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Education

Nonprofit Group Sends Filesharing Propaganda To Students 266

Posted by Soulskill from the comics-without-comedy dept.
palegray.net writes "The National Center for State Courts, a nonprofit organization, has sent file-sharing propaganda to thousands of students. The supposedly 'educational' materials, presented in the form of a comic strip, are intended to frighten students with gross exaggerations of the legal consequences of sharing music online (lose your scholarship to college, go to jail for two years, and more). From the article: '"The Case of Internet Piracy," however, reads like the Recording Industry Association of America's public relations playbook: Download some songs, go to jail and lose your scholarship. Along the way, musicians will file onto the bread lines. "The purpose is basically to educate kids — middle school and high school-aged about how the justice system operates and about what really goes on in the courtroom as opposed to what you see on television," said Lorri Montgomery, the center's communications director.' I'm not encouraging anyone to break any laws, but this is ridiculous. What's truly discouraging is the fact that several judges appear to be in full support of this sort of 'education.' The propaganda material is available in PDF form, and it lists the judges and others involved in its creation. Wired's post has a summary of the story (which is good, since the story is awful), and Techdirt notes a couple of the legal inaccuracies.
Government

White House Decides P2P Isn't All Bad? 45

Posted by Zonk from the someone-took-some-night-school-classes dept.
ethericalzen writes "An article this week at Cnet revealed that the White House doesn't necessarily hate everything about P2P. The Bush Administration apparently has called into question a law, known as the Federal Agency Data Protection Act, that would force all federal agencies to have plans guarding against the risks of P2P file sharing. In a Congressional hearing on IT security threats, the LimeWire founder was questioned about how his service warned users about the files and folders they are sharing. Karen Evans, the chief information officer for the federal government, stated that she was against singling out a particular technology when issuing computer security requirements. As it is the government already has a law which requires federal agencies to report on information security plans and risk assessments known as FISMA."
Education

Failing Our Geniuses 815

Posted by kdawson from the harrison-bergeron dept.
saintlupus writes "Time has an interesting article about the failure of the US educational system to properly deal with gifted students. For example, up to ten times as much money is spent nationwide on educating 'developmentally disabled' students as gifted ones. Does No Child Left Behind mean that nobody can get ahead, either?"
Education

Submission + - Early graduation for college et al?

Submitted by
hahafaha
hahafaha writes: "I am currently a high school student. My school offers a program by which students can graduate in three years rather than four, by essentially completing all the requirements. This is generally very difficult, because the school requires four years of math, science and English, but I am lucky enough to be in a position where I can easily do it by simply taking two English classes next year, for which I am already signed up (the way I am accomplishing this is by taking math a year ahead, and by taking two science courses this year). However, I am unsure how great of an idea it is in terms of admissions into college. How much would this harm my chances?

I think that academically, I am doing well. I am president of the Computer Club, participate in the math team, have good grades, etc. My dream is to get into MIT. But for any college/university, not just MIT, how much would early graduation hurt my chances? If I get great SAT scores, AP scores and GPA, would that outweigh the 5 (or so) less classes I take than everyone else? Note, also, that I am older than most others in my grade, so the whole age thing should not be a problem.

Does anyone in the Slashdot community have any experience with early graduation?"
Power

Submission + - Wisconsin Orders Gas Station to Raise Gas Prices

Submitted by
hahafaha
hahafaha writes: "Raj Bhandari, a gas station owner in Wisconsin, offered a 2 cents/gallon discount for gas to seniors, and 3 cents/gallon to those that supported youth sports. However, the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture is threatening to penalize him for each discounted gallon, with the fine at a judge's discretion. According to the Department, he is violating Wisconsin's Unfair Sales Act, which requires stations to sell gas for about 9.2 percent more than the wholesale price."
Spam

Journal Journal: Karen Valdez & Stefan Zdanski... who are you? 1

Journal by Sax Maniac
Like everyone else, I'm awash in spam. All the names are fake of course, though we seemed to have lately changed over from really bad ones like "Asymmetric Q. Palindrome" to more normal looking names. All these names seem to be totally random, with no two messages coming from the same one.

Firefox Losing Its Way? 494

Posted by CmdrTaco from the wrong-side-of-the-bed dept.
An anonymous reader writes "NeoSmart Technologies has a recap on Firefox 2.0 and its shortcomings. Aside from the technical aspects, the article raises some good questions about the Firefox 'community,' it's future, and what it's goals are at the end of the day. Their conclusion? Firefox 1.5 was a much better open-source project/community model than 2.0 ever will be, and that 'It seems Firefox has lost its way somewhere along the passage to fame.'"
Power

Submission + - wireless recharging

Submitted by
saviorsloth
saviorsloth writes: "The BBC is running an article on a proposed system to recharge electronic devices wirelessly using the resonance of electromagnetic waves to transmit energy over three to five meters. If they do make such a system, we'll all just have to pray that the GI Joes can keep this thing out of the hands of Cobra Commander and Serpentor!"
The Internet

Submission + - Internet Only 1% Porn

Submitted by
Eli Gottlieb
Eli Gottlieb writes: "In what surely comes as a complete and utter surprise to everyone on Slashdot, a new calculation shows that only one percent of web pages contain pornography.
While the calculations were performed using data forced from Google's and Microsoft's search indices by the government, they will help the American Civil Liberties Union to keep enforcement of the Children's Online Protection Act of 1998 banned. A loss for business privacy has become a victory for free speech, even though netizens lose a beloved old proverb."
Education

Submission + - The Real Lessons Taught At School

Submitted by danparks
danparks writes: http://hometown.aol.com/tma68/7lesson.htm

The Seven-Lesson Schoolteacher

A New York teacher outlines his idea of the real lessons that are taught in school. From the article:

"The current debate about whether we should have a national curriculum is phony. We already have a national curriculum locked up in the seven lessons I have just outlined." [confustion, class position, indifference, emotional dependency, intellectual dependency, provision self-esteem, surveillance] "Such a curriculum produces physical, moral, and intellectual paralysis, and no curriculum of content will be sufficient to reverse its hideous effects. What is currently under discussion in our national school hysteria about failing academic performance misses the point. Schools teach exactly what they are intended to teach and they do it well: how to be a good Egyptian and remain in your place in the pyramid."

The result of American schooling using the above seven lessons?

"...we have a real national crisis, the nature of which is very different from that proclaimed by the national media. Young people are indifferent to the adult world and to the future, indifferent to almost everything except the diversion of toys and violence."
Microsoft

Submission + - Copyleft vs Zune

Submitted by
Tag
Tag writes: "Microsoft's competitor to the iPod is proving to be quite the controversy. One point that has been brought up is Zune's ability to wirelessly transfer songs, allowing the recipient to play the song 3 times before it is locked out by Microsoft's DRM (Digital Rights Management) that is added to the file for wireless transfer. This seems like a "wicked smaht" solution to the ongoing bickering by the RIAA & the 'Napsterites'. My problem with this, is if I record my own album and put it onto my Zune, and my music is under a license resembling the Copyleft, providing for the free transfer of music, without allowing the license to change, will Microsoft's DRM violate my rights? Technically it would take my license, and put Microsoft's DRM "3 Play" on it. The best analogy to this is a program under the GNU license, or equivalent being given to someone as shareware (x days before it no longer works). Comments?"
X

Submission + - X.Org Foundation Election Results

Submitted by Doc Ruby
Doc Ruby writes: The X.Org Foundation election for the Board of Directors was concluded on 12 November 2006. Egbert Eich, Bart Massey, Keith Packard and Daniel Stone were elected for two year terms, and Stuart Kreitman was elected for a one year term.

X.Org Foundation is chartered to develop and execute effective strategies that provide worldwide stewardship of the X Window System technology and standards. The X.Org Foundation has an open membership, and a Board of Directors which is elected from the membership.

The election counted under 100 voting members. The X Window System underlies most Linux, Mac, and most Unix (and other) desktops, used by millions of people worldwide. The Foundation needs more members to contribute the project, and to help elect leaders. If you have time and good sense to help, please join and participate.

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