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14-Year-Old Boy Arrested for Bringing Homemade Clock to School

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Re: 14-Year-Old Boy Arrested for Bringing Homemade Clock to School

#761

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> electricity for non-work related causes I wish we could fire teachers for using their computers for Facebook and Amazon shopping during the day.

This question is not intended at all to be snarky. Seriously. And then you'll hire them? Gets complicated fast, dunnit?

If they have shown they can get the job done, why wouldn't I? (Other than not being in HR and all).

Also, hard not to feel a little snark in the emphasis and "dunnit", really...

Re: 14-Year-Old Boy Arrested for Bringing Homemade Clock to School

#762

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my school district[0] teachers start at $43,500 and max out at $63,688 (after 30 years and a PhD) You can pick up some extra stipends if you coach or work in certian departments (STEM) but good luck getting into 6 digits as a Teacher. When I taught in Massachusetts (where we have a teacher union)[1] pay starts at $36,400 and maxes out at $74,000 (with a PhD) after 19 years. Turns out that public school salary info…

For the record, I didn't make the "6 digit salaries" claim. I'd be thrilled if world-class (or even top 5-10%) teachers could command those kinds of rates without having to teach in the richest school districts for decades. I'd also note that those are salaries (and similar for others in this discussion) are for 187-day school calendars, or 37.4 weeks/year. Generously applying the same rate to a 46 week/year "full ti…

ugh, summer argument.

First: teachers typically work days not on the student's school calendar, so it's more like 39 or so weeks by your calculation.

Second: they work WAY more than an 8 hour day. Last night she did 7am - 4pm in the building, then 2 or so hours at night grading. (and that was a light day since she had gotten her planning done previously this weekend).

Third: summer is where you can finally catch up and plan classes. Girlfriend did a major revamp of her AP US History class so she was in-line with the new standards. Last year was Western Civ revamp. Next year will be the standard US History class.

You're right, benefits are in-line (not better, just in-line) with corporate america. Mediocre, but existing health care. A pension style retirement plan that's reasonable, but at the mercy of underfunding by politicians (which seems to be expected at this point).

Re: 14-Year-Old Boy Arrested for Bringing Homemade Clock to School

#763

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thousands can be wasted on dumb stuff like bad office-supply purchasing decisions. Those folks don't get fired. Sounds overblown - folks afraid of anything they don't understand.

Having lived in the deep south most of my life I think I understand what's going on here. It's not that they're afraid of things they don't understand. It's that there is a certain type of person they generally don't like. In this case it might have been a man that had some sort of intellectual curiosity, maybe a bit eccentric. And they will use their ignorance as a weapon against those people. The police department…

That, or they just didn't like that someone illegally installed money-wasting software on school property without so much as an approval request.

PS: Money wasting from their point of view, not making any judgement about SETI here

Re: 14-Year-Old Boy Arrested for Bringing Homemade Clock to School

#764

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the money for education can only be spent on the kind of education YOU like, and not the kind of education that the parents like? You do realize that's incredibly arrogant, right? You and other enlightened people know what's best, but everyone else who disagrees with you about what's best is unenlightened swine? That's tautological.

Your missing the point. They can spend their money where you would be mad. So if they go to a school where history is through the lens of white supremacy and teach that science is evil because it contradicts their narrow version of the Bible and that God created black people because of the curse on Noah's son for having homosexual sin with Noah your fine? By the way a LOT of people believe this especially in the sout…

I am saying that if you apply that argument inductively, then nobody should be able to do anything because there will always be someone to object to it. Public money can't be used by anyone for anything because someone will have a problem with it. You do see how that could be, don't you?

I am in group X and I object to things that you value in group Y. You in group Y object to things that I, in group X, value. What do we do?

Once you have a particular group that claims to have the moral high ground for some nebulous definition of "the high ground" the whole argument is lost because so few people agree on so few things.

I get that creationists are annoying, but I'll give them credit for not demanding that science not be taught, just that they wanted their pet theory taught too. That looks a lot more reasonable (from a certain perspective) than the evolutionists who insist that evolution is the only possible explanation ever, with quite religious zeal, despite having only circumstantial evidence. Evolutionary science is nowhere near as rigorous as physics and won't be for thousands and thousands of years of highly accurate recordkeeping. At that point the creationists will have suffered a thorough defeat, but until then, well, truthfully the science isn't settled. At least to the degree of rigor that I would personally care for.

Re: 14-Year-Old Boy Arrested for Bringing Homemade Clock to School

#765
post #372
post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Advice used to be to not turn machines off but let themgo into sleep. This avoided power cycling which some people though caused problems. A sleeping machine still costs money, but much less than a machine churning SETI. 5,000 machines churning SETI for nine years? I'd be interested in estimates of cost.

Well, far from being definitive, but it looks like a regular pc will cost around $227.52 (350 watt psu, $18.96 per month) in electricity per year to run 24/7.[1] (calculated using $0.06 per kWh, which is rather low for most people in the US) So, 5,000 machines running 24/7/365 would cost around $1,137,600 annually (5,000 machines * $227.52 per year) in electricity usage alone. Of that 24 hours per day, we can assume…

Just one data point, but I have a machine I run Folding@Home on most of the time, and that is plugged into a Kill-A-Watt. The difference between idle and full folding power is about 70W, as I recall. Not trivial, but 1/5 of what you've estimated here.

15 years ago, the power difference was probably smaller, maybe quite a bit smaller -- modern CPUs are better optimized for low idle power.

Re: 14-Year-Old Boy Arrested for Bringing Homemade Clock to School

#766
post #121

If anyone is actually surprised by the administrations intelligence - I should remind you of 3 events: - A teacher confiscates Linux CDs claiming that the student was essentially distributing illegal copyrighted software - because no software is free [1] - A system administrator was fired for installing/running seti@home on school computers. There is a lot of controversy about this case - but I read one news article…

I got in trouble at school for having smarties candias because "it could be pills."

Re: 14-Year-Old Boy Arrested for Bringing Homemade Clock to School

#767
post #121

If anyone is actually surprised by the administrations intelligence - I should remind you of 3 events: - A teacher confiscates Linux CDs claiming that the student was essentially distributing illegal copyrighted software - because no software is free [1] - A system administrator was fired for installing/running seti@home on school computers. There is a lot of controversy about this case - but I read one news article…

You cited three cases, it's anecdotal evidence that says nothing about the efficiency or intelligence of administration.

Re: 14-Year-Old Boy Arrested for Bringing Homemade Clock to School

#768

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the teacher level, they are underpaid. My girlfriend is a high school teacher w/ 4 years experience, a masters degree in her topic, and works 12+ hours a day (not kidding, seriously all day). She makes $35k / year. If she wasn't lucky enough to have an engineer paycheck behind her life, she simply wouldn't be able to do the job. It's likely that funding gets allocated in stupid ways, but the whole process is inher…

If your girlfriend feels she is a better teacher and deserves more she needs to help start a movement to de-unionize schools. We should not have incompetent dinosaurs teaching our kids. We want brilliant, dedicated, hard working, up-to-date teachers who are worth every penny they earn in front of our classrooms. And, yes, they should make $150K per year or more. And, no, it's not free money. They have to be that good…

:-/ Yeah, deunionizing would be great.... Private school teachers get paid much less than public [1], with the bonus of being fired any time. Instead, when school districts attempt to bust the teachers union, they do it in order to funnel money to charter schools, often religious [2]. These charter schools have selective admissions, and often won't keep children with any sort of difficulty [3], which artificially raises their test rates, and hoses kids who need the help.

[1]: http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/10/why-are...

[2]: http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_28401042/colorado-supreme-...

[3]: http://dianeravitch.net/2014/02/26/breaking-news-new-data-sh...

Re: 14-Year-Old Boy Arrested for Bringing Homemade Clock to School

#769

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It makes me sad that showing off something you made can be seen as "asking for trouble."

It wasn't just "something", it was a case with a timer inside and wires and circuits. His "invention" was not anything useful. The only useful function I can think of for such a device, is actually a hoax bomb for drama class. What good is a clock inside a case? I'm getting down-voted to all hell, but that's what one gets for backing one's argument in a den of trigger-happy bigot-hunters. He showed it to his engineer…

>> den of trigger-happy bigot-hunters

Yep, that's the US today. And of course Obama doesn't waste a second to exacerbate the situation by vilifying the school/policeman/whatever. It's amazing how in 5 minutes everyone knows all the facts and concludes these school officials are racist xenophobic knuckle-draggers.

Re: 14-Year-Old Boy Arrested for Bringing Homemade Clock to School

#770
post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, far from being definitive, but it looks like a regular pc will cost around $227.52 (350 watt psu, $18.96 per month) in electricity per year to run 24/7.[1] (calculated using $0.06 per kWh, which is rather low for most people in the US) So, 5,000 machines running 24/7/365 would cost around $1,137,600 annually (5,000 machines * $227.52 per year) in electricity usage alone. Of that 24 hours per day, we can assume…

Just one data point, but I have a machine I run Folding@Home on most of the time, and that is plugged into a Kill-A-Watt. The difference between idle and full folding power is about 70W, as I recall. Not trivial, but 1/5 of what you've estimated here. 15 years ago, the power difference was probably smaller, maybe quite a bit smaller -- modern CPUs are better optimized for low idle power.

Most schools don't have "modern" computers (by most definitions of the word "modern" at least).
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