Windows PC users are subject to an average of 28 electronic spies on their computer, the BBC reports:
The average computer is packed with hidden software that can secretly spy on online habits, a study has found.
The US net provider EarthLink said it uncovered an average of 28 spyware programs on each PC scanned during the first three months of the year.
Two options: be super diligent about what’s installed on your pc | use a mac.
Over several months, a string of novice tutors from a private company offering federally financed after-school classes had tried and failed to control Room 207’s dozen rambunctious students. A supervisor from the company was dispatched to troubleshoot. Effie McHenry, Wentworth’s principal, was clucking her tongue in disapproval.
I just don’t think they’re prepared to deal with challenging inner city children,” Mrs. McHenry said of the company, talking past the supervisor to a visitor. “I think they expected to find children who’d just sit down and wait for them to expound. These kids aren’t like that. They need challenging instruction.”
Detroit’s Cyprus Taverna: More on this later. Needless to say, it was quite an excellent dinner (try the lamb special & the vegetrian plate). [map]
Tyler Cowen writes a very useful article on where the federal government’s $21,671 spending per household (2004) goes – up $3,500 from 2001!
Dan Gillmor has some additional comments relating to the emerging AMT (alternative minimum tax) problem, a subject I discussed some weeks ago.
The Chicago-based Joyce Foundation announced Wednesday that it would provide $15 million over the next three years to support efforts to improve the quality of teaching in low-performing schools in Milwaukee, Chicago and Cleveland.
Dozens of Madison public school students are learning this month that their race can be the sole factor in whether they’re allowed to transfer to another district under the state’s open enrollment law.
The Madison School District said Tuesday it has denied 65 open enrollment requests for next fall because the shift of those students – all of them white – would upset the racial balance at specific schools.
Security expert Bruce Schneier writes about the reality of National ID cards:
The potential privacy encroachments of an ID card system are far from minor. And the interruptions and delays caused by incessant ID checks could easily proliferate into a persistent traffic jam in office lobbies and airports and hospital waiting rooms and shopping malls.
But my primary objection isn’t the totalitarian potential of national IDs, nor the likelihood that they’ll create a whole immense new class of social and economic dislocations. Nor is it the opportunities they will create for colossal boondoggles by government contractors. My objection to the national ID card, at least for the purposes of this essay, is much simpler:
It won’t work. It won’t make us more secure.
Don Bain, Director of the Geographic Computing Facility at UC-Berkeley, has posted The World Wide Panorama. These Quicktime VR scenes, including one from Mineral Point, were shot March 20, 2004 in celebration of the Equinox. Enjoy – there are some extraordinary scenes.
The 2004 Jefferson Muzzle awards have just been announced.
Since 1992, the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression has celebrated the birth and ideals of its namesake by calling attention to those who in the past year forgot or disregarded Mr. Jefferson’s admonition that freedom of speech “cannot be limited without being lost.”
Announced on or near April 13 — the anniversary of the birth of Thomas Jefferson — the Jefferson Muzzles are awarded as a means to draw national attention to abridgments of free speech and press and, at the same time, foster an appreciation for those tenets of the First Amendment. Because the importance and value of free expression extend far beyond the First Amendment’s limit on government censorship, acts of private censorship are not spared consideration for the dubious honor of receiving a Muzzle.
Unfortunately, each year the finalists for the Jefferson Muzzles have emerged from an alarmingly large group of candidates. For each recipient, a dozen could have been substituted. Further, an examination of previous Jefferson Muzzle recipients reveals that the disregard of First Amendment principles is not the byproduct of a particular political outlook but rather that threats to free expression come from all over the political spectrum.
……. This year’s winners.
Milwaukee’s voucher program prompted sustainable achievement gains for the city’s public elementary schools, according to a new study by a Harvard economist.
Researcher Caroline Hoxby followed up on a study of three years ago, in which she concluded that the private school choice program pushed the public schools to improve.
In the new study, she adds test score data from two additional years – the 2000-’01 and 2001-’02 school years – and finds that the gains were sustained, although they did not accelerate. The study was published in the Swedish Economic Policy Review.