TechVendetta is officially one year old. Also seniors at PCEP have their last day of school today.

In other news my domain host seems to be giving me quite the bit of trouble all of a sudden so we may experience some down time if they decide to be accidental ass holes again.


Senior attire: RAVE

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So this morning I got a call I was kind of expecting, but not this soon. The Plymouth canton and Wayne county school district it belongs to, have just reported a suspected case of swine flu (H1N1). The CDC is running tests on the 16 year old and sanitizing the school. We here have no school Monday or Tuesday.

That's right kids, time to buy those hazmat suits and masks you've always had on your "when zombies attack" wish list.

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So I finally sent an update to the district again, and yes I know i still haven't actually designed a layout for this site beyond the extent of this simple blog. I'll get to it....eventually. On the bright side I nuked off most of the spammers I got in here due to my rise in google's page results for terms like pcep, cell phone, policy, and so on. (that should raise me another notch right there)

More updates will be posted as soon as I begin receiving responses.

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Sorry the site was down for awhile today, just some server troubles over at my webhost. Luckily thats all cleared up now.

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Just a quick update for all of you out there. I'm currently working on the outlining of a zangle integrated web app. If you're from the district, I'm glad you found the site. Please everyone ignore the small typo on my card, I will be getting them reprinted soon. My other project is porting a usable Linux system user land to the ipod touch (1g) and the iphone (2g). I'm also looking into developing official applications for the appstore.

So school district drop me an Email, I think I have some more ideas you'll be sure to love.

Also contact me if you have an iphone or ipod touch of the above versions.

~Ryan

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Im writing a novel. To request a charecter based on you or an alternate persona, please email me with the charecter description, personality, and alias. If you want to write your own novel, the following link is to a template file formated for novel page borders.

Link

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Contact info is as follows:

email: ryan@techvendetta.com Apparently my domain host thinks it's funny to delete my mx tables and try to charge me for them.
Email (temporary hopefully): Ryan.Scott.public AT gmail.com

phone: 734-673-4423

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     Well its another year and PCEP has released more borderline illegal rules! As some of you may remember last year pcep created a rather riddiculous cell phone policy that likened the sight of cell phones to that of punching someone in the face. (Link) The school still hasnt recovered from that little bit of negative media either. When is the school going to learn, that this isnt the industrial era anymore and its time for another reform? First they removed all regular pop from school replacing it with diet pop which they claimed was healthier for students, when in fact its quite easy to see from five minutes of research that a series of ingredients in diet pops are almost identical to the ingredients in rat poisoning and have been found to cause cancer. so the first thing i do when i get cancer is sue the school for not giving me the true healthier option. The next act the school decided to do was rather small but it would surely have quite a few doctors very disturbed, pcep banned sunglasses. Yes when my eyes are reduced to sludge by the effects of the sun im exposed to between classes, I will be sueing yet again. Thats when the cell phone policy hit. The school put up signs through out the halls declaring its opposition to "electronic devices" kinda reminds me of the amish. I guess we should just forget all those technological goals we had with a press image like that. I mean they might as well have said "no future". Im sure they ment to say "no ecd's" but then again nowadays that means no internet no networking no knowledge. This of course troubled me the most. Not only is our cell phone policy illegal under the terms of the supreme court, but it is literaly the end of any progressive movement the school was making in the fields of technology.

     So here we are a new year. In my time at the park ive asked the same series of questions to all my teachers on the first day: When can I use my cell phone and listen to music? My freshmen year the answer was you can use your cell phone during passing time and your music player during any non-instructional time. Sophmore year it became cell phones can only be used on the paths outside the main buildings, and music may be used during non-instructional time with teacher consent and on the path. BAM. Junior year, no cell phones ever, no mp3 players ever. How many years back in time did we just jump? The only other time cell phones were banned was back when only drug dealers had them.

     The following is the passage from the pcep hand book that has been reported as changed this year: "P-CEP Dress Code Policy

Please note that the dress code policy has been revised for the Plymouth-Canton Educational Park. New policy and consequences are as follows:

Student dress, appearance, and grooming are important aspects of our school environment. Students and parents have the primary responsibility for ensuring the standards of the PCEP dress code are adhered to. Clothing that is inappropriate for an educational setting due to its provocative, hazardous, vulgar or offensive nature is prohibited. Administrators reserve the right to determine whether clothing is appropriate for the school setting.

Standards of Dress:
1. Skirts and/or shorts must be fingertip length or longer (even if worn with leggings).

2. Garments may not expose underclothing.

3. Low-riding pants of any kind are not acceptable; pockets of jeans/pants must be worn on the buttocks.

4. Shirts and dresses must meet the following standards:
a. Must extend past the tops of pants.
b. Cannot have revealing necklines
c. No tank tops or spaghetti straps. Sleeveless shirts are okay.
d. No bare shoulders or off-the-shoulder shirts
e. No tube tops.

5. Spandex shorts and leggings are considered lounge wear and not appropriate for school unless they are covered and worn under layered styles clothing appropriately.

6. Students are not to wear items considered potentially dangerous. This includes but is not limited to, chains of any kind, pointed rings or pendants, metal spikes of any kind, over-sized belt buckles (larger than pant loops).

7. Students are not to wear hoods up over their heads while inside the school buildings. (Teachers retain the right to ask students to remove hats during class time.)

Additionally, the following clothing and accessories are PROHIBITED:
-Rips or tears in jeans above the knee
-Clothing with sexual content, drug, alcohol, or tobacco use references
-Bandanas of any kind
-Shoes with wheels
-Decorative contact lenses or dark tinted glasses or sunglasses
-Clothing with references to violence

Consequences:
First Offense: Saturday detention. Call home to change clothes.

Second Offense: One-day in-school suspension. Call home to change clothes.

Third Offense: One day out-of-school suspension. Call home to change clothes.

Fourth Offense: Three days out-of-school suspension with progressive discipline for additional offenses."

And this is why both this new rule and the cell phone rule are both illegal as far as the district by-laws go: "The Superintendent shall designate sanctions, excluding corporal punishment, for the infractions of rules which shall:
A. relate in kind and degree to the infraction;
B. help the student learn to take responsibility and be accountable for his/her actions;
C. be directed, where possible, to ameliorate any harm which may have been caused by the student's misconduct. "

     Since when is theft of your property (which I mind you the school is not responsible for if it is lost or stolen from their possession) and suspension an apropriate punishment for wearing sunglasses outside between classes, and having your cell phone visable in your back pack? Cell phones by law can not be banned from school according to the supreme court which is why the rule never specifically states your phone must stay home. Others schools that share our policy have already been attacked legaly and have since rescended their policy. It has also been mentioned that since this is one of the first non discriminatory policies (it affects both high, average and low gpa students alike) that it has caused some noticable drops in overall test scores. Some will argue that this is due a decrease in cheating which I can assure you is not the case. Most cheating is done the good old fashioned way through notes. Test scores are droping because kids just arent in class to take them. Whats truely interesting is hearing the "smart kids" come in after their suspension bragging about how their parents laughed and let them go shopping or see a movie and enjoy their day off.

     Lets try something new this year, lets try to actually make pcep a better place. Lets show the country this isnt the industrial era anymore, and its knowledge and technology that holds the key to our future. Lets make policies not to make policies, but to make change. Lets reclaim our freedom through knowledge.

Welcome to the TechVendetta.

Imagine a world where everything you could ever want or need to know was with you everywhere.

Imagine a classroom that connects you to instructional material from schools and teachers around the world

Imagine never carrying a single book.

Imagine always having access to every set of notes and every assignment without the clutter.

Imagine productive tools in the palm of your hand.

Now imagine you can help make it a reality.

Technology will have its revenge.

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