If you're going to punish a 15yo as an adult you should likewise award 15yo's like adults. Are you going to let 15yo's vote, get jobs that pay more than shit, drive, etc? If not then you have no right to punish a 15yo as an adult.
Recovering from a cracker SHOULD be easier than cleaning up graffiti unless you have no idea how to do your job or unless they are really good. If they are that good at 15 then you better hire them. Good security, good backups, good logging will usually keep people from hacking you and if they manage will keep them from causing much damage.
Also I think companies that let their systems be cracked should be charged with nelegence unless they can show proof of having made a reasonable effort. I've never worked anywhere that had decent security before I took over and they certainly didn't want to pay me to do the job right. Not securing your systems endangers the rest of the Internet and you should be held responsible.
I have several IDE WD's ranging from 20Gb to 100Gb and all undergo nasty stress (constant reading and writing.. and they are FULL) and they have so far held up very well. I've had a couple crap out on me but they were all 5-10 years old. The worst drive I ever bought was a cheap IBM drive and it and every replacement they sent just blackholed within a day or so but they recalled that line so maybe it was just one of those things. I've had a couple Maxtor and Samsung drives over the years and they were okay but didn't take the abuse the WD's did but for these prices I'm willing to give em another go.:)
Actually I've gotten several of these cheap drives and they seem to be doing fine. I was a little paranoid because I usually only buy Western Digital but for this project massive amounts of storage was more important than reliability.. anyway they seem to be working pretty well. Mostly Maxtor drives I've found at this price range.
Also a good many repairs are done by the neighborhood 14yo genius that more than likely won't have anyc erts but can be quite good at doing the same work for much less.. also providing them with good experience they could not otherwise get. Computers is a great field because it is so unregulated and is really open to anyone. I wouldn't want to ruin that.
Also computer certifications often mean squat. By the time somethoing is dated enough to be certified it's outdated and most the tests are poorly designed and implemented. As always the best certification is the word of mouth recommendation. It doesn't hurt to ask what experience they have, look for certifications, etc but all that means little to a solid llist of clients that give them high marks.
It's also been my experience that in computer work crooked experts is more of a problem than stupid ones. They tend to overprice, switch the quality advertised part for cheap knockoffs, steal hardware/software, etc.
Bullshit, anything you tell a computer what to do IS programming. If you set your VCR to record at such and such time it IS programming. Very limited programming but if it gets your specific job done then it does what it needs to. Besides HTML is needed if you're going to do anything very useful with PHP.:)
Ahh.. COBOL.. the most painful programming language I've ever had to develop real world programs in. Really it was worse than Basic, assembly, or even entering raw machine code in via toggle switches. I would not suggest COBOL as a good language for a newbie to learn. Teach yourself HTML and then PHP if you want an easy place to start.
Programming is one of those things that is easy to learn if you learn it when you're young enough but unless you happen to have developed a similar way of thinking it can be very hard to learn when you're older. That is one reason I think it should be taught to children. It's both a language skill and an abstract thinking skill and to my understanding both those brain centers are shaped fairly early in the development cycle.
Not being good at programming doesn't mean your a dummy, it just means you think in a different way. Also if you don't already know basic programming theory you're better off taking a class than reading a book. Most programming books are either crap or designed by programmers for programmers. It could also be that you are trying to learn a language that isn't that easy to learn. I strongly suggest learning either PHP or Python if you want something easy to begin with.
You obviously are much worse than I am at writing what I mean or much better than I am at actually expressing it verbally. I have far fewer misunderstandings in my text-based chat than face to face or over the phone because nothing is missed. You can reread a message until you understand or understand that you don't understand. Unless you have perfect hearing and your speaker is very good you can miss a lot in spoken conversation.
I don't know about talking being faster than typing either. I certainly can not say 60 words per minute but I can easily type or read 60 words per minute. I'm not all that great a typist either so I don't think it's to unusual.
I'll not argue that face to face communication CAN offer non-verbal insights etc but unless you're using a very good web cam you're not going to reach that level in online chat.
Not at all. Programming is more like writing than it is like finance. Yes, there are major programs that take real software engineers but the majority of programs are only a few lines long and acomplish only a small task. Also computers typically come with documentation ranging from intros to PhD level stuff so you can choose your level of skill. I don't know many other fields of study that answer your questions as you go. People familiar with basic mathmatical expressions can write a basic computer program. 'print 1 + 1' does exactly what you expect. With some simple classes people could learn these kind of minor things and do them for themselves.
I have been writing software for a very long time but I do know that I started picking it up the very first day I had a computer in front of me and those machines were much harder than the ones we have today. I also know that I've taken normal average teenagers and given them a few brief instructions on how to read a manual and that they've been able to grasp PHP and Python without any major effort in a single lesson. You don't need to know buzzwords and acronymns to grasp the basics.
If you spent all day working at what you did best then yes outsourcing the rest to experts in those fields would be most effecient.. but that probably isn't the case. If you're like most people you go home and sit on your ass watching tv or mow your grass or go bowling or do something else that isn't doing you a lot of good so you may as well spend some of that time writing your own software. For the majority of programming tasks it'd take you longer to locate and hire the programmer than to write the program yourself. You probably don't hire someone to put gas in your car so why hire someone to put a lil code into your computer? Not that I mind if you do.. as a professional programmer I love people who hire programmers for all their needs.. I just think most people are more capable than they think.
I'm not asking your average Joe at home to write their own OS or the next generation 3D engine. Those are definately out of reach for most people but putting together a six line program that figures out next months credit card interest should be possible.
In the US I would guess probably 95% or better of all people use some sort of computer every day and that at more than half 13+ use a PC type computer every day. If you type up a Word document you are in a very real sense writing a simple program with the single task of telling the computer to output your report on the number of cellphones used in Eastern Africa or whatever. There is no reason whatsoever not to teach people to write other simple forms of software. Everyone I know asks for various small programs.. my coworkers, my family, friends, etc because off the shelf software is 1. expesnive and 2. often doesn't scratch your itch properly.
Automobile education is, for better or worse, typically handed down in an oral tradition between males of different generations. I do think that given the huge row automobiles play in our society that all schools should teach basic maintenence but if your school system was like mine they didn't even offer drivers ed.
You can understand enough about your car to change a tire, add some cool lights, or change the stereo without being an engineer. There is no reason the average person shouldn't be able to do small jobs on their computer themselves also.
You'll notice I said to teach it to them first, at the same time you teach reading/writing and math. Not everyone is going to write daily sonnets but they can still use the skill of reading/writing. Not everyone is going to be an Einstein but knowing how to tally the cost of their shopping list is still very useful.
Also young people are much more comfortable with these technolgoies than adults. The average five year old can navigate the tv easily and the average teenager adds phone numbers to their cell phone without problem. Certainly those that grow up expecting themselves to know how to do a task can do so if given the chance.
Your right to use something freely ends where you keep others from using the same freedoms. With every right comes a responsibility. In this case your responsibilty is simply to give others the same right given to you.
I agree, this does look like a clone of the Sims Online which in of itself is just a graphical frontend to the chat muds we've had around for over a decade (some of which also had graphical frontends). All the commercial attempts at a graphical chat space have sucked up to the now so maybe this one will be different but honestly IM, email, and chat is about making communication easier. Adding VR elements to it adds complexity back into the equation so if you're going to do it you better be offering something that makes some good use of the VR. Also they need to make it possible to send/receive Jabber IM's (So AIM, ICQ, etc will all work) from their system because IM is easier than chatting in any physical space - real or virtual.:)
Programming should be a subject taught to everyone the way reading and math are. Obviously not everyone is going to choose that as a career but they'll be able to do minor programming to solve their own needs. I'm so often asked to write little programs that anyone could whip out in a few hours time that really it irks me that they don't think they can do it simply because they misunderstand what programming is.
Obviously not everyone needs to know C++ but Python/wxPython would be a good start especially if development tools can make it as easy as VB without the limitations of VB. PHP is also an excellent language to teach non-professional programmers because HTML makes UI's so easy to develop. Logo is good but I'm not sure how standardized it is.
The average Joe having a basic understanding of programming combined with opensource is really where things are going to explode in productivity. Thousands of simple single-purpose programs will flood the Net and the more professional level of programmers will get better feedback from their users.
Can not a person be both a politician and an innovator? Caring about the world around you certainly doesn't keep you from having good ideas.
I'd have to argue with the idea that innovation has anything to do with money. My most productive times are when I'm unemployed with lots of time on my hands and no money to pay someone else to write software I could write myself. If someone else has already invented the wheel I play it smart and look at what they have first, then I innovate the rest. If it's something entirely new I innovate it all but given my lack of a marketing department and the fact that nobody is looking for what I'm offering very little noise is made about it's existence.:)
As a developer I will never use a BSD license because it lets people rip me off without giving me anything back. If I release code under the GPL and they want to distribute changes they've made they have to make their changes available to me and others. If they don't want to do this they have to contact me and work out some other license for which they will pay me the original developer.
All the BSD license does is make it so you innovate and other people can run off with your code, make just enough changes to break compatibility, and make money off of it.
Take a Mini-ITX motherboard and change the built-in graphics to something more studly like a GeForce4 and you'd have pretty much what you need. Mini-ITX boards come with audio, video, ethernet, usb, etc built in and can either have a built-in processor (VIA x86 compat) or you can get one that takes your choice of x86 compat CPU's. The great thing about them is they are only like 6"x6" and everything on them works in both Linux and Windows. If you get the one with the VIA CPU they are pretty low power and don't need much cooling but the P4/Athlon options allow you to add power as needed for your project. Really you don't even need a built-in OS. Make the cd's bootable and use usb joysticks and maybe add a flash card reader in place of your average consoles memory card reader. Could always add modems, hdd's, etc as standard usb devices. Take a look at the e-Note as an ideal console-sized case.
BS. If someone gave me $200k I could do it and I'm sure there are many more talented people out there who could do it for even less. You don't actually have to develop anything, you just have to make a couple mutially-beneficial deals. All the required hardware exists and just needs to be intergrated better which isn't terribly difficult technically.
As far as case designs appropiate for a console there are already dozens of them designed for free by mod geeks. Designing a case isn't all that difficult.
Eazel was a company that actually developed their own software. They had to deal with overhead that just comes with being a company and I'm sure their programmers were well paid. They had a lot of expenses that wouldn't even apply in this case.
I like the contest sort of thing to a limit. I'd be fun to have a contest for best Linux based console that hackers could design. Several small prizes IMO would be better than two big prizes though. If you gave out 100 $2k prizes you'd probably get better results than 2 $100k prizes. Maybe score based on look n'feel, production price, size, weight, power demand, heat, and performance. I know I could build a decent console for $300 (the one I just built was $400 but you don't need that much hdd space in a default unit) so a $2000 prize would be a decent offering.
Being recorded all the time obviously leads to more honesty. You can't hide things so most of the time you don't try. Of course things work both ways so if your girlfriend can snoop on you you can snoop on her too. Sure she can see if you had a strange woman over but you can see if she has a strange man over too. You can totally avoid problems such as when both people in a relationship are cheating and do something healthier such as breakup or agree to partner swapping or whatever your thing is. Without all the lies and hidding that makes life painful.
Also people get bored of snooping after a while. The information is there but people usually don't make a habit of looking it up. If you've ever been a sysadmin you probably know that you don't spend all day reading peoples email and tracking what websites they look at.
On first thought you might think it'd lead most people to be less open but I've found that not to be the case. People might be freaked out by being recorded for a while but after that they just get used to it and don't care anymore. It just becomes part of life.
I understand people being a bit weirded out by suddenly being psuedo-famous. For those of us that have been online forever it's just something you get used to. The stupid shit you say today, the 'funny' picture you posted of yourself in your girlfriends underwear, etc that gets copied across the Net and linked into Google can be trouble at times but it's just part of life now. In some way we're accountable for every silly or stupid thing we ever do. Your great-grandchildren may very well have this shit linked into their virtual reality family tree. On the other hand when then fuck up, as all of us do, they'll have real life evidence that they aren't the first. They'll be able to get an idea of who you really are even if they never meet you and see who you have been throughout your life. So for all the bad uses of such technology there are equally good uses.
Laws on employee privacy and such are where you should be concerned. You can't, and probably don't want to stop technology but you can make it illegal for employers to snoop on you. They will anyway but then again they already do.;)
I always get annoyed at how slow IE feels when I have to use it. Mozilla seems to load pages (in both XP and Linux) quite a bit faster than IE does. I haven't taken speed metrics or anything.. it just feels faster. I do use a proxy server so possibly Mozilla deals with the proxy server better than IE does.
The proxy seriously speeds up web traffic to my LAN though and reduces bandwidth usage. I use Squid on my remote server and a proxy of my own design on my LAN (that talks to Squid on the remote) and half a dozen users on the LAN can comfortably web browse over a dial-up. Bandwidth usage with multiple people browsing is usually still low enough to use ssh to a remote server comfortably.
For $200,000 couldn't he have done something more useful like funded the design of an opensourced Linux-based console? I mean really if they could make some deals and get some good video and maybe wireless networking intergrated into a mini-ITX motherboard and put together a Dreamcast/GameCube sized case with a dvd-rom drive and room for a hdd they'd have something sweet. Really the current crop of mini-itx motherboards/cases are already nice for affordable music/video playback and work rather well for playing games a couple years old.. a lil boost to the video and you'd have things set.
I tend to agree. I'm a very private guy but if your walking down the street or sitting in a public place then you have to expect other people to see you. If they photograph you then oh well. If I happen to be doing something I'm embarassed for others to know about well doh maybe I shouldn't be doing it.
This is not the same issue at all as government camera networks. Government cameras give the government a power to enforce their power that they wouldn't have otherwise. Leagues of schoolgirls running around snapping pics at Burger King don't pose the same threat to society.
As it is I often walk the streets taking photos and movies of anything and anyone I find interesting. For me this can range from snapshots of public toilets (with no persons included.. just the bathroom conditions) to artwork and buildings to sweethearts kissing to wildlife. It certainly isn't harming anyone for me to take such pictures so I'm sure cellphone cameras won't destroy society either.
As far as the option of people to require photo evidence when placing phone calls.. this comes as a shock.. you could just refuse. It's your right not to take a picture if you don't want to. Tell mom or the boss or whomever to go blow themselves.
I also agree that ever time a new technology presents itself certain people (often journalists and politicians) decide said technologies are the end of civilization. As always I must point out that any technology is a tool, like a hammer. Technology cannot harm or help on it's own. It all depends on how people use it.
I was un/under employed for about two years before finding my current job. I lost my last decent tech job just as the economy really began to bomb and was foolish enough to turn down a couple offers I had right away because I'd have had to move across the country. Within a couple months all offers had dried up and then the rest of the economy followed the tech economy down the drain and I could barely find minimum wage grunt work. I didn't have a lot of debt or a lot of savings. I had turned down better paying jobs in order to stay near my family so I didn't make big bucks during the boom.. making the mistake of figuring I could move to one of those areas after I had plenty of job experience soaked up. I made the mistake of thinking that not having credit cards or debt was a good idea. Boy did I get fscked. No income soon meant I owed back utilities and rent. Then the car went to shit (hit a massive pothole in the street) so my roommate couldn't do her job which required traveling to clients homes. (They were supposed to make other arrangements for her but luckily both her supervisors quit at that time putting her job in limbo.) Now totally screwed as we were unable to pay much of anything outside buying enough food to survive. Then the brilliant utils company shut off our electricity ruining our fully stocked fridge of food we couldn't afford to replace. Lease was up and we didn't have any money to renew it with so we started hoping around living with friends/family. Finally got unemployment to start sending me a check but they refused to send my roommate one because supposedly she quit her job (because her supervisors never filed the paperwork for a position change). Make due on a little unemployment check for a few months and then that runs out. Hang out with no money at all for a while and finally each find a shit job (at the same place.. after removing most of our resumes) and I got some contract work for about $.50/hr to help out a little. Were both offered better jobs for which we agreed to move for.. got there and they changed their mind so we're screwed totally. She's still unemployed but I finally got a new tech job. Doesn't pay what I'd like but I'm thankful to have something above minwage and not cleaning toilets. But for the most part we lived off something like $3000 for two years and racked up thousands of dollars in debt and much pain and suffering and thoughts of suicide.
The only benefit was I cranked out a lot of good opensource code while unemployed and learned some new geek skills.
Now that I'm working again I'm paranoid to the extreme. I'm working on starting a couple unrelated small businesses. I still do freelance geek stuff but am also doing non-geek stuff to keep me from being so reliant on a single market.
The concept of being overqualified IMO is something that should be legally removed from job applicant considerations. You should not be able to turn down someone because you think their over qualified or just don't understand most of what is in their job history. An intelligent experienced worker has as much right to work at Burger King as a pimple faced virgin teenager. Just think American Beauty every time you're turned down for such a job.:)
Explain how I remember things nobody else does until I carefully lay them out then. I can describe people, places, toys, events from before my first birthday that nobody else remembers until I describe them. I can remember sitting in a baby seat watching my parents make out at a drive in theature in a car they sold when I was about six months old. I can remember a certain birthmark my mother was quite upset to know I remembered so vividly given it's location. I've even had relatives dig through old photos and movies I'd never have had a chance to see in order to verify what I described to them. For me such memories are always images. I don't rememeber sounds or sensations or anything like that before I was maybe five. I have a mostly visual memory though so maybe that explains why my visual memories start a lot earlier than other memories.
Have you ever written a translation engine? It's really complicated especially if you want the resulting engine to be able to work quickly under heavy load. IMO it's easier to write an engine that derives meaning from what it reads (like a bot) than it is to try to translate. I do think the Google one could be a bit better on word order but since it's free and fast I can't complain.:)
Slashdot Mirror
If you're going to punish a 15yo as an adult you should likewise award 15yo's like adults. Are you going to let 15yo's vote, get jobs that pay more than shit, drive, etc? If not then you have no right to punish a 15yo as an adult.
Recovering from a cracker SHOULD be easier than cleaning up graffiti unless you have no idea how to do your job or unless they are really good. If they are that good at 15 then you better hire them. Good security, good backups, good logging will usually keep people from hacking you and if they manage will keep them from causing much damage.
Also I think companies that let their systems be cracked should be charged with nelegence unless they can show proof of having made a reasonable effort. I've never worked anywhere that had decent security before I took over and they certainly didn't want to pay me to do the job right. Not securing your systems endangers the rest of the Internet and you should be held responsible.
I have several IDE WD's ranging from 20Gb to 100Gb and all undergo nasty stress (constant reading and writing.. and they are FULL) and they have so far held up very well. I've had a couple crap out on me but they were all 5-10 years old. The worst drive I ever bought was a cheap IBM drive and it and every replacement they sent just blackholed within a day or so but they recalled that line so maybe it was just one of those things. I've had a couple Maxtor and Samsung drives over the years and they were okay but didn't take the abuse the WD's did but for these prices I'm willing to give em another go. :)
Actually I've gotten several of these cheap drives and they seem to be doing fine. I was a little paranoid because I usually only buy Western Digital but for this project massive amounts of storage was more important than reliability.. anyway they seem to be working pretty well. Mostly Maxtor drives I've found at this price range.
Also a good many repairs are done by the neighborhood 14yo genius that more than likely won't have anyc erts but can be quite good at doing the same work for much less.. also providing them with good experience they could not otherwise get. Computers is a great field because it is so unregulated and is really open to anyone. I wouldn't want to ruin that.
Also computer certifications often mean squat. By the time somethoing is dated enough to be certified it's outdated and most the tests are poorly designed and implemented. As always the best certification is the word of mouth recommendation. It doesn't hurt to ask what experience they have, look for certifications, etc but all that means little to a solid llist of clients that give them high marks.
It's also been my experience that in computer work crooked experts is more of a problem than stupid ones. They tend to overprice, switch the quality advertised part for cheap knockoffs, steal hardware/software, etc.
Bullshit, anything you tell a computer what to do IS programming. If you set your VCR to record at such and such time it IS programming. Very limited programming but if it gets your specific job done then it does what it needs to. Besides HTML is needed if you're going to do anything very useful with PHP. :)
Ahh.. COBOL.. the most painful programming language I've ever had to develop real world programs in. Really it was worse than Basic, assembly, or even entering raw machine code in via toggle switches. I would not suggest COBOL as a good language for a newbie to learn. Teach yourself HTML and then PHP if you want an easy place to start.
Programming is one of those things that is easy to learn if you learn it when you're young enough but unless you happen to have developed a similar way of thinking it can be very hard to learn when you're older. That is one reason I think it should be taught to children. It's both a language skill and an abstract thinking skill and to my understanding both those brain centers are shaped fairly early in the development cycle.
Not being good at programming doesn't mean your a dummy, it just means you think in a different way. Also if you don't already know basic programming theory you're better off taking a class than reading a book. Most programming books are either crap or designed by programmers for programmers. It could also be that you are trying to learn a language that isn't that easy to learn. I strongly suggest learning either PHP or Python if you want something easy to begin with.
You obviously are much worse than I am at writing what I mean or much better than I am at actually expressing it verbally. I have far fewer misunderstandings in my text-based chat than face to face or over the phone because nothing is missed. You can reread a message until you understand or understand that you don't understand. Unless you have perfect hearing and your speaker is very good you can miss a lot in spoken conversation.
I don't know about talking being faster than typing either. I certainly can not say 60 words per minute but I can easily type or read 60 words per minute. I'm not all that great a typist either so I don't think it's to unusual.
I'll not argue that face to face communication CAN offer non-verbal insights etc but unless you're using a very good web cam you're not going to reach that level in online chat.
Not at all. Programming is more like writing than it is like finance. Yes, there are major programs that take real software engineers but the majority of programs are only a few lines long and acomplish only a small task. Also computers typically come with documentation ranging from intros to PhD level stuff so you can choose your level of skill. I don't know many other fields of study that answer your questions as you go. People familiar with basic mathmatical expressions can write a basic computer program. 'print 1 + 1' does exactly what you expect. With some simple classes people could learn these kind of minor things and do them for themselves.
I have been writing software for a very long time but I do know that I started picking it up the very first day I had a computer in front of me and those machines were much harder than the ones we have today. I also know that I've taken normal average teenagers and given them a few brief instructions on how to read a manual and that they've been able to grasp PHP and Python without any major effort in a single lesson. You don't need to know buzzwords and acronymns to grasp the basics.
If you spent all day working at what you did best then yes outsourcing the rest to experts in those fields would be most effecient.. but that probably isn't the case. If you're like most people you go home and sit on your ass watching tv or mow your grass or go bowling or do something else that isn't doing you a lot of good so you may as well spend some of that time writing your own software. For the majority of programming tasks it'd take you longer to locate and hire the programmer than to write the program yourself. You probably don't hire someone to put gas in your car so why hire someone to put a lil code into your computer? Not that I mind if you do.. as a professional programmer I love people who hire programmers for all their needs.. I just think most people are more capable than they think.
I'm not asking your average Joe at home to write their own OS or the next generation 3D engine. Those are definately out of reach for most people but putting together a six line program that figures out next months credit card interest should be possible.
In the US I would guess probably 95% or better of all people use some sort of computer every day and that at more than half 13+ use a PC type computer every day. If you type up a Word document you are in a very real sense writing a simple program with the single task of telling the computer to output your report on the number of cellphones used in Eastern Africa or whatever. There is no reason whatsoever not to teach people to write other simple forms of software. Everyone I know asks for various small programs.. my coworkers, my family, friends, etc because off the shelf software is 1. expesnive and 2. often doesn't scratch your itch properly.
Automobile education is, for better or worse, typically handed down in an oral tradition between males of different generations. I do think that given the huge row automobiles play in our society that all schools should teach basic maintenence but if your school system was like mine they didn't even offer drivers ed.
You can understand enough about your car to change a tire, add some cool lights, or change the stereo without being an engineer. There is no reason the average person shouldn't be able to do small jobs on their computer themselves also.
You'll notice I said to teach it to them first, at the same time you teach reading/writing and math. Not everyone is going to write daily sonnets but they can still use the skill of reading/writing. Not everyone is going to be an Einstein but knowing how to tally the cost of their shopping list is still very useful.
Also young people are much more comfortable with these technolgoies than adults. The average five year old can navigate the tv easily and the average teenager adds phone numbers to their cell phone without problem. Certainly those that grow up expecting themselves to know how to do a task can do so if given the chance.
Your right to use something freely ends where you keep others from using the same freedoms. With every right comes a responsibility. In this case your responsibilty is simply to give others the same right given to you.
I agree, this does look like a clone of the Sims Online which in of itself is just a graphical frontend to the chat muds we've had around for over a decade (some of which also had graphical frontends). All the commercial attempts at a graphical chat space have sucked up to the now so maybe this one will be different but honestly IM, email, and chat is about making communication easier. Adding VR elements to it adds complexity back into the equation so if you're going to do it you better be offering something that makes some good use of the VR. Also they need to make it possible to send/receive Jabber IM's (So AIM, ICQ, etc will all work) from their system because IM is easier than chatting in any physical space - real or virtual. :)
Programming should be a subject taught to everyone the way reading and math are. Obviously not everyone is going to choose that as a career but they'll be able to do minor programming to solve their own needs. I'm so often asked to write little programs that anyone could whip out in a few hours time that really it irks me that they don't think they can do it simply because they misunderstand what programming is.
Obviously not everyone needs to know C++ but Python/wxPython would be a good start especially if development tools can make it as easy as VB without the limitations of VB. PHP is also an excellent language to teach non-professional programmers because HTML makes UI's so easy to develop. Logo is good but I'm not sure how standardized it is.
The average Joe having a basic understanding of programming combined with opensource is really where things are going to explode in productivity. Thousands of simple single-purpose programs will flood the Net and the more professional level of programmers will get better feedback from their users.
Can not a person be both a politician and an innovator? Caring about the world around you certainly doesn't keep you from having good ideas.
:)
I'd have to argue with the idea that innovation has anything to do with money. My most productive times are when I'm unemployed with lots of time on my hands and no money to pay someone else to write software I could write myself. If someone else has already invented the wheel I play it smart and look at what they have first, then I innovate the rest. If it's something entirely new I innovate it all but given my lack of a marketing department and the fact that nobody is looking for what I'm offering very little noise is made about it's existence.
As a developer I will never use a BSD license because it lets people rip me off without giving me anything back. If I release code under the GPL and they want to distribute changes they've made they have to make their changes available to me and others. If they don't want to do this they have to contact me and work out some other license for which they will pay me the original developer.
All the BSD license does is make it so you innovate and other people can run off with your code, make just enough changes to break compatibility, and make money off of it.
Take a Mini-ITX motherboard and change the built-in graphics to something more studly like a GeForce4 and you'd have pretty much what you need. Mini-ITX boards come with audio, video, ethernet, usb, etc built in and can either have a built-in processor (VIA x86 compat) or you can get one that takes your choice of x86 compat CPU's. The great thing about them is they are only like 6"x6" and everything on them works in both Linux and Windows. If you get the one with the VIA CPU they are pretty low power and don't need much cooling but the P4/Athlon options allow you to add power as needed for your project. Really you don't even need a built-in OS. Make the cd's bootable and use usb joysticks and maybe add a flash card reader in place of your average consoles memory card reader. Could always add modems, hdd's, etc as standard usb devices. Take a look at the e-Note as an ideal console-sized case.
BS. If someone gave me $200k I could do it and I'm sure there are many more talented people out there who could do it for even less. You don't actually have to develop anything, you just have to make a couple mutially-beneficial deals. All the required hardware exists and just needs to be intergrated better which isn't terribly difficult technically.
As far as case designs appropiate for a console there are already dozens of them designed for free by mod geeks. Designing a case isn't all that difficult.
Eazel was a company that actually developed their own software. They had to deal with overhead that just comes with being a company and I'm sure their programmers were well paid. They had a lot of expenses that wouldn't even apply in this case.
I like the contest sort of thing to a limit. I'd be fun to have a contest for best Linux based console that hackers could design. Several small prizes IMO would be better than two big prizes though. If you gave out 100 $2k prizes you'd probably get better results than 2 $100k prizes. Maybe score based on look n'feel, production price, size, weight, power demand, heat, and performance. I know I could build a decent console for $300 (the one I just built was $400 but you don't need that much hdd space in a default unit) so a $2000 prize would be a decent offering.
Being recorded all the time obviously leads to more honesty. You can't hide things so most of the time you don't try. Of course things work both ways so if your girlfriend can snoop on you you can snoop on her too. Sure she can see if you had a strange woman over but you can see if she has a strange man over too. You can totally avoid problems such as when both people in a relationship are cheating and do something healthier such as breakup or agree to partner swapping or whatever your thing is. Without all the lies and hidding that makes life painful.
Also people get bored of snooping after a while. The information is there but people usually don't make a habit of looking it up. If you've ever been a sysadmin you probably know that you don't spend all day reading peoples email and tracking what websites they look at.
On first thought you might think it'd lead most people to be less open but I've found that not to be the case. People might be freaked out by being recorded for a while but after that they just get used to it and don't care anymore. It just becomes part of life.
I understand people being a bit weirded out by suddenly being psuedo-famous. For those of us that have been online forever it's just something you get used to. The stupid shit you say today, the 'funny' picture you posted of yourself in your girlfriends underwear, etc that gets copied across the Net and linked into Google can be trouble at times but it's just part of life now. In some way we're accountable for every silly or stupid thing we ever do. Your great-grandchildren may very well have this shit linked into their virtual reality family tree. On the other hand when then fuck up, as all of us do, they'll have real life evidence that they aren't the first. They'll be able to get an idea of who you really are even if they never meet you and see who you have been throughout your life. So for all the bad uses of such technology there are equally good uses.
;)
Laws on employee privacy and such are where you should be concerned. You can't, and probably don't want to stop technology but you can make it illegal for employers to snoop on you. They will anyway but then again they already do.
I always get annoyed at how slow IE feels when I have to use it. Mozilla seems to load pages (in both XP and Linux) quite a bit faster than IE does. I haven't taken speed metrics or anything.. it just feels faster. I do use a proxy server so possibly Mozilla deals with the proxy server better than IE does.
The proxy seriously speeds up web traffic to my LAN though and reduces bandwidth usage. I use Squid on my remote server and a proxy of my own design on my LAN (that talks to Squid on the remote) and half a dozen users on the LAN can comfortably web browse over a dial-up. Bandwidth usage with multiple people browsing is usually still low enough to use ssh to a remote server comfortably.
For $200,000 couldn't he have done something more useful like funded the design of an opensourced Linux-based console? I mean really if they could make some deals and get some good video and maybe wireless networking intergrated into a mini-ITX motherboard and put together a Dreamcast/GameCube sized case with a dvd-rom drive and room for a hdd they'd have something sweet. Really the current crop of mini-itx motherboards/cases are already nice for affordable music/video playback and work rather well for playing games a couple years old.. a lil boost to the video and you'd have things set.
I tend to agree. I'm a very private guy but if your walking down the street or sitting in a public place then you have to expect other people to see you. If they photograph you then oh well. If I happen to be doing something I'm embarassed for others to know about well doh maybe I shouldn't be doing it.
This is not the same issue at all as government camera networks. Government cameras give the government a power to enforce their power that they wouldn't have otherwise. Leagues of schoolgirls running around snapping pics at Burger King don't pose the same threat to society.
As it is I often walk the streets taking photos and movies of anything and anyone I find interesting. For me this can range from snapshots of public toilets (with no persons included.. just the bathroom conditions) to artwork and buildings to sweethearts kissing to wildlife. It certainly isn't harming anyone for me to take such pictures so I'm sure cellphone cameras won't destroy society either.
As far as the option of people to require photo evidence when placing phone calls.. this comes as a shock.. you could just refuse. It's your right not to take a picture if you don't want to. Tell mom or the boss or whomever to go blow themselves.
I also agree that ever time a new technology presents itself certain people (often journalists and politicians) decide said technologies are the end of civilization. As always I must point out that any technology is a tool, like a hammer. Technology cannot harm or help on it's own. It all depends on how people use it.
I was un/under employed for about two years before finding my current job. I lost my last decent tech job just as the economy really began to bomb and was foolish enough to turn down a couple offers I had right away because I'd have had to move across the country. Within a couple months all offers had dried up and then the rest of the economy followed the tech economy down the drain and I could barely find minimum wage grunt work. I didn't have a lot of debt or a lot of savings. I had turned down better paying jobs in order to stay near my family so I didn't make big bucks during the boom.. making the mistake of figuring I could move to one of those areas after I had plenty of job experience soaked up. I made the mistake of thinking that not having credit cards or debt was a good idea. Boy did I get fscked. No income soon meant I owed back utilities and rent. Then the car went to shit (hit a massive pothole in the street) so my roommate couldn't do her job which required traveling to clients homes. (They were supposed to make other arrangements for her but luckily both her supervisors quit at that time putting her job in limbo.) Now totally screwed as we were unable to pay much of anything outside buying enough food to survive. Then the brilliant utils company shut off our electricity ruining our fully stocked fridge of food we couldn't afford to replace. Lease was up and we didn't have any money to renew it with so we started hoping around living with friends/family. Finally got unemployment to start sending me a check but they refused to send my roommate one because supposedly she quit her job (because her supervisors never filed the paperwork for a position change). Make due on a little unemployment check for a few months and then that runs out. Hang out with no money at all for a while and finally each find a shit job (at the same place.. after removing most of our resumes) and I got some contract work for about $.50/hr to help out a little. Were both offered better jobs for which we agreed to move for.. got there and they changed their mind so we're screwed totally. She's still unemployed but I finally got a new tech job. Doesn't pay what I'd like but I'm thankful to have something above minwage and not cleaning toilets. But for the most part we lived off something like $3000 for two years and racked up thousands of dollars in debt and much pain and suffering and thoughts of suicide.
:)
The only benefit was I cranked out a lot of good opensource code while unemployed and learned some new geek skills.
Now that I'm working again I'm paranoid to the extreme. I'm working on starting a couple unrelated small businesses. I still do freelance geek stuff but am also doing non-geek stuff to keep me from being so reliant on a single market.
The concept of being overqualified IMO is something that should be legally removed from job applicant considerations. You should not be able to turn down someone because you think their over qualified or just don't understand most of what is in their job history. An intelligent experienced worker has as much right to work at Burger King as a pimple faced virgin teenager. Just think American Beauty every time you're turned down for such a job.
Explain how I remember things nobody else does until I carefully lay them out then. I can describe people, places, toys, events from before my first birthday that nobody else remembers until I describe them. I can remember sitting in a baby seat watching my parents make out at a drive in theature in a car they sold when I was about six months old. I can remember a certain birthmark my mother was quite upset to know I remembered so vividly given it's location. I've even had relatives dig through old photos and movies I'd never have had a chance to see in order to verify what I described to them. For me such memories are always images. I don't rememeber sounds or sensations or anything like that before I was maybe five. I have a mostly visual memory though so maybe that explains why my visual memories start a lot earlier than other memories.
Have you ever written a translation engine? It's really complicated especially if you want the resulting engine to be able to work quickly under heavy load. IMO it's easier to write an engine that derives meaning from what it reads (like a bot) than it is to try to translate. I do think the Google one could be a bit better on word order but since it's free and fast I can't complain. :)