So we are going to be moving.

http://anticitizen.parsgb.com/blog/

I am slowly going to move things over to this blog. See ya there.

Temperature benchmarking 2

Okay, so I benchmarked my MacBook Pro’s temperature. Here’s what I’ve done so far.

1. It idles here:

So then I decided to run a visualizer in iTunes 7. This is as far is it got:

More tests pending.

(Draft) Open letter to the Mount diablo school district

To the Mt. Diablo School District:

I am one of a group of many students who are in the SDC program at YVHS. This year, the Class of 2007 graduates, which I am a part of. There is a huge problem with this school that must be addressed.

Recently, the decision was made to have SDC phased out in favor of a venture that is commonly referred to as “collaboration”. This, as you guys no doubt already know, involves Regular and SDC teachers to work together. SDC teachers are reduced to nothing but assistants in this case, and the SDC students are mixed in with the regular students.

Recently, in YVHS, this was done to the social studies program; there are no SDC Economics or Government classes.

In addition, with the passing of the first semester, multiple SDC students failed, including myself. The scope of this open letter is to raise awareness as to why this “collaboration” is bad for the students, and bad for the teachers, and lastly, bad for the parents.

Collaboration hurts SDC students because one of the key benefits of SDC is reduced class sizes. In this case, SDC classes are composed of less than 15 students in a class. Regular classes are composed of up to 40. SDC students become intimidated in such large classes, and therefore, cannot work properly under these conditions. Another way the SDC students are hurt via collaboration is the increased work load and work difficulty. It is up to the SDC and regular teachers to provide accommodations for the SDC students in the regular class.

But what happens if these accommodations are not provided? What happens if the SDC students are subject to the same exact work the regular classes are? Many SDC students can’t take the sharp increase in work and end up failing. In my case, and a few others’ cases, this is exactly what happened.

Now this brings up another point. How does collaboration hurt the teachers?

The teachers are severely hurt by collaboration because the teachers have to struggle to provide accommodations for the SDC classes. In many cases, the SDC teacher’s ability to help out is limited by the main teacher in the class. Effectively, the regular teacher is in charge, and the SDC teacher’s role is reduced significantly.

This makes things problematic because the regular teacher usually decides that when one thing happens to one student, it must happen to all. Clearly, this is the sole reason why SDC was created, to serve those students who learn differently, or have learning troubles.

So, returning to my previous point, Regular teachers are required to bend over backwards for the needs of the SDC students, and some, as I’ve seen, totally abandon trying to meet said needs, and throw it all on the SDC teacher. Unfortunately, having the SDC teacher there to help cannot do anything to help with the immense amount of work given to SDC students, and the immense difficulty of the work. These two factors combined cause SDC students to fail these classes.

But lastly, the parents are pressured the most with collaboration. The parents must spend a good chunk of their time making sure things are set in place, that accommodations are being provided, and that the whole process is working. Parents are far over-worked in this regard.

But another point I would like to mention in the parents’ favor is the fact that not one parent was told about collaboration, nor were the students informed about these changes. No one was informed that this significant change was going to occur. No one was told that their students would be attending regular classes and struggling to keep up. Parents are once again stressed because their students are failing, and there is nothing they can do to save them.

So, in conclusion, something needs to be done. This is a huge problem, it will not go away, and killing off SDC will not help anything. It will only create more failures. It will severely limit these students’ options in life. Collaboration is broken, and it is not the answer to fixing the schools’ problems.

What have I been up to lately?

Yeah, what have I been up to lately? It seems I don’t update anymore…so what am I doing that’s drawing my time away from here?

Two things. One is not so big, the other is kind of big.

The not so big thing…I’ve been busy with other sites. Mainly trying to keep my last.fm profile updated and running (http://www.last.fm/user/itoilet9/), and failing miserably.

Other than that, I’ve been helping and offering advice at http://forums.macosxhints.com/index.php , having fun at http://zombies.dementiastudios.org/boards/index.php and http://forums.nexuswar.com/index.php . Other than that, really nothing, and this brings me to reason #2.

Thing two: Real life.

Mainly, these days, I’m worrying about school and stuff. Especially when I have to deal with Systems class, not to mention Government.

Systems is a biggie, and it’s costing me my geekdom right now. Mainly because I’m beginning to feel like I can’t act like myself in that class anymore. Not to mention that I’m going way farther in this career option than I planned.

I just wanted to have the ability to make anything that is plugged into the wall behave itself. Not make multi-million dollar computer networks, or to work in a gigantic corporation. That’s not me at all. I want to be myself, not what my boss thinks I should be. This is why I dislike, and want to avoid at all costs, working in Corporate America, as it’s called. I wouldn’t mind working for the Apple Store, giving assistance to fellow Mac users, etc, but that’s about as far as I’d like to scale the corporate ladder. No more.

Now, back to systems after a bit of sidetracking: Anyway, this class assumes I want to keep all my eggs in one basket (Systems). If you look at my equipment, you’d know I am NEVER one to keep my eggs in one basket. I want to look into graphic design (Something I sort of self-teach myself), and audio engineering. Smatterfact, I’m going to the Job Corps of Treasure Island to look at things there to do, in addition to what I already do.

Systems is getting just so complicated…that it’s demanding all of my resources, even those which I cannot allocate to it. And hell, it’s getting to the point to where I’m losing interest in computers at a rapid pace. This concerns me. Lots.

Just a quick update on what’s going on.

Temperature benchmarking

Well, this is more or less of an announcement that I’m in the middle of another project. I’m going to be benchmarking the real-world temperatures of my MacBook Pro. Meaning the outside of it, and not using stupid software which probably is off a bit.

For the bottom side of the MacBook…I’m thinking about trying one of those stick on aquarium thermometers.

I dunno. I’ll have to look at the local shops and see what turns up.