Monthly Archives: August 2012
Schneier on Security: Internet Safety Talking Points for Schools
E. Why are you penalizing the 95% for the 5%? You don’t do this in other areas of discipline at school. Even though you know some students will use their voices or bodies inappropriately in school, you don’t ban everyone from speaking or moving. You know some students may show up drunk to the prom, yet you don’t cancel the prom because of a few rule breakers. Instead, you assume that most students will act appropriately most of the time and then you enforce reasonable expectations and policies for the occasional few that don’t. To use a historical analogy, it’s the difference between DUI-style policies and flat-out Prohibition (which, if you recall, failed miserably). Just as you don’t put entire schools on lockdown every time there’s a fight in the cafeteria, you need to stop penalizing entire student bodies because of statistically-infrequent, worst-case scenarios.
via schneier.com
And there are more…
Glasses to blur vision of ultra-Orthodox men ?? Feminist Philosophers
From NBC: It’s the latest prescription for extreme ultra-Orthodox Jewish men who shun contact with the opposite sex: Glasses that blur their vision, so they don’t have to see women they consider to be immodestly dressed.
HHGTTG peril sensitive glasses take on a new role. Google Glasses might have a more specific solution in the future.
Given the sensitivities of some to images, a wider constituency could be imagined.
NZOSS: Software Patent Exclusion vs TPP :: A Fair Deal
The issue is software patents. In NZ software is currently patentable merely because the Patents Act 1953 predated the widespread existence of software, and therefore does not specifically exclude it. Unlike mechanical inventions, software which is essentially written instructions for a computer, is also protected by copyright, as books, music and other expressions of creativity are. The NZOSS membership, along with most kiwi software developers, believe that copyright is sufficient protection, and that software patents are both unnecessary and actually detrimental to the industry. One need only look as far as the legal spectacles created by software patent disputes between major corporations in the US and EU to see the wealth they squander ??? as much as half a trillion dollars wasted since 1990 according to one academic study.
via fairdeal.net.nz
Sex? Not my kid!
The North Carolina State University professor interviewed parents in an unnamed red state for her book, ???Not My Kid: What Parents Believe About the Sex Lives of Their Teenagers,??? and found an impressive level of denial. ???Teenagers??? actual behaviors,??? she writes, ???do not seem very significant in terms of shaping the sense parents have that their own teens are young, immature, and naive.??? Drug use, vandalism, even pregnancy often fails to destroy this fantasy. The same is true of parents??? own memories about what it was actually like being a teen. At the same time, though, sexual threats are seen as ever present ??? from someone else???s sex-crazed kid, someone else???s corruptive parental influence, someone else???s perversion. Rarely do parents attribute the risk to their own child???s sexual desire or agency. Surprise, surprise.
via salon.com
Thinking more about game-based learning
Her introduction reads;
Adults these days??? seem really into chastising video games those crazy kids are into as symptomatic of the human race’s inevitable, steady decline. Like every hobby and medium, legitimate concerns regarding these technologies certainly exist, but their complete lack of validity is decidedly not amongst them. Intrepid educators, developers, administrators, and parents alike know that new and digital media can be harnessed for more productive ends, such as helping students soak up various academic subjects or training new employees. Even the FBI recognizes and uses video games as valuable learning tools! Because the push toward incorporating these resources still exists in a comparatively inchoate state, anyone curious about how they apply to educational settings should keep up with the latest movements and technologies currently shaping the movement???s future. Blogs can help with that.
via blog.core-ed.org
Womanizing?! Real Feminists Have Better Things to Discuss
via femficatio.com
Hamish MacEwan 