Wired Pig's Lifestream

This pretty much sums it all up. With all that kids are going though now in school, to have a teacher doing this to students is pure bullshit. “I went to the principal in November and complained,” Clement said.  “She said she would put a stop to it.” A few weeks ago, another of 11-year-old Heather Clement’s graded assignment made its way home and at the top of the page was a step beyond the original — “minus 20% for being a loser.”  The word “loser” underlined twice and capitalized. Mrs. Clement called the assistant superintendent, then met with the principal and Mr. Roland.  She said Roland apologized and said it was his way of joking with students.  To Mrs. Clement, the practice is unacceptable.(1)

Sioux Falls teachers react to NC teachers “looser” comments.

Footnotes:Footnotes are for reference only and may have little, if anything to do with the text from the post. Source here. Exciting, huh?

Here is a snipped of voice mail I recently received from my buddy Randy (@TheNose100). I’m pretty sure it speaks for itself. Its a short message on why butts are called bottoms when they are not at he bottom… Check out Randy’s podcast here.

Here is a snipped of voice mail I recently received from my buddy Randy (@TheNose100). I’m pretty sure it speaks for itself. Its a short message on why butts are called bottoms when they are not at he bottom… Check out Randy’s podcast here.

A very sweet video has been posted over at Engadget showing the Courrier UI. Courrier is Microsoft’s Tablet/ebook device and, from the UI Demo Video below, it looks sweet. Take a look and also check out the Engadget article fore more info.

Microsoft, in 2008, published a document detailing the various privacy policies of Microsoft services and the ways that Microsoft can expose user data to law enforcement, among other things. This document, below, was the subject of a DMCA request by Microsoft to force the operator of Cryptome to remove the document on Feb 24th as they claimed it was their intellectual property and the website hosting company, Network Solutions, agreed. Microsoft “improper[ly] use[d] of copyright to conceal [...] violations of trust toward its customers,” according to an interview with Geekosystem. “Copyright law is not intended for confidentiality purposes,” he continued(1)  . As of today, Microsoft has reversed its decision(2) and said that Network Solutions has been told to reinstate Cryptome. The document is an interesting read. Microsoft Spy

Footnotes:Footnotes are for reference only and may have little, if anything to do with the text from the post. Source of quote here at Read Write Web. Source of information here from Read Write Web.Exciting, huh?

A few random thoughts - Climate/Global Warming - UK climate researcher Phil Jones, the head of the British Climatic Research Unit tells the BBC(1) that the recent warming trend that began in 1975 is not at all different than two other planetary warming phases since 1850; there has been no statistically significant warming since 1995, and; it is possible the Medieval Warm Period was indeed a global phenomenon thereby making the temperatures seen in the latter part of the 20th century by no means unprecedented. And there is little mention of it in the press. PA School Spies on Students, at Home - Here we have a Pennsylvania School District spying on its students at home. They spying occurred over/through laptops that students were given by the district. The district- Lower Merion School District -, which operates Harriton High School, has given/loaned out , 2,300 of the Apple laptop’s to every student in the district. According to CBS news(2) - The suit claims a Harriton High School official enabled the device, concerned the sophomore was “engaged in improper behavior in his home.” An assistant principal later confronted the student, citing a photograph taken by the webcam as evidence. “She thought I was selling drugs which is completely false,” Blake said. The camera is right here. And the lens is able to pick up a wide angle shot of anything directly in front of it. One of these Apple Computers is provided to every high school student in the Lower Merion School District, 2,300 in all. The school says the feature is only used to locate a lost, stolen or missing laptop, and that they used the feature 42 times to recover 28 laptops over 14 months. In a report from Sci-Tech Today(3) The Robbins said they first learned of the remote monitoring capability on Nov. 11 when an assistant principal at one of the district’s two high schools told their son that he was “engaged in improper behavior in his home,” according to the lawsuit, and the evidence was a photograph from the webcam in his laptop. According to their suit, the father then verified with the assistant principal that the district can remotely activate and view through the webcam. The FBI is now looking into the case as a violation of Federal Wiretap laws. TSA To Swab Passengers Hands - The TSA is implementing a new mobile swabbing and analyzing unit at airports. The swabbing can and is being used at locations past the security screening checkpoint. According to CNN(4) Under the new protocols, tests will be conducted at various locations — including in checkpoint lines, during the screening process and at gates. Newer, more portable machines make it easier to conduct tests away from fixed locations such as the checkpoint. … The TSA said the machines test only for explosives. It declined to specify which explosives, citing security reasons. While the machines do test for explosives, the machines also test for illegal drugs(5) . According to information in a recent No Agenda Show(5) the machine – the IonScan 400b – , when tested on a TSA employee for a local news video segment, the machine tested false positive at least 4 times(6) . Footnotes are for reference only and may have little, if anything to do with the text from the post. See BBC article here. See CBS article here. See Sci-Tech Today article here. See CNN article here. See show notes for NA here. See 27 min mark into podcast for segment. See related FoxNews43 video here. Exciting, huh?