Well, today is the last day of October, and the front page was getting rather long, so I’ve pushed all of that crap into an archive. We now have two archive series, the old Owlog stuff, and August 24th-ish to October 31st-ish.
In other news, the next scosug meeting has finally been announced. It’s about CARP and something else on OpenBSD. Loks rather interesting.
Just moments ago, the clock struck midnight, and one day ended, another beginning.
What is so special about this new day? What causes me to add an entry about it?
Today is a very special day. No, it is not the birthday of Stallman, Raymond, Linux, Tux, or the sacred kernel. No, it is not my birthday. Nor is it Christmas.
No, today isn’t the day that my plans for world domination finally come to fruitation, either.
As of five minutes ago, I have been a linux user of one full year. Yes, readers (and loyal fans, such as Jessica), it was one year ago today that I finally denounced the demon that is Windows and installed RedHat Linux 9.
One year ago today, the paperclip finally pushed me too far. The blue screens of death became too much. The constant crashes, freezes, illegal operations, and quirks finally brought me to my knees.
I planned on waiting for a test box to install redhat on first. But I could take the bondage that is WIndows no longer! On this day, exactly one year ago, I said no more and took my leave from the failing empire!
To commemorate this event, I declare that the 24th of every October until the end of time Liberation Day! You, too, should make the switch!
Haven’t updated for awhile. I’ve been meaning to report in on the installfest, but I’ll do that at a later time. I have a more pressing matter to dicuss tonight. Yes, I got a lot of swag, and yes, I got the guy who had fucked up hardware. But this isn’t the time…
Something absolutely shocking happened during spanish class today. This hit me harder than the whole office-lady-talking-about-being-corrupt-right-in-my-fucking-face thing. It causes me to question the entire public school system, and I begin to wonder about the future of the world.
You see, the girl who sits next to me had forgoten her book in her locker, and the teacher wouldn’t issue a pass so she could go and collect it. Now me, being the wonderful person that I am, nudge my book to the middle of the desk so she could read along and do the assignments without much thought to the matter.
The teacher gives her (breif) oral presentation, then sets us some busywork so she can do a notebook check. Business as usual.
With about ten minutes left to class, the teacher asks the girl how she had done her work. She says I lent her my copy of Spanish-For-Fucking-Morons, and I confirm her story.
The teacher then says that if I ever let someone look on with me again I would recieve a zero for the day.
WTF?
So if someone forgets their book, not only do they have to take you calling on them and then you going ‘Oh, right, you don’t have a book‘ over and over, in a mocking manner (which she didn’t do in this case, but I have noted her doing this on other occasions), but they have to miss an entire 82 minute lesson?
One small memory lapse == 82 minutes of denied learning? What the hell is going on here?
I didn’t say anything, because if I had it would have created one hell of a scene, which would undoutably end up in a shouting match. But I hope the girl forgets her book again, because I fully intend to let her look on again. The teacher can go ahead and give me a zero, but if she does, make no mistake, I will make an issue out of it. Probably not right then and there, as that could get nasty, but I will involve the higher authorities.
On the way home, I pondered this. After a gook ten minutes of 100% brain cycle usage deticated to pondering, I started to drift a bit off topic. I began to think about how Bush said something about raising educational standards during the last debate.
Rasing the standards? Raising the motherfucking standards? GIVE ME A FUCKING BREAK. The standards are already too damn high. Not only are we expected to take midterms and finals, but we have to take the SAT. And on top of this, we have to pass the CAPT test, or our lives are over.
The midterms and finals that scared the shit out of generations passed are now nothing to us compared to standardized tests. Sure, the midterms and finals will caus ea few people to drop out of school. The SAT might cause a few more to drop.
But what the hell is with this CAPT test? Unless we pass it, we’re so screwed it isn’t funny. I always thought that thing was the queen of reading comprehention tests. The hardest thing you would ever have to do.
Boy, was I wrong. The stupid thing covers everything from reading comprehension to math to science. It’s being expanded and made even harder or something, along with the SAT.
What the hell is the point of even having the SAT anymore? For christ’s sake, just merge the two tests and let people fail without having to do so much work. It’s like telling someone their stupid, but you won’t let them stop making a fool of themself for another month. If they’re going to fail, don’t make them do it twice, when they damn well know they’re fucked.
The public school system isn’t doing jack shit anymore in terms of educating. It just demoralizes children and causes people to lose any hope in ever getting ahead in life and acheiving that american dream thing.
And our dirty politicians want to make it even harder to get throug MANDATORY schooling, as if they don’t want anyone to ever get a job and oppose them. Hmm….
But another thing, why the fuck are we *compelled* to attened until the age of 18? Yes, I understand that being stupid will make you a failure. Yes, I understand that people who can’t add are dangerous. Yes, I know stupid is bad.
But that isn’t any excuse for legalized kidnapping. If someone is dead-set against it, they aren’t doing much good in the classrooms. They’ll just distract the people who do want to be their and generally disrupt the lesson. Not to mention just the fact that you *have* to be there makes people not want to be.
I’ve got a strange idea of education reform. No one is compelled to attend it any more. This will cause two things to happen.
One, people who are dead-set against it will be removed from the room, they won’t get bored, they won’t cause distractions, and everyone is better off. They can go about doing what they want (such as nothing, selling crack, or sewing), and students can go about doing their thing (learning without having to stop so the teacher can whine at someone for talking or punching someone in the face).
Two, people will want to go. Seriously, how many highschool students do you know that want to go to school? I know one. The whole concept of being forced to go and learn about things I don’t give half a shit about is really a turn-off for me.
After that, we need to change the whole course credit requirement thing. I don’t want to do english four times, I already know how to not write like an idiot. I can read damn well, too. I have no intention of becoming a lawyer or english teacher, so knowing about all of the obscure rules for usage of a comma (most of which I probably know already) won’t really help much.
No, instead, courses should get a rating. Hard course and soft course. Hard courses (science, english, comp sci, business, etc) get one full credit, and soft courses (basket weaving, PE, sewing, etc) get half a credit. You require so many credits to get a dipolma. Now mix and match to fit your desired career.
Have no use for learning a dead language? Don’t take it. Find the beauties of online translators? Screw forgien language. Not doing anything in physics? Don’t take it. Already know how to write? Only take english once or twice.
And finally. drop the damn ‘unless you pass this test, you’re fucked for life’ stuff. It’s just plain stupid. I can’t think of anything else that would cause more peopel to drop out than the CAPT.
But whatever. Who reads this, anyway?
Edit: Fixed DB3 link
Here are my notes on all three debates. Just in case anyone is interested.
Debate number one
Debate number two
Debate number three
Mhm.
