I think what they're trying to do is move people over to the evaluations, which is really what TechNet was *supposed* to be for. Sure, the license keys you got with it allowed you to "indefinitely evaluate" their software (in a lab environment, or whatever), but with some trials lasting as long as half a year, it's kind of become redundant.

> If you're the kind of person who can't keep a piece of paper, or who can't enter the important information from that piece of paper into the data device of your choosing, you're probably not going to do well in the course anyway.

I honestly hope that's really not what you believe. I have a few profs who don't post their syllabi online, and it's really infuriating. I don't have access to my notebooks 24/7, and the syllabus contains enough information that I can't simply copy without spending a significant amount of time doing so. If it was posted on a course website, I could access it from anywhere, even if I don't have my stuff, or even if I happened to misplace the paper amongst all the other hundreds of pieces I get every term.

It's already in digital form. How hard is it to upload?

> But more to the point, learning technology is almost always more suited for the student than for the instructor.

This may be an unpopular opinion, but bear with me.

I'm not saying the students should have it easy or don't have to work hard to get what they need, but some professors have this attitude that if something makes their lives simpler, despite its effects on students, they will take that route.

One of my accounting professors is a good example of this. The school has an amazing online system for tests, quizzes, and homework assignments. All it really requires is the professor to input questions into a bank and he/she can issue these things over the internet. Of course, they could also give a paper assignment, but let's say the prof wants an online one. This professor refuses to use that system; instead, he opts with the publisher's system. This not only requires me to pay $100 to access (I bought the book used so I guess I get punished for not paying retail), but also to suffer through the publisher's shitty system. The questions are ambiguous, the HTML is half-broken, the alignment is off, there are 400 dropdown boxes that offer 30 answers and any one of them could be the right one, and it penalizes you for leaving a field blank instead of putting a zero (even though in accounting you don't do that in certain instances). Because of this, my mark suffers.

But the prof insists on doing it because "it makes [his] life easier" and he "doesn't want to mark everyone's assignment manually." But he also can't be assed to use a system that I already paid for (by virtue of paying my fees) and set up his own, unambiguous, well-thought-out questions.

I'm sorry, but I pay your salary. You work for me, not the other way around. I get that you have stuff to do, but please don't compromise my education for your comfort if that means I do poorer for it. I'm not asking you to make my work easy; I'm asking you to give me the education I paid for.

What I don't understand is why "gay" and "lesbian" are "concern words." I think that's actually more significant and alarming than anything else.

With all the bullying going on in schools, and the corresponding suicides that have peppered the media recently (especially of LGBT teens), I think the last thing that needs to happen are for kids to accidentally out themselves or each other to the designated school censor, whomever that might be.

Why does the North Canton school district feel that they must track any email with the word "gay" and "lesbian" in it? Just what are they trying to track?

I submitted a story about this about a week ago: http://slashdot.org/submission/1653760/Free-Certificate-Authority-StartCom-Taken-Offline and speculated on whether or not this was due to a security breach.

I am a bit disappointed in StartCom, considering they probably knew about this for a while and failed to tell anyone the moment it became apparent.

I am fearful about what, if any customer data, was compromised. When you submit info for validation, you have to submit scans of your ID -- a drivers license, passport etc -- as well as other personal information. If the crackers got a hold of that info, there could be a bastion of fraud being perpetrated without anyone realizing it until it is too late.

Many bank accounts these days can be opened over the Internet simply with a scan of a photo ID and filling out a form. One can apply for loans using the same information without ever setting foot inside a bank. This is a bigger threat, IMO, than fraudulent certs being issued; this can be revoked and patched in a matter of days. Identity theft is never so easy to fix.

Your comment caught some flack, but I couldn't help but make a similar observation as I read the spec. It seems that they are adding a lot of stuff to C++ that exists in C# (lambda expressions, delegated constructors, automatic deduction, initialization syntax, a dedicated null keyword, etc).

Of course, they added a bunch of stuff that's also NOT in C# (since it's not necessary in a high-level language like C#), but I am glad that they are revamping C++ to incorporate some higher-level functions. Now we just have to wait for compilers to start adopting the new spec...

Have they been successful in transforming the world?

Anti-intellectualism, anti-science, or anti-whatever-else has been prevalent in at least the United States for a very, very long time. And it starts when you're very young.

I remember being in school, in first grade. I was smarter than a lot of other kids in my class, and because of that I was ostracized. I wasn't allowed to be an intellectual; stupidity was celebrated. Acts of buffoonery were promoted and lauded.

Is it any coincidence why the most socially-outgoing people, in the history of K-12, are typically *not* the intellectuals? The "nerds" and "geeks" are always kept from ever rising above the "jocks" on the social ladder.

When you make it to college/university, it doesn't change very much. The nerds are at least not the brunt of jokes, and they're allowed to sit in the science and engineering buildings well into the night, silently doing their nerdy sciency and engineery things.

But the loud ones -- in sports, and poli-sci -- are still the non-intellectuals of the high school years. And these are the ones who grow up to be politicians.

So when articles like this act surprised that the majority of the government is filled with anti-elitist and anti-intellectuals, I have to wonder – were they paying attention any, growing up? This sort of conditioning –letting people know that being smart is NOT COOL – starts from a very young age.

But these people became successful? So they must be smart, right? Oh, if only. It's not about what you know, but rather about who you know. Nerds don't really socialize; we focus on our work, because that makes us happy. The others schmooze and network like crazy, with like-minded anti-science colleagues, who later become leaders, while we're the ones left wondering where the world is heading.

They become rich and powerful, and spread their ideas to the next generation. Of course, not all of them are successful. Many of them are not. Many of them remained dumb because they didn't realize the importance of knowledge, since it was ingrained to them from a very early age to think that knowledge and intellect are ELITIST and UNCOOL. And so they raise their kids that same way.

And we're back to square one.

I've experienced this first hand, and I am sure many have here as well.

It sucks; it's terrible. It shouldn't be like this. But it is. And I really have no idea what to do to stop it, but the article is right about one thing – it's terribly dangerous.

> 'Which results should we believe?'

What a ridiculous question. How about the results that are replicated, accurately, time and time again, and not ones that aren't based off of scientific theory, or failed attempts at scientific theory?

> As an American, you can never, ever be right to praise America, EVER.

I think most *reasonable* people can tell you when something works in America, versus something that doesn't in another country.

I think you're right, to an extent, that anti-Americanism is prevalent all over the place. I felt it in Hungary when I was there last, and I feel it here in Canada where I am attending university. But despite all of that, I find the points that people make against America are ill-informed, or hyperbolized. I find myself correcting many misconceptions. I also realized that most people outside of the U.S. tend to paint Americans with the brush they're given: our leaders, and our tourists. Our leaders are obnoxious, so people think that every living, breathing American is an amalgamation of their deeds or actions, when in reality, the bulk of the populace is nothing like the people that lead our country.

That being said, I think I have a rather interesting viewpoint from other Americans. There was a lot of multi-cultural focus growing up (my parents are very traditional, conservative Hungarians coming from the post-WWII, Soviet-bloc-era Hungary), and I think that's given me a rather different perspective. I don't think praising America is seen as something bad, even within America. Painting liberals or leftists as being against praising America is disingenuous. Praising America, where praise is called for, is not wrong. I think where people start having an issue with it, is when they see Americans as not realizing that something outside of America *cannot possibly* be better than the American way.

National healthcare is one which I've seen in-action, on a first-person basis living here in Canada as a student. I can tell you with absolute certainty, that it is better than anything I have ever experienced in the US. My family has a very expensive health insurance policy, and neither its quality, nor its execution, compared to what is offered here. This is obviously my own personal experience, and may not reflect the actual facts situation at-large, but from what I've heard, it's fairly accurate. But there are flaws with this system (flaws which I am willing to look past, given its long-term effectiveness), and having experienced both this system and the American health insurance system, I can point-by-point tell you what I believe America is doing wrong, and what I believe Canada is doing wrong. The Canadians who have never lived in the U.S. can't say that, neither can the Americans who have never lived in Canada. That's why I felt the whole 'debate' was a farce. The Republicans spent too much time talking about socialism (as if there's anything wrong with it), and the Democrats spent too much time talking about capitalism (as if there's anything wrong with it) -- both sides trying to protect their interests, but neither side willing to actually look at facts and decide what's the best option.

Anyway, I got sidetracked. It's late, and I have a penchant for rambling when I'm tired. I think the ultimate point I was trying to make is: you made a jab at the 'leftist' NYT and the 'leftist' universities in the US. The truth is, that it's those 'leftist' institutions which taught me to respect every culture -- including my own. You say the editorial board of the NYT would take umbrage to my statement saying it wouldn't fly in the US? Sure, they'd point out every point of corruption and use it as a counter-argument. To which my response would be: of course, no system is perfect. Our system works better than Hungary's -- at the moment -- but only because our economical and social situation allows it to. And who are they not to criticize? If we stopped criticizing, we'd never get better as a people. Sure, we're not as *bad* as Hungary, but we can be better than we are. I went to the same schools everyone else did; I sang the same patriotic songs in the classroom. I think at one point, a segment of us diverged. The group that thinks America can do no wrong went one way, and the group that thinks that America can become better went another, and those two groups continue to fight in Washington, and it's affecting all of us.

Also as a Hungarian, while the laws controlling media and empowering censorship *are* rather disturbing (as is their recent ruling against gay marriage and other "moral depravity"), the nationalization of pensions and the overhaul of the tax system was a necessary evil.

There was so much corruption in the government over the past several decades. Big corporations were funneling money from pensions into private interests and out-of-country. They had their representatives create loopholes in the tax system to prevent paying taxes, where the private citizen had to pay even more. Hungary's national debt became huge because of this. The legal system is also not without its problems.

Sometimes I believe you need drastic solutions to such deep-seated corruption. That being said, however, I do think that such a concentration of power is *very* dangerous, and sets a bad precedent. This new media law is definitely a sign that something is amiss.

Say what you will about the U.S., but people more or less respect the rule of law. A case may be controversial, and the result may be unappealing, but ultimately all parties understand that without order and due process, there is no government. No matter how corrupt elements of the government are, they still have to answer, ultimately, to the people (whenever that would see the light of day). In Hungary, it's a bit different. People can get away with a lot of things, and I've seen the level of corruption that exists with my own eyes. None of that would fly here in the States.

So is the government taking so much power the right thing to do? I don't know. I'm sure you can argue that, because of this corruption, it's precisely the *worst* decision you could make (give the government more power), but short of an actual revolution by a populace, how else do you clean up your own governing institutions? The only way you can, is elect people to make sweeping changes. But, as they say, power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. I think Orban is heading in the wrong direction. I think he's made efforts to change things, but I also think his intentions are now suspect with laws demanding censorship and other restrictions. I think by doing things like that, one basically rolls back all the good one has done.

We'll see how this plays out. I'm hoping for the best. As a second generation American, I still have very close ties to Hungary (all of my extended family lives there, and I visit often), and I do my best to keep up-to-date on its politics. I don't want my country-of-lineage to have ill repute.

... use IMAP. Connecting to Exchange via IMAP doesn't enable remote wipe, but still allows you to access your mail and get access to the GAL.

But honestly, if you're needing access to a company's Exchange server, there's no reason why the company can't enforce a security policy, like a PIN or password on your phone, or remote wipe capabilities. There may be sensitive data in your emails or in your contact list, that should not be accessed on a device which has no protection (or even weak protection like a PIN). It's in the best interest of the organization to be able to remotely-wipe a device connected to their Exchange server.

That being said, if you don't want to give the company access to do that to your phone, then don't connect to Exchange. If IMAP isn't enabled, then you have to take the tradeoff.

... Ballmer et al are wringing their hands nefariously as they see the future of C#'s marketshare increase by leaps and bounds. And that's good for Microsoft in every way, since every application written in C# instead of Java means a license for Windows is being purchased to run each copy of the software. In web apps, it's a server license; in workstation applications, it's a desktop OS license. Either way, it's a win-win for Microsoft, and a massive loss for Oracle.

Not that I mind, per se. I prefer C# in every way to Java... but from Oracle's perspective, I don't see how they see this would do anything but hurt Java and their reputation that's rather ubiquitous.

Now if only Mono would get their asses in gear and not lag so far behind .Net versions, there would actually be an open source OS alternative to running modern C# applications.

I bought the game before it came out because what I read about it intrigued me. I saw gameplay footage and stuff and it looked awesome. So I bought it in preorder for $10 less and for some additional gametime. I was so happy that there was finally an MMO out there that didn't expire your gametime. I'm not a prolific player so I hated the idea of being charged $14/mo, every month, even if I didn't log in once. Since my school was starting, I decided I'd play a bit and leave the rest of the time till later. I'd played a few hours, had fun, shelved it, and was going to jump into it once again after I got my bearings in school and had a solid schedule.

That would have been in a few weeks. Well shit, now that it's shutting down, I lose $50, not having played it any more than a couple of hours, and the whole "gametime never expires" thing ended up being a farce. My gametime did expire. It was (ironically) almost five months since I've bought the game, so that's like paying $10/mo and not playing it. So in essence I won nothing, and a gaming company ran away with millions. Wonderful.

I wonder if it's actually this business model that killed it... this idea of, you don't have to pay a monthly fee, but instead you pay for gametime (or unlimited time for a monthly fee, which wouldn't be something that you'd do unless you're really into the game). Maybe it didn't make enough money? Maybe the investors realized it's better to lock people into paying a monthly fee than to paying for gametime which never expires? Maybe they never were able to address the rampant cheating that was going on (so I heard, but never experienced).

Whatever the reason, I'm very, very disappointed, and feel slightly cheated. I never did get to experience the game I paid for. I could have gotten more use out of the $50 had I burned it for heat.

Goo Gone works amazingly well, on even the most ridiculously adhesive residue I've encountered... and it's cheap.

I think the U.S. math curriculum could use some equality with the Chinese system.