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Main DMCA Supporter To Lecture Elementary School Kids On Copyrights
from the sounds-insanely-boring dept
As a sixth grader, there's probably nothing more boring than being lectured by the director of the US Patent and Trademark Office about evils of downloading music. Don't expect a "balanced" presentation either. Jon Dudas is the same guy who was a big part of getting the DMCA law passed, and his big contribution at the USPTO so far has been to come up with plans for reform that are only likely to make the patent system worse. Oh well. At least when the kids are done hearing him speak, they can go back to their MPAA sponsored lectures. Whatever happened to critical thinking, where kids are taught multiple sides of an issue and taught to think for themselves?
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Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
Whether Mike or the recording industry suffers from monomania, there is an interesting new theory, the PANDA theory, which says that strep throat infections acquired in childhood could trigger OCD.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/22/magazine/22OCD.html
In one experiment, OCD kids with an irrational(?) fear of doctors had huge tubes called cannulas impaled into veins under their groins, had gallons of their blood sucked out of them with a huge vacuum pump, filtered, and then pumped back in for 5 days, which improved their symptoms.
If the theory is correct, then plasmapheresis could become the standard treatment for OCD. Will it cure youngsters with their addiction to music?
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Re: Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
Will it cure your troll addiction? If so, it's Nobel-worthy research.
"...Gentlemen, we have done it. We have cured the scourge of internet forums everywhere. It is my deepest hope that someday soon people will have forgotten the plague that was dorpus..."
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No Subject Given
> Whatever happened to critical thinking, where kids are taught multiple sides of an issue and taught to think for themselves?< br>
Not much. I don't recall having that, here, at all. After all, "just say no" to drugs ... but I seem to recall getting the impression that people still do drugs every so often.
Psst. Let's not tell this guy that 6th-formers can be wascally webbels. Then when they all do the opposite of what he says, normality will be restored. :)
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Re: No Subject Given
Yes, for once it's a good thing that kids don't listen to anything they're told. They'll nod along in class, and they'll even parrot all the mumbo-jumbo back in the form of a test or essay if such is required, but as soon as they get home (if not sooner) they'll be swapping songs and games and who knows what else as fast as their little computers will carry them.
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Re: No Subject Given
I agree Tim. My schools, probably like many in the USA, focused on regurgitating 'facts' and conforming to expectations. Thinking and discussion was discouraged. My social studies teacher was not amused at questions about how Columbus discovered America when 'Indians' were already here and the Vikings had been here before Columbus.
Luckily I had parents who believed in critical thinking and took the time with me. I fear that is even more rare these days.
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