't time to have a relationship with someone from the opposite sex, we are working too much."

Lots of studying seems to pay off in terms of excellent test scores. Does it encourage personal happiness? What are the unintended effects of emphasizing academic performance so much?

South Korea has the highest suicide rate of any developed nation.

Japan is on track to experience negative population growth.

What do all these wonderfully educated youth have to look forward to besides leaving their native country to go find somewhere they can actually live

My point is that in the scenarios I listed the Seller is disingenuous and it has become normal for the Seller to be disingenuous. It is common and accepted for a seller to exploit a lack of domain knowledge of a customer to gain a favorable bargaining position. If it is a core tenet of the buyer/seller relationship to be accurate then most of our interactions with companies are in violation of the tenets of the relationship.

That's exactly what I'm talking about, I agree completely. I would like more discourse on the troubling fact that disingenuity is prevalent and accepted (and maybe encouraged) in our society and the public, goverment, and other companies are materially victimized by it.

Of course there are always going to be scammers, but when the largest, most profitable, most recognized, and most entrenched players are the ones who exemplify disenguinty and deceit maybe we should ask ourselves what we can do to affect positive change.

I think we as a society are wrestling with this question: If an entity with obvious motivations to make money off of you disingenuously provides services or goods that do not meet the original expectations or are vastly inappropriate, whose fault is it?

Examples:
You go to buy a car and the salesman tricks you into buying the "rust proofing" or some other nonsense addon that really doesn't add any value.
You go to buy a used car and the salesman sells you a car that he knows is a POS, that might be lucky to make it another 10000 miles.
You go to bestbuy and buy a $50 6' HDMI cable.
You go online and buy $500 speaker wire because the website said the electrons flow better
You take your car to the shop and the mechanic tells you it will cost $1000 to "calibrate your zener filter".
You ask your Cisco rep for advice on gear for your new expansion office, he sells you $50,000 of enterprise equipment for an office of 10.
Your PC is slow and you click on and pay for the "Speed up your PC by clicking on this button" scam.
You pay GeekSquad to do anything.
You pay for the extended warranty that doesn't actually cover anything extra and contains language that prevents you from making a claim in 99% of cases.
Comcast tells you that you have to get the 50 Mbps service or else you wont have enough bandwidth to facebook with your friends, they actually provide 50Mbps for a split second then you get maybe 10% of your advertised capacity.

I don't think any of the above examples are legally fraud. And I think in most of those examples we have agreed that no matter how much it pisses us off and we know it is unethical, companies have no obligation to not rip you off: buyer beware. The exception I can think of is signing a contract with a SLA or something, which is really rare on the consumer level and it seems really rare for the government to require.

You don't have to buy anything!

Don't stress out, don't skip spending time with your family and friends, don't become part of a violent mob.

You don't have to. You aren't defined by your possessions.