For now, it will only be able to collide small and medium Hadrons...
After spending all that money reprinting their stationary to "MHC", the committee decided to rename it "Kinda Large Hadron Collider". That way if they ever get it working full, they only have to cut the "K" off of "KLHC" instead of order new stationary.
Unfortunately, they had some difficulty making the switch... When the person in charge of replacing the old material with the new was asked why he had not completed the job, he said simply, "I can't move that. It's stationary."
So saying that one can't boycott Nintendo 'cause there's no equivalent alternatives to Smash Bros. or Mario Party isn't quite true.
I wasn't saying it was true. I was asking other Slashdot readers whether one existed. The kind of answer I was looking for is "They exist, and they're called A, B, and C" or "They don exits, and here's why publishers don't deem it worthwhile to make one".
You were suggesting that the answer to that question had some bearing on whether it was possible to boycott Nintendo...
My point is simply that if that is the case, then Nintendo basically already owns your ass.
The problem there is that we all seem to have this sense of entitlement. Many people apparently don't consider it an option to simply do without these things.
I can't think of a car analogy, so I'll think of a soft drink analogy. Imagine a market for cola in which 50 million people drink Pepsi and 50 million drink Coke. If a million Pepsi drinkers stop drinking cola, Pepsi's market share drops to 49.5 percent. But if instead a million Pepsi drinkers switch to Coke, Pepsi's market share drops further: to 49 percent. So letters to PepsiCo stating "I'm switching to Coke" would appear more effective than just stating "I'm not drinking Pepsi anymore".
Yes, that's true...
But if there were no alternative to drinking Coke, then writing to Coke and saying "I would boycott you, except that I haven't found an alternative to your product yet" does no good. All it does is tell them that they have you over a barrel.
So saying that one can't boycott Nintendo 'cause there's no equivalent alternatives to Smash Bros. or Mario Party isn't quite true. One can boycott Nintendo - they just have to be willing to accept the price of doing so.
You aren't buying material. You are paying for a license to use the material in a certain way.
When you buy a game console, does the store have you sign some licensing document? No? Then the "you don't own, you're just licensing" theory is a steaming pile of horseshit.
These game consoles are the rightful property of their owners, who can rightfully use them in an consensual act, including hiring someone to repair or modify them.
Ah, but most of the consoles people care about these days haven't reached the age of consent...
If you are looking for a place to take the pitchfork and torch mob, it really ought to be the console manufacturers. And if you think their business model is awful, your primary avenue of activism is to not buy their product.
A boycott generally starts "I'm not buying your product anymore; instead, I'm buying product X from vendor Y." But what PC game in the same genre as Mario Party series or Super Smash Bros. series do you recommend?
A boycott doesn't require buying a competing product. A boycott could also simply be "I like this but I'm not happy with the terms - I don't need it badly enough to accept this."
The problem there is that we all seem to have this sense of entitlement. Many people apparently don't consider it an option to simply do without these things. That's one of the basic reasons why consumers are ineffective at asserting their rights.
Couple of points to make here. First is that laws don't prevent crimes. The consequences of breaking the law, however, may be a deterrent. Second is that because of this, creating new prohibitive laws as a means to the ends of curtailing unwanted/unacceptable behavior is a flawed premise.
How so? It seems to me that this kind of approach isn't perfect (nothing is) but the rules are every bit as effective while being easier to enforce. In the context of cell phones in the class room an excessively prohibitive rule would be easier to enforce because it removes any sort of judgement from the equation. Rather than "is this cell phone really disrupting the class?" it's simply "is there a cell phone?"
Making the rules fair is generally a good thing and I'm in favor of it... But I sympathize with those who need to include enforcing the rules as part of the incidental responsibilities in their job, too.
"Where will we go to buy soldering irons and those RCA to headphone jack adapters now?"
Digikey?
Here in the Boston Area, there's the Your-Do-It... Man, that place is glorious. I think I wouldn't be able to go there and buy all the parts I might need (for instance, 30 AWG stranded wire, white 2mm axial LEDs, microcontrollers) but about half of their first floor is dedicated to parts, kits, tools, and supplies. (The other half of the first floor is electronic educational toys, security products, etc., and then upstairs there's audio/video gear...)
The selection is the same? Really? When was the last time you bought an op-amp at Wal-mart?
Try buying one at Radio Shack:
"A what?"
"Nevermind, I'll find it myself."
"Do you want to upgrade your phone with that?"
Well, I have had that experience at Radio Shack, and I remember the days when I at least didn't expect that would be the case...
However, a couple Radio Shacks around me actually are pretty competent when it comes to their (rather small, but reasonably well-stocked) parts sections... I think if I went to Woburn Mall and asked for an op-amp - probably some of the employees there would just point me at the parts section, maybe a couple (including the manager) would be able to readily tell me whether they stock them, and would find it for me if I couldn't find it myself.
Back in the day was when geeks didn't think of "time to live" when hearing TTL...
Let's face it, the times of the soldering iron are past. Sure, I enjoy a bit of soldering every now and then, but even my soldering needs can't keep a shop alive.
I would agree in the sense that the homebrew electronics hobby is insufficient to sustain a store in a mall... But the hobby isn't dead (look to Make Magazine, for instance) - it just can't sustain a retail store in a prime location, particularly given the existence of online stores, etc.
I couldn't help but think if this was 10, 15 years ago not only would I not have gotten a blank stare, if it was that slow they might have offered to even make it while i was there.
Nah, that's not quite far enough back... At least, not in the Radio Shacks I'm familiar with. In the mid-Nineties the stores were roughly as they are now. Maybe fewer cell phones and more VCRs and DVD players, but the reduction of the parts section and the blank stare effect were in full force at that point.
Mid to late 1980s you might have had better luck. I still can't imagine the folks at Radio Shack building anything for me, but they'd be happy to show me their selection of soldering irons...
Honestly, though, while the hobbyist aspect of Radio Shack has declined a lot since I was a kid, I have been impressed from time to time with what they do have. For instance, they carry a kit + activity book to help people learn to use microcontrollers. That's damn cool IMO. I never would have thought I'd see such a thing in Radio Shack these days: from about 1995 onward I've been pretty cynical about them due to the vast reduction in the parts section.
>>>The problem, as I see it, is phone use during class... Not phone possession during class. The trick is making sure students understand that it is never OK to use the phone during class. In my experience school teachers aren't good at instituting such "zero tolerance" policies - nobody likes to be the one who has to lay down the law like that. >>>>>>>>>>
When did teachers turn-into such pussies?
If I were a teacher, I'd have absolutely no problem taking a disobedient kid's stuff away from him, and thereby force the kid to sit there at an empty desk and listen.
Easier said than done, IMO. Among other things, even if you think of your students as "children" or "subordinates" they are still people with whom you need to work productively on a regular basis. Being endlessly forceful or confrontational is also quite wearying,
In my day (today) we shun Luddites and like thinkers that believe old/no technology is sufficient. The school, nor any other entity aside from the FCC should have control over cell phone transmissions. Besides, why don't they have a rule for on-premises cell phone usage, then simply enforce it when someone is caught breaking it? In my high-school days I was reprimanded numerous times for breaking numerous rules... seems to have worked for my generation!
The reason is because when a certain kind of misbehavior is common enough, it is often a more effective use of resources to block the offense indiscriminately rather than selectively.
For instance, drunk driving is illegal... But driving with a BAC that doesn't fit the local definition of "drunk driving" can still be dangerous. Hence, for instance, open container laws, and various discretionary or catch-all offenses an officer can use to arrest someone if they think it's necessary. (Though officers are human, too, and so some of them abuse this power... It's an imperfect system.)
Likewise, restrictions on the use and possession of drugs, firearms, fireworks, explosives, and so on. Making it illegal to carry a knife is more effective than just making it illegal to stab somebody - 'cause you don't have to catch somebody in the act, you can just see they've come prepared. I acknowledge that this also compromises one's personal freedoms - to me this is a complicated issue.
The purist in me hates this kind of crap. As a student I would have found it unacceptable for teachers to tell me I couldn't carry something which might be capable of causing a disruption in class. If I'm not disrupting class, it's not an issue, right? But I have a pragmatic side as well, which says the people enforcing the rules have limited resources, and they've got a job to do. Some sacrifices are worthwhile if they produce the intended result.
Just get the teachers to TAKE AWAY THE DAMNED PHONE if there's an issue.
...Which naturally steals valuable class time. I prefer the time for education part.
The education part would be better served, of course, if the student didn't cause a disruption in the first place.
Sacrificing a small amount of time to confront a student who's causing a disruption, giving them the option to either A: turn over their phone for the remainder of the class period, B: call their parents to tell them they've been suspended - naturally, that is wasted class time... But by discouraging further disruptions it is a gamble which could pay off by preventing further disruptions...
Slashdot Mirror
Ah, but most of the consoles people care about these days haven't reached the age of consent...
Nintendo is over a hundred years old.
Nintendo the company is. But the Gamecube is... what, eight? And the Wii is like two or three?
Yes but the Super Nintendo is 19 :-)
Whoo! "Barely legal"!
After spending all that money reprinting their stationary to "MHC", the committee decided to rename it "Kinda Large Hadron Collider". That way if they ever get it working full, they only have to cut the "K" off of "KLHC" instead of order new stationary.
Unfortunately, they had some difficulty making the switch... When the person in charge of replacing the old material with the new was asked why he had not completed the job, he said simply, "I can't move that. It's stationary."
Since both have an ATI graphics chip the choice is easy, neither.
The Aspire One has an Intel graphics chipset. If you'd really rather run that instead of an ATI chipset, be my guest...
A device with a 9" screen and 8+ hours of battery life is a netbook. A device with a 12" screen and just 5 hours of battery life is a sub-notebook.
Or, you know, a notebook...
Is my 12" Powerbook with 5-hour battery life now retroactively a netbook?
You really get 5 hours with that thing? I'm lucky to get three with mine...
My EEE 901, on the other hand, claims six or seven hours and I get about five. And it runs Linux. I am so happy with that machine. :)
I knew I should have read my copy of Forrest Mims's "Getting Started in Electronics" more carefully before working on the Large Hadron Collider!
So saying that one can't boycott Nintendo 'cause there's no equivalent alternatives to Smash Bros. or Mario Party isn't quite true.
I wasn't saying it was true. I was asking other Slashdot readers whether one existed. The kind of answer I was looking for is "They exist, and they're called A, B, and C" or "They don exits, and here's why publishers don't deem it worthwhile to make one".
You were suggesting that the answer to that question had some bearing on whether it was possible to boycott Nintendo...
My point is simply that if that is the case, then Nintendo basically already owns your ass.
The problem there is that we all seem to have this sense of entitlement. Many people apparently don't consider it an option to simply do without these things.
I can't think of a car analogy, so I'll think of a soft drink analogy. Imagine a market for cola in which 50 million people drink Pepsi and 50 million drink Coke. If a million Pepsi drinkers stop drinking cola, Pepsi's market share drops to 49.5 percent. But if instead a million Pepsi drinkers switch to Coke, Pepsi's market share drops further: to 49 percent. So letters to PepsiCo stating "I'm switching to Coke" would appear more effective than just stating "I'm not drinking Pepsi anymore".
Yes, that's true...
But if there were no alternative to drinking Coke, then writing to Coke and saying "I would boycott you, except that I haven't found an alternative to your product yet" does no good. All it does is tell them that they have you over a barrel.
So saying that one can't boycott Nintendo 'cause there's no equivalent alternatives to Smash Bros. or Mario Party isn't quite true. One can boycott Nintendo - they just have to be willing to accept the price of doing so.
Ah, but most of the consoles people care about these days haven't reached the age of consent...
Nintendo is over a hundred years old.
Nintendo the company is. But the Gamecube is... what, eight? And the Wii is like two or three?
Its true, just bing "Android Fridge".
I didn't know what "bing" means so I had to google it...
Hey, it's a living.
You're dead to me, can opener!
When you buy a game console, does the store have you sign some licensing document? No? Then the "you don't own, you're just licensing" theory is a steaming pile of horseshit.
These game consoles are the rightful property of their owners, who can rightfully use them in an consensual act, including hiring someone to repair or modify them.
Ah, but most of the consoles people care about these days haven't reached the age of consent...
If you are looking for a place to take the pitchfork and torch mob, it really ought to be the console manufacturers. And if you think their business model is awful, your primary avenue of activism is to not buy their product.
A boycott generally starts "I'm not buying your product anymore; instead, I'm buying product X from vendor Y." But what PC game in the same genre as Mario Party series or Super Smash Bros. series do you recommend?
A boycott doesn't require buying a competing product. A boycott could also simply be "I like this but I'm not happy with the terms - I don't need it badly enough to accept this."
The problem there is that we all seem to have this sense of entitlement. Many people apparently don't consider it an option to simply do without these things. That's one of the basic reasons why consumers are ineffective at asserting their rights.
According to the article there were 'dozens' of hacked consoles found. It seems very likely that he was running a modding service.
The fiend!
Couple of points to make here. First is that laws don't prevent crimes. The consequences of breaking the law, however, may be a deterrent. Second is that because of this, creating new prohibitive laws as a means to the ends of curtailing unwanted/unacceptable behavior is a flawed premise.
How so? It seems to me that this kind of approach isn't perfect (nothing is) but the rules are every bit as effective while being easier to enforce. In the context of cell phones in the class room an excessively prohibitive rule would be easier to enforce because it removes any sort of judgement from the equation. Rather than "is this cell phone really disrupting the class?" it's simply "is there a cell phone?"
Making the rules fair is generally a good thing and I'm in favor of it... But I sympathize with those who need to include enforcing the rules as part of the incidental responsibilities in their job, too.
"Where will we go to buy soldering irons and those RCA to headphone jack adapters now?"
Digikey?
Here in the Boston Area, there's the Your-Do-It... Man, that place is glorious. I think I wouldn't be able to go there and buy all the parts I might need (for instance, 30 AWG stranded wire, white 2mm axial LEDs, microcontrollers) but about half of their first floor is dedicated to parts, kits, tools, and supplies. (The other half of the first floor is electronic educational toys, security products, etc., and then upstairs there's audio/video gear...)
So that's where I go to buy soldering irons...
The selection is the same? Really? When was the last time you bought an op-amp at Wal-mart?
Try buying one at Radio Shack:
"A what?"
"Nevermind, I'll find it myself."
"Do you want to upgrade your phone with that?"
Well, I have had that experience at Radio Shack, and I remember the days when I at least didn't expect that would be the case...
However, a couple Radio Shacks around me actually are pretty competent when it comes to their (rather small, but reasonably well-stocked) parts sections... I think if I went to Woburn Mall and asked for an op-amp - probably some of the employees there would just point me at the parts section, maybe a couple (including the manager) would be able to readily tell me whether they stock them, and would find it for me if I couldn't find it myself.
Back in the day was when geeks didn't think of "time to live" when hearing TTL...
Let's face it, the times of the soldering iron are past. Sure, I enjoy a bit of soldering every now and then, but even my soldering needs can't keep a shop alive.
I would agree in the sense that the homebrew electronics hobby is insufficient to sustain a store in a mall... But the hobby isn't dead (look to Make Magazine, for instance) - it just can't sustain a retail store in a prime location, particularly given the existence of online stores, etc.
I couldn't help but think if this was 10, 15 years ago not only would I not have gotten a blank stare, if it was that slow they might have offered to even make it while i was there.
Nah, that's not quite far enough back... At least, not in the Radio Shacks I'm familiar with. In the mid-Nineties the stores were roughly as they are now. Maybe fewer cell phones and more VCRs and DVD players, but the reduction of the parts section and the blank stare effect were in full force at that point.
Mid to late 1980s you might have had better luck. I still can't imagine the folks at Radio Shack building anything for me, but they'd be happy to show me their selection of soldering irons...
Honestly, though, while the hobbyist aspect of Radio Shack has declined a lot since I was a kid, I have been impressed from time to time with what they do have. For instance, they carry a kit + activity book to help people learn to use microcontrollers. That's damn cool IMO. I never would have thought I'd see such a thing in Radio Shack these days: from about 1995 onward I've been pretty cynical about them due to the vast reduction in the parts section.
>>>The problem, as I see it, is phone use during class... Not phone possession during class. The trick is making sure students understand that it is never OK to use the phone during class. In my experience school teachers aren't good at instituting such "zero tolerance" policies - nobody likes to be the one who has to lay down the law like that.
>>>>>>>>>>
When did teachers turn-into such pussies?
If I were a teacher, I'd have absolutely no problem taking a disobedient kid's stuff away from him, and thereby force the kid to sit there at an empty desk and listen.
Easier said than done, IMO. Among other things, even if you think of your students as "children" or "subordinates" they are still people with whom you need to work productively on a regular basis. Being endlessly forceful or confrontational is also quite wearying,
In my day (today) we shun Luddites and like thinkers that believe old/no technology is sufficient. The school, nor any other entity aside from the FCC should have control over cell phone transmissions. Besides, why don't they have a rule for on-premises cell phone usage, then simply enforce it when someone is caught breaking it? In my high-school days I was reprimanded numerous times for breaking numerous rules... seems to have worked for my generation!
The reason is because when a certain kind of misbehavior is common enough, it is often a more effective use of resources to block the offense indiscriminately rather than selectively.
For instance, drunk driving is illegal... But driving with a BAC that doesn't fit the local definition of "drunk driving" can still be dangerous. Hence, for instance, open container laws, and various discretionary or catch-all offenses an officer can use to arrest someone if they think it's necessary. (Though officers are human, too, and so some of them abuse this power... It's an imperfect system.)
Likewise, restrictions on the use and possession of drugs, firearms, fireworks, explosives, and so on. Making it illegal to carry a knife is more effective than just making it illegal to stab somebody - 'cause you don't have to catch somebody in the act, you can just see they've come prepared. I acknowledge that this also compromises one's personal freedoms - to me this is a complicated issue.
The purist in me hates this kind of crap. As a student I would have found it unacceptable for teachers to tell me I couldn't carry something which might be capable of causing a disruption in class. If I'm not disrupting class, it's not an issue, right? But I have a pragmatic side as well, which says the people enforcing the rules have limited resources, and they've got a job to do. Some sacrifices are worthwhile if they produce the intended result.
You're One in a Million
Thank you!
I really have to say I enjoyed this comment quite a lot. XD
Just get the teachers to TAKE AWAY THE DAMNED PHONE if there's an issue.
...Which naturally steals valuable class time. I prefer the time for education part.
The education part would be better served, of course, if the student didn't cause a disruption in the first place.
Sacrificing a small amount of time to confront a student who's causing a disruption, giving them the option to either A: turn over their phone for the remainder of the class period, B: call their parents to tell them they've been suspended - naturally, that is wasted class time... But by discouraging further disruptions it is a gamble which could pay off by preventing further disruptions...
the FD will not enter a building where there are known radio problems>
Where did you get this "fact"?
It was obtained via manual self-exploratory rectal extraction!