At least I proposed a few on-going solutions for the problem of education inequality at the secondary level. What do you propose to do?
I guess I was a bit more forceful in my response than I intended as I seem to have got under your skin a bit, and I did not mean this to be that personal of a debate. I apologise for any personal offense you may have taken at my remarks, but being one of those smart guys that had the bad luck to be born in a slum waste half my life merely to claw my way into respectable society, I guess I might have "issues" about socio-economic status in general and the colossal failure of the educational system in North America.:-) My bad, my bias I guess.
I am certainly pleased to hear (if true), that some schools in your area actually seem to *actively* seek out poor kids who are smart and take them under their wing, but I would argue that this is far from the norm. I was making a generalised argument about higher education as I have experienced it, not trying to say that "no school anywhere" is any good.
However I do think that I have the experience and the background to support the comments I made. I have personal experience of the situation from both sides. First, from the point of view of being denied opportunities due to my "class" in my youth, and secondly from working for almost 20 years at an Institution of "higher learning."
My point was that the old saw about "if you have enough hutzpah and drive you can still get a higher education and succeed, blah, blah, etc...." is simply not true. Historically, this idea (usually related more to a capitalistic or economic success story), is one of the central myths of the American people, so I can understand people's unwillingness to let it go, but that doesn't make it true.
The occasional person that "pulls themselves up by their bootstraps" does not invalidate the reality of the life-long struggle of those people who don't make it because they had the unfortunate luck to be born poor. Sure, there is the odd "rags to riches" story; there always is. However, this just disguises the fact that the vast majority of people born into the "wrong" socio-economic class *will* have horrible lives and little economic and social success relative to those born into the "right" class. If Universities are about "higher education" (and they all say they are), then the students should be picked on the basis of quality of applicant, not how much money they have or how well they played the "high-school game." They currently are not.
The fact is, there are huge numbers of "the poor" that are smarter, harder working and better learners than some of the idiots that walk the halls of University nowadays. The fact also is that there *are* large numbers of students already enrolled in University that are (to put it nicely), "dim" by my standards, (which are the standards of the 1960's roughly), that are *poor* learners, and *not* hard working at all (cheating is rampant). I see this every day. The injustice of it bothers me.
I stand behind my observation that it is significantly hard, bordering on the impossible, for the average truly "poor" person to get into University. The reasons are multitudinous; it's about what kind of life you have to live when you are poor and the whole socio-economic experience. When most people think about this issue, I find they are really thinking about how they can help other middle-class people that don't quite have the tuition, get into University anyway.
They are not really thinking about "poor" folks, because they don't know any.
As for what I "propose to do about it," I can propose all kinds of things, but in my position I don't have the power to do much of anything. I would suggest that it will take nothing short of the complete revamping of the Higher education system in North America to solve this problem and I just don't see that happening anytime soon. The major factor that I see contributing to the mess
Shame on whomever modded this fellow +5 "Interesting.":-)
He puts this gem in as his opening sentence:
Apple and other software vendors have chosen a development model that maximizes their ability to hide defects in their software. Which is essentially a "blanket statement" that is both emotionally based and vague as well as completely unsupported by any context, facts, etc.
Note that these are the exact same things that he is criticising in the original comment by the poster that "not revealing a vulnerability is immoral." The original post also has the added bonus of being both true and completely logical, whereas this statement about the evil machinations of Apple's programmers is neither.
How can such a clear failure of critical thinking and logic be "Insightful?" How can such a mean spirited, dogmatic, nay-sayer be modded up at all?
All Mac users I know run software update daily or weekly and often install updates as soon as they are available... I find this a (teeny) bit over the top.:-)
I find that it's more like half of the Mac users that I know, (this amounts to roughly 300 installations that I deal with on a daily basis), who update their software and the other half don't. However the OS upgrade always comes with a new machine, so that means the new OS every few years or so for those people that don't specifically upgrade, (which still gives higher upgrade percentages than the Windows user base).
That being said, there are upgrades and there are upgrades. Leopard looks to be a major revision and given that it will run better than Tiger on the hardware already in the market, there will likely be a flood of upgrades IMO.
- Leopard also has quite a few "revolutionary" features that will make a lot of Tiger redundant. - Leopard is also the most "in the media" OS upgrade since OS-X itself with a huge awareness about it in the general population. - Leopard also has several new features that will be tied to hardware and associated with a major hardware revision
I would be surprised as hell if Leopard does not get an even larger "upgrade take-up" than Tiger which already beats Vista in that same metric.
I have a sneaking suspicion that Leopard might even be released early with the new iMacs or the rumoured MacBook mini. It seems odd for Apple to release new hardware all year long and then top it off with an OS that has to be purchased separately and made backward compatible with the hardware and previously bought.
I'm not saying it won't happen like that, but traditionally, Apple puts hardware and software together, and they usually release a new OS in a much closer timeframe to the hardware release. If anything the OS revision often comes out *before* we see the dream machine that takes advantage of it. I am finding it hard to get my head around the (essentially) ass-backwards way they are doing it this time.
Anybody who is smart and accomplished can go to to a good school,... *Some* people with connections can get in even if they are not so smart, or really accomplished is the more accurate term, as grades count. There are so many posts on this thread with this basic stance I just had to comment on how ridiculous it is. I have worked at a major University for almost 20 years now, and this is total BS.
Rather, it's more like a classical "popular misconception" in that it's really just what people would like to believe, not what actually is the case. Thousands of students are admitted every year lacking even the most basic skills like critical thinking, or how to write a legible sentence. Most second year University papers (and I have seen tens of thousands over the years), are on a par with what people of my generation were expected to be able to write in grade 8, and that is not hyperbole, it's a fact. The Faculty I currently work in has seen several PhD candidates over the last 5 years or so (successful ones!), that to all outward appearances have "sub-normal" (less than 100) IQ's.
All of these students when admitted had a high enough GPA to get in (good grades in high school), and the money to do so, yet they are essentially dead weight. They are not smart or accomplished, they merely got good grades in high school and that is a game that's also easy to play, especially with the right parents, the right race and the right connections. In other words, the right socio-economic status or "class." The vast majority of our students are upper middle class twits, with doctors and lawyers for parents and a luxury car to race back and forth to school with. They are not even academically inclined for the most part. They are "doing time" at the University, to get the piece of paper that will get them an upper middle class job through Mom or Dad's connection network. I should note that this is a very respected University, not some backwater college.
When I was a kid, I lived in one of the poorest neighborhoods in the area but some of the "hoods" were exceedingly bright, as were many of the regular blue-collar worker types. All of those people I grew up with are still back in the slum, working at their blue collar jobs, despite some of them being brilliant. I have never seen *anyone* (except perhaps a newspaper-worthy immigrant), from a genuine "poor background" go to University because they were so smart that it just had to happen. Universities are almost exclusively the purview of the upper or upper-middle class.
The example given of a man who's daughter "worked her way through Duke on a scholarship" is specious in that the man is not "poor" he is clearly middle or even upper middle class but simply could not afford Duke tuition. If the girl had not got a Duke scholarship, she would not have got a job at 7-11 the next day, she would have gone to a slightly lesser known University or College, or her Dad would have found some extra money somewhere, or both. Seen it a thousand times.
IMO the really funny thing is that this joker decided to use a Bonjour vulnerability to work on, when everything I've heard indicates a major reworking of the Bonjour code in Leopard anyway.
Isn't this kinda like working out a vulnerability in AppleTalk a month before they stopped using it?
Your analysis is pretty much what I thought also but your opening statement:
Apple did a hostile takeover of CUPS ... seems kind of unsupported.
I couldn't find anything in your post or on the developer's site that indicated he was upset about this development and that he had more or less happily worked with Apple for a long time. He accepted a job offer from them as well. What did I miss?
Well I apologise, but you seem to have misread me.
What I said was:
To the guy that said it was "perverse" to feel bad about breaking a hardrive (when it's your fault no less), yet relishing in it's destruction is some variation on good clean fun... So I wasn't referring to you but compacting two comments into one post.
This guy ("nerdup"):
Being depressed for a week over dropping an inert piece of metal on the floor is more perverse than getting a charge out of watching one great piece of engineering chew up another, in my humble opinion...
You might want to reexamine your priorities ... is the one that made the remark that I was responding to.
It still is pretty juvenile, and it *is* depressing that people still find this crap entertaining after who knows how many hundred episodes.
What the heck is this "story" doing on slashdot anyway? It's neither relevant nor especially funny and it's been done to death for almost a year now.
Additionally, as you mention, it's an ADVERTISEMENT. So again, what the heck is it doing here?
To the guy that said it was "perverse" to feel bad about breaking a hardrive (when it's your fault no less), yet relishing in it's destruction is some variation on good clean fun...
you are the one that clearly needs to re-assess your priorities.
At the time when the iPhone was just a scary story, Apple was granted several patents that hinted at a cell-phone in development. This was later vindicated when the iPhone was announced, but most people failed to notice that the revealed patents had no relation to the eventual iPhone released.
In particular, the key patent was for a new extruded casing technology like that used to create nanos, but made from cubic-zirconium crystal for greater radio transparency. Viewed together, the various patents that were noted just previous to the iPhone release, seemed to indicate a mass-produced, extremely cheap (possibly even "throwaway"), cell-phone with the same chicklet form factor as the iPod nano.
It's possible that Apple will still release this product as a mass-produced, dirt-cheap unlocked phone simply to flood the low end of the market. together with the iPhone this could easily lead to Apple taking the lion's share of the *total* cellphone market by the end of 2009.
I am really hoping for this myself simply because my personal preference design-wise is for transparent casings on computer products (it's just more honest). I had several transparent Palms, Pocket PC's, etc. and all my cellphones have had transparent cases. The only way this is ever likely to happen with an Apple product is if they adopt these "crystal" cases for iPhone nano.
The current iMac already has an enclosure 2 inches thick. And most of the internals aren't housed near the bottom of the current iMac, they're spread out all over the unit behind the display. So it's not like the new iMac is going to be this huge leap of packaging over the current model.
Regarding the brushed-metal look, although I'm sure it will look nice I think it's starting to get a bit old. I can't say I like Apple going back and forth between two design styles they've been using for quite some time now. I noticed this also. I use an iMac at work and they are currently only an inch and a half thick.
Why would Apple would make a thicker iMac with all the internals clustered at the bottom in the brushed-metal look? This is now their oldest style and matches the brushed-metal interface elements they just finished removing from OS-X.
The only way this makes sense is if the brushed-metal iMac Imitates the iPhone with a nice chrome bezel and a slick multi-touch front. Mmmmm, multi-touch.
As for teetering back and forth between two styles, keep this under your hat but an Apple employee once told me that the black and white modern plastic stuff is what Jonathan Ive designs, but Steve has this "thing" for the brushed-metal. Something about an acid experience he had watching Forbidden Planet or something. The designs seem to go back and forth because Steve throws a fit if Ive doesn't use brushed-metal in at least one Apple design each year, even though Ives wants to push the more aesthetically pleasing plastic designs instead.
To Steve, it just isn't cool without that 90's brushed-metal thing.
I could be wrong, but it seems to me that this is all about the way he defines "discrete" and "continuous" tasks. It looks rather like he is simply re-defining as many GUI actions (note he does not define those parameters exactly either), as requiring discrete (and not continuous, fine, control), and then surprising us all with the idea that a keyboard is better for all that "discreteness."
Are not most of these tasks accomplished *either* in discrete steps *or* in less linear ways? Isn't that the entire point of having two different methods of input? (mouse and keyboard)
Additionally, a keyboard centric interface would be a major problem for the "average" people out there. These are the people that basically comprise the computer revolution we have all been obsessing about in the last 20 years. The point and click interface is these users main method for entering the computer world and without it, many simply would not be able to do so. If computers were still only used by geeks and techs, there wouldn't be a need for the mouse of course. On the other hand if people had wings, there would not be much use for automobiles either. So what?
By way of example, typing is itself a fairly easy skill to master, but the vast majority of people do not do so. Even with it's promotion in high schools around the world, *most* people find it abstruse and unwieldy, at least when trying to learn it. Once conquered, it is indeed a powerful method, but it's certainly not intuitive by any means. If there is that much of an entry barrier to learning simple typing, how much higher is the barrier for the interface experiment mentioned here?
Even if that high school teacher had a whip, and threatened expulsion for those unwilling to learn this new keyboard interface, I doubt that much more than 20% of the school would ever learn it. More importantly, these kids would end up *hating* computers and keyboards with a passion, creating even further barriers to adoption or use.
It seems to me that regardless of arguments like this cropping up from time to time, the old division is still as true as it ever was. Geeks use the keyboard, everyone else (including your mum), will still need the mouse, and most of us are in the middle using whatever seems to get the job done for us personally, the fastest.
Your fear of dope smokers is laughable, as is your unstated assumption that they are a security risk in some way.
On the other hand, from my point of view, Sagan was actually just a hack (even though very likelable), and was more of a PR man than a real scientist. He also never actually had a good, original idea in his life although he was very talented at explaining other peoples ideas to the general public.
So I would phrase the rebuttal more like:
"Why would the US Government give Top Secret "eyes only" access to the 1970's equivalent of a Fox Science News reporter?"
UFOs not an "American only belief"
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Roswell UFO Festival
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Not that I am defending the motives and beliefs of the "True Believers" that gather in Roswell for these kinds of things, but... anyone familiar with the history of belief in UFO's, Flying Saucers and Alien saviours can tell you that UFO's are certainly not an "American Only" phenomenon.
If you check the data, only the belief in Alien Abductions and the whole "Grey aliens stole my baby" thing can truly be said to have originated in America or to be exclusive to American culture.
UFO *sightings* on the other hand, and the UFO phenomenon in general (regardless of whatever the cause turns out to be), are pretty much uniform over all cultures and take the same general form in each. Often a small amount of local cultural belief is overlaid on the data set, but the data itself is very homogeneous and consistent across cultures.
Please take a few minutes to read the article (or at least the header of the article) before you respond. It might also help to stay minimally informed about the product on which you comment.
I have to wonder what they will do if the battery is found to be defective or something (?) This is actually the topic of the article you are commenting on, and also well described/discussed all over the web.
Also, in reference to this article in general, the battery iPhone replacement methodology is really only a "surprise" to that Rosenfield guy IMO. This is yet another non-issue, non-article, about iPhone fears repeated ad infinitum. Sigh.
Rather that "FUD" though, I begin to wonder if perhaps all these stories merely reflect the fact that we have a need to express our fears about such a revolutionary product publicly, in order that we may be consoled by our peers, and so that our judgement in purchasing the thing (if we have purchased it), is likewise reaffirmed.
Great post and deserving of the "informative" mod, but this part...
They can't sue DVD Jon for breaking their bullshit attempts to control hardware ... doesn't make sense to me.
To not know that unlocking a phone is perfectly legal in most countries, and to believe that any encryption or hiding of the lock will stop the average hacker for long, apple would have to be run by complete idiots (it's not).
I think it more likely that the lock is only there at AT&T's request and to make the deal happen. There is almost zero downside to Apple if the iPhone is unlocked and a considerable upside as well. If the iPhone is unlocked eventually, I predict Apple will not bother to "re-lock" it unless it is also part of the AT&T contract to do so.
You make it sound all scientific and such without being specific at all (just like the "inventors" as a matter of fact).
This is not a science project, nor an "investment group" and the application for a patent proves nothing at all. This is a "device" being exhibited to the world for the first time in an Art Gallery for cripes sake!!! Specifically, an art gallery well-known for edgy electronic "art" pieces. The odds are that this is a piece of performance art and nothing more.
In all the discussion of it on this forum, on Engadget and everywhere else, the authors of this fiasco don't even come close to describing anything in detail about any aspect of the device. It also closely conforms in form and function to a many many perpetual motion devices before it.
Having pulled some pranks myself and having been to art school, I can appreciate the idea behind it, but clogging up teh internets with this trash is a bit of a drag on everyone's time don't you think?
Violating the law of thermodynamics is completely impossible, period, end of story. The energy has to come from somewhere.
If the device (seems to) work at all, the only way it could is by getting the energy from some source or through some process not yet understood, but it still has to come from *somewhere*. Nowadays, the only areas like that not generally understood by the scientific community are subatomic processes and cosmological ones, yet the stated area of this "discovery" is basic electromagnetism like you get in high school. The odds of there being a basic principle of electromagnetism that leads to essentially "free" energy, that has not yet been discovered by the millions of scientists working in that field since it was first identified are essentially zero.
The two biggest clues as to this being a hoax or wishful thinking on the part of the inventor are:
1) A description of the process by which it works does not introduce, describe or seem to rely on, any new physics. (i.e. - cold fusion is much more likely)
2) A brief glance at the history of perpetual motion machines shows that a remarkably large percentage of them rely on the same principles espoused here.
Chasing a magnet around a circle, unbalanced magnetic fields chasing themselves around circles, pendulums that are unbalanced by attraction to a magnet that moves around a circle, etc. etc..... This sounds rather like the standard perpetual motion machine claim, rather than a breakthrough in thermodynamics/physics.
If I implied that Apple supports the FSF, I was mistaken. Obviously they do not support the goals and ideals of FSF.
Apple *does* support open source software and *does* make contributions. Apple also supports open standards, especially Internet standards and is almost leading the fight against Microsoft in that regard in that they are the only computer/device manufacturer or proprietary software maker of any note that consistently supports both choice and open interoperable standards.
That's why the FUD is so unwelcome and so biased (let alone seemingly based on nothing at all in this case).
My main point was really about the terribly illogical construction of that statement about how "if you aren't in control... (of the software or device),... it's working against you."
Indeed.
Peter Brown, executive director of the FSF said, "Today, Steve Jobs and Apple release a product crippled with proprietary software and digital restrictions: crippled, because a device that isn't under the control of its owner works against the interests of its owner. I am in favour of free and open software, but this statement is absolutely assinine.
The idea that a device not"under my (presumably *direct*) control" is therefore necessarily "working against me" is a laughable twist of pseudo-logic. As a statement it's only usefulness is as a means to detect the underlying paranoia (and perhaps a tinge of churlishness), from those that mouth such beliefs. I don't like "Tivoisation" either but it's hardly a serious threat to the free and open source software movement and I learned many years ago that you can't really control what other people are going to do with stuff you give them for free.
Couldn't the FSF think of something, I don't know... positive to say?
For instance, the last time I checked, Apple was one of the main supporters and developers behind the open source WebKit, as well as open Internet standards in general. Or how about the belief many people have that the iPhone is likely to be absolutely pivotal in terms of promoting open source, and open standards based internet development?
Instead, we get petty nay-saying and mud-slinging, and from the FSF executive no less. How mature.
Non-replaceable batteries are Greener
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Apple iPhone Dissected
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· Score: 5, Insightful
More planned obsolescence. Pity. I'd like to see Apple go a little greener. A non-user replaceable battery limits the life of a device substantially. The Apple strategy with non-replaceable batteries could actually be considered the greener option.
I still have a pile of the various PDA's and cell phones I have had over the years. Most used undersized batteries that reduced the initial cost of the unit (even though most cost about the same as today's iPhone), but also didn't last. This required me to purchase new batteries, extra batteries, and bigger, add-on batteries and battery packs. All of these batteries are in the same pile, waiting for me to find appropriate green disposal (some day).
I would argue that most people eventually just chuck these things away and that they end up in a landfill somewhere. Also the fact that the batteries are generally crap means that the average user goes through more batteries for a non-Apple "replaceable battery" product than they do for the Apple product.
The fact that Apple offers a low-cost, no-hassle, battery replacement option means that the majority of iPod and now iPhone), battery replacements happen through Apple instead of the consumer, and thus the batteries all get properly recycled instead of just being dumped. The main cause of battery pollution from iPods for instance is whatever portion of the populace that does not return them to Apple for replacement or recycling and just chucks the item away when it's dead. That is the consumer's fault, not Apple's.
The only thing that could be done better is that Apple could take back the old iPods so as to alleviate even the worst acts of the consumers of their products. They already do this in a limited way and have announced recently a goal of doing a take-back on every product they make.
How much more green could they possibly be right now?
This news has been all over the last couple of days and almost every story lays out the issue as "Russia claims Entire North Pole!!!" (or something similar), when in fact they have done no such thing.
Both of the "rational" divisions of the territory in the NYT story approximate the exact same area of the "outrageous" division that everyone is upset about. In fact they go a bit further in that they extend Russian territory all the way to the pole. Also, speaking as a Canadian, there is no way that the Russians would be able to claim "all of the arctic" in any event. Canada would fight before that happened (seriously).
It's also interesting that as recently as last year, the US was trying to claim that territory on the Canadian side of the pole was actually all theirs, but because this would be unlikely to anger anyone in the US, it was no big controversy about it in the media. Only in Canada did the idea of the US annexing territory at the North Pole that clearly belongs to Canada get any media play at all. It seems to me that this is really a non-story that is only getting media attention because it's those evil "Ruskies" doing it.
And almost everything mentioned in the BBC article you link to, seem to be issues Apple is squarely aiming at lately. The iPhone in particular seems to address all of the authors concerns about computing devices. More and more Apple seems to be the only tech company that "gets" what people want from their computers, and by that I mean average people, not tech-heads and geeks that get more enjoyment out of the management of their computing resources than the tasks that can actually be accomplished.
The majority of these items from the "things that will revolutionise computing" article are futuristic nonsense (except perhaps the mouse), yet the authors left out the gigantic elephant in the middle of the room in that they completely fail to mention multi-touch interfaces. Regardless of the problems it also brings, multi-touch interfaces have far more claim to re-inventing computing for the masses than any router gimmick and it's something you can actually purchase today (at least after 6:00 PM and only if you are an American of course).
The simpler explanation for this whole thing is that it's Microsoft's fault.
Consider the fact that there have been at least three separate, major problems with the X-Box 360 hardware and that these have been fairly widespread, (especially in Europe and other non-US markets where problem items are sometimes "dumped"). Then factor in MS's policy (since changed), of replacing the brand new X-Box 360 you purchased with a refurbished item. Add to that the fact that MS has actually changed the design of the X-Box 360 at least once or twice in it's very short lifetime on the market, specifically to address hardware issues, and it really is no surprise what is happening here.
This fellow was unlucky enough to get one of the marginal units from the original shipments from the factory. The first two or three replacements were refurbished (i.e. - probably suffering form the same fault.), and likely were also from the original production runs of the product. This would make the first three or four failures out of eleven due to simple poor QA from Microsoft compounded by the foolish and underhanded policy of sending out refurbished replacements. All of a sudden the possibility of eleven failures makes more sense.
To those who are claiming that it's the user or his household electrical supply that is at fault, the original article contains this:
When his third 360 broke, one customer service rep suggested he look into the wiring at his house; electricity problems could have been causing the mess-ups. Problem: none of his other systems (not to mention his several computers and other electronics) have experienced any major problems, and his father is, coincidentally, an electrician. The specific suggestion was brought up by Microsoft customer service again after the eighth console repair. This time, just to be certain, Justin had a contractor come to the house and check the wiring, where he was told that everything was in order, with no abnormalities in voltage of any of house outlets. Nevertheless, customer service has continued to suggest this as a potential cause. Some people have also suggested that he might have the X-Box "on a rug" or not adequately ventilated or something but this is a hardcore gamer with multiple gaming units, surely he would not be wrapping the thing in a blanket or anything, and short of that, the console should work as advertised.
I am sick of folks defending MS's crap hardware with statements like: "Oh, he should have it on a table all by itself with 14 inches of clearance around the fans and possibly a room fan pointing at it as well. Then it will work fine." WTF?
A product should just work when any reasonable person uses it in a reasonable way which it seems the fellow did.
I agree. I have only recently started moderating and I while I have dutifully meta-moderated etc., the firehose leaves me confused.
Twice now I have gone in there and tried to make sense of it or contribute, but it's no fun, and it's somehow both confusing and dull at the same time. I am not sure exactly *what* is wrong with the process or the interface, I just know it's an uncomfortable, irritating experience to try to do it. Possibly it's to do with the stories not having been categorised before you see them.
Slashdot needs a better system for picking articles IMO.
What I find really scary about this is that it happened a (relatively) long time ago and not one blogger *did* actually "out" MS on this and turn them in.
To me this speaks to the effectiveness of the thick "dossiers" that Microsoft is known to keep on all media and tech industry people. We already knew that these secret files were extensive, now we know that they are so accurate in pigeonholing the ethics and standards of various bloggers and journalists, that they could literally pick out the ones who would act unethically and not make a peep about it.
Slashdot Mirror
At least I proposed a few on-going solutions for the problem of education inequality at the secondary level. What do you propose to do?
I guess I was a bit more forceful in my response than I intended as I seem to have got under your skin a bit, and I did not mean this to be that personal of a debate. I apologise for any personal offense you may have taken at my remarks, but being one of those smart guys that had the bad luck to be born in a slum waste half my life merely to claw my way into respectable society, I guess I might have "issues" about socio-economic status in general and the colossal failure of the educational system in North America. :-) My bad, my bias I guess.
I am certainly pleased to hear (if true), that some schools in your area actually seem to *actively* seek out poor kids who are smart and take them under their wing, but I would argue that this is far from the norm. I was making a generalised argument about higher education as I have experienced it, not trying to say that "no school anywhere" is any good.
However I do think that I have the experience and the background to support the comments I made. I have personal experience of the situation from both sides. First, from the point of view of being denied opportunities due to my "class" in my youth, and secondly from working for almost 20 years at an Institution of "higher learning."
My point was that the old saw about "if you have enough hutzpah and drive you can still get a higher education and succeed, blah, blah, etc...." is simply not true. Historically, this idea (usually related more to a capitalistic or economic success story), is one of the central myths of the American people, so I can understand people's unwillingness to let it go, but that doesn't make it true.
The occasional person that "pulls themselves up by their bootstraps" does not invalidate the reality of the life-long struggle of those people who don't make it because they had the unfortunate luck to be born poor. Sure, there is the odd "rags to riches" story; there always is. However, this just disguises the fact that the vast majority of people born into the "wrong" socio-economic class *will* have horrible lives and little economic and social success relative to those born into the "right" class. If Universities are about "higher education" (and they all say they are), then the students should be picked on the basis of quality of applicant, not how much money they have or how well they played the "high-school game." They currently are not.
The fact is, there are huge numbers of "the poor" that are smarter, harder working and better learners than some of the idiots that walk the halls of University nowadays. The fact also is that there *are* large numbers of students already enrolled in University that are (to put it nicely), "dim" by my standards, (which are the standards of the 1960's roughly), that are *poor* learners, and *not* hard working at all (cheating is rampant). I see this every day. The injustice of it bothers me.
I stand behind my observation that it is significantly hard, bordering on the impossible, for the average truly "poor" person to get into University. The reasons are multitudinous; it's about what kind of life you have to live when you are poor and the whole socio-economic experience. When most people think about this issue, I find they are really thinking about how they can help other middle-class people that don't quite have the tuition, get into University anyway.
They are not really thinking about "poor" folks, because they don't know any.
As for what I "propose to do about it," I can propose all kinds of things, but in my position I don't have the power to do much of anything. I would suggest that it will take nothing short of the complete revamping of the Higher education system in North America to solve this problem and I just don't see that happening anytime soon. The major factor that I see contributing to the mess
He puts this gem in as his opening sentence: Apple and other software vendors have chosen a development model that maximizes their ability to hide defects in their software. Which is essentially a "blanket statement" that is both emotionally based and vague as well as completely unsupported by any context, facts, etc.
Note that these are the exact same things that he is criticising in the original comment by the poster that "not revealing a vulnerability is immoral." The original post also has the added bonus of being both true and completely logical, whereas this statement about the evil machinations of Apple's programmers is neither.
How can such a clear failure of critical thinking and logic be "Insightful?"
How can such a mean spirited, dogmatic, nay-sayer be modded up at all?
I find that it's more like half of the Mac users that I know, (this amounts to roughly 300 installations that I deal with on a daily basis), who update their software and the other half don't. However the OS upgrade always comes with a new machine, so that means the new OS every few years or so for those people that don't specifically upgrade, (which still gives higher upgrade percentages than the Windows user base).
That being said, there are upgrades and there are upgrades. Leopard looks to be a major revision and given that it will run better than Tiger on the hardware already in the market, there will likely be a flood of upgrades IMO.
- Leopard also has quite a few "revolutionary" features that will make a lot of Tiger redundant.
- Leopard is also the most "in the media" OS upgrade since OS-X itself with a huge awareness about it in the general population.
- Leopard also has several new features that will be tied to hardware and associated with a major hardware revision
I would be surprised as hell if Leopard does not get an even larger "upgrade take-up" than Tiger which already beats Vista in that same metric.
I have a sneaking suspicion that Leopard might even be released early with the new iMacs or the rumoured MacBook mini. It seems odd for Apple to release new hardware all year long and then top it off with an OS that has to be purchased separately and made backward compatible with the hardware and previously bought.
I'm not saying it won't happen like that, but traditionally, Apple puts hardware and software together, and they usually release a new OS in a much closer timeframe to the hardware release. If anything the OS revision often comes out *before* we see the dream machine that takes advantage of it. I am finding it hard to get my head around the (essentially) ass-backwards way they are doing it this time.
Rather, it's more like a classical "popular misconception" in that it's really just what people would like to believe, not what actually is the case. Thousands of students are admitted every year lacking even the most basic skills like critical thinking, or how to write a legible sentence. Most second year University papers (and I have seen tens of thousands over the years), are on a par with what people of my generation were expected to be able to write in grade 8, and that is not hyperbole, it's a fact. The Faculty I currently work in has seen several PhD candidates over the last 5 years or so (successful ones!), that to all outward appearances have "sub-normal" (less than 100) IQ's.
All of these students when admitted had a high enough GPA to get in (good grades in high school), and the money to do so, yet they are essentially dead weight. They are not smart or accomplished, they merely got good grades in high school and that is a game that's also easy to play, especially with the right parents, the right race and the right connections. In other words, the right socio-economic status or "class." The vast majority of our students are upper middle class twits, with doctors and lawyers for parents and a luxury car to race back and forth to school with. They are not even academically inclined for the most part. They are "doing time" at the University, to get the piece of paper that will get them an upper middle class job through Mom or Dad's connection network. I should note that this is a very respected University, not some backwater college.
When I was a kid, I lived in one of the poorest neighborhoods in the area but some of the "hoods" were exceedingly bright, as were many of the regular blue-collar worker types. All of those people I grew up with are still back in the slum, working at their blue collar jobs, despite some of them being brilliant. I have never seen *anyone* (except perhaps a newspaper-worthy immigrant), from a genuine "poor background" go to University because they were so smart that it just had to happen. Universities are almost exclusively the purview of the upper or upper-middle class.
The example given of a man who's daughter "worked her way through Duke on a scholarship" is specious in that the man is not "poor" he is clearly middle or even upper middle class but simply could not afford Duke tuition. If the girl had not got a Duke scholarship, she would not have got a job at 7-11 the next day, she would have gone to a slightly lesser known University or College, or her Dad would have found some extra money somewhere, or both. Seen it a thousand times.
IMO the really funny thing is that this joker decided to use a Bonjour vulnerability to work on, when everything I've heard indicates a major reworking of the Bonjour code in Leopard anyway.
Isn't this kinda like working out a vulnerability in AppleTalk a month before they stopped using it?
I couldn't find anything in your post or on the developer's site that indicated he was upset about this development and that he had more or less happily worked with Apple for a long time. He accepted a job offer from them as well. What did I miss?
What I said was: To the guy that said it was "perverse" to feel bad about breaking a hardrive (when it's your fault no less), yet relishing in it's destruction is some variation on good clean fun... So I wasn't referring to you but compacting two comments into one post.
This guy ("nerdup"): Being depressed for a week over dropping an inert piece of metal on the floor is more perverse than getting a charge out of watching one great piece of engineering chew up another, in my humble opinion...
You might want to reexamine your priorities ... is the one that made the remark that I was responding to.
Sorry for the confusion.
It still is pretty juvenile, and it *is* depressing that people still find this crap entertaining after who knows how many hundred episodes.
What the heck is this "story" doing on slashdot anyway?
It's neither relevant nor especially funny and it's been done to death for almost a year now.
Additionally, as you mention, it's an ADVERTISEMENT. So again, what the heck is it doing here?
To the guy that said it was "perverse" to feel bad about breaking a hardrive (when it's your fault no less), yet relishing in it's destruction is some variation on good clean fun...
you are the one that clearly needs to re-assess your priorities.
There could also be a "nano-based" phone though.
At the time when the iPhone was just a scary story, Apple was granted several patents that hinted at a cell-phone in development. This was later vindicated when the iPhone was announced, but most people failed to notice that the revealed patents had no relation to the eventual iPhone released.
In particular, the key patent was for a new extruded casing technology like that used to create nanos, but made from cubic-zirconium crystal for greater radio transparency. Viewed together, the various patents that were noted just previous to the iPhone release, seemed to indicate a mass-produced, extremely cheap (possibly even "throwaway"), cell-phone with the same chicklet form factor as the iPod nano.
It's possible that Apple will still release this product as a mass-produced, dirt-cheap unlocked phone simply to flood the low end of the market. together with the iPhone this could easily lead to Apple taking the lion's share of the *total* cellphone market by the end of 2009.
I am really hoping for this myself simply because my personal preference design-wise is for transparent casings on computer products (it's just more honest). I had several transparent Palms, Pocket PC's, etc. and all my cellphones have had transparent cases. The only way this is ever likely to happen with an Apple product is if they adopt these "crystal" cases for iPhone nano.
Regarding the brushed-metal look, although I'm sure it will look nice I think it's starting to get a bit old. I can't say I like Apple going back and forth between two design styles they've been using for quite some time now. I noticed this also. I use an iMac at work and they are currently only an inch and a half thick.
Why would Apple would make a thicker iMac with all the internals clustered at the bottom in the brushed-metal look? This is now their oldest style and matches the brushed-metal interface elements they just finished removing from OS-X.
The only way this makes sense is if the brushed-metal iMac Imitates the iPhone with a nice chrome bezel and a slick multi-touch front. Mmmmm, multi-touch.
As for teetering back and forth between two styles, keep this under your hat but an Apple employee once told me that the black and white modern plastic stuff is what Jonathan Ive designs, but Steve has this "thing" for the brushed-metal. Something about an acid experience he had watching Forbidden Planet or something. The designs seem to go back and forth because Steve throws a fit if Ive doesn't use brushed-metal in at least one Apple design each year, even though Ives wants to push the more aesthetically pleasing plastic designs instead.
To Steve, it just isn't cool without that 90's brushed-metal thing.
I could be wrong, but it seems to me that this is all about the way he defines "discrete" and "continuous" tasks. It looks rather like he is simply re-defining as many GUI actions (note he does not define those parameters exactly either), as requiring discrete (and not continuous, fine, control), and then surprising us all with the idea that a keyboard is better for all that "discreteness."
Are not most of these tasks accomplished *either* in discrete steps *or* in less linear ways? Isn't that the entire point of having two different methods of input? (mouse and keyboard)
Additionally, a keyboard centric interface would be a major problem for the "average" people out there. These are the people that basically comprise the computer revolution we have all been obsessing about in the last 20 years. The point and click interface is these users main method for entering the computer world and without it, many simply would not be able to do so. If computers were still only used by geeks and techs, there wouldn't be a need for the mouse of course. On the other hand if people had wings, there would not be much use for automobiles either. So what?
By way of example, typing is itself a fairly easy skill to master, but the vast majority of people do not do so. Even with it's promotion in high schools around the world, *most* people find it abstruse and unwieldy, at least when trying to learn it. Once conquered, it is indeed a powerful method, but it's certainly not intuitive by any means. If there is that much of an entry barrier to learning simple typing, how much higher is the barrier for the interface experiment mentioned here?
Even if that high school teacher had a whip, and threatened expulsion for those unwilling to learn this new keyboard interface, I doubt that much more than 20% of the school would ever learn it. More importantly, these kids would end up *hating* computers and keyboards with a passion, creating even further barriers to adoption or use.
It seems to me that regardless of arguments like this cropping up from time to time, the old division is still as true as it ever was. Geeks use the keyboard, everyone else (including your mum), will still need the mouse, and most of us are in the middle using whatever seems to get the job done for us personally, the fastest.
Your fear of dope smokers is laughable, as is your unstated assumption that they are a security risk in some way.
On the other hand, from my point of view, Sagan was actually just a hack (even though very likelable), and was more of a PR man than a real scientist. He also never actually had a good, original idea in his life although he was very talented at explaining other peoples ideas to the general public.
So I would phrase the rebuttal more like:
"Why would the US Government give Top Secret "eyes only" access to the 1970's equivalent of a Fox Science News reporter?"
Not that I am defending the motives and beliefs of the "True Believers" that gather in Roswell for these kinds of things, but ... anyone familiar with the history of belief in UFO's, Flying Saucers and Alien saviours can tell you that UFO's are certainly not an "American Only" phenomenon.
If you check the data, only the belief in Alien Abductions and the whole "Grey aliens stole my baby" thing can truly be said to have originated in America or to be exclusive to American culture.
UFO *sightings* on the other hand, and the UFO phenomenon in general (regardless of whatever the cause turns out to be), are pretty much uniform over all cultures and take the same general form in each. Often a small amount of local cultural belief is overlaid on the data set, but the data itself is very homogeneous and consistent across cultures.
Also, in reference to this article in general, the battery iPhone replacement methodology is really only a "surprise" to that Rosenfield guy IMO. This is yet another non-issue, non-article, about iPhone fears repeated ad infinitum. Sigh.
Rather that "FUD" though, I begin to wonder if perhaps all these stories merely reflect the fact that we have a need to express our fears about such a revolutionary product publicly, in order that we may be consoled by our peers, and so that our judgement in purchasing the thing (if we have purchased it), is likewise reaffirmed.
To not know that unlocking a phone is perfectly legal in most countries, and to believe that any encryption or hiding of the lock will stop the average hacker for long, apple would have to be run by complete idiots (it's not).
I think it more likely that the lock is only there at AT&T's request and to make the deal happen. There is almost zero downside to Apple if the iPhone is unlocked and a considerable upside as well. If the iPhone is unlocked eventually, I predict Apple will not bother to "re-lock" it unless it is also part of the AT&T contract to do so.
This sounds like total BS to me.
You make it sound all scientific and such without being specific at all (just like the "inventors" as a matter of fact).
This is not a science project, nor an "investment group" and the application for a patent proves nothing at all.
This is a "device" being exhibited to the world for the first time in an Art Gallery for cripes sake!!!
Specifically, an art gallery well-known for edgy electronic "art" pieces. The odds are that this is a piece of performance art and nothing more.
In all the discussion of it on this forum, on Engadget and everywhere else, the authors of this fiasco don't even come close to describing anything in detail about any aspect of the device. It also closely conforms in form and function to a many many perpetual motion devices before it.
Having pulled some pranks myself and having been to art school, I can appreciate the idea behind it, but clogging up teh internets with this trash is a bit of a drag on everyone's time don't you think?
Violating the law of thermodynamics is completely impossible, period, end of story. The energy has to come from somewhere.
_ motion_machines
.... This sounds rather like the standard perpetual motion machine claim, rather than a breakthrough in thermodynamics/physics.
If the device (seems to) work at all, the only way it could is by getting the energy from some source or through some process not yet understood, but it still has to come from *somewhere*. Nowadays, the only areas like that not generally understood by the scientific community are subatomic processes and cosmological ones, yet the stated area of this "discovery" is basic electromagnetism like you get in high school. The odds of there being a basic principle of electromagnetism that leads to essentially "free" energy, that has not yet been discovered by the millions of scientists working in that field since it was first identified are essentially zero.
The two biggest clues as to this being a hoax or wishful thinking on the part of the inventor are:
1) A description of the process by which it works does not introduce, describe or seem to rely on, any new physics. (i.e. - cold fusion is much more likely)
2) A brief glance at the history of perpetual motion machines shows that a remarkably large percentage of them rely on the same principles espoused here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_perpetual
Chasing a magnet around a circle, unbalanced magnetic fields chasing themselves around circles, pendulums that are unbalanced by attraction to a magnet that moves around a circle, etc. etc.
If I implied that Apple supports the FSF, I was mistaken. Obviously they do not support the goals and ideals of FSF.
... (of the software or device), ... it's working against you."
Apple *does* support open source software and *does* make contributions. Apple also supports open standards, especially Internet standards and is almost leading the fight against Microsoft in that regard in that they are the only computer/device manufacturer or proprietary software maker of any note that consistently supports both choice and open interoperable standards.
That's why the FUD is so unwelcome and so biased (let alone seemingly based on nothing at all in this case).
My main point was really about the terribly illogical construction of that statement about how "if you aren't in control
Absolute piffle.
The idea that a device not "under my (presumably *direct*) control" is therefore necessarily "working against me" is a laughable twist of pseudo-logic. As a statement it's only usefulness is as a means to detect the underlying paranoia (and perhaps a tinge of churlishness), from those that mouth such beliefs. I don't like "Tivoisation" either but it's hardly a serious threat to the free and open source software movement and I learned many years ago that you can't really control what other people are going to do with stuff you give them for free.
Couldn't the FSF think of something, I don't know... positive to say?
For instance, the last time I checked, Apple was one of the main supporters and developers behind the open source WebKit, as well as open Internet standards in general. Or how about the belief many people have that the iPhone is likely to be absolutely pivotal in terms of promoting open source, and open standards based internet development?
Instead, we get petty nay-saying and mud-slinging, and from the FSF executive no less. How mature.
I still have a pile of the various PDA's and cell phones I have had over the years. Most used undersized batteries that reduced the initial cost of the unit (even though most cost about the same as today's iPhone), but also didn't last. This required me to purchase new batteries, extra batteries, and bigger, add-on batteries and battery packs. All of these batteries are in the same pile, waiting for me to find appropriate green disposal (some day).
I would argue that most people eventually just chuck these things away and that they end up in a landfill somewhere. Also the fact that the batteries are generally crap means that the average user goes through more batteries for a non-Apple "replaceable battery" product than they do for the Apple product.
The fact that Apple offers a low-cost, no-hassle, battery replacement option means that the majority of iPod and now iPhone), battery replacements happen through Apple instead of the consumer, and thus the batteries all get properly recycled instead of just being dumped. The main cause of battery pollution from iPods for instance is whatever portion of the populace that does not return them to Apple for replacement or recycling and just chucks the item away when it's dead. That is the consumer's fault, not Apple's.
The only thing that could be done better is that Apple could take back the old iPods so as to alleviate even the worst acts of the consumers of their products. They already do this in a limited way and have announced recently a goal of doing a take-back on every product they make.
How much more green could they possibly be right now?
This news has been all over the last couple of days and almost every story lays out the issue as "Russia claims Entire North Pole!!!" (or something similar), when in fact they have done no such thing.
i f/_42433630_arctic_ice_map416_3.gif) which shows their supposedly outrageous claim based on the sea-floor ridge argument. If one compares that to the more sedate, reasonable NYT analysis here: http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2005/10/09/inter national/20051010_ARCTIC_GRAPHIC_2.html... they are almost the same.
Ironically, the map most used to claim that "OMG! Russia wants it all!" is the one from the BBC (http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/42433000/g
Both of the "rational" divisions of the territory in the NYT story approximate the exact same area of the "outrageous" division that everyone is upset about. In fact they go a bit further in that they extend Russian territory all the way to the pole. Also, speaking as a Canadian, there is no way that the Russians would be able to claim "all of the arctic" in any event. Canada would fight before that happened (seriously).
It's also interesting that as recently as last year, the US was trying to claim that territory on the Canadian side of the pole was actually all theirs, but because this would be unlikely to anger anyone in the US, it was no big controversy about it in the media. Only in Canada did the idea of the US annexing territory at the North Pole that clearly belongs to Canada get any media play at all. It seems to me that this is really a non-story that is only getting media attention because it's those evil "Ruskies" doing it.
Interesting link.
And almost everything mentioned in the BBC article you link to, seem to be issues Apple is squarely aiming at lately. The iPhone in particular seems to address all of the authors concerns about computing devices. More and more Apple seems to be the only tech company that "gets" what people want from their computers, and by that I mean average people, not tech-heads and geeks that get more enjoyment out of the management of their computing resources than the tasks that can actually be accomplished.
The majority of these items from the "things that will revolutionise computing" article are futuristic nonsense (except perhaps the mouse), yet the authors left out the gigantic elephant in the middle of the room in that they completely fail to mention multi-touch interfaces. Regardless of the problems it also brings, multi-touch interfaces have far more claim to re-inventing computing for the masses than any router gimmick and it's something you can actually purchase today (at least after 6:00 PM and only if you are an American of course).
Consider the fact that there have been at least three separate, major problems with the X-Box 360 hardware and that these have been fairly widespread, (especially in Europe and other non-US markets where problem items are sometimes "dumped"). Then factor in MS's policy (since changed), of replacing the brand new X-Box 360 you purchased with a refurbished item. Add to that the fact that MS has actually changed the design of the X-Box 360 at least once or twice in it's very short lifetime on the market, specifically to address hardware issues, and it really is no surprise what is happening here.
This fellow was unlucky enough to get one of the marginal units from the original shipments from the factory. The first two or three replacements were refurbished (i.e. - probably suffering form the same fault.), and likely were also from the original production runs of the product. This would make the first three or four failures out of eleven due to simple poor QA from Microsoft compounded by the foolish and underhanded policy of sending out refurbished replacements. All of a sudden the possibility of eleven failures makes more sense.
To those who are claiming that it's the user or his household electrical supply that is at fault, the original article contains this: When his third 360 broke, one customer service rep suggested he look into the wiring at his house; electricity problems could have been causing the mess-ups. Problem: none of his other systems (not to mention his several computers and other electronics) have experienced any major problems, and his father is, coincidentally, an electrician. The specific suggestion was brought up by Microsoft customer service again after the eighth console repair. This time, just to be certain, Justin had a contractor come to the house and check the wiring, where he was told that everything was in order, with no abnormalities in voltage of any of house outlets. Nevertheless, customer service has continued to suggest this as a potential cause. Some people have also suggested that he might have the X-Box "on a rug" or not adequately ventilated or something but this is a hardcore gamer with multiple gaming units, surely he would not be wrapping the thing in a blanket or anything, and short of that, the console should work as advertised.
I am sick of folks defending MS's crap hardware with statements like: "Oh, he should have it on a table all by itself with 14 inches of clearance around the fans and possibly a room fan pointing at it as well. Then it will work fine." WTF?
A product should just work when any reasonable person uses it in a reasonable way which it seems the fellow did.
I agree. I have only recently started moderating and I while I have dutifully meta-moderated etc., the firehose leaves me confused.
Twice now I have gone in there and tried to make sense of it or contribute, but it's no fun, and it's somehow both confusing and dull at the same time. I am not sure exactly *what* is wrong with the process or the interface, I just know it's an uncomfortable, irritating experience to try to do it. Possibly it's to do with the stories not having been categorised before you see them.
Slashdot needs a better system for picking articles IMO.
What I find really scary about this is that it happened a (relatively) long time ago and not one blogger *did* actually "out" MS on this and turn them in.
To me this speaks to the effectiveness of the thick "dossiers" that Microsoft is known to keep on all media and tech industry people. We already knew that these secret files were extensive, now we know that they are so accurate in pigeonholing the ethics and standards of various bloggers and journalists, that they could literally pick out the ones who would act unethically and not make a peep about it.