Ideally, there would no reason to let the PCs go home with the students.
In theory, PCs in the classrooms, library and a PC lab or 2 should be adequate. Work not done in class could be done before or after school, at the school.
In practice, too few schools are able to pay their teachers and/or staff to come in early, stay late, so that more than a few students can be allowed to do such work at school. Therefore, the perceived need to let students take their PCs home.
... I am a kid, 10h grader, and from what I've seen no, they wouldn't even know what the hell it was running. I know someone who deleted the windows folder because he installed windowblinds and thought he was no longer running windows.
That is very sad to read. Yes, I can understand some kids just not caring, but for them to be so totally ignorant they don't even have a clue is just plain unacceptable.
Also, a school district with kind of financing is *likely* in an area where they can afford it. School budgets are funded mostly from local taxes.
Hmm.. Now that I think of it, if a school district can afford this kind of purchase - even of low cost netbooks - for every student, then the families in said district should reasonably expected to be able to afford such computers for each of their kids.
Traveling moderately with laptops, mine have had a life expectancy of about 1 year.
Wow! I'm surprised you are still employed.
As a consultant, I take my compay owned laptap to client sites and manufacturing facilities all the time. Nevertheless, my employer fully expects that laptop to last at least 4 years and will expect me to pay for a replacement if it fails before then.
Likewise, my clients' engineers are also expected to use their company laptops for at least 3 years, preferably more, before failing.
On the hand, I do agree with you about the students. Their machines would likely not last even one school year.
In the real world, the kids will have their own computers at home.
I would think this program is only being considered because few of the school's student have PCs at home, so the school is seeking to provide a resource not otherwise available.
They can get an old machine for ten bucks at a thrift store for that
You must have really good thrift stores. I have never seen anything computing device better than a (very old) game console at any thrift I've ever shopped. (And these days, I do almost all of my non-grocery shopping at thrift stores.)
Actually, gasoline is best replaced by butanol. The problem is, butanol is more toxic to the microbes that produce it then ethanol is to the microbes that produce ethanol.
fonts, lines, drawings, and colors have to be PERFECT. Not "good enough" but as perfect as a printed page, every time, no mistakes
Even with the best tools on the best platform, humans still make plenty of mistakes. I am not saying those tools do not make it easier to avoid mistakes.
Maybe FOSS graphic design tools are poor, but I know some professional designers who are able to do great work with these tools.
On the other hand, I've been noticing more girls playing with "boys'" toys and in "boys'" activities.
One example, I've been seeing more girls playing laser tag - mixed teams, girls vs boys and girls vs girls.
Another example, I'm a member of a local robotics club that mentors several FIRST and FIRST Lego League teams. While I don't know the official statistics, I definitely see an increasing number of girls on the teams.
Also, from listening to the kids, I hear more and more girls talking about building electronics kits and even model railroads.
I suppose this could be a social reaction to increasing numbers of girls and/or "feminisation" pf boys (IE, the sons we don't have).
Having LIQUID NITROGEN in my desktop PC would seem to present maintenance and disaster potential an order of magnitude greater than that: what if the enclosure ruptures and explodes like a capacitor? What if it leaks nitrogen into the room and asphyxiates my cat sleeping on the floor?
Years ago, I did Unix administration for the School of Science for a small university. The server room was behind the NMR lab (with its large superconducting magnets) and I had to go through the NMR lab to get to the sever room. In fact, the sever room was also used to store a 100 litre tank of LN and 100 litre tank of LH. The tanks will not explode. In fact, they leak a tiny amount of nitrogen and helium all the time. Even in the closed sever room (it had its own AC, seperate from the building AC), this was not a problem.
Also, a PC is not like a superconducting magnet: It will not 'quench' and cause the LN to rapidly evaporate. Even if it did, a PC is not going to contain much LN - less than 1 litre. A magnet (at least back then) would have 50 (or more) litres of LN (and LH). The affect on a the nitrogen level of the 20x20 room was negligible, even at floor lever. And, if your PC did quench, the noise of the escaping gas would almost certainly wake your cat or dog (with the likely size of the relief orifice in the PC would result in a piecing ultrasonic whistle, which cats and dogs cat hear).
(FWIW, the most, be far, dangerous aspect of a magnet quench is the helium. But that clings to the ceiling. Being cold, it also condenses water vapor, forming a cloud.)
The idea that research needs to be done *before* you can have an (ideally patentable) product is often lost to the bean counters.
In my experience, "bean counters" just don't want to pay for research (or product development in general) - especially not before said research produces something that can be profitably marketed.
Possibly, pre-successful musicians need an honest union
A friend of mine once made the mistake of joining a musicians' union. Never did him any good, and now, he can't perform at all without first paying dues to said union. Even before the economy collapsed, he could not get enough money to be worth performing.
A good editing job would have turned a good novel into one that is worthy of him.
According to a friend of mine, who works in publishing, publishers no longer edit established authors. For that matter, they rarely sign authors whom obviously need editing or coaching. This both to save money and to reduce time-to-release.
I was thinking the same thing, what does the DMCA have to do with file-sharing?
The DMCA deals with Copy Right. Copy Right is the rights related to copying. According to the RIAA (and others) File Sharing is copying. Therefore, file sharing can be construde to be a DMCA violation (as well as a DTDCDIA violation).
Would you like an easy +5 Insightful response? Just point out the lightsaber is casting a shadow!
Even a lit light bulb casts a shadow. This is because it still interferes the passage of light through it from another light source. Even if you can't see the shadow, it is still there.
A non-replaceable lamp on an LCD projector? No thanks.
Given that its a "10,000 hour LED" it should last over a year of continuous use. At 8 hours a day every day it will last 3 years.
When you consider a "traditional" projector lamp lasts about 3000 hours, $450 for the whole unit is pretty darn good. The least costly replacement lamp I've seen is $100 and that was for a $600 (discounted price) projector, for a total of $900 (granted that gives you 12000 hours of lamp life).
On the other hand, my 94cm (37in) LCD television cost only $600 and its CCF back lighting has a rated half life of 50,000 hours. (I wonder how LED back lit units compare.)
Another factor in a Windows-centric corporate environment, SVN will function very usefully without a server. While I would prefer to have a proper repository server, the IT departments of most of my clients simply refuse to support anything outside a small range of "corporate esentials". Since a SVN repository on a file share is better than no VCS, that's what ends up being used.
If you ever get a couple months off work/school for any reason, try
Being a night person, I "fall" into a nocturnal schedule. But even when I am working a usual 8AM to 6PM (9 to 5 is a myth) schedule, I function better and am more creative the later in the day. Heck, I can get as little as 4 hour sleep, get to work by 8AM and still be wide awake and at a high level of mental function at 10PM (or later).
which is why my laptop, camera, and phone never leave my sight.
You don't have a choice. The TSA has the authority to seize anything. You either give it to them or get arrested and they take it anyway.
The issue here is that instead of following procedure and putting the items in the TSA system, the agent decided to keep them. This is not new. I remember, as a kid, reading about about a customs agent caught keeping items he had seized. Legally. The government charged him with stealing government property. The items in question where never returned to their original owners.
Slashdot Mirror
Ideally, there would no reason to let the PCs go home with the students.
In theory, PCs in the classrooms, library and a PC lab or 2 should be adequate. Work not done in class could be done before or after school, at the school.
In practice, too few schools are able to pay their teachers and/or staff to come in early, stay late, so that more than a few students can be allowed to do such work at school. Therefore, the perceived need to let students take their PCs home.
Or maybe the need is not merely perceived.
... I am a kid, 10h grader, and from what I've seen no, they wouldn't even know what the hell it was running. I know someone who deleted the windows folder because he installed windowblinds and thought he was no longer running windows.
That is very sad to read. Yes, I can understand some kids just not caring, but for them to be so totally ignorant they don't even have a clue is just plain unacceptable.
Also, a school district with kind of financing is *likely* in an area where they can afford it. School budgets are funded mostly from local taxes.
Hmm.. Now that I think of it, if a school district can afford this kind of purchase - even of low cost netbooks - for every student, then the families in said district should reasonably expected to be able to afford such computers for each of their kids.
Traveling moderately with laptops, mine have had a life expectancy of about 1 year.
Wow! I'm surprised you are still employed.
As a consultant, I take my compay owned laptap to client sites and manufacturing facilities all the time. Nevertheless, my employer fully expects that laptop to last at least 4 years and will expect me to pay for a replacement if it fails before then.
Likewise, my clients' engineers are also expected to use their company laptops for at least 3 years, preferably more, before failing.
On the hand, I do agree with you about the students. Their machines would likely not last even one school year.
Do Macs have BIOS passwords to prevent allowing anything other than the internal hard disk from being enabled for booting?
In the real world, the kids will have their own computers at home.
I would think this program is only being considered because few of the school's student have PCs at home, so the school is seeking to provide a resource not otherwise available.
They can get an old machine for ten bucks at a thrift store for that
You must have really good thrift stores. I have never seen anything computing device better than a (very old) game console at any thrift I've ever shopped. (And these days, I do almost all of my non-grocery shopping at thrift stores.)
Gasoline is replaced best by (bio)ethanol.
Actually, gasoline is best replaced by butanol. The problem is, butanol is more toxic to the microbes that produce it then ethanol is to the microbes that produce ethanol.
Visicalc came out for mac first....
Sorry. Visicalc was running on the IBM PC before Macs were made. It actually came out for Apple ][, first - before the IBM PC was made.
fonts, lines, drawings, and colors have to be PERFECT. Not "good enough" but as perfect as a printed page, every time, no mistakes
Even with the best tools on the best platform, humans still make plenty of mistakes. I am not saying those tools do not make it easier to avoid mistakes.
Maybe FOSS graphic design tools are poor, but I know some professional designers who are able to do great work with these tools.
On the other hand, I've been noticing more girls playing with "boys'" toys and in "boys'" activities.
One example, I've been seeing more girls playing laser tag - mixed teams, girls vs boys and girls vs girls.
Another example, I'm a member of a local robotics club that mentors several FIRST and FIRST Lego League teams. While I don't know the official statistics, I definitely see an increasing number of girls on the teams.
Also, from listening to the kids, I hear more and more girls talking about building electronics kits and even model railroads.
I suppose this could be a social reaction to increasing numbers of girls and/or "feminisation" pf boys (IE, the sons we don't have).
Having LIQUID NITROGEN in my desktop PC would seem to present maintenance and disaster potential an order of magnitude greater than that: what if the enclosure ruptures and explodes like a capacitor? What if it leaks nitrogen into the room and asphyxiates my cat sleeping on the floor?
Years ago, I did Unix administration for the School of Science for a small university. The server room was behind the NMR lab (with its large superconducting magnets) and I had to go through the NMR lab to get to the sever room. In fact, the sever room was also used to store a 100 litre tank of LN and 100 litre tank of LH. The tanks will not explode. In fact, they leak a tiny amount of nitrogen and helium all the time. Even in the closed sever room (it had its own AC, seperate from the building AC), this was not a problem.
Also, a PC is not like a superconducting magnet: It will not 'quench' and cause the LN to rapidly evaporate. Even if it did, a PC is not going to contain much LN - less than 1 litre. A magnet (at least back then) would have 50 (or more) litres of LN (and LH). The affect on a the nitrogen level of the 20x20 room was negligible, even at floor lever. And, if your PC did quench, the noise of the escaping gas would almost certainly wake your cat or dog (with the likely size of the relief orifice in the PC would result in a piecing ultrasonic whistle, which cats and dogs cat hear).
(FWIW, the most, be far, dangerous aspect of a magnet quench is the helium. But that clings to the ceiling. Being cold, it also condenses water vapor, forming a cloud.)
The idea that research needs to be done *before* you can have an (ideally patentable) product is often lost to the bean counters.
In my experience, "bean counters" just don't want to pay for research (or product development in general) - especially not before said research produces something that can be profitably marketed.
Possibly, pre-successful musicians need an honest union
A friend of mine once made the mistake of joining a musicians' union. Never did him any good, and now, he can't perform at all without first paying dues to said union. Even before the economy collapsed, he could not get enough money to be worth performing.
A good editing job would have turned a good novel into one that is worthy of him.
According to a friend of mine, who works in publishing, publishers no longer edit established authors. For that matter, they rarely sign authors whom obviously need editing or coaching. This both to save money and to reduce time-to-release.
I was thinking the same thing, what does the DMCA have to do with file-sharing?
The DMCA deals with Copy Right. Copy Right is the rights related to copying. According to the RIAA (and others) File Sharing is copying. Therefore, file sharing can be construde to be a DMCA violation (as well as a DTDCDIA violation).
Would you like an easy +5 Insightful response? Just point out the lightsaber is casting a shadow!
Even a lit light bulb casts a shadow. This is because it still interferes the passage of light through it from another light source. Even if you can't see the shadow, it is still there.
So if I get this right, 0.0.0.0 is a valid ip address?
In the context of obtaining an IP address from a DHCP (or BOOTP) server, the sender will use 0.0.0.0 as the source address.
A non-replaceable lamp on an LCD projector? No thanks.
Given that its a "10,000 hour LED" it should last over a year of continuous use. At 8 hours a day every day it will last 3 years.
When you consider a "traditional" projector lamp lasts about 3000 hours, $450 for the whole unit is pretty darn good. The least costly replacement lamp I've seen is $100 and that was for a $600 (discounted price) projector, for a total of $900 (granted that gives you 12000 hours of lamp life).
On the other hand, my 94cm (37in) LCD television cost only $600 and its CCF back lighting has a rated half life of 50,000 hours. (I wonder how LED back lit units compare.)
This was previously discussed: http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/09/06/2255254&from=rss
Presumably, they have filtering for "appropriate content"
Another factor in a Windows-centric corporate environment, SVN will function very usefully without a server. While I would prefer to have a proper repository server, the IT departments of most of my clients simply refuse to support anything outside a small range of "corporate esentials". Since a SVN repository on a file share is better than no VCS, that's what ends up being used.
If you ever get a couple months off work/school for any reason, try
Being a night person, I "fall" into a nocturnal schedule. But even when I am working a usual 8AM to 6PM (9 to 5 is a myth) schedule, I function better and am more creative the later in the day. Heck, I can get as little as 4 hour sleep, get to work by 8AM and still be wide awake and at a high level of mental function at 10PM (or later).
...why the TSA is allowed to open up packages without the presence of the owner of said packages.
Once an item is seized, it becomes property of the government. The TSA agent is an agent of the government, therefore, an agent of the owner.
which is why my laptop, camera, and phone never leave my sight.
You don't have a choice. The TSA has the authority to seize anything. You either give it to them or get arrested and they take it anyway.
The issue here is that instead of following procedure and putting the items in the TSA system, the agent decided to keep them. This is not new. I remember, as a kid, reading about about a customs agent caught keeping items he had seized. Legally. The government charged him with stealing government property. The items in question where never returned to their original owners.
I thought the companies bought the government, not the other way round (recent bailout bit aside)
And the bailout is return on investment
With a 63 character password, that is far more entropy than the 128 or 256 bits keys used for AES
Except that those 63 characters are being distilled down to those 16 (or 32) bytes of key material.