11. januar 2004

More about Net Send * Hey! I recently wrote about 13 year old Carl who got a three-day suspension from school for using the Net Send command to send a "Hey" to every machine in the school (by accident). His dad Michael posted in the comments here and gave me a link to a page where Carl tells the whole story for himself. It was actually worse than I thought, but also quite funny. My parents told him about how they were trying to teach me computers and how the real world works. My dad had been complaining that all I do is play games all the time, so he wanted to teach me something useful. That's kinda funny because my dad plays Age of Mythology and Quake 3 and Aliens VS Predator with me all the time. Careful about admitting this, or next you'll be accused of being a serial killer in training. I wished there was zero tolerance for idiot teachers. 7:33:24 PM    comment []  trackback []

So why isn't running banned? "The same family of chemicals that produces a buzz in marijuana smokers may be responsible for "runner's high," the euphoric feeling that some people get when they exercise, U.S. researchers say." (CNN) 5:21:15 PM    comment []  trackback []

The art of sales The comic art collective shows and sells a number of original artwork from comix artists.Well worth a browsing for comic fans. 3:59:20 PM    comment []  trackback []

Why women don't like shopping for gadgets Even as a new generation of tech-savvy women enters the market, sales staff succeeds in putting them off by treating them like idiots. Research commissioned by the organisers of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas found that many producers and retailers fail to tap into the female $50bn gadget buying market essentially by being unhelpful jerks. It found that most of all, women were irritated by unhelpful and pushy salespersons. Many simply felt dumb, even though they considered themselves smart women. "Our female customers feel a big lack of r-e-s-p-e-c-t," admitted Dave Williams, Vice President of Research & Analysis at the electronics chain Best Buy. "They are ignored, confused by pushy salesman. If she's disrespected, it all goes down the toilet." The study showed that almost half of women go shopping with a man as they believed they were better treated if they had a male companion. It is, the women said, especially the younger male sales clerks that treat them with such lack of respect. From an operational standpoint, salespersons need some special training on how to interact with women. Obviously these young wannabe geeks are not too accustomed to interacting with women at all. 2:15:21 PM    comment []  trackback []

Follow the Mars Rover If you want to follow the progress of the Spirit on the red planet, tune in to the Mars Rover Mission Blog. 9:35:44 AM    comment []  trackback []

Danish troops may have found chemical weapons in Iraq Danish engineering troops and Icelandic de-miners have found buried 120 mm mortar shells north of Basra, which preliminary tests indicate contained a blister agent. The shells appeared to have been buried for around ten years. Mustard gas was used by Iraq in the Iraq-Iran war. The priliminary tests done by British experts on the shells are designed to err on the side of caution, and considering the number of false alerts in the past, it is worth waiting for a final analysis. The Beeb, throwing away all pretenses of impartiality, is quick to point out that even if these are real WMDs, they are just leftovers from the Iraq-Iran war and not: The coalition has yet to uncover proof that Iraq was still developing weapons at the time of the war last spring. As if that has anything to do with it. Iraq was required to declare all its stocks of WMDs, or prove how it destroyed weapons previously known to exist. If (repeat if) this is a chemical agent, it shows non-compliance at a different level. That said, a positive confirmation here will do little to justify all the claims made by the US and British governments before the war. But it will mean that the standard mantra of all BBC articles about the topic "No WMDs have been found", will have to be seriously changed. A longer explanation surely doesn't do the same job as campaign rhetoric. But we are getting ahead of ourselves now. 8:46:35 AM    comment []  trackback []

No guardian for fetus A Florida appeals court has ruled that the state had no right to appoint a guardian for a fetus. It is a moot point for the retarded raped women who gave birth back in August, but it surely will have an effect on future cases where conservatives try to undermine abortion rights. The decision also gave Jeb Bush a black eye, which is always a good thing. I don't think an appeal to Florida's supreme court will have much of a chance of overturning this decision. 8:05:55 AM    comment []  trackback []

Abstinence-only doesn't work Minnesota's abstinence-only sexual education programme doesn't work, adding to the evidence that what anyone with a smattering of knowledge about human nature could have told them off the bat, is true. The study found that sexual activity among junior high kids at three schools where the program was taught doubled between 2001 and 2002 -- a pattern similar to that exhibited by kids statewide -- and that the number who said they would probably have sex during high school nearly doubled, as well. The state's five-year-old abstinence-only initiative has been taught to 45,000 Minnesota kids and is funded by state and federal dollars. Christian churches have tried for centuries to tell young people that sex is bad, but somehow word still gets around that it can be quite fun. You line up some old religious fanatics against the total sex drive of all the world's teenagers, a force backed by ~500 million years or so of sexual evolution, and it's pretty obvious who wins and who loses. Not that it matters much, because the process itself generates guilt which after all is the fuel theistic religion runs on. And abstincence-only programmes have the added bonus that they don't tell kids about contraception, so teenage pregnancies will soar. This again can be used by the fundies to issue more condemnations, either for having an abortion or for being an unwed young mother. On this issue, Bush is unmistakably an idiot. Abstinence-only may work for him, but surely not for, say, his daughters. 7:55:33 AM    comment []  trackback []

© Copyright 2004 Jan Haugland. Last update: 01.02.2004; 11:32:22.