The earth is only 6,000 years old; intercessory prayer has an effect; species are immutable; evolution does not occur; the sun orbits the earth; the earth is flat; &c.
Neither Wales, nor Wikia, nor Wikipedia are the US government, hence the first amendment applies to them only insofar as the government cannot limit their speech. They have no obligation to protect anyone else's speech. They can censor whatever they want, whenever they want, for any reason that they want.
The standard handicapping system in Chess is to start the stronger player down a pawn or two (or more, if the skill disparity is that great---remember that knights and bishops are 3 pawns each, a rook is 5 pawns, and the queen is 9). There are also exchanges of pieces that could be made (i.e. the stronger player gives up their queen, while the weaker player gives up a rook), and one might let the weaker player play one or two moves first. These are the kinds of things that most chess players should recognize as forms of handicapping. Your idea of non-standard board positions is probably not what most good players would think of when attempting to handicap a chess game which may be why you meet so much resistance. That being said, if you are playing at a level that memorization of Kasparov games is useful, handicapping probably isn't going to help you that much.
If there were weekly launches of a rocket, there would be many opportunities for new ideas to be tried out in communications, remote sensing, orbital debris mitigation, robotic exploration, and even in developing technology for human spaceflight.
And, with all of those extra launches, there will be extra debris to attempt those orbital debris mitigation techniques on! It's win/win!
Watch you fucking language! Jesus H. Motherfucking Chist! It's like you were raised in some kind of god damned shit-hole of a barn! Learn some fucking manners!
First off, that may be true, but that isn't the point that the OP made. The OP did state that the typewriter could be used to write something new that would get acclaim.
Second, to address your point: how functional do you mean by functional? I have a 30 year old KayPro that still boots and can still run software. There is a printer that goes with that machine that can still spit out pages (assuming I can find a ribbon for it). That machine will never run the latest and greatest software, but it is still functional. It works just as well now as it did in 1980. Like a typewriter, it is functional, but obsolete.
I find it interesting that you implicitly assume that the winner of the auction might intend to use the typewriter to produce something. I'm sorry, but you don't shell out the kind of money that this typewriter might be expected to go for in order to buy a tool for writing. You shell out that money in order to have an object whose value is greater than its utility because it has been involved in some kind of event or process of significance. If a person wanted to buy a typewriter for typing, there are many of them still running around, and they can often be found relatively cheaply at estate sales, or on eBay (they seem to be going for $50-$500).
In the same way, there are plenty of collectors out there who would almost certainly be willing to spend a fair chunk of change to get their hands on an Apple 1, a signed Mac II, or something similar. They don't want a tool---they want a piece of history. The functionality of the object is secondary.
Are you referring to his use of the notation ``$villain''? Because if you are, the location of the dollar sign is perfectly valid. In many scripting languages, the names of variables are preceded by a dollar sign, as a way of declaring that they are, in fact, variables. Hence ``$villain'' means ``insert your favorite villain here.''
In order to have a good understanding of a field, you should have a sense of the history of that field. Thus, a good high school science class should include some history of science. Similarly, anyone with a college degree in any science (or any other field, for that matter) should be required to spend a semester studying the history of their chosen science. That is not to say that creationism deserves more than five minutes, but rather to say that Darwin, Lamark, Mendel, Watson & Crick, &c. do deserve some significant time in a study of biology (for instance).
The new constant would actually be equal to pi/2, and at least one mathematician has suggested that we use a constant that looks like pi, but with a third leg (actually, it looks a bit like a cursive, uppercase "teh" in Russian: second line, fifth letter from the left).
I grew up watching TOS in syndication, and followed TNG religiously when it came out. I watched nearly all of DS9, and a a large portion of Voyager, though I did give up on Enterprise after the first few episodes. I enjoy many of the movies with the original cast, and First Contact was fun, as well. I would consider myself a fan of Star Trek, inclusive of TNG. I also enjoyed Abrams' take on the franchise. Please, do not presume to speak for all fans.
You are so right. We should only pay user fees. Then we won't have to pay for the things we don't use. I know that, for me, personally, this would save a hell of a lot of money, seeing as I don't use the military, welfare, medicaid, medicare, or social security!
I'm glad that I am not the only one that wanted to stab out their eyes. I honestly couldn't get through the first section of the geometry text due to this. Then, of course, there were teh problems of poor pagination (because it is a really good idea to ask a multiple choice question, then put two of the four possible answers on the next page; or to put a section heading at the bottom of the page), half assed indentation in the example problems, and several other aesthetic problems and readability issues that just made me want to cry.
The confusion caused by multiple editions or poor descriptions in the bookstore is why I generally talk to my professors before buying books. This semester, I was able to purchase all of my books before the bookstore even had listings for them, and I managed to save more than half what the bookstore now wants for those books. A couple of quick emails to the professors can save a great deal of time, especially if you can get them to specify ISBNs.
First off, the paraphrase was an intentional "misquote." Like you, I agree that a strict quoting of Hanlon's Razor would have been inappropriate or irrelevant. However, my paraphrase was relevant to the situation (it was not, however, appropriate to the two hypotheticals that you brought up, but it was appropriate to my original post). The original poster was accusing ACORN of fraud, when, in fact, the most likely explanation is that a small number of the people that ACORN hired were lazy. Thus, we should not attribute to malice (i.e. fraud on the part of ACORN) that which can be more reasonably attributed to laziness, incompetence, or stupidity (i.e. fraudulent forms submitted by lazy contractors). You also seem to be under the impression that this is some kind of excuse (i.e. stupid, lazy, or incompetent people should be excused from responsibility because they are stupid, lazy, or incompetent). I honestly don't see how that can be inferred from what I posted. Once the problem of laziness has been discovered, it is entirely appropriate to go after the guilty parties (as has been done in several cases). I think that, perhaps, you are attacking either a straw man, or other people that have posted in the past, and are failing to actually read and understand what I said.
Notice that I paraphrased Hanlon's Razor, and did not quote it exactly. I said "Never attribute to malice that which can more reasonably be attributed to laziness, incompetence, or stupidity." In the case of a shooting, is it more reasonable to assume incompetence or malice? It seems very probable that malice might be the more reasonable assumption. Furthermore, in both of the hypotheticals you bring up (both relatively devoid of details, one might add), Hanlon's Razor is not a dodge for responsibility. If I shoot someone, even if I really, truly didn't mean to (i.e. I really am an idiot), it is still probable that I will go to jail on a charge of negligent manslaughter, or that I will be put into some other kind of institution. If a corporation fucks up, they should be held responsible (i.e. it would be nice to see GM take responsibility for the mercury switches that it claims it is no longer responsible for thanks to bankruptcy—a situation arrived at thanks to incompetence). I was not suggesting that a plea of incompetence be a way to avoid responsibility, only that when problem occur, we should properly understand the root cause.
None of this, however, is relevant when it comes of ACORN and the allegations of registration fraud. ACORN hired contractors to collect registrations. A few of these contractors (perhaps 6 or 7, perhaps a few more—out of 13,000 that were hired) did not want to do their jobs, so they created fake voter registration forms. In Nevada (where I live, so that is the part of the story that I have followed most closely), ACORN went as far as to flag registrations that they felt were suspect so that the appropriate government body might have leg up. It is in this way that Hanlon's Razor applies: the post to which I responded suggested that ACORN intentionally created fraudulent registrations (this would be an attribution to malice). In reality, it appears that some of the people that ACORN hired turned out to be lazy bums (this would be attribution to incompetence). The whole scandal has become tempest in a teapot because certain people are out to prove that there was a vast, malicious conspiracy. This is a point of view not supported by the facts.
The system described above does tend to reflect the will of the people better. As an analogy, consider the GPA of a student. The current system is like only counting the As, i.e. you get credit for a class only if you get an A in that class. This is great for the students that always get As, but pretty much sucks for everyone else, and doesn't accurately reflect one's ability. The Borda system is more similar to the way that grades are actually averaged. You can be ranked on a scale from 0 to 4 (or 0 to 12 if you include pluses and minuses), which better reflects a student's ability.
To compare the two systems, consider the two following hypothetical students: student X took five classes last semester, got an A in one, and failed the other four; student Y also took five classes last semester, but got Bs in all of them. Under the first system, student X, who failed most of his classes, would still be ranked above student Y, because student X managed to get at least one A, whereas student Y did not. On the other hand, in the system we use, student Y would be ranked more highly.
A similarly brief overview of this idea (complete with this analogy) was published a while back by the AMS as part of their Mathematical Moments series. The relevant documents are near the bottom of the linked page, under the heading "Making Votes Count."
You can't check for fraud by groups like ACORN (ACORN falsely registered the entire starting lineup of the Dallas Cowboys in Nevada and has been indicted in 14+ states)
Please, stop spreading misinformation. ACORN itself has not even been charged with any wrongdoing, let alone convicted. Rather, contractors hired by ACORN to get voter registrations have been charged. Rather than a conspiracy to fraudulently register voters, it appears that several lazy contractors filled out forms in order to get paid without doing any work. It should be further noted that, in many states, it would be illegal for ACORN to discard suspicious registrations submitted by their workers---instead, they are required to pass them along to the state, which is the only entity with the authority to discard registrations (as for the reason, imagine if ACORN decided that only people registering as Democrats should be allowed to register---they could discard all registrations with the Republican box ticked, thus committing another kind of fraud). In short, it is evident that some voter registration fraud did occur, but that it was almost certainly the result of laziness on the part of workers, rather than an intentional effort to commit fraud on the part of ACORN. Never attribute to malice that which can more reasonably be attributed to laziness, incompetence, or stupidity.
Didn't work when I tried it for a simple FTP transfer because of default settings I couldn't figure out how to undo.
Your own inability to use the program does not imply that it is a horrible program. I am sure that there are many people here that would extol the virtues of vi or emacs, not because either is easy to use, but because they are powerful. Furthermore, complaining that one product sucks, but failing to provide a better alternative is not constructive. It may be true, but it is not helpful. If FileZilla is so horrible, why not provide an example of something that is better?
VirtualBox
Never tried it
Then you are not really qualified to speak about whether or not this product has competition, are you? Perhaps you should have left it out of your reply.
OpenOffice.Org
Besides the fact that it is implementing an Office 2007 style ribbon who outside of business users really needs a full office suite anymore?
Let us, for a moment, accept that only business users need an office suite. Why should they be ignored? They do make up a rather large number of computer users. That being said, you are ignoring a large number of people. Lots of high school and college students use office suites, as do their instructors. Many researchers also use office suites, especially in the social sciences. Authors of all stripes might use office suites. Even grandmothers writing letters to their grandchildren might use an office suite. One might argue that none of these people need to use an office suite, but that doesn't change the fact that they do use an office suite. Thus, you are just plain wrong here.
Firefox
Maybe if Opera open sources their browser they can be on this list, not sure if Chrome is really open.
Opera isn't open, and neither it nor Chrome have the mindshare that Firefox does. As pointed out by the article, Firefox is one of the most visible and most widely adopted pieces of open software in the world, especially when considering the ecosystem of Windows software. This alone seems like a good reason to discuss it in a list of top open source programs on Windows.
Paint.Net
What about the GIMP, or is it because this is dead simple to use?
Bingo. GIMP is a replacement for PhotoShop, whereas Paint.net occupies a niche somewhere between Paint and PhotoShop. It is easier to use than PhotoShop or GIMP, but is still powerful enough to fill most non-professionals' needs. Given that FileZilla was included in the list, it might have made sense to include GIMP as well, but one can also understand why Paint.net was included and GIMP was not.
Media Player Classic
My vote goes to VLC here, hands-down.
As I have not used MPC (though I have used VLC), I can't really comment on this. If you have used both, why not give a reason to use VLC over MPC, rather than just throwing something else out there? The article seems to suggest that MPC was included because of the UI similarities between it and a program that might be familiar to more users who are not used to open source software. Perhaps that is the reason it was included over VLC?
TrueCrypt
Never used it.
Then it is good you didn't comment on it, I suppose.
PDFCreator
I only view PDFs so I have never needed creation software, and when I view them I use Sumatra.
You've never needed, so there must not be a need for it. H
In the district where I teach, nearly every classroom in every public school, from pre-school through 12th grade, has a telephone. There are a few schools out in the boonies where this may not be the case yet, but, otherwise, everyone has a phone. It has also been my experience that other schools that I have been to, outside of this district, have similar infrastructure. It is generally considered important for teachers to be able to communicate with the main office, and getting an outside line is basically a freebie once you set up the wiring for intra-school communication. Yes, this is anecdotal, but it is still more evidence than you have provided. However, this is irrelevant to the point that I was making. The post I responded to asserted that teachers should be guaranteed the right (as if such a right existed) to use their cell phones during the day when they are not teaching. I simply noted that there are other ways of getting access to a telephone. These methods included, but were not limited to, using the phones in the classroom.
This is not to say that I would endorse a policy to install jammers—that is just a stupid idea, which won't actually solve the problem of kids not paying attention in class. I was merely pointing out that the objection raised was a spurious one. A better argument against the installation of jammers would note the illegality of the act.
Most classrooms have phones. There are phones in the main office. They could go outside to make a phone call. They could wait until they get home. There are many solutions to the problem that you suggest.
Part of the problem is that there are actually few books today that are worth much.
This is not a problem of old==good and new==bad. Start from the assumption that 95% of everything is crap. 95% of the books that were written 400 years ago were crap. However, only the good ones have survived. This gives the impression that older stuff is better, but this is a mistaken impression.
On the other hand, much of the good and valuable stuff from the past is very hard to get ahold of. There are people that would really love to have a copy of Addington's guide to illustrating flaked stone artifacts, but they are difficult to find, as the book has been out of print for years (and is not into the public domain to boot), and those of us that own copies of the book are not likely to give them up. If Amazon wants to get the rights to the book and print off copies on demand, I would be happy to pay them for the service. As I see it, Amazon is attempting to fill a niche. Sure, they make money off of it, but I don't see it as a simple marketing ploy designed to capitalize off of nostalgia for the past.
Slashdot Mirror
The earth is only 6,000 years old; intercessory prayer has an effect; species are immutable; evolution does not occur; the sun orbits the earth; the earth is flat; &c.
Neither Wales, nor Wikia, nor Wikipedia are the US government, hence the first amendment applies to them only insofar as the government cannot limit their speech. They have no obligation to protect anyone else's speech. They can censor whatever they want, whenever they want, for any reason that they want.
The standard handicapping system in Chess is to start the stronger player down a pawn or two (or more, if the skill disparity is that great---remember that knights and bishops are 3 pawns each, a rook is 5 pawns, and the queen is 9). There are also exchanges of pieces that could be made (i.e. the stronger player gives up their queen, while the weaker player gives up a rook), and one might let the weaker player play one or two moves first. These are the kinds of things that most chess players should recognize as forms of handicapping. Your idea of non-standard board positions is probably not what most good players would think of when attempting to handicap a chess game which may be why you meet so much resistance. That being said, if you are playing at a level that memorization of Kasparov games is useful, handicapping probably isn't going to help you that much.
I don't see how forming a union involves the government, nor how it violates free market principles.
And, with all of those extra launches, there will be extra debris to attempt those orbital debris mitigation techniques on! It's win/win!
Watch you fucking language! Jesus H. Motherfucking Chist! It's like you were raised in some kind of god damned shit-hole of a barn! Learn some fucking manners!
First off, that may be true, but that isn't the point that the OP made. The OP did state that the typewriter could be used to write something new that would get acclaim.
Second, to address your point: how functional do you mean by functional? I have a 30 year old KayPro that still boots and can still run software. There is a printer that goes with that machine that can still spit out pages (assuming I can find a ribbon for it). That machine will never run the latest and greatest software, but it is still functional. It works just as well now as it did in 1980. Like a typewriter, it is functional, but obsolete.
I find it interesting that you implicitly assume that the winner of the auction might intend to use the typewriter to produce something. I'm sorry, but you don't shell out the kind of money that this typewriter might be expected to go for in order to buy a tool for writing. You shell out that money in order to have an object whose value is greater than its utility because it has been involved in some kind of event or process of significance. If a person wanted to buy a typewriter for typing, there are many of them still running around, and they can often be found relatively cheaply at estate sales, or on eBay (they seem to be going for $50-$500).
In the same way, there are plenty of collectors out there who would almost certainly be willing to spend a fair chunk of change to get their hands on an Apple 1, a signed Mac II, or something similar. They don't want a tool---they want a piece of history. The functionality of the object is secondary.
Are you referring to his use of the notation ``$villain''? Because if you are, the location of the dollar sign is perfectly valid. In many scripting languages, the names of variables are preceded by a dollar sign, as a way of declaring that they are, in fact, variables. Hence ``$villain'' means ``insert your favorite villain here.''
In order to have a good understanding of a field, you should have a sense of the history of that field. Thus, a good high school science class should include some history of science. Similarly, anyone with a college degree in any science (or any other field, for that matter) should be required to spend a semester studying the history of their chosen science. That is not to say that creationism deserves more than five minutes, but rather to say that Darwin, Lamark, Mendel, Watson & Crick, &c. do deserve some significant time in a study of biology (for instance).
The new constant would actually be equal to pi/2, and at least one mathematician has suggested that we use a constant that looks like pi, but with a third leg (actually, it looks a bit like a cursive, uppercase "teh" in Russian: second line, fifth letter from the left).
I grew up watching TOS in syndication, and followed TNG religiously when it came out. I watched nearly all of DS9, and a a large portion of Voyager, though I did give up on Enterprise after the first few episodes. I enjoy many of the movies with the original cast, and First Contact was fun, as well. I would consider myself a fan of Star Trek, inclusive of TNG. I also enjoyed Abrams' take on the franchise. Please, do not presume to speak for all fans.
You are so right. We should only pay user fees. Then we won't have to pay for the things we don't use. I know that, for me, personally, this would save a hell of a lot of money, seeing as I don't use the military, welfare, medicaid, medicare, or social security!
I'm glad that I am not the only one that wanted to stab out their eyes. I honestly couldn't get through the first section of the geometry text due to this. Then, of course, there were teh problems of poor pagination (because it is a really good idea to ask a multiple choice question, then put two of the four possible answers on the next page; or to put a section heading at the bottom of the page), half assed indentation in the example problems, and several other aesthetic problems and readability issues that just made me want to cry.
The confusion caused by multiple editions or poor descriptions in the bookstore is why I generally talk to my professors before buying books. This semester, I was able to purchase all of my books before the bookstore even had listings for them, and I managed to save more than half what the bookstore now wants for those books. A couple of quick emails to the professors can save a great deal of time, especially if you can get them to specify ISBNs.
First off, the paraphrase was an intentional "misquote." Like you, I agree that a strict quoting of Hanlon's Razor would have been inappropriate or irrelevant. However, my paraphrase was relevant to the situation (it was not, however, appropriate to the two hypotheticals that you brought up, but it was appropriate to my original post). The original poster was accusing ACORN of fraud, when, in fact, the most likely explanation is that a small number of the people that ACORN hired were lazy. Thus, we should not attribute to malice (i.e. fraud on the part of ACORN) that which can be more reasonably attributed to laziness, incompetence, or stupidity (i.e. fraudulent forms submitted by lazy contractors). You also seem to be under the impression that this is some kind of excuse (i.e. stupid, lazy, or incompetent people should be excused from responsibility because they are stupid, lazy, or incompetent). I honestly don't see how that can be inferred from what I posted. Once the problem of laziness has been discovered, it is entirely appropriate to go after the guilty parties (as has been done in several cases). I think that, perhaps, you are attacking either a straw man, or other people that have posted in the past, and are failing to actually read and understand what I said.
Notice that I paraphrased Hanlon's Razor, and did not quote it exactly. I said "Never attribute to malice that which can more reasonably be attributed to laziness, incompetence, or stupidity." In the case of a shooting, is it more reasonable to assume incompetence or malice? It seems very probable that malice might be the more reasonable assumption. Furthermore, in both of the hypotheticals you bring up (both relatively devoid of details, one might add), Hanlon's Razor is not a dodge for responsibility. If I shoot someone, even if I really, truly didn't mean to (i.e. I really am an idiot), it is still probable that I will go to jail on a charge of negligent manslaughter, or that I will be put into some other kind of institution. If a corporation fucks up, they should be held responsible (i.e. it would be nice to see GM take responsibility for the mercury switches that it claims it is no longer responsible for thanks to bankruptcy—a situation arrived at thanks to incompetence). I was not suggesting that a plea of incompetence be a way to avoid responsibility, only that when problem occur, we should properly understand the root cause.
None of this, however, is relevant when it comes of ACORN and the allegations of registration fraud. ACORN hired contractors to collect registrations. A few of these contractors (perhaps 6 or 7, perhaps a few more—out of 13,000 that were hired) did not want to do their jobs, so they created fake voter registration forms. In Nevada (where I live, so that is the part of the story that I have followed most closely), ACORN went as far as to flag registrations that they felt were suspect so that the appropriate government body might have leg up. It is in this way that Hanlon's Razor applies: the post to which I responded suggested that ACORN intentionally created fraudulent registrations (this would be an attribution to malice). In reality, it appears that some of the people that ACORN hired turned out to be lazy bums (this would be attribution to incompetence). The whole scandal has become tempest in a teapot because certain people are out to prove that there was a vast, malicious conspiracy. This is a point of view not supported by the facts.
The system described above does tend to reflect the will of the people better. As an analogy, consider the GPA of a student. The current system is like only counting the As, i.e. you get credit for a class only if you get an A in that class. This is great for the students that always get As, but pretty much sucks for everyone else, and doesn't accurately reflect one's ability. The Borda system is more similar to the way that grades are actually averaged. You can be ranked on a scale from 0 to 4 (or 0 to 12 if you include pluses and minuses), which better reflects a student's ability.
To compare the two systems, consider the two following hypothetical students: student X took five classes last semester, got an A in one, and failed the other four; student Y also took five classes last semester, but got Bs in all of them. Under the first system, student X, who failed most of his classes, would still be ranked above student Y, because student X managed to get at least one A, whereas student Y did not. On the other hand, in the system we use, student Y would be ranked more highly.
A similarly brief overview of this idea (complete with this analogy) was published a while back by the AMS as part of their Mathematical Moments series. The relevant documents are near the bottom of the linked page, under the heading "Making Votes Count."
Please, stop spreading misinformation. ACORN itself has not even been charged with any wrongdoing, let alone convicted. Rather, contractors hired by ACORN to get voter registrations have been charged. Rather than a conspiracy to fraudulently register voters, it appears that several lazy contractors filled out forms in order to get paid without doing any work. It should be further noted that, in many states, it would be illegal for ACORN to discard suspicious registrations submitted by their workers---instead, they are required to pass them along to the state, which is the only entity with the authority to discard registrations (as for the reason, imagine if ACORN decided that only people registering as Democrats should be allowed to register---they could discard all registrations with the Republican box ticked, thus committing another kind of fraud). In short, it is evident that some voter registration fraud did occur, but that it was almost certainly the result of laziness on the part of workers, rather than an intentional effort to commit fraud on the part of ACORN. Never attribute to malice that which can more reasonably be attributed to laziness, incompetence, or stupidity.
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/acorn_accusations.html
The article implied that this was also the case with MPC. Is this not true?
Your own inability to use the program does not imply that it is a horrible program. I am sure that there are many people here that would extol the virtues of vi or emacs, not because either is easy to use, but because they are powerful. Furthermore, complaining that one product sucks, but failing to provide a better alternative is not constructive. It may be true, but it is not helpful. If FileZilla is so horrible, why not provide an example of something that is better?
Then you are not really qualified to speak about whether or not this product has competition, are you? Perhaps you should have left it out of your reply.
Let us, for a moment, accept that only business users need an office suite. Why should they be ignored? They do make up a rather large number of computer users. That being said, you are ignoring a large number of people. Lots of high school and college students use office suites, as do their instructors. Many researchers also use office suites, especially in the social sciences. Authors of all stripes might use office suites. Even grandmothers writing letters to their grandchildren might use an office suite. One might argue that none of these people need to use an office suite, but that doesn't change the fact that they do use an office suite. Thus, you are just plain wrong here.
Opera isn't open, and neither it nor Chrome have the mindshare that Firefox does. As pointed out by the article, Firefox is one of the most visible and most widely adopted pieces of open software in the world, especially when considering the ecosystem of Windows software. This alone seems like a good reason to discuss it in a list of top open source programs on Windows.
Bingo. GIMP is a replacement for PhotoShop, whereas Paint.net occupies a niche somewhere between Paint and PhotoShop. It is easier to use than PhotoShop or GIMP, but is still powerful enough to fill most non-professionals' needs. Given that FileZilla was included in the list, it might have made sense to include GIMP as well, but one can also understand why Paint.net was included and GIMP was not.
As I have not used MPC (though I have used VLC), I can't really comment on this. If you have used both, why not give a reason to use VLC over MPC, rather than just throwing something else out there? The article seems to suggest that MPC was included because of the UI similarities between it and a program that might be familiar to more users who are not used to open source software. Perhaps that is the reason it was included over VLC?
Then it is good you didn't comment on it, I suppose.
You've never needed, so there must not be a need for it. H
In the district where I teach, nearly every classroom in every public school, from pre-school through 12th grade, has a telephone. There are a few schools out in the boonies where this may not be the case yet, but, otherwise, everyone has a phone. It has also been my experience that other schools that I have been to, outside of this district, have similar infrastructure. It is generally considered important for teachers to be able to communicate with the main office, and getting an outside line is basically a freebie once you set up the wiring for intra-school communication. Yes, this is anecdotal, but it is still more evidence than you have provided. However, this is irrelevant to the point that I was making. The post I responded to asserted that teachers should be guaranteed the right (as if such a right existed) to use their cell phones during the day when they are not teaching. I simply noted that there are other ways of getting access to a telephone. These methods included, but were not limited to, using the phones in the classroom.
This is not to say that I would endorse a policy to install jammers—that is just a stupid idea, which won't actually solve the problem of kids not paying attention in class. I was merely pointing out that the objection raised was a spurious one. A better argument against the installation of jammers would note the illegality of the act.
And, even better, such things still exist!
Most classrooms have phones. There are phones in the main office. They could go outside to make a phone call. They could wait until they get home. There are many solutions to the problem that you suggest.
This is not a problem of old==good and new==bad. Start from the assumption that 95% of everything is crap. 95% of the books that were written 400 years ago were crap. However, only the good ones have survived. This gives the impression that older stuff is better, but this is a mistaken impression.
On the other hand, much of the good and valuable stuff from the past is very hard to get ahold of. There are people that would really love to have a copy of Addington's guide to illustrating flaked stone artifacts, but they are difficult to find, as the book has been out of print for years (and is not into the public domain to boot), and those of us that own copies of the book are not likely to give them up. If Amazon wants to get the rights to the book and print off copies on demand, I would be happy to pay them for the service. As I see it, Amazon is attempting to fill a niche. Sure, they make money off of it, but I don't see it as a simple marketing ploy designed to capitalize off of nostalgia for the past.