from the the-scientists-of-tomorrow-are-thwarted dept.
According to a petition at change.org
At first glance, Greg Schiller looks like a mad scientist taken straight out of a Hollywood film. His infamous moustache has more fans and followers than the dodgers on a good day. He coaches fencing and occasionally appears in school talent shows. Heck! Mr. Schiller is in fact anything but ordinary. He is teacher, role model and friend.
He is also suspended from teaching, coaching, and acting as union rep for his school.
Schiller was ordered to report daily to a district administrative office pending an investigation after two students turned in science-fair projects that were designed to shoot small projectiles.
One project used compressed air to propel a small object but it was not connected to a source of air pressure, so it could not have been fired. (In 2012, President Obama tried out a more powerful air-pressure device at a White House Science Fair that could launch a marshmallow 175 feet.)
Another project used the power from an AA battery to charge a tube surrounded by a coil. When the ninth-grader proposed it, Schiller told him to be more scientific, to construct and test different coils and to draw graphs and conduct additional analysis, said his parents, who also are Los Angeles teachers.
A school employee saw the air-pressure project and raised concerns about what looked to her like a weapon, according to the teachers union and supporters.
Shooting objects through tubes has a long tradition, and the idea of moving things with coils has been around a long time (I dimly recall articles about coast-to-coast coil trains from old mouldy Popular Science mags).
If you support freedom of scientific thought in our schools you might want to stop by change.org and sign the petition.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by davester666 on Friday April 11 2014, @04:14AM
Creating the next-gen terrorist, by doing fucked-up things like this.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by zim on Friday April 11 2014, @04:41AM
I'm so glad my tax money is being used on schools to... uh.. hmm.. i'm not sure exactly what it's being used for anymore when it comes to schools. Doesn't seem to be anything good.
I feel bad for kids today.
They're being handed a really shitty world and not even being taught the skills to deal with it. Or even learn about it.
They'd have shut down the entire school for some of the things i turned in as various science projects. And metal shop as well. Worst i ever got tho was 'go put that in your locker till class' for a 5 foot hand and a half sword for a shop class project.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by rts008 on Friday April 11 2014, @09:10AM
No kidding!
*setting:circa 1968 science class, middle school*
Myself and two mates decided to build a hand held rocket launcher for Estes Model Rockets for our science project.
Our teacher replied that we needed to present a mechanical drawing, data on the proposed rocket and motor, and then he would decide.
We did the research, planned out a launcher, made the drawings, and presented it to him.
It was a go.
We built the thing, assembled the rocket and the teacher inspected it, and scheduled a 'launch date'.
On launch day, the whole class turned out to watch, and we had a successful launch.
Then came the 'write up' of the project...good stuff!
We would be Gitmo'd for even suggesting such a thing nowadays, or at least kicked out of school.
(Score: 3, Funny) by mhajicek on Friday April 11 2014, @11:13AM
I built a miniature USS Monitor out of aluminum, with functioning brass cannons. With permission and supervision I loaded them as blanks and demonstrated their firing for the class.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 11 2014, @11:42PM
Same for the teacher in the story.
What both of you did was "technology".
In the library, Science is in the 500s; what you were doing would be in the 600s (Technology aka Applied Science).
Science provides an answer to a scientific query by using the Scientific Method. [wikipedia.org]
Each has its place but the two often get confused, demonstrating yet again that most people have no clue what Science is (e.g. "Do you believe in evolution?").
-- gewg_
(Score: 5, Interesting) by tynin on Friday April 11 2014, @03:56PM
This is such a sore topic for me. See, I was on the fencing team, and for a little while in the drama club. For both, their were times when I'd bring in any number of melee weapons; epee, gladius, claymore, etc (my grandfather was a collector of such things and gave them to me). They'd get used as set pieces in a play, or to talk about historical significance (the history teacher ran the fencing club).
Then, one day, one of the administrators noticed me carry a sword from my car, heading to drop it off for a play. Out of the blue the police are called, show up, and proceed to arrest me. Zero tolerance policies apparently went in effect. It didn't matter that this was a normal thing. It didn't matter that several school teachers backed up my story. I was given a felony charge for having a weapon on school grounds. During my trial they tried to say how heinous a crime I had committed, and THANK GOD someone was their to stop me before I could do serious damage. I was removed from school and sent to a correctional facility for youths for 1 school year. I got to experience hardcore racism first hand being the only white kid their, and to boot, the tallest person, so I stood out like a sore thumb. Their was no learning at this facility. They paid lip service to it, pretended to have classes, but more than 1/2 of the day every day was spend in a Rec room full of arcade games, table hockey, and basketball. Talking to others in the facility with me, and they were there for rapes, grand theft auto, burglary, etc. And here I am, this giant Nordic white dude, who's crime was being on the fencing team on the wrong day.
Sorry for the rant, but even now, 15 years later, that point in my life fills me with rage.
(Score: 1) by Woods on Friday April 11 2014, @08:09PM
You should not apologize for being upset, what they did was wrong and idiotic. I am sorry that happened to you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 12 2014, @01:43PM
I cannot fathom what kind of a monster is responsible for this outcome. I bet they have a special place in hell for such people.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by edIII on Friday April 11 2014, @04:46AM
This does not seem unreasonable in the slightest. It reeks of minimum effort. So while the guy might be an ass elsewhere, this threw me for a second.
It wasn't worth mentioning and doesn't exactly help his detractors.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Kell on Friday April 11 2014, @06:15AM
I disagree. A project in which the student analyses the coil field, conducts calculations of expected resulting velocity for a given input current and then measures the velocity to compare against predictions... sounds like science project to me. Theory, methodology, experiments, discussion. It might not be 'advanced' or 'hard' by your definition but not every student is capable of building fusors in their basement, either. The best science project is a well-scoped, achievable task that stretches the student's thinking abilities without breaking - the goal of a science class is to teach science, not to do cutting-edge physics experiments.
Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 11 2014, @06:36AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 11 2014, @07:41AM
Sorry, were you trying to make a point?
(Score: 1) by thoughtlover on Sunday April 13 2014, @07:33PM
- the goal of a science class is to teach science, not to do cutting-edge physics experiments.
That goal you mention (learning, I assume) is aided and enhanced by students actually performing physical experiments. That a certain experiment seems 'cutting-edge' may indicate your overall age (no offense).
Back in the 80s, no one I knew in my high school was aware of things like the Lorenz Force. New scientific concepts are taught at a much younger age simply because we can learn them. What, you think Wesley Crusher will be taught the same curriculum at age 8 that Joe Shmo was taught in 1999? I don't think so.
(Score: 2) by Kell on Monday April 14 2014, @06:53AM
Hi Thoughtlover, thanks for your comment, although I think perhaps you misunderstood me. The GGP (edIII) argued that the student's project was basic and lazy. My assertion is that lots of good science learning can be done with basic physics (eg. kinematic pendulum experiments, buoyancy calculations) without needing to be situated right on the bleeding edge of modern understanding. A coil gun using EMF can be a very enlightening exercise when the scientific method is applied and followed; just because something is well-understood doesn't mean it's not an effective teaching tool. Science education (at the high school level) isn't about teaching students about the latest and greatest breakthroughs in high-energy physics - it's great if the students are engaged and passionate for the frontiers, but it isn't what the class is all about. Rather, the aim is to expose students to logical, methodological thinking and building the basic understanding of science principles to prepare them for university education where they will be taken to the frontier.
The reason advanced science concepts are taught earlier is because society recognises the need to deliver more science content for college prep, and the value to students in doing so. Also, as cutting-edge fields are more understood, the necessary understanding is developed to enable more sophisticated concepts to be communicated more easily. It's difficult to teach things that you yourself don't have mastery of! It's not that students are getting better, per se, but rather that our ability to explain improves.
Also, students are staying in school much longer than ever before - some for as much as a third of their expected life span! In some fields (eg. medicine, advanced engineering) so much time is needed in training and experience that the effective working life of a top-level practitioner may be only 20 years (compared to ~50 years for an unskilled labourer). Alas, it seems unlikely that our descendents will master nuclear engineering while still in their teens, no matter how good we get at explaining things. So long as humans remain human, there is a limit to how much, how fast, a person can learn.
Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.
(Score: 5, Informative) by katterjohn on Friday April 11 2014, @06:43AM
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday April 11 2014, @02:25PM
So even THEY admit they aren't real weapons. What the fuck?!
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Friday April 11 2014, @06:49PM
A baseball club is a real weapon: You can beat someone to death with it, if you so desire. So better throw all those baseball teachers out of school for teaching how to operate a weapon.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by AnonTechie on Friday April 18 2014, @03:23PM
What about Golf Clubs ??
Albert Einstein - "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Foobar Bazbot on Friday April 11 2014, @04:49AM
At best, change.org is a joke at the expense of everyone who makes or signs a petition pertaining to government there. (There may be some value when trying to pressure a company to change -- news coverage of popular opposition is the key, but lots of signatures on a change.org petition may help get that coverage.)
IMO, it's worse than a joke -- because it feels like doing something, it offers a relief valve for outrage, and thus keeps the pressure from building high enough (from several such outrageous events) to make one take meaningful action.
If you support freedom of scientific thought in our schools, the first and most important thing you can do is get to know your own school board. This gives you two levers: you can talk to them about stuff like this, hopefully influencing their future decisions, and you will know which ones to vote out. It's a lot more effort than a change.org petition, but it will actually help.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 11 2014, @06:49AM
Are you kidding, man? They had a Death Star on there.
A DEATH STAR.
(Score: 2) by Covalent on Friday April 11 2014, @12:55PM
It's definitely worthwhile to get to know your local school board and to be involved with your child's school. My neighborhood organized to vote out a member of our school board who was not only a complete moron, but who sent his three school-age children to a private school after the district rezoned his neighborhood to a school he didn't like...in the district he worked for. Sheesh.
That said, probably no one who has posted a comment here lives in LA. For these people, there is no way for them to participate in the clearly warranted outcry except something like change.org If it's one thing that school districts DON'T want, it's bad publicity. If enough people get on this band wagon, perhaps enough bad press will force the school district to turn their brains back on. I know, it's unlikely, but maybe...
FWIW, I'm a high school physics teacher, and I have had my students building "launchers" of various types for 15 years. Students have launched eggs, golf balls, marshmallows, marbles, you name it. I sympathize immensely with this teacher.
Oh, and check this out: http://www.cde.ca.gov/ta/tg/sr/documents/rtqphysic s.pdf [ca.gov] (go to page 9...first question)
For those too lazy to read it, this is a California Standards Test in Physics in which students are asked how to analyze data from the angle and distance data of a "spring gun".
You can't rationally argue somebody out of a position they didn't rationally get into.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 11 2014, @06:33PM
I propose a new term: "Five Minutes of Hope."
(Score: 5, Insightful) by khchung on Friday April 11 2014, @05:04AM
"raised concerns about what looked to her like a weapon"
Whoever raised this concern is a moron and should not be allowed to do any work more intellectually demanding than sweeping the floor. BTW, the broom you used to sweep the floor? That looked like a weapon and can be used to beat people too, why don't you "raise some concern" about it?
Unfortunately, in the current "OMG! Terrorist!" culture of the US, any kind of idiotic "concern" from any random fool must be taken seriously. And the result is science became the modern witchcraft - "That women is strange, she must be a witch" -> "that sciency device is strange, it must be dangerous", with the same kind of witchhunt for any unfortunate target being picked - you must prove your innocence to a group of fools who had already made up their minds about your guilt. Good luck with that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 11 2014, @05:09AM
We don't need THAT many people sweeping.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Friday April 11 2014, @06:46PM
But then, who sanitizes my phone?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 11 2014, @05:39AM
Some time ago I had a copy of the Anarchist's cookbook with me at school. I'm old, shut up. When found in my possession by search of my bag (I had lost it), the high school called the police and a detective was sent out right away.
The detective just gave a nasty look to the principle, to which I audibly started laughing and then proceeded to hysterics. An expulsion followed with the school board getting involved and threats from lawyers kept my vacation cut down to a week. My father was a damned efficient man in his time.
I bring it up to make a point that enforcement of such ridiculousness is never equal at all. It will be abused to punish the more undesirable element (I was something else).
An honor roll student in chemistry performed an experiment straight out of the Anarchist's Cookbook, with the book in class, and the teacher had full knowledge before hand and assisted.
It happened on the same day, a fact that got verified and was the primary reason the school board backed down and let me come back to school.
My experience may be biased, but there are an awful lot of spiteful and holier-than-though morons in education. They can't make that many teen movies about it and to have a ring of truth :)
(Score: 1) by bill_mcgonigle on Friday April 11 2014, @07:05AM
Whoever raised this concern is a moron
Perhaps not - it could be used as a terribly ineffective weapon. Now, then, hand me that BIC pen you've got in your hand...
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Rousay on Friday April 11 2014, @08:22AM
I tend to agree with this.
FUCK that bitch, and I hope she ends up the ass end of one of these ridiculous complaints, akin to: the way that woman is sweeping the floor infront of my children is highly sexual, she must be fired immediately, how dare you allow our children to be exposed to this kind of unacceptable behavior by an adult! Maybe she is one of those school employees who rapes our young innocent boys!" -> bam, homeless. Jesus. Looks like a weapon because it has a fucking tube? Definitely an old spinster with cob webs in the snatch.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 11 2014, @12:16PM
This isn't "OMG terrorist!" this is "OMG Columbine!" Almost every public school in the country has a zero-tolerance policy for "weapons" that, depending on how badly it's written and interpreted, includes "finger guns" [cnn.com].
Anytime something bad happens to a kid, we all stand around and say how bad stuff shouldn't happen to kids, and someone should have done something to prevent it. Often followed by lawsuits against whatever site the bad stuff happened, because it might be their fault somehow. Always followed by imposition of ever more draconian restrictions on what used to be a time to make mistakes that would not haunt your adult existence. Here's some news: being alive is dangerous. Deal with it.
(Score: 3) by khallow on Friday April 11 2014, @05:03PM
It's also groovy for the administrators of the school. Their "hands are tied" by the "zero-tolerance" policy so they don't have to take any heat for the decisions they make.
(Score: 1) by FakeBeldin on Friday April 11 2014, @09:05AM
I'm not from the US, and I don't live there. Where I have lived, I have never seen this tradition of "science fair". I have seen clubs where children go to to build stuff (maker-alike clubs, if you like) in various incarnations. I also seem to recall a rocket club (in my old high school, if memory serves).
I've never personally encountered an "oh my god weapons - fire everyone involved" response that stories like this seem to be based on. Of course, my high school days were in the time terrorists were lone individuals living in cabins in the woods, not well-funded networks of cells trained to fight a war.
So I'm wondering: can anyone who has some experience with science fairs outside the US comment on the sort of response you'd expect (for potentially "weaponizable" - god I hate that word - projects made by children)?
(Score: 1) by francois.barbier on Friday April 11 2014, @09:16AM
Yeah, on one hand you have people defending for their right to bear arms, and on the other hand you have this.
(Score: 3, Informative) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Friday April 11 2014, @09:34AM
> were in the time terrorists were lone individuals living in cabins in the woods, not well-funded networks of cells trained to fight a war.
I'll let you into a secret - not that much has changed. Terrorists - even your "Al-Qaeda" - are still almost exclusively lonely nut jobs working in near-isolation on shoestring budgets. The image of AQ as a shadowy James-Bond-Villain super-army with a secret missile base in a hollowed-out volcano is a myth perpetuated by the media and the government, because they both like to scare people.
(Score: 2) by khallow on Friday April 11 2014, @05:08PM
Terrorists - even your "Al-Qaeda" - are still almost exclusively lonely nut jobs working in near-isolation on shoestring budgets.
Al Qaeda does have an identifiable organization to it. It's not SPECTRE, but it is a collection of groups that actually do the occasional bit of team-based terrorism, have some funding, and a decent propaganda setup.
(Score: 2) by geb on Friday April 11 2014, @10:38AM
I can't speak about schools here in the UK, but some of my old university friends used to be very keen on building potato cannons. These were physics and engineering students, so they weren't going to build a little low powered toy. It was a very substantial steel tube with electronic ignition/trigger systems. I once saw it fire an orange hard enough to dislodge bricks in a wall.
They told me about some of the earlier tests, when they were looking for a good outdoor place to fire it, and (rather foolishly) chose a spot a few miles down the flightpath from a large city airport. It was not a quiet device so they were heard, and the police turned up very quickly to find out what was happening.
They got a verbal warning about finding a more appropriate firing range, and after the officer had checked their cannon to be sure they wouldn't blow themselves up, an off the record congratulation for building the cannon so well.
(Score: 1) by FakeBeldin on Sunday April 13 2014, @05:13PM
"They got a verbal warning about finding a more appropriate firing range, and after the officer had checked their cannon to be sure they wouldn't blow themselves up, an off the record congratulation for building the cannon so well."
+1, sudden outbreak of common sense.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 11 2014, @02:50PM
Disclaimer: I haven't been involved directly with school operations in a couple years, so I could be slightly out of date here.
A science fair is an event where students display their own research or engineering projects. They're very common in the US in every school district I've been to, particularly for the more challenging science classes (college prep and AP courses). These sorts of bonkers science teachers are usually the best from the students' perspectives but terrify the parents...
When I was a student I was required to participate in at least one for each year I was in high school. One year I made a little game based on a circuit; I had a weak electrical charge running through a looped wire and you needed to get a hoop over the wire without touching and completing the circuit. Another year I did research on microbes, raised cultures, and such, which I turned out to be terrible at (probably would get me in trouble for "biological danger" or something these days, but it was only boring stuff, like samples from door handles).
My most favorite teacher ever, who inspired both of the above projects that I actually enjoyed doing, eventually committed suicide though. He was under a lot of pressure from various groups I learned (parents, the district, his college professor parents, and apparently even some students). He was a goofball like the teacher in the story here. I didn't understand it at the time; I was absolutely crushed. I eventually learned part of the problem they had with him was not only was he silly and irreverent as well as very enthusiastic about science and teaching, he was also gay, and a conspiracy of people to drive him out of town had torched his car nearly every year he lived there, in addition to threats from all sides.
I really wish I'd understood these things at the time. I was so confused and frustrated... If I had been wiser maybe I could have stood up to them, at least in some small way, show them he had value. I don't know if it would have made a difference but I regret not having even tried. Well, I'll always remember him fondly, and if I encounter something like that again, I have ideas...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 12 2014, @12:05AM
If you look at who wins the big science fairs each year, you'll notice that NONE of the winners are doing technology.
Every winner is doing SCIENCE and accomplishing something that has never been done before and is answering a question that begins with WHY? [wikipedia.org]
-- gewg_
(Score: 3, Interesting) by AnythingGoes on Friday April 11 2014, @10:10AM
If the same projects were to be done now, what do you think would happen to those kids?
Think of what has been lost in these last 57 years!
(Score: 3, Funny) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Friday April 11 2014, @10:30AM
Today we are going to dissect... A CLOWN!!!!
(Score: 1) by TestablePredictions on Friday April 11 2014, @11:56PM
Well no wonder this man died, his lungs were filled with CANDY!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Geezer on Friday April 11 2014, @10:33AM
IIRC, the original purpose of universal public education was not education for its own intrinsic value, but rather a means to a utilitarian end: a more productive and useful general population.
Because hard skills are less in demand than docile consumption in the modern economy, any policy that serves the purpose of creating a population servile dullards is conforming to current utilitarian objectives.
In other words, where society, through education, once needed to foster assemblers, machinists, and engineers, it now strives to create the necessary herd of retarded consumer-serfs.
Public education has adapted to the economy. I am neither surprised nor happy about it.
(Score: 2) by bucc5062 on Friday April 11 2014, @11:21AM
I can connect with this view, but I would propose this tought, that what we see and read about today may have occurred throughout the ages. The differences now is we do not have the filter of time or distance. It happened in CA in some small section of a large state, but the world hears about within hours. Roll time back and we get a different experience ranging from a slight mention within a few hundred miles to nothing known at all or to a story told days if not months later*.
Consider how our Civil War or for that matter WWI(I) would have been reported in today's instant access world. A kid knifes 20 people today and we all know within minutes which is more shocking then hearing about it through newspaper reports weeks old.
My point is that if there was a general pattern I'd be more concerned, but not every school board is locking up science teachers. Even this story has not played out completely and we may discover the teacher gets re-instated and told to continue.
*MH370 is a great example of bad instant reporting. Its here, no here, not we hear it there, not now, no over here. All because we now demand immediate answers, not complete stories.
The more things change, the more they look the same
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 12 2014, @02:04PM
howled the ac
(Score: 1) by johaquila on Friday April 11 2014, @11:35AM
I am not really interested in the welfare of the US and its people. My friends there are intelligent enough to leave the country when necessary. It's what the US is doing to the rest of the world that matters to me. The sooner the US sinks into total idiocy, the sooner it will stop fucking around with all of us.
The Chinese are likely to take over the role that the US still has. Probably not much better, but certainly better. The only problem I have with this personally is that I have invested so much time into speaking English perfectly, but only speak a few words of Mandarin yet.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 11 2014, @02:10PM
Uh, yeah. Good luck with that... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square_prot ests_of_1989 [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by johaquila on Friday April 11 2014, @10:38PM
Tiananmen Square? Pretty bad, but nothing in comparison to the terrorism hysteria.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday April 11 2014, @02:41PM
Considering the way the Chinese are devastating the environment, I wouldn't say they'd do a better job at all, in fact they're much worse. It's bad enough that the US pumps out so many greenhouse gases and there's a lot of climate change deniers there, but they pale in comparison to what's going on in China.
(Score: 2) by khallow on Friday April 11 2014, @04:59PM
Sounds like you should be more concerned about where you come from. If they came up with you and your masterful reasoning skills, then they have real problems.
The Chinese are likely to take over the role that the US still has. Probably not much better, but certainly better.
This is idiot-speak for "Thank you, sir. May I have another?"
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday April 11 2014, @07:52PM
I think you need to study a bit of history.
The US has been acting abominably, but...as top nations go we've been surprisingly moderate and generous. This has been steadily declining as year follows year, and now that the US is on the downhill side can be expected to get worse quickly. (This is the normal pattern.) Also all of the contenders for replacing the US as "top nation" look better than they would act were they in the same position. This is typical. It's a lot less expensive to be a "challenger for top nation" than to be a "top nation". I suspect that China is too wise to try to hold the role, and would prefer to continue to be a challenger (with economic dominance). But that leaves the question of who would replace the US. It would be nice if it were the EU, possibly with Russia as a member, and one of the reasons that that would be nice is that the replacement could happen via economic strife rather than actual warfare. (Those are the two most common ways in which a "top nation" is replaced. Sometimes they are combined, as when the US replaced Britain.)
I feel that the US has been on the declining curve of dominance ever since the collapse of Soviet Russia. Possibly since slightly before then, but that was when I started being certain that I was seeing the signs. OTOH, I was seeing signs that I suspected meant that the collapse had started perhaps 15 years earlier.
Don't hope for a quick transition, though. That could be devastating. Hope for a smooth transition. That has happened before. It's less common throughout history, but during most of history wars were profitable (to the victor). Now they cost more than even the victor can recoup, but people still don't realize that emotionally. And they're also incredibly dangerous, as wars frequently flare out of control in unexpected ways. Improved speed of communications and transport, and odd weapons (biological, nuclear, ?) make for unpredictable dangers. A country may not have a nuclear weapon, but it certainly will have fermentation vats, etc. There's a serious danger of "If you threaten me with a weapon I can't match, I'll attack you with a weapon you can't see coming, and can't prove where it came from.", that the attacker won't be able to control the weapon after it's launched is the only real deterrence.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by Rivenaleem on Friday April 11 2014, @12:24PM
But there's no sense crying
over every mistake.
You just keep on trying
'til you run out of cake.
And the science gets done.
And you make a neat gun
for the people who are
still alive
(Score: 1) by Woods on Friday April 11 2014, @08:22PM
Am I assuming the party position correctly?
(Score: 5, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Friday April 11 2014, @01:48PM
I'm incensed about this. If you want to contact the school and let them know how you feel about their punishing a science teacher for teaching science, here's the info:
Ramón C. Cortines School of Visual and Performing Arts
450 N. Grand Ave., Los Angeles , California 90012
(213) 217-8600 Phone | (213) 928-0933 Fax
Link to email Bruno Kim, Principal:c ontact?d=x&id=1376459681945&return_url=13972240770 06 [schoolloop.com]
https://central-lausd-ca.schoolloop.com/misc/cms_
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by JeanCroix on Friday April 11 2014, @02:13PM
From TFA:
Schiller, 43, also was the teachers union representative on the campus and had been dealing with disagreements with administrators over updating the employment agreement under which the faculty works. His suspension, with pay, removed him from those discussions.
Sounds to me like the school administrators found a way to eliminate one of their key negotiating opponents. Reported by an anonymous "school employee," eh?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 11 2014, @03:15PM
This. There's a personal grudge of some sort in this. Staff at a high school are normally close-knit and trust each other, and administrators don't worry about the staff and science projects like this. The projects are the administration's excuse for getting rid of a guy who became an enemy for other reasons, either union or personal.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 11 2014, @06:15PM
At least I say they do, and that's good enough, right?
Therefore we should get rid of them, too.
(Score: 1) by chewbacon on Friday April 11 2014, @07:11PM
They can't critically think themselves, yet we expect them to tailor education to teach our children to. If it looks like a weapon, it must be a weapon! Well what if I draw a gun on a sheet of paper. The drawing looks like a weapon so it must be a...? Outrageous.
(Score: 2) by unitron on Saturday April 12 2014, @03:01AM
Why those kids might grow up to do stuff like develop rail guns that let the Navy send several projectiles per minute a hundred miles away at rates of travel up to 7 times the speed of sound, giving them a decided advantage in battle that could discourage the enemy from engaging in battle in the first place, thus making our nation more secure.
They might even make good money doing it, and pay lots of taxes that would benefit their community.
Obviously we need to nip this sort of thing in the bud now, while there's still hope of diverting these children into the culinary service industry with an emphasis on upselling.
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