Pass on this one. This is about the worst article trolling I've seen. All it does is attack a particular set of supporters of the project. It is designed purely to incite flamage. It's disgusting. Zonk please think before approving this crap. The article doesn't want to start a debate at all. It's already made all the conclusions in an extremely prejudiced manner. I'm sure there are supporters of the kindle for legit reasons, and if I was one of them I would be horribly offended!
Disclaimer: I've never used the product in question or even amazon.com for that matter. This was just a particular revolting piece of garbage.
The earth isn't a planet, it's aggregated stellar dust that looks like a planet!
Which Star Wars was that one from? See I find Science hard so I have to orient it around things I do understand, like science fiction. See I didn't understand just how devastating being left out unprotected in space could be, you know black body radiation and lack of oxygen, until I read the Hitchhiker's Guide. I also didn't understand the dangers of a robot killing frenzy (a proven scientific fact!) until I read Asimov. So until George Lucas or Ray Bradbury proves your assertion from above, please just stick to the proven facts.;)
Wow, the "that's no moon" comments actually have some relevance now, as one can say "that's not moon... it's aggregated ring material that only looks like a moon!"
Well I see you got my allusion to "the year of linux on the desktop." You see the problem is not that I think calling this "the year of something," instead it's the fact that people keep taking my jokes seriously (see my sig for proof). Apparently what I thought was an absurd allegory for the trials of linux was actually an insightful and interesting commentary on marketing technology. Moderation confuses me more often than not now.
"I think 2008 is the year when we will finally start to see in-flight Internet access become available..."
Note to everyone, declaring this "the year of implementation x of tech y" automatically sets that tech back indefinitely. This is how this will work out now. The service will be used for years by technically elite fliers who rave over its superior stability when compared to ground based wi-fi. Then several years down the road a group with the motto "airline wifi for humans" will again attempt to make the year of "in-flight internet access", only to realize that the people are still reluctant to adopt it. It's a proven paradigm.
So remember, if you are passionate about a technology, do not declare this "the year of it," as you are only hurting it.
Why is it specifically in favour of 'Big' media companies? What is it that prevents this also helping out small media companies
The optimistic side of me wants to say you're right. I hope this doesn't turn out to be just the enforcer for the RIAA, but instead turns out to be something useful. I could see a possibility where government influence would eliminate the $47483848343524324 suit for an album's worth of songs. An agency dedicated to proper enforcement of all types of copyright could only help. Think about it. The way copyright is enforced now is only by the big boys. Unless you have the legal might to take the "sue for ungodly amount then settle" route, enforcing copyright is hard. If we could move to a system where everyone is able and obligated to enforce their copyright properly that would be a major plus.
I'm normally the first to be wary of businesses and the whole corporate idea, but given Congress's penchant for stripping NASA's budget, this seems like it's going to be necessary to jumpstart any exploration of space. The possibility of civil space travel is far off, but the possibility of discovery is immediate. Space travel has a special way of presenting all new angles of attacking problems that have historically led to fantastic inventions. Having a private monopoly on space research would be bad, but using market forces to stimulate is a great idea in my book, though.
"Government-placed" monopolies present problems, but not as much say as regular old natural monopolies. Don't kid yourself into believing that the hand of the government is the worst thing distorting the market. Greed drives anti-competitive practice like nothing else. It also drives a lot of other nasty business practices, eg company stores, price gouging, etc., that without government regulation would be very bad for society. Sure MS and the natural monopolies of the Telcos hurt business, but at least they don't physically exploit the land and their labor like coal companies used to sans-regulation. You are a "disservice" for the belief that the government is the primary preventer of free markets. They just don't exist, period. Without some sort of protection, the public leaves themselves open to exploitation.
They can stand back up after being kicked and now can play the violin. Anyone sane could obviously see that this completes their skill set. They'll use the sweet sounding music to lull us all to sleep, and then with their new found balance and agility put the kibosh on us all. I can feel their cold, icy hands around my throat just now! It's over man; it's over!
Well I wished I would have faired better about in the moderation game, I wasn't really lampooning Paul himself as much as the foolhardy zeal some feel for him. I'm man enough to handle the karma hit. Look at my uid, I don't plan on getting mod points any time soon.
Ron Paul is a nice guy and he sees right through a lot of the crap, it's just he holds to some pretty wacky things. The fact that he voted against divestment from Sudan, all the while preaching non-intervention in conflicts proves to me that he holds the same foolish trust in businesses as die hard communists hold in the government. A healthy distaste and wariness towards government is key, but it has to be healthy. Ron Paul's wariness is dangerous. Slashdot is the first place to come to here whining about net neutrality and the monopolistic nature of MS, however a good many would see Ron Paul to the presidency all the while not realizing the sort of crap they complain about so often is going to get worse. Free markets just simply don't exist. Regulation is necessary. This is one basic point that Paul fails to see, and it's a pretty important fact at that.
Well CaptainPatent that's my attempt at an insightful look at Ron Paul.
I told you all Ron Paul was a saint. Ron Paul would never stoop to spamming. He is right on par with a god, in fact he may be a god (the tests are still being run). Any of you jerks who thought that this stuff was official hate the constitution and what to see the the declaration of independence used as toilet paper. I hate anyone who thinks any ill of Ron "OUR MESSIAH" PAUL!! GET IT!
Listen Buddy! Microsoft ran out of feet to shoot around the time the first of the browsers were over, ok! Since then they learned the power of perpetual levitation from the emperor (aka Sidious)! So please the next time you want to rant about MS shooting their own foot , please check the facts!
P.S. Just to pre-empt any smart remarks about shooting themselves in the head, they are impervious to it since just before the start of programming win2000 their brains were replaced with a singularity that destroys everything in its path!
So this article in tandem with this one, has given me hope. For I have a dream that one day all of our children will be able to sit down at the radioactive table of brotherhood. They will be able to enjoy the pleasures of uranium chip flavored ice cream and sleep on beds made of the finest plutonium. I welcome the day when all of our children will have the opportunity to be exposed to the now safer than ever blessing of radiation. I have a dream that one day the alarmist fear mongering about radiation poisoning and nuclear fallout will be over and out children can reap the benefits.
Why on Earth do grade school students need to be issued a laptop?
Isn't this a tired old argument already? I thought we had established what a useful tool that a personal computer had become for education. As a student from a rural area with limited educational resources, I can say from first hand experience with distance learning and paperless courses that PC's are becoming almost essential to education at the higher level. A good part of grade school education is priming children for the whole educational experience. Using the standard tools of the trade is only too obvious of an idea. I've always thought that the whole dependence on technology x was completely ridiculous. Technology is supposed to remove some labor intensive task. Tech is not making us dumber. The people that can only do math with a calculator probably wouldn't be able to set up an equation at all if calculators had never been invented. Tech + education == good for the most part. Note technology has to have some end. Throwing kids in front of a computer as a baby-sitting mechanism is not good. Allowing kids to have constant access to the tools a computer offers is a good idea.
Exactly! The system lacks a way of defining what exactly it's blocking. How does one determine that one say receives 25% spam? Does Abaca do the analysis or are you just supposed to guess? While the equation obviously works on paper, when implementation comes it is clearly missing a major element, ie a definition of spam.
So the way I read this is that it works like a reverse karma system. It doesn't really make much sense though. Remember the old adage about lies and statistics. Without seeing there analysis who knows what they twistsing. I would very much like to see actual data about this system. The idea that a person's amount of spam would fit any sort of predictable distribution seems like a bit of a stretch to me. If anyone with actual numbers could come forth, I think we would all appreciate it. Even if there was a regular distribution of spam for a recipient it would have a tenuous relationship with any one single element at best. I call snake oil without any hard statistical analysis. The best the article gave was a board meeting style feel good chart with no basis in real statistics, only assumed aggregates.
This is news?! What is up with that! Every body knows that the RIAA is a completely honest and upright organization. They practice what they preach. They obey everyone else's takedown notice, be it gpl or dmca, whatever, just like they expect you to obey their takedown notices. I can't wait to see the day that all these trolls on slashdot finally go the way of the dinosaur and the true intellectuals out there call the RIAA what it is! It is an honest, upright, artist first organization! IF YOU CAN'T HANDLE THAT GET OFF SLASHDOT!!
but what exactly about this story is novel. The article was pretty bland. With Moore's law anybody can pretty much predict that chipsets and RAM are going to get faster. Now what would have been interesting is to see price comparisons, predictions on what this will mean for the consumer, testing of the product, discussion of the architecture, insight into the manufacturing process, etc. I guess it's just the fact that it was from a mainstream source, but this article was about as useful as a press release, ie not very.
Apparently it's not so cold after all. Maybe insane paranoia we will reap some benefits from increasing tech R&D. All it takes is one congressman talking about "an decryption gap" to get about 10^588484 billion dollars for this stuff.
Last time the Soviet's spent themselves into exinction, so let's just hope it's not us this time.
It scares the life out of me. I hope to god that no one actually took that seriously. I sincerely hope that that informative mod was a sardonic joke in and of its self.
...that the study in question was done in collaboration with the Texas Department of Science Education. The department was called in when MS had concerns over the factual rigor that the test would be subjected to.
Slashdot Mirror
Pass on this one. This is about the worst article trolling I've seen. All it does is attack a particular set of supporters of the project. It is designed purely to incite flamage. It's disgusting. Zonk please think before approving this crap. The article doesn't want to start a debate at all. It's already made all the conclusions in an extremely prejudiced manner. I'm sure there are supporters of the kindle for legit reasons, and if I was one of them I would be horribly offended!
Disclaimer: I've never used the product in question or even amazon.com for that matter. This was just a particular revolting piece of garbage.
The earth isn't a planet, it's aggregated stellar dust that looks like a planet! Which Star Wars was that one from? See I find Science hard so I have to orient it around things I do understand, like science fiction. See I didn't understand just how devastating being left out unprotected in space could be, you know black body radiation and lack of oxygen, until I read the Hitchhiker's Guide. I also didn't understand the dangers of a robot killing frenzy (a proven scientific fact!) until I read Asimov. So until George Lucas or Ray Bradbury proves your assertion from above, please just stick to the proven facts. ;)
Wow, the "that's no moon" comments actually have some relevance now, as one can say "that's not moon... it's aggregated ring material that only looks like a moon!"
Well I see you got my allusion to "the year of linux on the desktop." You see the problem is not that I think calling this "the year of something," instead it's the fact that people keep taking my jokes seriously (see my sig for proof). Apparently what I thought was an absurd allegory for the trials of linux was actually an insightful and interesting commentary on marketing technology. Moderation confuses me more often than not now.
"I think 2008 is the year when we will finally start to see in-flight Internet access become available..."
Note to everyone, declaring this "the year of implementation x of tech y" automatically sets that tech back indefinitely. This is how this will work out now. The service will be used for years by technically elite fliers who rave over its superior stability when compared to ground based wi-fi. Then several years down the road a group with the motto "airline wifi for humans" will again attempt to make the year of "in-flight internet access", only to realize that the people are still reluctant to adopt it. It's a proven paradigm.
So remember, if you are passionate about a technology, do not declare this "the year of it," as you are only hurting it.
Why is it specifically in favour of 'Big' media companies? What is it that prevents this also helping out small media companies
The optimistic side of me wants to say you're right. I hope this doesn't turn out to be just the enforcer for the RIAA, but instead turns out to be something useful. I could see a possibility where government influence would eliminate the $47483848343524324 suit for an album's worth of songs. An agency dedicated to proper enforcement of all types of copyright could only help. Think about it. The way copyright is enforced now is only by the big boys. Unless you have the legal might to take the "sue for ungodly amount then settle" route, enforcing copyright is hard. If we could move to a system where everyone is able and obligated to enforce their copyright properly that would be a major plus.
I'm normally the first to be wary of businesses and the whole corporate idea, but given Congress's penchant for stripping NASA's budget, this seems like it's going to be necessary to jumpstart any exploration of space. The possibility of civil space travel is far off, but the possibility of discovery is immediate. Space travel has a special way of presenting all new angles of attacking problems that have historically led to fantastic inventions. Having a private monopoly on space research would be bad, but using market forces to stimulate is a great idea in my book, though.
"Government-placed" monopolies present problems, but not as much say as regular old natural monopolies. Don't kid yourself into believing that the hand of the government is the worst thing distorting the market. Greed drives anti-competitive practice like nothing else. It also drives a lot of other nasty business practices, eg company stores, price gouging, etc., that without government regulation would be very bad for society. Sure MS and the natural monopolies of the Telcos hurt business, but at least they don't physically exploit the land and their labor like coal companies used to sans-regulation. You are a "disservice" for the belief that the government is the primary preventer of free markets. They just don't exist, period. Without some sort of protection, the public leaves themselves open to exploitation.
They can stand back up after being kicked and now can play the violin. Anyone sane could obviously see that this completes their skill set. They'll use the sweet sounding music to lull us all to sleep, and then with their new found balance and agility put the kibosh on us all. I can feel their cold, icy hands around my throat just now! It's over man; it's over!
Well I wished I would have faired better about in the moderation game, I wasn't really lampooning Paul himself as much as the foolhardy zeal some feel for him. I'm man enough to handle the karma hit. Look at my uid, I don't plan on getting mod points any time soon.
Ron Paul is a nice guy and he sees right through a lot of the crap, it's just he holds to some pretty wacky things. The fact that he voted against divestment from Sudan, all the while preaching non-intervention in conflicts proves to me that he holds the same foolish trust in businesses as die hard communists hold in the government. A healthy distaste and wariness towards government is key, but it has to be healthy. Ron Paul's wariness is dangerous. Slashdot is the first place to come to here whining about net neutrality and the monopolistic nature of MS, however a good many would see Ron Paul to the presidency all the while not realizing the sort of crap they complain about so often is going to get worse. Free markets just simply don't exist. Regulation is necessary. This is one basic point that Paul fails to see, and it's a pretty important fact at that.
Well CaptainPatent that's my attempt at an insightful look at Ron Paul.
Ahhhh!! Sweet Vindication!
I told you all Ron Paul was a saint. Ron Paul would never stoop to spamming. He is right on par with a god, in fact he may be a god (the tests are still being run). Any of you jerks who thought that this stuff was official hate the constitution and what to see the the declaration of independence used as toilet paper. I hate anyone who thinks any ill of Ron "OUR MESSIAH" PAUL!! GET IT!
Listen Buddy! Microsoft ran out of feet to shoot around the time the first of the browsers were over, ok! Since then they learned the power of perpetual levitation from the emperor (aka Sidious)! So please the next time you want to rant about MS shooting their own foot , please check the facts!
P.S. Just to pre-empt any smart remarks about shooting themselves in the head, they are impervious to it since just before the start of programming win2000 their brains were replaced with a singularity that destroys everything in its path!
So this article in tandem with this one, has given me hope. For I have a dream that one day all of our children will be able to sit down at the radioactive table of brotherhood. They will be able to enjoy the pleasures of uranium chip flavored ice cream and sleep on beds made of the finest plutonium. I welcome the day when all of our children will have the opportunity to be exposed to the now safer than ever blessing of radiation. I have a dream that one day the alarmist fear mongering about radiation poisoning and nuclear fallout will be over and out children can reap the benefits.
Why on Earth do grade school students need to be issued a laptop?
Isn't this a tired old argument already? I thought we had established what a useful tool that a personal computer had become for education. As a student from a rural area with limited educational resources, I can say from first hand experience with distance learning and paperless courses that PC's are becoming almost essential to education at the higher level. A good part of grade school education is priming children for the whole educational experience. Using the standard tools of the trade is only too obvious of an idea. I've always thought that the whole dependence on technology x was completely ridiculous. Technology is supposed to remove some labor intensive task. Tech is not making us dumber. The people that can only do math with a calculator probably wouldn't be able to set up an equation at all if calculators had never been invented. Tech + education == good for the most part. Note technology has to have some end. Throwing kids in front of a computer as a baby-sitting mechanism is not good. Allowing kids to have constant access to the tools a computer offers is a good idea.
Exactly! The system lacks a way of defining what exactly it's blocking. How does one determine that one say receives 25% spam? Does Abaca do the analysis or are you just supposed to guess? While the equation obviously works on paper, when implementation comes it is clearly missing a major element, ie a definition of spam.
So the way I read this is that it works like a reverse karma system. It doesn't really make much sense though. Remember the old adage about lies and statistics. Without seeing there analysis who knows what they twistsing. I would very much like to see actual data about this system. The idea that a person's amount of spam would fit any sort of predictable distribution seems like a bit of a stretch to me. If anyone with actual numbers could come forth, I think we would all appreciate it. Even if there was a regular distribution of spam for a recipient it would have a tenuous relationship with any one single element at best. I call snake oil without any hard statistical analysis. The best the article gave was a board meeting style feel good chart with no basis in real statistics, only assumed aggregates.
My bad, screwed that joke up! I sincerely apologize!
This is news?! What is up with that! Every body knows that the RIAA is a completely honest and upright organization. They practice what they preach. They obey everyone else's takedown notice, be it gpl or dmca, whatever, just like they expect you to obey their takedown notices. I can't wait to see the day that all these trolls on slashdot finally go the way of the dinosaur and the true intellectuals out there call the RIAA what it is! It is an honest, upright, artist first organization! IF YOU CAN'T HANDLE THAT GET OFF SLASHDOT!!
;)
but what exactly about this story is novel. The article was pretty bland. With Moore's law anybody can pretty much predict that chipsets and RAM are going to get faster. Now what would have been interesting is to see price comparisons, predictions on what this will mean for the consumer, testing of the product, discussion of the architecture, insight into the manufacturing process, etc. I guess it's just the fact that it was from a mainstream source, but this article was about as useful as a press release, ie not very.
Or except that it was a joke, seeing as I'm from Appalachia (the backwoods of America).
I'm a 6' 5" muscular, blonde, blue-eyed swede. I can tell pretty well what my DNA is, it's AWESOME, thank you! So no it's not worth a grand.
Apparently it's not so cold after all. Maybe insane paranoia we will reap some benefits from increasing tech R&D. All it takes is one congressman talking about "an decryption gap" to get about 10^588484 billion dollars for this stuff.
Last time the Soviet's spent themselves into exinction, so let's just hope it's not us this time.
It scares the life out of me. I hope to god that no one actually took that seriously. I sincerely hope that that informative mod was a sardonic joke in and of its self.
...that the study in question was done in collaboration with the Texas Department of Science Education. The department was called in when MS had concerns over the factual rigor that the test would be subjected to.