I would personally rather see lots of bat crime rather than a little gun crime. Unless you're extraordinarily big, or rather unlucky, you have to really mean it to kill someone with a bat. Or even a knife for that matter. With a gun you just have to be distracted.
And as far as swords go, how much cooler would it be if we had sword toting bad guys instead of gun toting ones? If our nightly cop dramas (or mob dramas) had lots of guys pulling katanas or rapiers at each other?
But on a more practical level, let's just get the automatics & semi-automatics out of circulation, and shit like at VA Tech won't happen.
What keeps a person from making an automatic then? I laugh at people who think taking a gun from someone would solve the problem. MOST OF THE PEOPLE THAT COMMIT CRIMES USE GUNS THEY POSSESS ILLEGALLY! If you told every person in the US right now they had to hand in their guns, do you think it would make a difference on crime statistics? Do you really think the crack head in LA is going to show up and hand over his hand gun? The law abiding people are the only people the law affects. The people committing the crimes couldn't care less if you tell them to give up their guns.
How about we get to the root of the problem, rather then making our selves feel better. The vast majority of murders are committed by people that are A) crazy or B) desperate. Those are the two we need to focus on because they are the highest risk to the general population. Someone killing someone because they are a scorned lover or because they had a face to face altercation are not as great of a risk to the greater population. Crazy people are generally the number one demographic for killing people on a large scale and are the greatest threat for random acts of violence. They should have far more restrictions placed on their interaction with society, and that alone would seriously cut down on incidents such as this. There also needs to be far better diagnosing and monitoring of people who are either troubled or potentially troubled. A kid such as the one involved in the VA Tech shooting had no business being in class, let alone around other kids.
I for one value the life of the functional member of society over those who are dysfunctional and dangerous. Those who have medical or psychological conditions that limit their ability to function in society need to be isolated and monitored. They may have rights, but their rights should not endanger other peoples rights and lives.
I prefer World of Warcraft because it feels a lot more polished. Even after beta, LOTRO never drew me in and the movements just felt too clumsy. In all reality, I just don't see myself getting into it.
It really isn't a very good point. What if I want to give someone else my IPOD? I give/sell my ipod with some songs on it, they upload them, I get sued. It's not like there is any responsible suing going on by the RIAA, they are just suing anyone who might be an easy target. Hell, they are even suing people who don't know why they are being sued.
You have to remember, even if the music is being shared, it's not the primary reason for this kind of restriction.
Oh boy.
Countries (including the US) raid and detain maritime vessels - shipping, scientific, etc - for a wide variety of reasons... not all of them overt.
I see a number of parallels from a cyberattack on a country to the US detaining money from shipments of sugar from brazil to russia calling it suspect for the drug trade. We can call it "Social Engineering", if you will, but the picture remains the same - countries have a variety of ways to wage war - economic, sociopolitical, psychological, even religious - without ever pulling a trigger or killing a soul.
Sadly the Bush Administration has nearly forgotten how to continue that fine, delicate art form, but there was once a time where we waged war entirely out of the realm of above board and open - not to say that the latest endeavours have been such either, but at least everyone knows it's the Americans killing people.
Whoa, set the bong down for a moment and step away from the Kerry poster. Before you go off on an underhanded political tirade, you might want to dip into the facts and history of government interactions.
As stated in Sun Tzu's "The Art of War", destroying the enemies possessions and people will always be second best to subverting his plans. The concepts have been around for centuries and are in practice around the world today. The area where you start to wander in your argument, is when you try to draw parallels between political actions you dislike. Just because you may lean in a political direction, it does not mean the opposition are the ones playing the games. The current administration plays all the same games as all the previous, as do the rest of the nations of the world.
The primary difference between embargo's or sanctions, and an open DoS attack is pretty dramatic. No where in a political move do you directly destroy or cripple services. You may withhold goods/services and you may convince other nations to do the same, but you do not physically attack the target. In a DoS attack, it is an act of direct aggression as you are actively defeating systems on the opposing governments soil. It is not at all a leap to consider a physical military retaliation for such attacks. It would be no different then if a bunch of men dressed in black broke into your server rooms and beat the machines with hammers.
Just as their are times that subtly and silence are golden, there are times when open military action is required. What makes a good leader (or adviser) is knowing the difference.
The list of primary hardware is relatively short when you consider what is making real penetration. If the 12 that asked for drivers are any of the larger companies in the market, it could be a big deal. It would be like if Broadcom were to come to their door and ask for real drivers that work... that right there would cover most newer laptops.
Actually I just have a gripe with people whose greatest achievement in life is burning a goddamned DVD. I call that a waste of carbon.
What about the people who have nothing better to do then sue makers of violent video games? At the very least someone burning a DVD is giving something back to society... either free media or the money from his enormous fines.
"That's because lupis is a disease and alcoholism is an addiction."
I agree, the definition of disease should not include alcoholism (as it's not so much biological problem as emotional/psychological addiction), but in fact it does qualify. Thanks to the convoluted English language, we have words like disease with definitions that are not similar.
According to Dictionary.com they definitions of disease are as follows:
1. a disordered or incorrectly functioning organ, part, structure, or system of the body resulting from the effect of genetic or developmental errors, infection, poisons, nutritional deficiency or imbalance, toxicity, or unfavorable environmental factors; illness; sickness; ailment.
2. any abnormal condition in a plant that interferes with its vital physiological processes, caused by pathogenic microorganisms, parasites, unfavorable environmental, genetic, or nutritional factors, etc.
3. any harmful, depraved, or morbid condition, as of the mind or society: His fascination with executions is a disease.
4. decomposition of a material under special circumstances: tin disease.
UO actually hemorrhaged after they screwed the game up, not because of EQ. I actually played both for several years, but EQ never was as well put together as Ultima Online. In fact, if you check the numbers, you will find a continued and quite substantial player base for Ultima Online. EQ actually tried to kill UO and it's other competitors with EQ2, but it was a flop and more EQ players stayed in the classical version rather then upgrading due to the pathetic gimmick nature of the new version.
The current handicap of UO is it's pathetic decline in quality and antiquated client. Ever since they split the world their player base has never recovered. That is not to say those players went to EQ, in fact, EQ lost players during the same time period when they started "improvements" as well. What was really happening was player base alienation. Over confident companies got greedy and lost focus on the fact people have to WANT to play and they can't MAKE them play.
If you want a reason for the success of WoW, look at it's perfected design and it's overwhelming adaptability. It has some of the trade flexibility of UO or EQ without the mindless short comings, it has simplified game play for the inferior or novice players, it has rich game art and well thought out environments, it has a very robust client that allows it to be run on antiquated machines, and it has the same Blizzard touches that the Diablo's and Starcraft's had. Make no mistake, Blizzard is not a one hit wonder like the others. They have proven this with Diablos, Starcrafts, Warcrafts that are over a decade old and still played and sold all over the world.
Just because something is open source doesn't mean the companies behind it should be stupid. If your a company worth any money at all and you don't have a nondisclosure agreement, you are asking for trouble. Disclosure can include but is not limited to trade secrets, operating design, business model, employee functions, business partners, future projects, prospective clients... the list goes on and on.
I find it this sort of thing very funny. I liken the concept to the idiots who believe open source is communism... not quite, but thanks for playing.
People are stupid. Why do you think people run out and buy a $40,000 SUV while gas prices are nearing $4 a gallon and the only use is to get groceries and haul around their 1.5 kids? Why do you think people are running out to buy a hybrid, when right now the best technology we can implement for the batteries only suggest a life of 3 years and the battery is the majority of the value of the car?
Same people are buying computers. Why do you think some of the worst systems make the most money? The average person doesn't know DDR RAM from a Dodge RAM, so when they walk in to buy a system they look at 3 key things: Price, Style, and Prestige. If the laptop looks like a brown box with lights, but boasts the best stats in the world, they average consumer will walk right past it for the Dell or HP that looks cuter. The operating system is all part of the style of the machine. If the OS looks good but not intimidating, they will love it. When it comes to price, if the laptop costs $900 with XP and a system costs $800 with Linux, they will most likely go with the cheaper solution (provided they are not looking for specific applications that are windows specific, and the sales person does not down talk the cheaper system for commission).
The prestige of a product comes form the water cooler gossip. If the office has a bunch of wanna be techs, then they will be talking up linux like there's no tomorrow. If the office is full of ignorant users, they will probably be down talking linux because they can't figure it out and all they see are limitations. This is the area that will most greatly affect the sales of the systems. If it's "cool" to have more people are likely to buy it.
A great example of this is the ipod trend. Ipods are nothing special, in fact they lack 80% of the features of the better MP3/Video players on the market, but they have all 3 areas covered. They are cute and simple, they are cheap, and they are the "cool" thing to have right now.
That's exactly it. People for many years bought Intel chips because they said 3ghz on the box while the AMDs said 2.2ghz. What people took a long time to figure out is that Intel was just bumping the cycles up so that it sounded faster, while the AMDs were getting more work done per tick. I always equated it to engines. You can have a 4 cylinder engine that makes 200 horse power at 7,500 rpms and a 8 cylinder engine that makes 200 horse power at 4,800 rpms. Even though one may have nearly double the rpms they do the same amount of work over time (the equation for horse power). If I increase the rpms (overclock) both, the one doing more work per cycle will have better gains.
It is about time that the processor races heated up again, maybe now we will get some real performance gains from the chips. I wonder who will be the first to product another chip that worked as much magic as the Thoroughbred B core in the over clocking world.
They are deployed for tracking, not crime fighting. It's no different then when the LAPD scrambles a police helicopter to go follow a high speed chase, except these will already be in the air, cheaper to maintain, and you won't really know when your being followed.
"I was looking for those in the article before I read your comment, but I didn't see one instance of any form of "pirate" or "infringe" in the article. So is there a reason that copyright infringement, such as through peer-to-peer file sharing networks, is not one of the top 10 Internet crimes of 2006?"
Copyright infringement is not the same as these criminal activities. It's a violation of the copyright, not a criminal act that can be prosecuted.
People always post averages like they represent statistics of significant variance. You have to remember, if you have a value range with extremes and you factor numbers associated (in the case population to earnings), you need to get a number that works for the majority, not a number that is in between then extremes to accurately reflect the total. If you take a 100 people and one of them makes a 1000 dollars and the rest make 1 dollar, the total will be 1099, so divided across 100 everyone made 10.99 right? Not really, according to that the vast majority is making 10x more then they really are.
*That makes sense in my head even if it didn't come out in the actual post*
Why is it law enforcements job to hunt down someone for using your network when you didn't even do the most basic attempts to protect it? People need to take responsibility for their actions... this includes the people who are hosting the network.
You lock your doors right? You don't leave your keys in your car when you go in the store? Why the hell would you leave your network open if you didn't want someone to bumble in?
Step 2, if they by pass the security, kick them in the ass really hard and ground them for a week from the computer.
Step 3 - If they continue to ignore your rules, conveniently "lose" them on a camping trip.
Seriously, my parents raised me (who was into computers since age 5) and never had problems with this. They would give me the beating of my life if I did some of the things these kids do. Of course they also just took the time to be parents and explained the world to me so I wasn't curios to do stupid things.
You have to have been smoking a little too much weed to think that a military goal does not drive and benefit peace time technology. You might want to scroll through some of the biggest and most widely applied technological breakthroughs of the last century and see how many were related to military research...
This is kind of a rant. Oh well. I have had some of the worst teachers and some of the best. The problem is that the teacher is just a medium between content and the student. In all reality I learned more when we worked in groups and used a reference then when the teacher lectured for hours on end. There are a lot of teachers right now that have not even adapted to use a computer effectivly, which is appalling.
After going through the educational process I realized that good teachers are by far a minority. Not to mention that just because a teacher is good at math, that should be the only think in life they know. Nothing is more pathetic then someone with a doctorate who can't even relate to the modern skills they are teaching. A great example of this is a hippie biology teacher I had, who refused to use a computer. He didn't think he should be required to learn anything more then he did when he attended college and his students suffered for it. On several occasions I called him on his inabilities and the fact he was only a teacher because he had been around so long they couldn't fire him.
My wife is getting her degree right now and I have to sit back and laugh at the teachers and their ineptitudes. How can a teacher be taken seriously when the students are helping them run their classes by setting up their discussions and organizing the email lists. Why should students suffer because a teacher hasn't joined the 20th century, let alone the 21st.
Learning doesn't end when your holding a degree. We need to hold the teachers in the US to higher standards. If they have been teaching for 30 years, but they are still teaching as they did 30 years ago, they either need to retire or modernize. Teaching is one of the only professions where they can remain as backwards and ineffective as they want and not lose their jobs.
You seriously underestimate the gaming market as well. Java is too slow to be a good foundation for anything that I do, and I have been developing with Java for several years. The framework is as much of a handicap as a benefit. I demand a much faster application with a wider robustness. Currently most of our developments are moving web based, so they are using scripts and active server pages, but we still have a lot of application development what occurs. It's just not feasible to use Java to do something when I know it will be slower and require more overhead then C++, Pearl, or.NET.
I would never buy a MAC. The OS will never work in a real world environment without the ability to support far more hardware and graphics engines. People forget that one of the biggest buyers of systems in the government, and we are always swapping hardware and shuffling systems around. At home I run a dual core 64 bit laptop, and it's barely up to par, but it's better then my friends MACBook Pro. That thing can scream with the applications developed specifically for the hardware, but it falls short on just about everything else and cost 4 times what my laptop did.
If MAC wanted to break into the market in any serious quantity, they would have to lower their prices and make a more robust offering with OSX, that's all there is to it. No old lady is going to front $2000+ for a good machine and no kids are going to buy a machine that requires specific hardware. There is a reason all the big system manufactures moved away from proprietary hardware designs. They would also have to move away from the hipster appeal and start marketing to real businesses. No one will use a product at home that is not used in business without good reason. I run Linux at home and it's a headache going between XP and Ubuntu, but it's worth it because it's free and stable.
I need a gallon bucket, 50 packages of spaghetti, white and black paint, and an assistant that doesn't mind getting a little dirty...
Seriously, what happened to all the artists? We use to have musicians, now we have pop stars. We use to have actors, now we have Tom Cruises. It defiantly does not look like we are headed in the right direction when the average movie costs around 34 million to produce, and several million of that is just amenities for the stars (hotels, gifts, trailers, misc demands).
Just because the study says something you don't want to hear is no reason to bash the study. There was a very legitimate goal in testing the systems right out of the box; Many users do not immediately download updates. I worked in tech support for a little while and still keep in contact with people in the field. The average Windows user is 6 months or more out of date, based on the calls received by tech support at an ISP I worked for. Whats worse is that many users buy a machine, then order an internet connection, but never get updates. There are several reasons why they don't, but the three most common I here are: 1) Ignorance (They don't know they need them) 2) Slow Connections (They don't want to wait 3 days for updates to download) 3) Incompatibility (They are afraid that if they download a patch from MS it will break something)
With 90% of the market being controlled by windows users and the majority of those users being nontechnical home users, you can see the problem. It is the exact reason the US tops the list for infected systems for viruses and spyware.
Your very optimistic. Of course, who ever posts that first copy of a movie that everyone references will be hit with a billion dollar lawsuit by the MPAA. They would scream bloody murder if it got even easier for people to collaborate. The biggest opponent to that Utopian ideology is going to be businesses and the conspiracy theorists.
Slashdot Mirror
How about we get to the root of the problem, rather then making our selves feel better. The vast majority of murders are committed by people that are A) crazy or B) desperate. Those are the two we need to focus on because they are the highest risk to the general population. Someone killing someone because they are a scorned lover or because they had a face to face altercation are not as great of a risk to the greater population. Crazy people are generally the number one demographic for killing people on a large scale and are the greatest threat for random acts of violence. They should have far more restrictions placed on their interaction with society, and that alone would seriously cut down on incidents such as this. There also needs to be far better diagnosing and monitoring of people who are either troubled or potentially troubled. A kid such as the one involved in the VA Tech shooting had no business being in class, let alone around other kids.
I for one value the life of the functional member of society over those who are dysfunctional and dangerous. Those who have medical or psychological conditions that limit their ability to function in society need to be isolated and monitored. They may have rights, but their rights should not endanger other peoples rights and lives.
I prefer World of Warcraft because it feels a lot more polished. Even after beta, LOTRO never drew me in and the movements just felt too clumsy. In all reality, I just don't see myself getting into it.
It really isn't a very good point. What if I want to give someone else my IPOD? I give/sell my ipod with some songs on it, they upload them, I get sued. It's not like there is any responsible suing going on by the RIAA, they are just suing anyone who might be an easy target. Hell, they are even suing people who don't know why they are being sued. You have to remember, even if the music is being shared, it's not the primary reason for this kind of restriction.
As stated in Sun Tzu's "The Art of War", destroying the enemies possessions and people will always be second best to subverting his plans. The concepts have been around for centuries and are in practice around the world today. The area where you start to wander in your argument, is when you try to draw parallels between political actions you dislike. Just because you may lean in a political direction, it does not mean the opposition are the ones playing the games. The current administration plays all the same games as all the previous, as do the rest of the nations of the world.
The primary difference between embargo's or sanctions, and an open DoS attack is pretty dramatic. No where in a political move do you directly destroy or cripple services. You may withhold goods/services and you may convince other nations to do the same, but you do not physically attack the target. In a DoS attack, it is an act of direct aggression as you are actively defeating systems on the opposing governments soil. It is not at all a leap to consider a physical military retaliation for such attacks. It would be no different then if a bunch of men dressed in black broke into your server rooms and beat the machines with hammers.
Just as their are times that subtly and silence are golden, there are times when open military action is required. What makes a good leader (or adviser) is knowing the difference.
The list of primary hardware is relatively short when you consider what is making real penetration. If the 12 that asked for drivers are any of the larger companies in the market, it could be a big deal. It would be like if Broadcom were to come to their door and ask for real drivers that work... that right there would cover most newer laptops.
What about the people who have nothing better to do then sue makers of violent video games? At the very least someone burning a DVD is giving something back to society... either free media or the money from his enormous fines.
Why can't they be one in the same?
"That's because lupis is a disease and alcoholism is an addiction."
I agree, the definition of disease should not include alcoholism (as it's not so much biological problem as emotional/psychological addiction), but in fact it does qualify. Thanks to the convoluted English language, we have words like disease with definitions that are not similar.
According to Dictionary.com they definitions of disease are as follows:
1. a disordered or incorrectly functioning organ, part, structure, or system of the body resulting from the effect of genetic or developmental errors, infection, poisons, nutritional deficiency or imbalance, toxicity, or unfavorable environmental factors; illness; sickness; ailment.
2. any abnormal condition in a plant that interferes with its vital physiological processes, caused by pathogenic microorganisms, parasites, unfavorable environmental, genetic, or nutritional factors, etc.
3. any harmful, depraved, or morbid condition, as of the mind or society: His fascination with executions is a disease.
4. decomposition of a material under special circumstances: tin disease.
-verb (used with object)
5. to affect with disease; make ill.
UO actually hemorrhaged after they screwed the game up, not because of EQ. I actually played both for several years, but EQ never was as well put together as Ultima Online. In fact, if you check the numbers, you will find a continued and quite substantial player base for Ultima Online. EQ actually tried to kill UO and it's other competitors with EQ2, but it was a flop and more EQ players stayed in the classical version rather then upgrading due to the pathetic gimmick nature of the new version. The current handicap of UO is it's pathetic decline in quality and antiquated client. Ever since they split the world their player base has never recovered. That is not to say those players went to EQ, in fact, EQ lost players during the same time period when they started "improvements" as well. What was really happening was player base alienation. Over confident companies got greedy and lost focus on the fact people have to WANT to play and they can't MAKE them play. If you want a reason for the success of WoW, look at it's perfected design and it's overwhelming adaptability. It has some of the trade flexibility of UO or EQ without the mindless short comings, it has simplified game play for the inferior or novice players, it has rich game art and well thought out environments, it has a very robust client that allows it to be run on antiquated machines, and it has the same Blizzard touches that the Diablo's and Starcraft's had. Make no mistake, Blizzard is not a one hit wonder like the others. They have proven this with Diablos, Starcrafts, Warcrafts that are over a decade old and still played and sold all over the world.
Just because something is open source doesn't mean the companies behind it should be stupid. If your a company worth any money at all and you don't have a nondisclosure agreement, you are asking for trouble. Disclosure can include but is not limited to trade secrets, operating design, business model, employee functions, business partners, future projects, prospective clients... the list goes on and on.
I find it this sort of thing very funny. I liken the concept to the idiots who believe open source is communism... not quite, but thanks for playing.
People are stupid. Why do you think people run out and buy a $40,000 SUV while gas prices are nearing $4 a gallon and the only use is to get groceries and haul around their 1.5 kids? Why do you think people are running out to buy a hybrid, when right now the best technology we can implement for the batteries only suggest a life of 3 years and the battery is the majority of the value of the car? Same people are buying computers. Why do you think some of the worst systems make the most money? The average person doesn't know DDR RAM from a Dodge RAM, so when they walk in to buy a system they look at 3 key things: Price, Style, and Prestige. If the laptop looks like a brown box with lights, but boasts the best stats in the world, they average consumer will walk right past it for the Dell or HP that looks cuter. The operating system is all part of the style of the machine. If the OS looks good but not intimidating, they will love it. When it comes to price, if the laptop costs $900 with XP and a system costs $800 with Linux, they will most likely go with the cheaper solution (provided they are not looking for specific applications that are windows specific, and the sales person does not down talk the cheaper system for commission). The prestige of a product comes form the water cooler gossip. If the office has a bunch of wanna be techs, then they will be talking up linux like there's no tomorrow. If the office is full of ignorant users, they will probably be down talking linux because they can't figure it out and all they see are limitations. This is the area that will most greatly affect the sales of the systems. If it's "cool" to have more people are likely to buy it. A great example of this is the ipod trend. Ipods are nothing special, in fact they lack 80% of the features of the better MP3/Video players on the market, but they have all 3 areas covered. They are cute and simple, they are cheap, and they are the "cool" thing to have right now.
That's exactly it. People for many years bought Intel chips because they said 3ghz on the box while the AMDs said 2.2ghz. What people took a long time to figure out is that Intel was just bumping the cycles up so that it sounded faster, while the AMDs were getting more work done per tick. I always equated it to engines. You can have a 4 cylinder engine that makes 200 horse power at 7,500 rpms and a 8 cylinder engine that makes 200 horse power at 4,800 rpms. Even though one may have nearly double the rpms they do the same amount of work over time (the equation for horse power). If I increase the rpms (overclock) both, the one doing more work per cycle will have better gains. It is about time that the processor races heated up again, maybe now we will get some real performance gains from the chips. I wonder who will be the first to product another chip that worked as much magic as the Thoroughbred B core in the over clocking world.
They are deployed for tracking, not crime fighting. It's no different then when the LAPD scrambles a police helicopter to go follow a high speed chase, except these will already be in the air, cheaper to maintain, and you won't really know when your being followed.
"I was looking for those in the article before I read your comment, but I didn't see one instance of any form of "pirate" or "infringe" in the article. So is there a reason that copyright infringement, such as through peer-to-peer file sharing networks, is not one of the top 10 Internet crimes of 2006?"
Copyright infringement is not the same as these criminal activities. It's a violation of the copyright, not a criminal act that can be prosecuted.
People always post averages like they represent statistics of significant variance. You have to remember, if you have a value range with extremes and you factor numbers associated (in the case population to earnings), you need to get a number that works for the majority, not a number that is in between then extremes to accurately reflect the total. If you take a 100 people and one of them makes a 1000 dollars and the rest make 1 dollar, the total will be 1099, so divided across 100 everyone made 10.99 right? Not really, according to that the vast majority is making 10x more then they really are. *That makes sense in my head even if it didn't come out in the actual post*
Why is it law enforcements job to hunt down someone for using your network when you didn't even do the most basic attempts to protect it? People need to take responsibility for their actions... this includes the people who are hosting the network. You lock your doors right? You don't leave your keys in your car when you go in the store? Why the hell would you leave your network open if you didn't want someone to bumble in?
Step 1, tell them not to do it.
Step 2, if they by pass the security, kick them in the ass really hard and ground them for a week from the computer.
Step 3 - If they continue to ignore your rules, conveniently "lose" them on a camping trip.
Seriously, my parents raised me (who was into computers since age 5) and never had problems with this. They would give me the beating of my life if I did some of the things these kids do. Of course they also just took the time to be parents and explained the world to me so I wasn't curios to do stupid things.
You have to have been smoking a little too much weed to think that a military goal does not drive and benefit peace time technology. You might want to scroll through some of the biggest and most widely applied technological breakthroughs of the last century and see how many were related to military research...
This is kind of a rant. Oh well. I have had some of the worst teachers and some of the best. The problem is that the teacher is just a medium between content and the student. In all reality I learned more when we worked in groups and used a reference then when the teacher lectured for hours on end. There are a lot of teachers right now that have not even adapted to use a computer effectivly, which is appalling.
After going through the educational process I realized that good teachers are by far a minority. Not to mention that just because a teacher is good at math, that should be the only think in life they know. Nothing is more pathetic then someone with a doctorate who can't even relate to the modern skills they are teaching. A great example of this is a hippie biology teacher I had, who refused to use a computer. He didn't think he should be required to learn anything more then he did when he attended college and his students suffered for it. On several occasions I called him on his inabilities and the fact he was only a teacher because he had been around so long they couldn't fire him.
My wife is getting her degree right now and I have to sit back and laugh at the teachers and their ineptitudes. How can a teacher be taken seriously when the students are helping them run their classes by setting up their discussions and organizing the email lists. Why should students suffer because a teacher hasn't joined the 20th century, let alone the 21st.
Learning doesn't end when your holding a degree. We need to hold the teachers in the US to higher standards. If they have been teaching for 30 years, but they are still teaching as they did 30 years ago, they either need to retire or modernize. Teaching is one of the only professions where they can remain as backwards and ineffective as they want and not lose their jobs.
You seriously underestimate the gaming market as well. Java is too slow to be a good foundation for anything that I do, and I have been developing with Java for several years. The framework is as much of a handicap as a benefit. I demand a much faster application with a wider robustness. Currently most of our developments are moving web based, so they are using scripts and active server pages, but we still have a lot of application development what occurs. It's just not feasible to use Java to do something when I know it will be slower and require more overhead then C++, Pearl, or .NET.
I would never buy a MAC. The OS will never work in a real world environment without the ability to support far more hardware and graphics engines. People forget that one of the biggest buyers of systems in the government, and we are always swapping hardware and shuffling systems around. At home I run a dual core 64 bit laptop, and it's barely up to par, but it's better then my friends MACBook Pro. That thing can scream with the applications developed specifically for the hardware, but it falls short on just about everything else and cost 4 times what my laptop did.
If MAC wanted to break into the market in any serious quantity, they would have to lower their prices and make a more robust offering with OSX, that's all there is to it. No old lady is going to front $2000+ for a good machine and no kids are going to buy a machine that requires specific hardware. There is a reason all the big system manufactures moved away from proprietary hardware designs. They would also have to move away from the hipster appeal and start marketing to real businesses. No one will use a product at home that is not used in business without good reason. I run Linux at home and it's a headache going between XP and Ubuntu, but it's worth it because it's free and stable.
I need a gallon bucket, 50 packages of spaghetti, white and black paint, and an assistant that doesn't mind getting a little dirty... Seriously, what happened to all the artists? We use to have musicians, now we have pop stars. We use to have actors, now we have Tom Cruises. It defiantly does not look like we are headed in the right direction when the average movie costs around 34 million to produce, and several million of that is just amenities for the stars (hotels, gifts, trailers, misc demands).
Just because the study says something you don't want to hear is no reason to bash the study. There was a very legitimate goal in testing the systems right out of the box; Many users do not immediately download updates. I worked in tech support for a little while and still keep in contact with people in the field. The average Windows user is 6 months or more out of date, based on the calls received by tech support at an ISP I worked for. Whats worse is that many users buy a machine, then order an internet connection, but never get updates. There are several reasons why they don't, but the three most common I here are:
1) Ignorance (They don't know they need them)
2) Slow Connections (They don't want to wait 3 days for updates to download)
3) Incompatibility (They are afraid that if they download a patch from MS it will break something)
With 90% of the market being controlled by windows users and the majority of those users being nontechnical home users, you can see the problem. It is the exact reason the US tops the list for infected systems for viruses and spyware.
Yeah, you hack and slash the explorer.exe and pray the M$ gods favor your creation.
Whats worse is that some of those surveyed might not be in Alabama...
Your very optimistic. Of course, who ever posts that first copy of a movie that everyone references will be hit with a billion dollar lawsuit by the MPAA. They would scream bloody murder if it got even easier for people to collaborate. The biggest opponent to that Utopian ideology is going to be businesses and the conspiracy theorists.