Idiot of the Day

[metroid composite]

Are people really holding up the British system as a paragon of educational excellence?  20% of Brits think the sun rotates around the earth once a month.  Say what you will, but allowing a 12-year-old kid to specialize in art and never take another Science course again doesn't sit well with me.  A friend of mine did a British exchange year, and she roundly trashed British education for yet different reasons (she complained that creative thinking was considered beneath British education).

Basically, I can see how Brits make their education shorter--by cutting out all the "frivolous" stuff.  I just happen to feel that it's very non-frivolous.  For instance, say you specialize in Science, you should still have enough social studies to be able to critically disect an election campaign ad including having a reasonable idea of what to call BS on.  You should still be able to write a five paragraph essay.  And on the arts side, you should still know enough math to know when a bank is screwing you.  You should still know enough Science to not have the woll easily pulled over your eyes by corporations and email spammers.

Just thinking of what was taught where I live up through age 12 (wouldn't cover any of that stuff) compared to up through age 17 (covers all of that provided you're paying attention) yeah, I'd say it's worth it to add a year or two to the education system in exchange for not specializing early.

[NotMiki]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/18/education/18educ.html?hp

kinda off-topic for iotd, but since we're on the subject of alternate school plans, here's something else more sensible afoot in the US.  Not sure about the specifics, but I think something that gives high school education a definite sense of purpose could do a lot of good.

[Laggy]

http://rawstory.com/2010/02/south-carolinas-subversive-activities-registration-act-force/

Oh South Carolina you so funny.

[Yoshiken]

Are people really holding up the British system as a paragon of educational excellence?  20% of Brits think the sun rotates around the earth once a month.  Say what you will, but allowing a 12-year-old kid to specialize in art and never take another Science course again doesn't sit well with me.

I... what. What what what.
Where are you getting that number from? Because, uhh, I've never heard anyone be quite that retarded.
And no, you do not pick courses at 12. English, Maths and Science are all mandatory up until 16. You pick specialist courses then - like Art, History, Geography, etc - but English, Maths and Biology/Chemistry/Physics are compulsory GCSEs.

[NotMiki]

http://rawstory.com/2010/02/south-carolinas-subversive-activities-registration-act-force/

Oh South Carolina you so funny.

The federal government enacted a similar law forcing you to register as an illegal gambler if you did any illegal gambling, and declare your earnings, back in the '20s.  Why?  Because they wanted to regulate gambling but it wasn't constitutional to pass such a regulation, so they passed it as a tax instead, kinda an end run around the constitutional limits of congressional power (because of later constitutional interpretation of the commerce clause, congress has no trouble directly regulating gambling these days).

The most charitable thing you could say about SC's law is that it might serve some useful purpose and be obtusely worded for some reason like that.  Raise your hand if you give SC that much credit.

[superaielman]

I'm raising something, but it's more of a finger than a hand.

[metroid composite]

I... what. What what what.
Where are you getting that number from?

The 20% number is from Richard Dawkin's Book "The Greatest Show on Earth" quoting a survey that had been conducted a few years earlier (can't remember every place he quotes it, but it's definitely in the final chapter where he's basically just quoting survey results for various countries on Science knowledge.  Obviously he focuses on evolution survey questions, but he's got this one as well).

On the other hand, I have no reliable source whatsoever for anything I said about age 12 specializations.  (I listened in to some teachers ranting who may or may not actually know a damn thing about the UK system).

[NotMiki]

http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202443844888&School_District_Accused_of_Spying_on_Students_via_Home_Webcams

bad idea on so, so many levels.

[Grefter]

Why the fuck would you ever even think that is a good idea, let alone fund it, implement it or fucking SELL that software to a school for this shit?  What the fucking fuck.

[superaielman]

http://deadspin.com/5476701/oregon-p...ry-eyes-update

Comical IotDs are the best IotDs.

[Xeroma]

Having lived in Oregon for most of my life I can safely say I am not shocked.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

http://sports.espn.go.com/dallas/nba/news/story?id=4945104

The NBA is taking a stand against the destructive behavior of straw-chewing, everyone.

[BaconForTheSoul]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/18/education/18educ.html?hp

kinda off-topic for iotd, but since we're on the subject of alternate school plans, here's something else more sensible afoot in the US.  Not sure about the specifics, but I think something that gives high school education a definite sense of purpose could do a lot of good.

It's good that some districts are actually trying *new* ideas now.  In this area the high schools are doing the same things wrong that they've been doing for ages.

[BaconForTheSoul]

http://deadspin.com/5476701/oregon-p...ry-eyes-update

Comical IotDs are the best IotDs.

Obviously we're all just racist here in Oregon.  When our white players... ahem...  Steals from his classmates, chokes his girlfriend, drives severely drunk, or punches someone in the face we just let it slide.  (Okay Southern Oregon and Eastern Oregon might be... but the Eugene area is probably one of the least racist in the country.)

High school athletes that are 3 star recruits or better should really have to take some kind of class teaching them that THEY ARE NOT GODS.  Seriously... these dumbshits have actually been taught their whole lives that they are better than everyone else.  Of course they think they're above the law.  They're better than us normal people!

[NotMiki]

Comical IotDs are the best IotDs.

True, but I still have to post this.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/27/us/27race.html?hp

[AndrewRogue]

http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/genmessage.php?board=2000121&topic=53624120: Nick Simmons copy/pastas Bleach to make his comic? OT plays the role of 4chan to the rescue.

Is the man a dirty cheat? You be the judge. http://community.livejournal.com/bleachness/446299.html

[NotMiki]

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.  One of the things you look at when you're learning to be an artist is...art you admire.  Copying it is one of the ways you develop a style you like.  It's always embarrassing to have your hand caught so deep in the creative cookie jar, but unless he's making people pay for his work, I don't think we should care.  Unless there's money changing hands, whether people want to read something that's in some ways blatantly copied from something else is up to them, I say.

[Cotigo]

C'mon, dude.  We had this conversation in IRC a couple nights ago.  Originality is a farce; every "creative" work is just a combination of the author's/artist's/musician's influences.  Being original is less important than being unoriginal in a new way.

For reference, I don't read manga, and could vaguely tell the difference between the two comics, and see how one influenced the other, but couldn't at all see where the artist had done a "direct trace" like one of the commenters said.

[AndrewRogue]

Miki: He is charging for it.

Zenny: The livejournal blog shows a lot of meh ones that could well get away with the inspiration/borrowing argument and be fine, which is a shame, since it nulls their point. Some of those are really, really close to direct traces though. The first one is the best example, really, as are the two hand-to-head panels.

Honestly, examples like those aside, I would have been more than happy to just write it off as someone who needed to put a little more of their own spin on something. Combining that with some of these really, really, really close panel layouts/designs/poses and the apparent frequency though, and we start getting into more questionable territory. But hey, that's why I said you be the judge!

[NotMiki]

Miki: He is charging for it.

Laaaaaaame.

[BaconForTheSoul]

Some of those aren't so bad, but others are basically identical...  the first Zaraki one being the most obvious.  The fact that some of the text is identical is also pretty sketch.  It's one thing to have extremely similar plots and what not... like someone said nothing is original anymore.  It's a whole different issue when you have word for word copies of other words though.

[DjinnAndTonic]

As an artist, specifically of anime-style artwork, I have to say that some of those are going too far with the blatant copying. Not just with the pose, but with the whole panel layout and character design, too. It's notable that people found a whole host of other manga that he copied panels from, so he's not just plagiarizing Bleach, though Bleach is the one where he copies most directly from. He needs to stop copying Bleach panels for his official works, but using a bit of inspiration from here and there is generally fine, and pretty common for the medium. I've seen a bunch of not-quite-copied panels in a bunch of the less famous manga I've picked up.

[superaielman]

Comical IotDs are the best IotDs.

True, but I still have to post this.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/27/us/27race.html?hp

The worst part of that article (And all of that was pretty bad) was the 40% termination figure on black pregancies. There are good reasons for the figure, but those reasons (Lack of education/birth control access/abuse) is bad enough in of itself.

[Grefter]

On the other hand, this is a guy approaching it more from a Comic Book side.

There you have things like this http://www.comicvine.com/homage-covers/12-43734/ (which are obviously ... much more tasteful), but you also have cool things like Deadpool/Deathstroke, any number of absolutely blatant complete and total unequivocal rip offs of famous characters in the industry (see any number of Wolverine/Spiderman/Superman or Batman rip offs with Spiderman himself being something of a Batman rip off initiallly).

Not to say this is really forgivable, but he is coming from an industry that direct rip offs are no unheard of and are far from subtle.

[Cotigo]

It also doesn't help that every anime style looks a helluva lot like every other damn anime style ever.  Though the live journal post did put up some more convincing pieces of evidence since the first time I got linked that earlier yesterday.