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Don't get me wrong, I like Obama a LOT. If I thought he could win the election, I'd vote for him in a second. But I think most of the U.S. is pretty alarming culturally, for example, check out this museum down in Kentucky:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/24/arts/24crea.html ?em&ex=1180152000&en=3fce574910e89398&ei=5087%0A

http://english.pravda.ru/news/world/18-05-2007/917 28-Kentucky_museum-0

I'm sorry, but I don't have too much "faith" (ha ha!) in the red states about now. They all look pretty nuts from my perspective. I hope the Dems go with the "safe" guy so Giulinani doesn't get in. One shudders to think of what life would be like under THAT guy...

1) knowing what extensions are
- Both the fact that that they exist in the first place AND what the different ones mean--"ooh, should I click on hotsex.jpg.doc.exe.scr.pif?"

2) looking at the URL in the status bar before clicking on a link
- Apple: I love you, but you SUCK for having the status bar off by default in Safari.

3) knowing where downloaded files go
- Every phone-based support call I've ever made:
a) Painfully (see #4) navigate to a URL.
b) Painfully (see #5) instruct user to download a file.
c) Spend 5 minutes telling them where that file is on their computer

4) the difference between \ and /
- these people saw a backslash ONCE in their lives while using DOS about twenty years ago, and now every time I tell them an address, it's "Is that forward slash or backslash?" (Despite the fact that I've told them a million times that they'll pretty much NEVER see a \ in a URL.) This is usually followed by the question "Which one is slash?" God damn you, Paul Allen.

5) the difference between click, right-click, and double-click
"OK, right click on My Computer... no, close that window. Now, see the mouse? Press the RIGHT BUTTON..."

6) the concept of paths, root directories, etc.
- I why do I have to explain fifty times a day how to get from example.com/foo to example.com?

Admins can get whatever skills they want--they picked the career, thy can accept the fact that things change. The backends are usually handled by people with some know-how. It's the end-users that cause all the problems. It'd be like driving in a world where people didn't know how to use turn signals, didn't check their blind spots, didn't know they shouldn't talk on the phone while making complicated maneuvers--oh, wait, bad example.

Either I'm missing something or this is a short-sighted move.

No offense, but you are missing something quite subtle yet extremely profound. It is no big secret that the prices of computers have plummeted over the last ten years or so. From the consumer's perspective, this is a great thing. However, this has the interesting side effect of making computer repair less economically attractive. In the age of the disposable society, people just dispose of their computer and buy a new one rather than spend money on repair.

This is where Wal-Mart comes in. They have thrived and to some degree promoted (even if unintentionally) the disposable society. Many things are so cheap that people just go buy a new one if their old one breaks. Selling computers at Wal-Mart is a natural fit for this mentality. While you don't want to sell lemons, you don't have to sell the top of the line $5000 desktop there (in fact, you wouldn't want to). Rather, just sell your low end and low margin PCs there and watch as every couple of years, a consumer buys a new one.

It is this kind of approach to selling low cost goods that led Snapper lawn mowers to refuse to do business with Wal-Mart. Quality is one of their core values. Quantity isn't if it affects quality.

how about the The New York Times, or do you not consider NYT a "non-Israeli" newspaper? The The San Francisco Gate picked up the same article.

What the hell was your point?

It strains our social infrastructure, our health care infrastructure and our law enforcement agencies.

Are you absolutely sure about that last point? The actual numbers suggest that if we want a low crime rate, we should kick the non-immigrants out of the country.

I believe that, technically, Ted Kennedy wasn't ON the no-fly list, but rather had a similar name as someone who was. Similarly, Catherine Stevens, the wife of Sen. Ted "The internet is a series of tubes" Stevens was held up at an airport for the similarlarity in her name with the singer Cat Stevens.

I'm not disagreeing with you; I'm just saying how ridiculous the current situation is. Why TSA cares about US senators and senators' wives is beyond me - there are A LOT more serious things a senator can do than to blow up a plane. Even babies are being detained. What's the point of a no-fly/no-work list based off names anyway? If I'm an undocumented worker or a terrorist, I sure as hell am not going to use my real name. I'll use a random name. Perhaps "George W. Bush" is a good one.

"Brazil's ethanol yields nearly eight times as much energy as corn-based options, according to scientific data. Yet heavy import duties on the Brazilian product have limited its entry into the United States and Europe."

Also, hybrid cars could help drive adoption.

"The use of ethanol in Brazil was greatly accelerated in the last three years with the introduction of "flex fuel" engines, designed to run on ethanol, gasoline or any mixture of the two."

http://www.nytimes.com/.../10brazil.html?ex=130232 1600&en=03adc82c67600388&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt

When you add the amount of time, money, kit and effort that'd go into either burning that many optical disks or filling that many harddrives, then connecting them on the other end and reading it out makes it less attractive than fiber optics.

Do we really need a 747? Well, let's see. 15 PB of data, how many 1TB hard drives would that actually be? According to Wikipedia:

1 PB = 10^15.
1 TB = 10^12

Thus, 1 PB could be written as 1,000 TB of data. So 15,000 TB hard drives will do it. Use RAID 5, say 4/5 (where 5 disks replicate 4 images) so we'll add 25%. That brings us to 18,500 HDD with decent redundancy.

The weight of a 3.5" HDD is apparently as much as about 700 grams so we'll say that's around 25 ounces per drive. That's 375,000 ounces, or 23,437 pounds. But a Boeing 747 can carry about 10x that much!

Methinks you've seriously overbuilt your solution. Heck even a little 727 is still way overbuilt. (max load 58,000 pounds) And 727s are dirt cheap nowadays.

But is that actually better?

Fiber optics nowadays can be pushed closed to 1 Tb per second. That's certainly in the range of what we're talking about. Actual numbers looks like 1 Tb per second could conceivably transfer 15 TB every 5.5 days or so, assuming optimal conditions. How much "dark fiber" is there under the ocean? Not much, I'd wager. Meaning this may likely require another cable to be laid == big, expensive, long project.

So the 727 is probably the best bet, since they can get started pretty much right away, and won't have to put together a 5 year project to run cables under the ocean...

Hmm. more curiosity - a 727 burns about 1,800 gallons of fuel every hour - costing around $1.84 per gallon. 3800 miles, about 3000 knots, or 10 hours at 300 Knots... around $65,000 per round trip. Since the budget of the entire project is 6.7 Billion dollars, it would take over 10,000 such trips to equal 10% of the total CERN budget.

In short, it's a deal at twice the price!

• The cost of fresh produce increased in price in terms of real dollars by over 40% between 1985 and 2000 whereas soft drinks using corn syrup declined in cost by 23%.
• A dollar buys you 1200 calories of cookies or chips but just 250 calories worth of carrots.
• The top subsidies are for corn, rice, wheat, soybeans and cotton. There often translate into cheap meats and dairy as most of this gets reused as animal foodstuffs.
• Most estimates are that subsidized US corn has displaced over 2 million Mexican farmers who move north to get jobs.

Not only can you pirate a Civic, you can pirate a whole company:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/01/technology/01pir ate.html?ex=1304136000&en=d01abb1690a4e540&ei=5088 &partner=rssnyt&emc=rss/

So when is Con Ed going to stop electrocuting dogs and passers by?

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopic s/people/l/jodie_lane/index.html?query=CONSOLIDATE D%20EDISON%20INC&field=org&match=exact

Fix THAT first.

--
BMO

You mean that Conservative government that introduced CCTV cameras? http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/07/magazine/07SURVE ILLANCE.html

Or the one that scrapped state pensions and pushed everyone into private pension schemes, which is why there's such a crisis now? http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6638709.stm

Parent is the only reply to get it right. It's not that the cellular providers are ripping us off (well, at least not just that)—it's that SMS bandwidth is extremely limited (see also here, here, here). For shame, Slashdot!

making a computer understand Bubba Sixpack who can't type

Dude, your clichés are like so Eisenhower Administration.

This is Bush 43; get with the times.

Yeh wanna salsa weedat, señor?

Were those egg whites? I ask because I cant imagine how bad your diet was that this actually managed to lower your cholesterol into a better range.

Perhaps you should read Gary Taubes' excellent article What if it's all been a big fat lie?. I have a debunking of the most serious attempt at debunking that article, so if you actually read it and come back, I can share that with you too.

The simple fact is that eating fat and cholesterol doesn't raise your cholesterol. If you run the numbers, eating nothing but lard would actually lower your cholesterol score.

It's when you combine fat and carbs that you start to have problems.

I know, I know, you're deluded, and it's not your fault. But you're wrong. And I'm tired of hearing from ignorant people like yourself who think I must be wrong when in reality they are years behind the state of the art (along with most medical professionals!)

"Correct. They don't need the expense of genociding the Sunnis, who would fight back with Saudi backing. Thanks for pointing this out."

  >So all of the killings by Shia death squads NOW is just an illusion, and is not really happening?

"Nope, non sequitur"

Nope, it's simply evidence that disputes your 'they'll get along' theory. Since this ethnic cleansing has been going on for a year, show us your evidence that Saudi Arabia is involved finacially or militarily to protect the Sunnis in Iraq.

"You don't offer any sources but merely repeat Bush Administration... (snip)"
I prefer to listen to Iraqis that have and are currently living thru it, and not parrot what some Washington Post reporters have written in books.

A perfect example is the SUNNI Iraqi Dentist http://healingiraq.blogspot.com/
who has lived thru the war and left. He pointed out this article detailing what he knows to be the facts: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/13/magazine/13refug ees-t.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Contrary to your belief, Iraqi Sunnis are and have been getting out of Iraq because they are afraid.

You can not fire a prosecutor to end an investigation. This is obstruction of justice and it could be what happened in California. Even pomoting a prosecutor http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/ a/2006/01/27/MNGCNGU1J01.DTL can look suspicious.

You'll notice that some Republicans are taking this issue seriously:

''It is hard to see how the Department of Justice can function and perform its important duties with Mr. Gonzales remaining where he is,'' said Specter, R-Pa. http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Fired-Prosec utors.html.

Republicans may be empty headed stooges, but they know your talking points are incorrect.

> It is not playing in the US media because no law was broken when those attorneys were fired.

1. pete domenici (r-nm) tried to force attorney generals to indict democrats for voter-fraud
2. alberto gonzales (ag) almost certainly lied under oath

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/19/opinion/19mon4.h tml?ex=1331956800&en=dfab854c91a51b4b&ei=5088&part ner=rssnyt&emc=rss
http://www.gregpalast.com/investigative-journalist -greg-palast-reports-on-the-firing-of-new-mexico-a ttorney-david-iglesias/
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002677.php
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-kleiman/the-fal l-of-pete-domenici_b_43006.html
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/20 03699882_webmckayforum09m.html?syndication=rss/

The first collision has already occurred, with terrible consequences.

Poor desk.

Where did you hear that? I heard it was the other way around. Toyota was licensing its older-gen tech to Ford since they are so behind, with the reasoning that it's better that Ford have something to show for itself rather than wait until their own tech develops enough to market.

From: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/27/business/27toyot a.html?ex=1253595600&en=bb5d4805d21ff62c&ei=5035&p artner=MARKETWATCH

"Toyota, the world's leader in hybrid-electric cars, licenses hybrid technology to Ford, which sells a hybrid version of the Ford Escape, a small sport utility vehicle.

Ford has its own hybrid program, but it cut back on hybrid development this year, when it decided to place more emphasis on flexible fuel vehicles that can run on gasoline and another type of fuel, like ethanol.

Ford buys parts for its hybrid vehicles from Aisin Seiki, a supplier partly owned by Toyota that is part of its global network of parts-making companies. In the past, Ford and Aisin have run into disputes over the number of parts Aisin was willing to make available for Ford vehicles."

Microsoft said that Apple agreed to opt for its browser as part of broad agreement that included a $150 million investment by Microsoft, cross-licensing of patents and settlement of an old legal case -- not just because of Microsoft's commitment to continue making business software for the Macintosh.

If the person trying to push this bill is Mr. Alberto Gonzalez, I don't think it will go very far considering his recent comments at a hearing, which is basically summed up with "I don't know" (i.e. I am a stupid fuck). Mr. Gonzalez either knew exactly what was happening (more likely), or had his head so far up his ass (less likely), and in either case he should be fired. Of course if you read the linked article, you will find one interesting comment from Mr. Lamar Smith:

"As we have gone forward, the list of accusations has grown, but the evidence of genuine wrongdoing has not." Mr. Smith added, "If there are no fish in this lake, we should reel in our lines of questions, dock our empty boat and turn to more pressing issues."

Ahh.. more pressing issues such as a copyright act which criminalizes the even attempt (whatever that might mean) of trying to infringe on copyrights. What is the definition of attempting to? Maybe going to a website that offers both copywritten and non-copywritten files? I don't think any bill coming from our government can clearly and easily define what "attempted" means when it comes to something technology-related, and if this bill is passed (which I hope it will not) I could see it being open to broad interpretation.

Naw, they removed the Green Benches years ago.

All on one page, no ads:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/13/magazine/13audie nce-t.html?ei=5090&en=1d5b4728dc04dc8d&ex=13367088 00&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=print

They could never pull that off in NY... Those kindergarteners don't play that!

At the risk of inviting a flood of hot grits jokes, I would point out that at least one narcissist has already proposed as much.

...According to the most recent government figures, 37 million Americans are living below the official poverty threshold, which is $19,971 a year for a family of four. That's one out of every eight Americans, and many of them are children.

More than 90 million Americans, close to a third of the entire population, are struggling to make ends meet on incomes that are less than twice the official poverty line. In my book, they're poor. ...

The number of poor people in America has increased by five million over the past six years, and the gap between rich and poor has grown to historic proportions. The richest one percent of Americans got nearly 20 percent of the nation's income in 2005, while the poorest 20 percent could collectively garner only a measly 3.4 percent.

So, what makes America more secure? "Fighting" "terrorists", or using the 150 Billion to support those at home?

...when you said "Further, global warming, whether true or not" - The planet is heating up, its a fact. Getting more water? Baah.

Scientists say it has become increasingly clear that worldwide precipitation is shifting away from the equator and toward the poles. That will nourish crops in warming regions like Canada and Siberia while parching countries -- like Malawi in sub-Saharan Africa -- which are already prone to drought

New York Times:

Heh, I wish I were on Google's payroll.

No, I'm just annoyed at how people are so eager to complain bitterly about a company that is one of the few decent ones out there.

From everything I've seen and heard, Google treats its employees very well compared to the rest of corporate America (thus me wishing I were on their payroll). The people they have working there are unbelievable smart. They provide extremely valuable services, 100% gratis. They even provide APIs to their software for you to use in clever and original ways. They've driven other companies to radically think about how they provide services. (Anyone else here remember when Google provided a gigabyte of e-mail when everyone else was providing like five or ten megabytes?) They're a huge contributor to the development of open source software, sponsoring such initiatives as the Summer of Code. Yes, they even fight poverty, disease, and global warming in new and inventive ways.

Yet because they abide by international law—like every other company that deals with China—they're vilified here. That's just not right.

Let's not kid ourselves. Google isn't evil, but it is an extremely wealthy company. There are people here who resent companies that get extremely wealthy, no matter how noble their goals are or how much they do to try to make the world a better place. There is a contingent of people who feel like they must tear down big companies, and they grasp at whatever straws they can to try to do so.

If Google did pass that proposal and miraculously managed to end government censorship in China—actually managed to get the Chinese government to pass a First Amendment like the U.S.'s!—these people would still find something to complain about. It's not about government censorship, it's not about Google being evil or not evil, it's about them being very, very rich.

I'm not paid to think some way or say anything. But when I see ignorant people going after people, companies, or organizations that are actually making positive differences in the world for something so stupid and contrived as not doing enough to change China from oppressive communism to being even more free than our own country, yeah, that bugs me.

For what it's worth, I also think that John Edwards would make a great president, that Charmin toilet paper is the best out there, that Morgan Spurlock's 30 Days is the best show on television, that my HP 2335 LCD monitor is the most gorgeous monitor I've ever laid my eyes on, and that Honda makes very reliable automobiles. I suppose that means I'm also being paid by the Edwards campaign, Proctor and Gamble, News Corporation, Hewlett-Packard, and Honda Motor Company. If only I were so lucky.

Oh, and if I were paid by Google, they would probably frown highly on me calling you an idiot. And you are, indeed, an idiot. There, satisfied?

Apparently you're not from the SF Bay Area

http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F7 0E14FB385A0C738FDDAD0894DF404482

(No account req'd)

Growing number of Latin American companies are making big investments in US; new 'multi-Latinas' are aggressive, resourceful enterprises that are developing byproduct of market liberalization that swept Latin American economies of 1990s; these Latin American multinationals have even reached places like Wilton, Iowa, tiny prairie town; Brazilian-owned steel company, Gerdau Ameristeel, has become one of two biggest employers in town, importing management style and fresh capital to modernize and expand old mill and temper tough American labor union; last couple of years Mexican company Cemex has emerged as number one supplier of cement and ready-mix concrete in US, with almost 10,000 employees across country; Brazilian oil company Petrobras has become one of biggest players in deep-water exploration of Gulf of Mexico...

Please, please, please Ms. Halvorsen put VZ on your black list.

This is an amazing story. I love Norway. Sticking it to the man, the only way the man can be hurt.

Even in the grocery store, by far the cheapest calories are garbage food that makes you fat but contains few nutrients, causing your body to crave to eat more. Examine this times article on the subject, should you have completed free registration: http://www.nytimes.com/glogin?URI=http://gk.nytime s.com/mem/gatekeeper.html&OQ=_rQ3D1Q26URIQ3DhttpQ3 AQ2FQ2Fwww.nytimes.comQ2F2007Q2F04Q2F22Q2Fmagazine Q2F22wwlnlede.t.htmlQ26OQ51Q3D_rQ513D2Q5126eiQ513D 5087Q51250AQ5126emQ513DQ5126enQ513D66cff38fe969430 5Q5126exQ513D1177732800Q5126pagewantedQ513DallQ512 6orefQ513DsloginQ26OPQ3D489ccfa3Q512FQ512BzQ513F!Q 512BIeFpQ513BeewyQ512By99Q512FQ512B9,Q512ByyQ512Bd Q515BQ515DQ515BQ517BSQ5123Q513FQ512Byyzz(Q5123(Q51 3FIQ513FZwZQ5151wd(&OP=129f9f62Q2FQ2BQ51FBQ2BAQ5EQ 3CFQ7ErHQ2B!Q3CvQ7EVVA6Q2BVQ7DUQ3CF!Q3CFrQ2BQ20Q7E Q3CFRFFVFQ7Da!Q3Cv

Mitterrand was vital to the defeat of the USSR in the cold war. The Farewell Dossier http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/02/opinion/02SAFI.h tml?ex=1391058000&en=efacc527511e645b&ei=5007&part ner=USERLAND

Preventing them from making decisions based on the information is an area frought with grey areas that it runs the risk of being highly ineffective because in spite of the fact that there are many criteria by which insurers are prohibited to descriminate, they manage to skirt the matter by descriminating based on "similar" and statistically related information... you know, like zip codes instead of ethnicity? For example, this story about the tricks insurance companies used when trying to avoid anti-gay discrimination claims.

Some insurance restrictions aimed at AIDS cases have violated laws or the industry's ethical standards, legal experts say. One company was found to be rejecting all applicants from San Francisco, which has one of the nation's largest AIDS caseloads. Civil rights lawyers say coverage has also been denied to men who are not married or who have jobs that are stereotypically associated with gay and bisexual men, like hairdressing.

It's rather more difficult to search for something that specific -- and I will definitely grant that we probably issue more extradition requests than we honor. I would be interested in seeing how many extradition requests we receive in the US, versus the number we issue to other countries.

I do remember at least one case... an American citizen who was an IRA solider. Hmm... yeah, Google again. Here it is. 1986, so I suppose this will be discounted, but it does happen, and I no longer have any more time today to spend on this, or I'd keep looking -- it's an interesting question.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A0 DE4DC1F3CF932A15753C1A960948260

They'll be around the corner any day now, can this software be used for those printers?

the growing epidemics of obesity, diabetes and hypertension among potential mothers, some of whom tip the scales here at 300 to 400 pounds.

The primary reason Cuba has a lower infant mortality rate than the United States is that the United States is a world leader in an odd category -- the percentage of infants who die on their birthday. In any given year in the United States anywhere from 30-40 percent of infants die before they are even a day old.

Why? Because the United States also easily has the most intensive system of emergency intervention to keep low birth weight and premature infants alive in the world. The United States is, for example, one of only a handful countries that keeps detailed statistics on early fetal mortality -- the survival rate of infants who are born as early as the 20th week of gestation.

How does this skew the statistics? Because in the United States if an infant is born weighing only 400 grams and not breathing, a doctor will likely spend lot of time and money trying to revive that infant. If the infant does not survive -- and the mortality rate for such infants is in excess of 50 percent -- that sequence of events will be recorded as a live birth and then a death.

In many countries, however, (including many European countries) such severe medical intervention would not be attempted and, moreover, regardless of whether or not it was, this would be recorded as a fetal death rather than a live birth. That unfortunate infant would never show up in infant mortality statistics.

Sure, it takes money to produce it. Once it is produced, however, it can be duplicated ad infinitum at zero cost.

The fact that it takes money to produce does not justify limiting the freedoms of all computer-owners on the planet. They paid good money for their hardware, and they should be free to make full use of its features. This includes duplicating the data to which they have been given access.

Having expended your resources to produce some bit of information does not give you a *moral* right to control what everyone else in the world does with that information. Just because it was expensive doesn't mean you can then use it to justify robbing billions of people of their freedoms. Morally speaking, data duplication is in the clear.

The economic justification is that this unrealistic level of control over all the hardware in the world is necessary in order to ensure that such works are still created in the future. That is bunk, it has been proven so both in theory and in practice (Here are some examples).

So, the notion that data duplication is morally wrong and economically harmful just doesn't stand up to criticism. Like it or not, the bottom line is simple: you simply cannot give people access to information and yet control what they do with it. The misguided laws that try to do just that harm the many for the needless benefit of the few, and hence they are unjust. The world must adapt to the abundance that new technology has brought.

The Minibosses are O.K., but they sound a bit too much like studio musicians. No soul, no zest in the songs. Give me The Advantage any day. They add more pizazz to the NES songs, rather than go through them relatively straight forward. Check out their second CD "Elf-Titled", it's a fun listen.

According to this article in The New York Times, Abraxane is a drug for late stage breast cancer. It is paclitaxel but coated in albumin, to minimize some of the allergic reactions in patients. Apparently it is slightly more effective, but it did not prolong lives longer than Taxol did.

While I agree with your argument, the biotech/pharmaceutical/medical device companies have also found creative ways of marketing to doctors as well. And IIRC, studies have shown that doctors are also influenced by the free samples, gifts (e.g., here 3rd article down), lunches, and any other marketing from sales reps. It's not giving money to doctors, but it affects the decisions they make. Of course, many doctors are great, but the others do give them a bad name.

They forgot BC libel law
http://www.lawyersweekly.ca/index.php?section=arti cle&articleid=371&rssid=4
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_libel

Which Wayne Crookes uses to harass the whole Internet to get at his political critics
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.2 0070420.BCWIKIPEDIAS20/TPStory/?query=wayne+crooke s

Details
http://medlibrary.org/medwiki/Talk:Wayne_Crookes
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wayne_Cr ookes&oldid=85159885
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wayne_Cr ookes&oldid=99714811

Similar cases of dissidents "outed" by pressure from outside the US
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/cyberdissident
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/19/technology/19yah oo.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=17180

buying your drugs from the lowest bidder isn't always a good thing.

NASA actually does buy some parts on eBay (although I wouldn't say it's a lot of them). When systems get old, you have a choice between paying to design a replacement board with modern components for a legacy system or digging up older parts. Often times the older parts are going to be the cheaper solution, and the advent of eBay has made them a lot easier to find.

The NY Times had an article on this a few years ago: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A0 CE2DF1739F931A25756C0A9649C8B63

100 US troops died in Iraq last month. You're off by more than 3,000. Nice try.

Studies are now showing that students with laptops perofmr the same as students without.
I can understand putting these in places where students do not have access to textbooks and simple writing implements but most of the early signatory countries are places like Japan, Korea and Australia. Places where textbooks are writing implmenents are in abundant supply.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/04/education/04lapt op.html

Throwing technology blindly at children in the hopes they will somehow magically get better at Math and Science is a foolish and wasteful endeavor. especially since we most likely won't have the energy resources required to power the infrastructure necessary to keep the internet going within our own lifetimes unless people get up off their asses and start demanding more nuclear power facilities and renewable energy sources start supplying the grid now.

This short sightedness will be our undoing.
Cassandra out.