London student reported to police: “Enchanted by anarchism and individualism” | Hacker News Reader

London student reported to police: “Enchanted by anarchism and individualism”

the-libertarian.co.uk

251 pointsnull_ptr177 comments

This sort of thing is alive and well in US schools, too. The official policy of the Seattle Public School system is to stamp out racism in all its forms, and notice how many forms there are. (Note in particular the Cultural Racism section that includes, "emphasizing individualism as opposed to a more collective ideology" as a form of racism that, by official policy, is to be stamped out by the government education system):

http://web.archive.org/web/20060522101405/http://www.seattle...

In Canada this week, my girlfriend is required to visit the dean of a [top Canadian law school] for calling a girl a "bitch" on Twitter.

Backstory is interesting, because the girl had bullied her in person at school. GF never identified the girl on Twitter only saying "Some bitch blah blah at school today". But because she mentioned the school name, the dean found out and now wants to talk to her.

There's apparently a policy against certain language at the schools which is enforced by the very highest people.

Fortunately shes defending her right to freedom of expression (as any lawyer-in-training would) and refusing to delete the tweet. But the thought of students having to censor themselves because they are now a member of a school (which they paid $50k+ to join) is scary.

I don't think expecting basic good judgment of those in law school is 'scary'. Further it is worth mentioning that hateful speech is not protected in Canada, and while you could say that it was but a response, such a tweet is almost certainly in violation of several new anti-'cyber' bullying restrictions.

So in your world "Some bitch at school did x" falls under hateful speech/cyber-bullying?

Well, I guess by now we have to prosecute half of the YouTube and Twitter population. After all all those "first" posters are most certainly making a highly discriminatory remark against all those coming "second".

No, stfu, my "world" isn't quite so black and white: The choice isn't between prosecution or free-for-all, but if you're trying to incite freedom of expression over hateful speech, all while bringing disrepute upon a law school, you probably aren't going to get very far.

I don't think using a mild profanity on twitter constitutes "expecting good judgement of those in law school" it seems like vast overreach to me and as long as we accept moments like this in any form it will do nothing but get worse.

If the graffiti of Pompeii is any indication humans want to be short, crass and coarse and I am okay with that and I think that is something we should accept and embrace as a society and culture. We give too much power to words when in fact it is the listener who derives the negative experience not the speaker.

>while bringing disrepute upon a law school

Quite a feat, I would say.

The claims that a benign, offhand comment on social media will bring the school into "disrepute" is absurd. The fact that claims like this are becoming increasingly common would indicate that the West (or perhaps just North America) is slowly retreating from the idea of reasonable individual freedom of expression.

What absurd responses, though hardly unexpected given the story. Rabble rabble rabble!

An institution gains disrepute through many actions over time. This particular action is very small, just as the response is. Hysterical responses as if she were sent the gallows denote a complete inability of so many to discuss a complex topic without instantly jerking to an extreme. But there is no extreme.

And the whole slippery slope thing is simply nonsense. The idea that you represent such institutions when you go out of your way to incant it has been true throughout history.

"Rabble rabble rabble!" Oh the little people and their tiresome concern for freedom and dignity.

It's not absurd, or hysterical, to be concerned about people being interrogated for reasonable, completely normal forms of expression.

The slippery slope thing isn't nonsense. Society changes incrementally. Over longer timeframes continual incremental changes in a certain direction become recognizable trends.

I think it all depends on the contract between the girl and the school. Did she agree to such restrictions on a 24/7 basis?

hateful speech is not protected in Canada

How do they prove that a speech is hateful instead of merely being ordinarily contemptuous?

they don't.

speech is not protected in Canada

Is that better?

Just talking abstractly (again, the only reason I mentioned that is that saying "free speech!" is a non-starter when you're calling someone a bitch -- even if unnamed, if any other party could identify who you mean, it isn't anonymous -- and bringing disrepute upon an institution), but Canadian rights are generally based upon the idea that your rights end where my nose begins, and your right to free speech ends when you intrude on the rights of others not to be harassed, disparaged, etc. Rights go both ways, and there is a balance to be found somewhere in the middle.

Westboro is a hate group, by Canadian law. Their hateful protests are actionable.

We have a new crop of anti-bullying laws -- particularly focused on the online world -- because the speaker can't fallback on the notion that their speech is protected, because it isn't.

So calling an idiot an idiot is not an option in Canada?

In 19th and early 20th century medicine and psychology, an "idiot" was a person with a very severe mental retardation

PC police will probably getcha for that, too.

>We have a new crop of anti-bullying laws

Please cite the specific law that would make a single mention of an unnamed "bitch" criminal.

I say it is not protected speech. You ask me to prove it is criminal. I see this discussion is futile.

> Further it is worth mentioning that hateful speech is not protected in Canada

It's worth noting that speech is just speech. There's no objective definition for what constitutes hateful speech, nor should there be.

If there's someone on a street corner shouting that all black people should be killed, you're perfectly free to ignore him and his ideas. You could perhaps even tell him that he's being an idiot.

But someone else might be saying something worth listening to, even if it didn't happen to align with your current views.

Hateful speech, such as calling someone a moron, an idiot, a dummy, a bitch, a fool, etc, is not the same as hate speech.

I have no doubt you are aware of this.

You are probably also aware that on the issue of laws regulating "hate speech" in Canada, which have generally been upheld by the Supreme Court of Canada, these laws are by Province and Territory. Saskatchewan’s Human Rights Code defines it one way, Alberta has another, B.C. has another, and the Northwest Territories have another.

Just wanting to talk to her does not seem inappropriate.

Lawyers in particular are expected to chose their words carefully and keep decorum. Perhaps it's a teachable moment.

Lawyers are expected to win. If you want to hire a lawyer because of their decorum go right ahead.

The judge will enforce the decorum of his courtroom, and you don't want to be a lawyer on the receiving end of that.

The decorum each judge sets is their own, and it's not necessarily overly formal, especially if it isn't required by the rules of court.

Come on, we've all been to school. Unless it's your graduation party, the dean never wants to "just talk", like, you know, grab a beer or two together.

Students represent their school, so no surprise a top law school would crack down on students spouting shit on Twitter, certainly when they also mention the school in their tweet.

Wanting to spend time talking to her about an offhand, benign comment on social media doesn't seem "inappropriate", but it does seem ridiculous and intrusive.

Old Soviet joke:

"The Soviet Union is just like the United States. In the US, you can criticize the American President. In the USSR, you can also criticize the American President!"

Sure, that was in 1988. This is 2013, you can criticize the Russian president, but you can't criticize the American president because he is listening.

The Russian president rides a bear. You can't criticize that.

You can criticize moobs though. Even if they're bear mounted moobs.

To be fair, he is 60. Even Arnold Schwarzenegger doesn't look fantastic without a shirt on these days, and dianabol is a hell of a drug...

Interesting how silent we are. Obama is way worse than Bush ever was.

Silent? I've seen way more criticism of Obama than I ever did of Bush.

You have GOT to be kidding us.

I am not. Republicans are reluctant to criticize their own, and so Bush got criticized almost solely from the left. Obama gets a lot of criticism from both left and right.

While he may get criticism from both sides of the political aisle, the criticism has not yet passed over into popular culture. Just as one crude barometer, comedians are not yet making their livings lampooning Obama (well, you see it on the Comedy Central 'satire news' lineup, but not yet the Comedy Central 'standup special' lineup.)

Give it another year or three and we might get there (particularly if this Syria shit goes Obama's way...).

I think there's a substantial difference between fun-making and serious criticism. I do see less of the former with Obama, but that's just because Bush was so much easier to make fun of. He was prone to gaffes, spoke just enough like a redneck to make the association, and didn't take things too seriously. Obama is too boring to make fun of effectively.

But in terms of actual criticism, Obama has way more. Everybody is upset with him on health care reform, just for different reasons. Everybody is upset with him on the economy, they just have different remedies in mind. Everybody is upset with him on Libya and Syria.

Worse? Good lord, Bush was on watch during the 9/11 terrorist attacks, housing collapse, stock market crash, two economic recessions, the hurricane Katrina debacle, tortured people in Gitmo and started two unwinnable wars.

Someone has a short memory.

Don't forget the bailouts too!

I don't know, apparently 20% of the US believes him to be the anti-Christ. I wouldn't really call that silent.

Please enlighten me on why he is worse?

> But the thought of students having to censor themselves because they are now a member of a school (which they paid $50k+ to join) is scary.

Um. This has basically been true throughout the entire history of law schools. The only significant difference is the amount they paid to get in.

Likely the school has a code of conduct which includes a prohibition on bullying. That's a bit different from censorship.

Where, specifically, is the quoted text?

It's in the section defining cultural racism:

Those aspects of society that overtly and covertly attribute value and normality to white people and Whiteness, and devalue, stereotype, and label people of color as “other”, different, less than, or render them invisible. Examples of these norms include defining white skin tones as nude or flesh colored, having a future time orientation, emphasizing individualism as opposed to a more collective ideology, defining one form of English as standard, and identifying only Whites as great writers or composers.

I do think schools shouldn't emphasize either collectivism or individualism over each other and I don't think the text you are quoting here advises that, either. Only a pretty narrow-mindes reading of that text would suggest that in any way. At any rate you would have to look at the actual implementation of that policy to really criticise it. As is this text is quite tame.

Please also note that schools can hardly be idiologically neutral. That is not possible - they have to find a way to spproach how they depict individualism and collectivism no matter what.

To connect this in any way to the linked situation is downright absurd.

It's one thing for an institution to position itself against emphasizing individualism. It's a couple steps further to define emphasizing individualism as a form of racism.

Is there somethig that I as a non-american don't get that makes this newspeak palatable? Have american racists historically been more individualistic or something?

EDIT: this comment from elnate nails it:

"They're conflating racism with enthnocentrism, the idea that one culture (usually yours) is better than others."

> Have american racists historically been more individualistic or something?

Not to my knowledge. As far as I can tell they are doing nothing more than using existing strong negative connotations of racism to slander an unrelated ideology. It doesn't make logical sense, but it doesn't have to; they are counting on the strong emotional response it evokes to be sufficiently persuasive.

If anything, individualism and racism are incompatible since individualism considers people as individuals and not as members of groups such as races or nationalities.

That’s not conflating something with something, that’s having a different definition than you have.

"s there somethig that I as a non-american don't get that makes this newspeak palatable?"

Not a chance; I was born and raised in the US in the consolidation period of the Civil Rights struggle (came of political age in the '70s) and it's just as unpalatable to me.

having a future time orientation

What does that one even mean?

Here is a wikipedia article on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronemics

I am not going to pretend to be able to understand it, but this part seems to be the most lucid explaination:

"Just as monochronic and polychronic cultures have different time perspectives, understanding the time orientation of a culture is critical to becoming better able to successfully handle diplomatic situations. Americans, for instance have a future orientation. Hall indicates that for Americans “tomorrow is more important" and that they "are oriented almost entirely toward the future” (Cohen, 2004, p. 35). The future-focused orientation attributes to at least some of the concern that Americans have with “addressing immediate issues and moving on to new challenges” (Cohen, 2004, p. 35)."

So... maybe a "future time orientation" is a "What's done is done."/"Let's do better in the future." attitude? I am guessing that the connection between this and "racism" comes up when discussing reparations.

Future time orientation is also used to refer to a person having a low discount rate. I.e. suffering the pain of school now is worthwhile if it helps me avoid the pain of being uncredentialed in the future.

So... thinking that people should think ahead is racist?

They're conflating racism with enthnocentrism, the idea that one culture (usually yours) is better than others.

Huh. Well if that is what they mean, then I am at a complete loss as to how that isn't obviously a positive trait.

Kind of proves their point, right? The way your culture views something is "obviously a positive trait"?

"It is better for you to do things that will benefit you" is practically a fucking tautology. How could that be controversial, let alone racist?

Here is what I think; the statement:

  "saying 'future time orientation is superior' is racist"

is itself racist, just like saying,

  "saying 'the ability to drink water from your cupped hands without
   drowning yourself is normal' is racist"

is itself racist.

In other words, you are implying that some appreciation of the value of planning is something that only some cultures possess. That is racist. Consider the possibility that you simply do not understand their goals, and are thus unable to perceive them.

Those two things aren't equal in the slightest. "future time orientation is superior" versus "the ability to drink water from your cupped hands without drowning yourself is normal".

> In other words, you are implying that some appreciation of the value of planning is something that only some cultures possess.

Actually, it is something only some cultures practice. (Not possess, just practice. Everyone can view time with a perspective in the future, but not all cultures default to that view.) It's just like how some cultures do not distinguish between green and blue colors (or how we do not distinguish between different types of snow.)

But no, you go ahead and claim the real racists are the ones examining racism. I'm sure that's not what people backed into a corner do or anything.

> Actually, it is something only some cultures practice.

> Consider the possibility that you simply do not understand their goals, and are thus unable to perceive them.

The ability or willingness to inconvenience yourself at the present in order to achieve something in the future is really a very basic thing. Hence my comparison to the absurd "ability to drink water without drowning yourself". You are accusing them of having a ludicrously extreme shortcoming.

This is all nothing more than "mexicans are lazy, germans are great engineers" wrapped up in the trappings of academia.

I'd guess the kind of mentality where you'd save for retirement.

The issue they raise is not that future time orientation or individualism are per-se racist, but rather that the "attribut[ion] of value and normality" to those positions, treating other views as "different, less than, or render[ing] them invisible," constitutes what they are referring to as cultural racism.

It had never previously occurred to me that people of color lacked a "future time orientation", but thanks to Seattle Public Schools I have an exciting new racial stereotype to add to my quiver of prejudices.

> to add to my quiver of prejudices.

Interestingly, in the history of our language, a quiver sometimes holds the ammunition for a crossbow, each of which is called a "quarrel."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarrel

Quote: "A quarrel or bolt is the term for the ammunition used in a crossbow."

Just thought you would want to know. :)

I think that Mr. Szemalikowski may be an eu national from countries where social hierarchy is much much stronger.

When I worked for a tiny companay in the UK our two polish developers where absolutely shocked that our MD would take his turn in making the coffee/tea.

I think this guy is just a nutjob and you shouldn't project his idiotic overreaction onto other countries.

You used the present tense, but then linked to a Wayback Machine link.

The leftist, statist thought police is alive and well in the U.S. educational system.

Students, parents, and others need to stand up and get in the faces of these immoral leftists.

Actually, the point is that lots of cultures are collective-oriented, while we as a culture like to favor individualism (even though we are extremely collective in our own ways.)

This is called "cultural bias"; it means that, should a student from another culture come into our schools, they should not feel wrong for being raised in an environment that doesn't promote individualism. Stuff like, "Don't be a sheep!" and, "You are your own person. Don't let anyone take that away from you!" can make them feel out of place and other'ed. Notice how the part you quoted says "as opposed to a more collective ideology." That means they want to get rid of pinning individualism against collectivism; they don't want to get rid of individualism.

I'm not sure what the rest of your comment means, though. Even if that specific phrase is a problem, the rest of the document is all great stuff.

"He's interested in what anarchism is, get him!"

That is very stupid.

The headteacher, in addition to reporting Zaloom to the police, phoned Glasgow University, where the student had applied to study, in an attempt to dissuade them from accepting him.

Not the best way to counter charges of endemic corrpution in society, I must say. In the US, this kind of interference would pose a great deal of trouble for the ambitious functionary.

The UK has pretty strict libel laws. I wouldn't be surprised if approaching Glasgow U falls under that category.

The costs involved with libel cases are nothing short of eye-watering [1]. Strict libel laws are pointless if you can't afford to bring a case. (Though, there are "no-win, no-fee" agreements available)

[1] http://pcmlp.socleg.ox.ac.uk/research/project/comparative-st...

Defaming a third party by telephone would more likely be slander than libel, but it's certainly not clear that what went on here would be defamation at all.

A defamatory statement must be a false factual allegation. As long as what the headmaster claimed was true, he should be safe from libel or slander lawsuits - saying "I don't like this guy's politics and you shouldn't take him on as a student." is a fair expression of opinion, however silly that opinion is, and despite the rather insidious attempt to harm someone's career over a personal/political disagreement.

Mind you, I'd guess that in these sorts of circumstances, Glasgow University would likely thank the headmaster for his concern and file the note of this communication in the waste paper basket, where it belongs. Universities are no stranger to having to fend off third parties - parents, police, stalkers and whathaveyou - attempting to meddle in the affairs of their students; if their admin staff are halfways competent, they already have 50 tactful ways of telling outside interferers to fuck off.

Truth is an absolute defense to the claim of libel or slander in the US, but not in all worldwide jurisdictions.

Even if its the truth its still gross misconduct by the head in my book - I bet this is a "free" school with no proper governing body.

It is a Comprehensive, or state school.

It's also the case in the UK. What makes you think I was thinking of US libel law? I'm not American

English libel law is substantially more friendly to the plaintiff than to the defendant.

I referenced US libel law as a counterpoint to the rest of the world because I thought you were not thinking of the US. There have been several high profile cases of journalists and scientists saying true but defamatory things in the UK about quacks and charlatans and being hounded in the courts. In response to this, the UK has actually passed legislation attempting to remedy the situation, but this has not yet taken effect.

>...saying "I don't like this guy's politics and you shouldn't take him on as a student." is a fair expression of opinion...

Mr. Szemalikowski appears to be claiming that he considered the student, Kinnan Zaloom, to be a potential terrorist:

>He said he had 'major concerns and was duty bound under legal acts for the prevention of violent extremism' and that he was 'erring on the side of caution' in taking action.

>'It is fairly worrying stuff,' he added.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2414197/A-level-stud...

Earlier this year [1]:

>Then there is Katelyn Campbell, 18, whose objection to a factually dubious sex-education assembly at her high school bubbled over into a confrontation with her principal, which bubbled over onto the Internet.

> As a senior at George Washington High School in Charleston, W.Va., Ms. Campbell complained to the American Civil Liberties Union about an April assembly featuring an abstinence advocate, Pam Stenzel.

> [...] Irritated by her actions, Ms. Campbell said, her principal threatened to tell Wellesley College, where Ms. Campbell had been accepted, that she was a troublemaker. Ms. Campbell filed an injunction against her principal, seeking to prevent him from “discriminating against me in any way,” and told the news media her story.

> [...] Several days later, Wellesley used its Twitter account to make its position known: “Katelyn Campbell, #Wellesley is excited to welcome you this fall.”

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/03/science/young-and-against-...

I don't know what's better, that she used a lawyer to get the principal to back off, or that Wellesley stood up for her. It really bothers me when petty admins abuse their position, because they prey on the weak.

You almost feel sorry for the teacher in this case. Sure, he's about to get the just desserts of a repugnant action like this, but its kind of like a dog digging up a nest full of yellow jackets. He "deserves" the stings but he's not going to understand why he is suddenly being stung.

It boggles our tech-savvy minds that someone could be this out of touch and still have a position of any authority whatsoever, but there it is.

I also hope the best for the student, but I can't help feeling that this will be nothing but a minor setback for him as much as it seems to potentially suck now.

I think I'm pretty good at seeing others' perspectives, but my empathy for the dog evaporates when he's part of a pack that's been terrorizing me for years. The yellow jackets won't alter the behavior of the pack, but I might as well enjoy what tiny justice I can get.

Being out of touch disqualifies you from any job pretty quickly.

Always be on the ball, not with your head up your arse like this elitist buffoon.

The Peter Principle and Dunning–Kruger effect would disagree.

Not really. Modern communication and media makes it easier to single out an individual from the flock and take them down.

No, that really has nothing to do with it. Organizations are still rampant with the following:

- yes-men, sycophants

- cronyism/nepotism/favoritism

- cutthroat, bad culture

- etc

And my point is it's easier to piss all over their party now.

I somehow doubt that sabotaging the kid's education would reduce his anarchism and individualism.

But as long as that sabotage severely curtails his future, do they care?

Would it? 2013 says it's pretty hard to curtail one's future. No single entity controls it, there's no gatekeeper.

They just show their own misery.

The headteacher appears to think he can keep this guy from getting a college education, and he might well be right.

True, there's no single gatekeeper, but there are a zillion little ones, and too large a fraction of them will stop someone without a degree, or one without a higher tier one ... and probably more in the Great Recession when there are so many credentialed unemployed.

If this guy wants to be a politician, which he seems to do, then passing thru hostile gatekeepers is his job description.

Anyway, even if he would not it's not as easy either. Imagine someone cold-calling univercities telling he's a headteached (whatever this means) and persuading not accept the student N. He'll be seen as a lunatic, wouldn't he?

That's the thing we don't know. His attitudes aren't necessarily "lunatic" based on post-WWII U.K. history, and we don't know how much this sort of thing is still an "old boys club" in which he got a hearing from people who weren't entirely cold called.

Conflict with a teacher cost Richard Gabriel of "Worse is Better" fame entrance to Harvard or MIT and a lot of subsiquent grief: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_P._Gabriel

If this would be true I would not be happy with the situation in the UK. But, if he's really going to be a politician, it would be very good for him to face this thing he's supposed to fight later on.

> 2013 says it's pretty hard to _further_ curtail one's future

FTFY

Well, the anarchy could have been forgiven, but individualism? Put him up against the wall!

I've looked at the blog in question ( http://hampsteadtrash.blogspot.co.uk/ ) - and it's obvious that the real problem was about his being critical of the school administration.

His petty thug of a headteacher seems perfectly deserving of every bit of the attention he is about to receive.

Hey! Teacher! Leave them kids alone.

Or, in the words of The Clash[1]:

    You have the right to free speech
    As long as you're not
    Dumb enough to actually try it

Considering how the school has reacted to his writings, I'd say that he is probably right.

[1] http://www.metrolyrics.com/know-your-rights-lyrics-the-clash...

I always said he was up to no good.

Is kicking someone out of a building that bears more than a passing resemblance to a prison really sabotaging their education?

... Yes. As a self-taught programmer, I believe university is important. It gives quite a lot of advantages (mostly social ones, which are the most important). And undergrad universities select primarily based on school performance, so kicking him out definitely would've sabotaged his higher education.

To piggyback on this comment in hopes of finding some assistance: I've been trying to figure out some long-term strategy of how to get into a top-tier university. I have the ACT scores for it, but I dropped out of highschool to go work in software. The decade of dev experience is certainly nice, and I've studied core CS theory on my own (xv6 and paxos for example), but I'd really like to attend a top uni in order to do graphics research. I wonder if it's even possible for a 25 year old highschool dropout to achieve this? I was thinking I could do well for a couple years at some local university, then apply to transfer to Penn, Stanford, etc. I've heard transfer students are more likely to be accepted. But I wonder what else I could do to increase my chances.

As someone who dropped out from Brown (and transferred credits from State universities I attended while in HS) and been engaging with newer educational things like project breaker[0], there are plenty of social advantages out there with "non-traditional" organizations that give more freedom and open just as many doors…

Though yes, if you are trying do research, uni might be good, but there's plenty of university politics/culture involved that might make you want to drop out again (esp with research and such), despite it all… Besides, who's to say you can't do research outside of uni?

[0] http://www.projectbreaker.org/

Well, I've been doing my best to research on my own, but at this point I need access to a high quality spectrophotometer in order to perform measurements of various materials' absorption spectrums under various lighting conditions. They can run ~$5k, so uni seems like my best bet. I figured I couldn't really just show up and ask to borrow their spectrophotometer... they'd probably want me to have a degree or some kind of credentials before trusting me at all.

Project Breaker looks quite interesting. Thanks for letting me know!

No, no. Show up knowing what you're about, vs. someone with theories "no one else understands" (from watching this once, I wouldn't be surprised if MIT professors get a bit of training in how to handle the crazies), you've got a hypothesis that's interesting and you need to do specific tests, and, oh, yeah, you'll be happy to let them share credit. You might be surprised at how far you can get.

Do some networking. If you don't have any contacts, start showing up for seminars at a target university. Listen, start contributing a bit to the community, then ease into "By the way, I have a [fill in the blank] I'd like to test...."

Yeah, worrying about being thought of as a crazy person is precisely what's prevented me from trying to contact any professors, because I'd imagine they have to deal with that sort of thing pretty often: outsiders bothering them with unscientific pet theories. That's why it's frustrating not having credentials.

Attending seminars is a good idea. Thank you. I wonder if I should call up universities and ask for info regarding any computer graphics related seminars / events. It seems like those would be very uncommon, but it's probably my only chance.

I have no contacts because I was mercilessly harassed throughout highschool and leaped at the opportunity to drop out and write software for a living. So I have no idea how to network. Showing up and saying, "Hey, would you be interested in chatting about computer graphics theory?" seems like it'd earn me strange looks.

I just moved to Chicago, so I was hoping University of Chicago has some sort of computer graphics program, and that I can figure out some way of becoming involved with it.

"I wonder if I should call up universities and ask for info regarding any computer graphics related seminars / events"

That shit's on the website, dogg.

Hmm... Is it?

Searching their events for "graphics" produced no results, and searching for "computer" (in hopes of anything CS related) wasn't very helpful. http://event.uchicago.edu/maincampus/search.php

EDIT: The CS research interests page is interesting... http://www.cs.uchicago.edu/research/interests though nothing specifically graphics-related.

EDIT2: The closest thing to graphics research I can find is http://www.mcs.anl.gov/research/fl/research/index.php?p=proj... ... though I don't really understand what its goals are based on its description: "Integration of Access Grid and ParaView to enable remote participants to interact with their visualizations in a coordinated manner across all sites, to improve information flow and expedite visualization development and scientific results. This will remove a significant bottleneck in achieving visualization results and understanding, by allowing participants to exchange data interactively while exploring their data visually. In this first development, specific areas of ParaView functionality will be targeted for inclusion in the shared interaction, based on feedback from the domain scientists as to the areas of highest relevance and impact." So I guess that's something graphics-theory-related, which I suppose is worth looking into...

Here you go: http://www.cs.uchicago.edu/events

Looks sparse but I don't think the academic year's started yet, scroll back to last spring and it looks like the real departmental calendar.

Could just be you're SOL on the type of stuff you want at UC. That's academic life.

Oh, thank you so much!

One trick is to not lead with your stuff.

Become a de facto part of the community. Spend a little time on campus to find out how people dress, then just show up unannounced at appropriate events like seminars. Initially be invisible except for the usual pleasantries like smiling, if asked who you are and why you're there say you're a programmer and the topic sounded interesting, absorb the atmosphere and the way things are done. You'll learn all sorts of useful stuff, maybe find something you can help with (hey, you can program...), eventually you can edge into your stuff.

Eventually you will have to reveal who you are(n't), but credentials have no magic (there are a lot of worthless, time wasting but well credentialed people out there), and the higher the level of the place, the less they tend to care about formalities. As one of the country's top schools ... well, the U of Chicago isn't anything big in computers, so that department might no be so easy going, but nothing ventured, nothing gained.

I have no contacts because I was mercilessly harassed throughout highschool ... So I have no idea how to network.

School/college does not teach you how to network, at least not any more than life outside school does.

Small recommendation: read Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People. It is educational, inspiring, and describes many people in your position.

Read it with an open mind, not with cynicism, and you'll learn so much.

Totally understand. But have you looked into public labs? I know there are DIY biotech hacker labs[0] so maybe something is out there near you.

Also, do you have any friends in uni who may have access to a spectrophotometer? I've asked friends to get me uni papers and run experiments if they had the time (though I have also helped them out with matlab code for simulations and such)…

Also, these places aren't really the most secure places in the world. If you got swiped in with a friend, carried a backpack, picked up some lab gear by the door, and conducted a quick experiment, I'm sure you can get by.

[0]http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/12/genspace-diy-scien...

Just rent kit. I needed a high end LeCroy DSO a while back. These fuckers are £18000. Leased one for a month for £700.

And Glasgow is a top 10 University in the UK so trying to sabotage someone because they dont fit in at school is disgusting.

Uh, yes?

Well yes, as it's unlikely that another school would let him in (post 16 education is no longer compulsory), and as he says, if he'd been kicked out a year earlier it would have essentially forced him to forfeit his a-levels and thus either delay, or preclude him going to university.

Seems like it would just confirm his beliefs.

Two things came to mind when I read this:

1) It doesn't often happen, but having the establishment individual confirm the blog's POV through word and deed is refreshing.

2) If you are from the University and read what this fool said to the newspapers / police, then you should be suspect of any individual whom he gave a recommendation.

Here is the text of an email that I sent the school.

-----

The primary duty that a school has is to turn out informed citizens who will try to maintain democracy. Despite your best efforts, you are apparently on the path to success with Kinnan Zaloom.

Unfortunately your headmaster has failed to learn the critical lesson that any organization populated by people will have failure modes, and a common failure mode is that those in authority will seek to use their authority inappropriately, and will also seek to assert more authority than they should have. This has been known for thousands of years, with famous examples including ancient Athens, the Roman Republic, and a plethora of dictatorships around the world today.

I am being generous in saying that your headmaster has failed to learn this lesson. In fact he seems to have learned it, but sees the path to petty dictatorship as something to emulate, not to fear. However one should never ascribe to malice and all that, so I will make the generous assumption that his actions came through incompetence.

But even making the generous assumption, it is clear that your headmaster is not the kind of person who should be put in a position where he can try to harm the future of children whose only crime is to think more clearly than he does. We need children to learn that authority is a necessary evil in a democratic society. Which lesson can best be learned in an environment where authority is exercised wisely enough that the "necessary" part of it becomes evident.

For the good of the children forced to suffer through your school, I sincerely hope that this fact is taken to heart and appropriate measures are taken to ensure that authority rests in more competent people going forward.

Nicely done. The headmaster's mentality is in direct conflict with the Enlightenment principles that the West was built on.

Is this satire? It reads like satire.

"I must do something. In the last year he has become more and more enchanted by antiestablishment ways of thinking and has even said that there is an inherent risk that every government is corrupt."

It seems sincere to me. And also blithely unaware that the student has a point.

Doesn't sound like the kind of teacher I'd like in my university

Asked what had first inclined him to contact the police, Mr. Szemalikowski said “the fact that Kinnan has mentioned the ideologies of anarchism and individualism on this blog.” Digging himself even deeper, the headteacher added, “I must do something. In the last year he has become more and more enchanted by antiestablishment ways of thinking and has even said that there is an inherent risk that every government is corrupt.”

and has even said that there is an inherent risk that every government is corrupt

Well, here's one student that learned the right lesson in his Government class. :)

Read the blog. Doesn't seem like the kind of kid I'd like in my university...

Having recently had a "Fuck all of you" reaction to public high school, what I read was a kid ranting about apathetic students and apathetic instructors. He's probably frustrated by the people he sees on a daily basis and it comes out on the blog as him being a jerk.

His writing could use some work too, kind of cheesy.

What's the kind that you would like?

Isn't mentioning that someone mentioned something also mentioning it?

You can't just have individualists roaming freely around doing whatever the heck they like. Where would it end?

Hmmmm...no ruling elites?

If individualists are incapable of building functioning nonhierarchical organizations, they'll be at the mercy of those good at violence, and ruled.

This is why much of the anarchist tradition is about collective action, to support individual freedoms. They frequently reject the collective vs. individual dichotomy as absurd. (Hopefully this isn't pedantic or nitpicky, just this tends to be a common misconception.)

it's not pedantic in the context of the original article, where the headmaster was clearly too daft to know the difference.

I'm disgusted by the head teacher's nosy behavior. I also think the student is an insufferable person according to his blog posts [1]. He's one of those people who try to use loaded words like "anarchism" and "individualism" to justify annoying or selfish behavior. Kind of like Galt-wannabe libertarians who hide being the word "liberty" to give credence to social darwinism.

[1] http://hampsteadtrash.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/sludge-obituary...

Yes, lots of high school students are insufferably pompous and selfish. They are just growing from children into young adults.

A high school head teacher should be able to handle this.

Also, as an adult, you should also be able to handle this without becoming annoyed and judgemental.

" lots of high school students are insufferably pompous and selfish"

So are a lot of teachers and heads.

but most high school students grow out of that phase :-)

I completely agree though I think the head teacher probably saw the attack on his school and used the students use of words like anarchism as a justification for punishing him which I don't think the student deserved.

I also think the student is an insufferable person according to his blog posts [1].

Yes, many teenagers are. And we should be glad - it means they are growing, thinking for themselves, transforming.

Who gives a shit, honestly? That is about as valuable to the conversation as your assessment of his sense of dress fashion.

There are a lot of commenters here who automatically got on the kid's side as soon as they heard the buzzwords "anarchism" and "individualism". It's probable they didn't even read the article or the blog posts before reaching this decision.

All I'm saying as that we should be more careful when taking sides in any situation, and try to avoid being manipulated by words. Sure, I did post a personal opinion about this kid. You are entitled to hate it and post aggressive comments about it. But I think my post still added to the conversation. A few people voted on it so at least one or more people gave a shit.

This is the kind of behavior current political systems are encouraging to the members of our society. Instead of teachers reaching out to students to create bonds and personal connections, we have a system that promotes unjustified surveillance, profiling and reporting.

What did the police say? Did the teacher believe that the UK has thought-crime laws about uncommon political beliefs? Do they?

Not so much laws but there's certainly a lot more stigma to holding unpopular opinions (or even freely expressing 'distasteful' but popular opinions, cf. responses to many UKIP supporters) in the UK compared to the USA - nowhere on the scale as in Russia or Eastern Europe though.

Eastern Europe? Could you please elaborate or provide some example to illustrate what exactly you mean? I am from Eastern Europe (Czech Rep.) and I used to live in UK. Generally I would say that current Eastern Europe is way more open/tolerant/apathetic to 'unpopular opinions' than UK.

I don't have an interest in filling a post with links to articles about the freedom of speech issues or homophobia in Belarus, the Ukraine, Lithuania, Romania, or what not, but they are easily found. For starters, though, Belarus, the Ukraine, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Greece and Albania aren't even in the top 80 countries for press freedom: http://en.rsf.org/press-freedom-index-2013,1054.html

However, I had to hit Wikipedia as I'd never considered the Czech Republic to culturally be "Eastern Europe" but it turns out it often is. I consider the Czech Republic as progressive as any Western European nation and the statistics seem to support that (for example, Czechs are more in support of gay marriage than even the Brits). I've been to the Czech Republic before and was pleasantly surprised at how awesome it was.

So, to clarify, I did not have mean "Eastern Europe" formally but countries on the geographically eastern fringes of Europe.

Don't trust everything you see on Wikipedia.

I went to school in one of the countries you mentioned. There is a firm cultural policy there that the teachers' authority ends at the doors of the school. Barring some extreme cases (e.g. underage teenagers starring in porn movies), a teacher doing something like what's mentioned in the article would result in significant public outcry, on all levels, exactly on the grounds of free speech.

The merits, policies, methods and value of schools, colleges and even individual professors are matters of public debate with no restriction. Attempts of imposing sanctions on pupils for expressing views of discontent with institutions do occur, but are isolated and rarely carried out, due to -- you've guessed it -- public outcry.

Perhaps most symbolic for this: after the fall of the Communist regime, school uniforms quickly fell out of favour and are quite rare after 4th grade or so even today. And where they are in place, the rules against not wearing them are rarely enforced for precisely the same reasons. It's all nice on paper, but as soon as someone decides a kid should be expelled for not wearing those particular clothes, things usually get ugly.

Press freedom, corruption and the like are not good general indicatives for the population's values. There's a large gap between general indices and individual behaviour. [Edit:] Communities tend to find ways around things, especially youngsters. Press freedom is the simplest example there: precisely because everyone knows press is basically a propaganda agency, there's general distrust of it, and people are suspicious of what they read in the newspaper. Same goes for teachers: after a long (political-driven) culture of authoritarianism in schools, people are very suspicious of school staff extending their authority past the realm of schools.

It also works this way with the generation gap. Precisely because younger people (particularly in urban areas) perceive their parents as closed-minded, they obstinately try to exercise open-mindedness, or to at least adopt a more indifferent stance, with e.g most teenagers there either supporting gay marriage, or simply not "getting what the big deal is", if people want to marry, they marry. (This is itself a symptom of something else, but I digress).

tl;dr There's at least one place on the fringe of Eastern Europe where a school principal behaving like this would generally end up with a lot of angry parents on his doorstep the following morning.

Ukraine has its moments.

You can say a lot of things in modern Russia and not get any stigma but support.

Everybody holds on to radical opinions of all sorts, popular ones and unpopular ones alike.

Of course, there does exist the thought-crime статья 282 in the criminal code, but you can't mute popular opinions with it effectively.

The police did absolutely nothing, which is spot on.

Yet another attack on an anti-authoritarian person.

The most compelling example that our society doesn't accept people with this personality treat is the psychiatrists who treat them as if they had a mental disorder.

http://www.honeycolony.com/article/psychiatrys-oppression-of...

This reads like a parody.

"has even said that there is an inherent risk that every government is corrupt"

Corruption in the government? Gasp! How dare you?!

I think the story has completely wrong focus. The problem is not the teachers actions (no matter how despicable), but the effects of those actions. I mean if a teacher is able to "ruin" someones life by making couple of phonecalls, then therein lies the problem. In a ideal society the teacher would be free to voice his concerns, and if those concerns were baseless (as seems to be the case here) then the voicing should have no effect on the pupils life.

Of course there wasn't really any concrete effects mentioned in the story that had already happened, so hopefully this was just a sensationalist story and the uni and police will ignore the teacher. In fact the story heavily smells like an attempt to crucify the teacher while no damage/harm was actually done to the pupil.

— (President) Youth, with its enthusiasms, which rebels against any accepted norm because it must, and we sympathize. It may wear flowers in its hair and bells on its toes, but when the common good is threatened, when the functioning of society is endangered, such revolts must cease! They are non-productive, and must be abolished!

[...]

— (President) Guilty! Read the charge!

— (Delegate) The prisoner has been charged with the most serious breach of social etiquette: Cultural defiance of the elementary laws which sustain our community. Questioning the decisions of those we voted to govern us. Unhealthy aspects of speech and dress, not in accordance with general practice. And the refusal to observe, wear, or respond to his number!

(Quotes from “The Prisoner”, Episode 17, “Fall Out”, 1967)

Here is the post that seems to have triggered the response:

http://hampsteadtrash.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/sludge-obituary...

Nothing untoward in this apart from the pointless, juvenile and lazy repetition of the fk word.

> In the last year he has become more and more enchanted by antiestablishment ways of thinking and has even said that there is an inherent risk that every government is corrupt.

If not for that line I'd say that techer just wanted to say that the student is vocal, selfish jackass and failed to invoke proper euphemisms. But this line shows teachers ignorance. I thought that risk of governemnt being corrupt is something so obvious that it's taught on history lessons in primaryschool. Or maybe I am wrong and it's not established that all government can become corrupt? And if there are some uncorruptible goverment forms, then why we don't use them? Or there is some non-constructive proof known that shows that some goverments are not at all prone to corruption but we have no idea how they look like?

Goverment by definition decides about the stuff it does not own. And if you decide about stuff you don't own you can trade doing some harm to that stuff for improving your own status. And that's coruption.

The Hampton Trash (blog) http://hampsteadtrash.blogspot.co.uk/

Check the comments on the article as well, for a few insane ramblings by the templeos maker...

Wait, so it's conspiracy theory/religion applied to x86 assembler?

I'm going to print it out for future reference.

Prime Minister by 30?

In the UK? Yeah, that would be the teacher who reported him then. I'm sure the current Home Sec would very much approve of a student being outed for saying something the establishment disagrees with. If the teach u-turns some how, then yes, PM.

Will he be accepted in Glasgow U?

The offer made by Glasgow to the student is guaranteed, as long as the student meets the conditions of the offer: typically a grade-based offer.

According to the original article, the student didn't meet the conditions of the offer. The university may now award a discretionary place... this decision could have been influenced by the principal, but is moderately unlikely anyway. The article notes that Zaloom will study at Portsmouth U instead. Good luck to him :)

http://www.camdennewjournal.com/news/2013/sep/headteacher-re...

This "headteacher" should be arrested and prosecuted.

For what? Libel is pretty much impossible to get heard unless the accuser is elite and has piles of cash.

Yes he's an asshat but he just dug his own grave. The elite education recruitment chaps won't touch him with a 20 foot pole covered in shit now. This is his last job.

Kettle, meet pot.

Wrong. I consider that action by the teacher a direct threat to the student's civil rights at the very least.

pretty douchey to list the schools phone number at the bottom, just so idiot internet hate mobs can phone and abuse the school secretary.

"internet hate mobs" are the people that oppose this pretty douchey teacher?

Did you read the blog in question? Are you in possession of the full facts of the case? Do you know those involved? Or have you formed your opinions based on some gossippy trash reporting.

There is almost always far more to stories like this than the reporting has us to believe. That's because the reporting is pushing an agenda. Which internet hate mobs etc absolutely love.

So you dispute the story and the reporting is "pushing an agenda"? Why do I have the feeling that you don't think that the "teacher" was wrong in what he did?

Having read some of the blog, it certainly looks like he's a kid with issues. So I'm not surprised the teacher called the university to warn them.

Not sure he really should have called the police, but it's up to him isn't it. But as I said, there's very likely far more to the story than just a blog.

If for example the story was "teacher calls police after student damages property / makes threats / brings knife to school / etc etc, and also shows police his weird ranty blog", then it wouldn't fit with the 'internet hate mob' agenda.

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