Sure, Theora is great, so is OGG Vorbis and FLAC... Unfortunately I can't really play any of those formats save for on my computer, and if I'm using something other than Linux, I most likely will have to install extra software in order to play them. So no, I don't think this will be some big improvement until I can play them on everything without extra software.
My preferred default behavior would be to have all rendering, animation, and scripting functions stop on all non-visible tabs, but not to suspend simple downloading of data.
But that really wouldn't work for everyone else, Most of the people that I know listen to music, have web-based IM, listen to a video or have some other script-based thing on their non-active tabs. Thats one of the main reasons why people use tabs to browse. And making that being a default option would kinda defeat the purpose.
Having something like pandora playing in the background is rare enough (only done once per session), that I wouldn't mind having to right click and select a "execute while in background" option.
Yes, but a lot of people have different things open that I can't see this working without a bunch of complaints that it is broken. I see your point, and I can see how it might work for you, but I can't see it working for most other people, Flash and JavaScript in tabs are just too valuable.
I'm not against an option, or an add-on for this, I just can't see it being a mainstream feature that most of the public would want.
There are a lot of people who aren't exactly rich that have multiple cars. A decent (used) SUV can be found for a bit less than $5K, and cars run from dirt cheap to quite expensive.
Sure, but how is that going to work? The USA isn't going to really want to build any more nuclear reactors, the people of the USA are mostly against it (most will agree with it in principle, but any time you propose a site, there will be a vocal majority opposing it around there). The USA doesn't want Russia to be enriching uranium only in Russia because the USA doesn't view Russia as secure enough. The USA doesn't want China to be in charge of it either because China is on shaky political grounds with the USA. I don't think that France or the UK really want to have enrichment on a global scale because of the same things as the USA.
And thats assuming that that Russia or China isn't opposed to any of this.
Private companies are always better. You can choose not to support them. For example, if you don't believe that putting in a railway to a certain place is a good idea, the most you can do is not vote for it, and if you are in the minority, you end up still paying for it. With a private company, you don't have to pay for a companies mismanagement*.
*This is assuming that the government isn't like America in 2008/2009 and bailing out any halfway failing company left and right at taxpayer expense
Finally, I can read, talk on the phone, etc. while I'm on the bus or walking. Can't do that in the car. The time I spend driving may be shorter, but that time is spent accumulating stress, not relaxing and regenerating.
Don't know what bus you have been on, but on all the ones I have been on, its been anything but relaxing or regenerating. You sit down next to some person who smells, listen to half a dozen phone conversations, see someone who you just know has every type of communal sickness imaginable, etc.
On the other hand, in my car I can mostly control the noise level, can choose my route to route around traffic or construction areas, and I don't have to be near annoying people.
Then again, I've only rode the bus when I was on business trips, so your results might vary. (I live in the suburbs and work in a larger suburb so riding the bus isn't exactly an option unless I feel like walking 25 miles to the nearest bus stop when work is only a 30 mile drive)
WTF do you need three or more cars for in a 2-person household?
For a few reasons, one would be in case a car got totaled, broke down with something too expensive to repair, or you needed to lend a car to friends/family for a while. I can see owning an older SUV for when you need to transport many people, but keeping two cars to go to work in and for general driving.
Sure, but there are a lot of problems with that for the general public. For example, a lot of people (including me) fire up YouTube, Pandora, or other web-based music services in another tab then listen to the music and then browse in different tabs. I also usually open up Facebook in another tab, and like the fact that if I get a message it alerts me with a sound so I can go back to the tab.
Sure, it would be useful as an option, but I think this is more add-on territory because of how little it would benefit most people.
No one is copying anyone, its a general trend. When you have tabs finally introduced to all major browsers including IE, people are going to get used to them and start to like them even more, and not just us geeks but the general public. At the same time you get multi-core CPUs in newer computers save for budget models. So, you have the perfect scenario in which to isolate tabs into different threads/processes. Mix that in with the general trend towards dynamic HTML pages using obscene amounts of JavaScript (previously most were done in plugins like Flash and Java), and you have a need to do it.
[citation needed]
Seriously. It's not like I paid for my A/V software. It's not like I run scans when I'm using the system, so my work isn't being slowed.
Ok, but that either means one of many things:
A) You pirated your AV software, which, being illegal, should include the full retail price when figuring out total cost of ownership
B) You have a free AV, which, might not be protecting you enough (depending on which AV you have) And either way, you aren't necessarily 100% protected without it being scanned often
Then, vs. just OSX, the hardware's cheaper, you can upgrade it and futureproof it, so you don't need to buy an entirely new $1.5k machine, and software's same price or cheaper, with more options
The hardware is not cheaper. Find me a notebook with a built in multi-touch trackpad, decent resolution webcam, nice-ish keyboard, about 2 gigs of DDR3 RAM, Intel Dual Core CPU, GeForce 9400M or equivalent graphics and you will get a system close to $1300, the price of a Macbook with the same specs. Sure, one could argue that you don't need all the hardware, but the hardware itself isn't that expensive compared to the competition.
While Windows does have more software choices, a Mac is going to be able to do a whole lot more out of the box. And third party software is about the same price, but first party isn't. You can get iWork for about $50, while Office costs much more.
And as for security, may I point you to the Mac-only botnet that was recently discovered due to pirated copies of iLife, or iWork, or whatever it was? Stupid people will fuck up any system you give them, regardless of OS. Windows is not inherently superior or inferior, it's just the one that does what I need.
Yes, any system you allow to execute an untrusted binary can be compromised. The difference is, by hiding file extensions and other exploits, Windows makes it a lot easier to run said untrusted stuff.
Re:You stole my joke; oh well, it's "Did not finis
on
Duke Nukem For Never
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· Score: 1
DNC? Did not capsize?
Or if you are a grammar nazi it is Did Not Capitalize
Here's the thing: UAC is one layer of defense against this (even though UAC is never called a protective layer, it seems). If there is no verified publisher, UAC will say that the publisher is unknown and thus, in theory, it should trigger a red flag with people. That's how all of my computer illiterate friends approach it, and they've never had problems.
Heck, just about all legitimate programs I download from a non-major publisher says that the publisher is unknown. About the only programs that I have installed with a "known" publisher are Firefox, and iTunes. The rest still say unknown publisher.
Today I had to explain to my father that he didn't need to reinstall flash just because some website said so. One of those video sites had simply changed media-servers and since it wasn't on the whitelist the vids began suddenly getting blocked by noscript again.
But that is mostly a flaw in noscript (which, judging from your post, you installed on your father's machine) rather then the site or any viruses.
So I glad I was young when computers were new._. and old before they got really dangerous (in virus terms).
Really most viruses actually aren't dangerous now. Most try to sell you something via adware or other malware. On the other hand, most viruses before that became popular decided to wreck havoc on Windows (or DOS) by changing registry values, clobbering partion tables, wiping hard disks, infecting floppies, etc. Today, viruses are merely annoyances unless by chance you get a nasty keylogger or such.
Plus, OSes other than Windows are immune to most viruses (sure, they might get them in the future, but not now), OS X is quite mature and very much usable, and same with Linux. Plus both have lower total cost of ownership.
Frankly, I'm truly amazed that the invasion of personal freedoms in the UK and US have gone as far as they have as fast as they have.
Its only to be expected. People are wanting to sacrifice personal liberty for "safety" safety for what they don't know though. People always think its not going to happen to them. They see a few college kids get busted for using P2P to download music at college, they figure, its not going to happen to me because I'm not on a college network. They see a single mother get sued for using P2P to download new, popular music, they figure its not going to happen to me because I only download obscure '70s hits and techno. They don't see themselves in any danger at all.
Honestly, while not surprising it does draw striking parallels to the post WWI world where the desire for national greatness even if it meant putting a president in for life, letting a dictator run Germany, Italy and just about every other European country, loyalty to a "divine" emperor, even if it meant the deaths of you and the men under your command, and restricting any sort of human rights.
The difference is, enforcement. For example, people have recorded mix tapes for years while technically being in violation of copyright, no one cared though. Today, the digital equivalent of mix tapes are likely to get you sued if you exchange them over a digital means. People have also copied books via handwriting or more recently with copy machines and then sent those to people, which again, was technically illegal but no one cared. Today, even the of ripping a book into a digital format can possibly be interpreted as illegal and be sued, even more so if you distributed your ripped book.
Its only in the past 20 years that big businesses have managed to make everyone a criminal and charge them with a crime. Prior to that, unless you were making money off of it, you were safe. Today, anyone is a potential target.
There is a fine balance imo. China is like Geocities. There is a lot of shit coming out China for every geniune innovation.
The same could be said for any market, thats why we have reviews, if every game was as good as *insert favorite game here, as to not start a flamewar* then there wouldn't be a need for game reviews. Same thing for books, etc.
The nice thing about China though is, everything is cheap and unhampered by corporations. For example, if they manage to get Bluetooth in there, they aren't going to disable tethering, etc. like what the phone monopolies in the USA make vendors do. You similarly are going to get cheap, unlocked phones. Most people's phones (especially 20-somes and teenagers) don't have a long life. For example, a phone accidentally dropped in a cup of coffee is probably going to be dead no matter if it was a top of the line phone from Nokia or Samsung or if it was a generic Chinese crap phone. So quality really doesn't matter, and the cloned phones have enough features that people need in a dumbphone (SMS, calls, sometimes a touchscreen or full keyboard, camera, etc) while not costing $300 unlocked.
While we do need the freedom to improve upon things we also need protection from companies making shoddy knock-offs
Sure, but that already happens in America, if we simply enforce trademark and weak copyright you don't get deceived that the cheap phone you bought was an iPhone, but there will be cheap iPhone-like phones available. Everyone wins. (And if you don't think that the iPhone is already cloned, it already is by most cell phone vendors here in the USA, the difference is you pay $400 for the rip off rather then $100)
Yes, the USA as a whole, seems to be living in a time where WWII just got over. We seem to think that in WWII we singlehandedly A) Rebuilt Europe B) Rebuilt Japan (which, does have some merit to that, but only after we managed to commit some of the most terrible crimes against humanity via the atomic bombs) C) Defeated both Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. When history tells a different story. Then we also brag about our "win" in the Cold War against Soviet Russia *insert some joke here* and how by our superior diplomacy ended up saving humanity, no thanks to Russia, the other nations affected or the Russian people who opposed the Kremlin. Really, the USA thinks that they are the only thing holding humanity back from utter destruction and because of that the USA must be the country you model your countries after, including our draconian copyright laws, lack of free speech or other constitutional guarantees, the encroachment of government into business, the general failure of our economy, etc.
Hm, I wonder why other countries don't want a DMCA style law, could it be that the DMCA is effectively killing the US software/hardware market? Why do we see so many (innovative and clone) products from China? Because they don't have the stupidities of US patent and copyright laws. Imagine the marketplace being flooded with choices, of phones that can do as much as the iPhone, yet cost hundreds less (unlocked of course) and including features not currently found in most phones (open hardware*, dual-sim slots, etc). The USA could easily be first in the technology market, if our lawmakers weren't in the pocketbooks of the RIAA, MPAA and other backwards lobby groups.
*Well, perhaps open hardware is the wrong word, but basically hardware that if off-the-shelf, contains very little proprietary components and can be easily studied/modified.
Well, someone can think of it this way, the universe is just a gigantic game of Conway's game of life, but the laws were programmed by someone or something (an intelligent designer), who can alter the variables in the game when they see fit. Most of the time the game goes on, people live, people die, but occasional the creator kills off a few cells, or creates a few more, that alters the game.
Why is easy. Think of a large business that after a few months of debating decides that they need to migrate from XP (or earlier!) to a more modern OS, so they decide to roll out a few test systems with Vista on them. They get to wrapping it up and see that most of their critical apps work, but the ones that don't they test alternatives, etc. And they are about to buy some Vista licenses for the many computers they have. If MS discontinues Vista, they delay any sort of profit till a year or two after Windows 7 ships for that particular company, or the company may decide that upgrades are too much of a hassle.
It won't happen. Anytime Apple can control the applications, Apple makes you program in the painful language of Objective C or some other language that Apple deems as necessary but most programmers cry out in agony. A large games developer isn't going to spend the time/money into making a console game for something so radically different then the rest of the consoles. The reason for the flood of games for the iPhone are A) People don't expect much, a few hours of solid gameplay and you have a five star rating B) Theres enough crap on there to make even halfway mediocre games shine C) There games are cheap, no more than $10 for the most expensive games, that kind of pricing doesn't really fly with large console games. D) Broadband still isn't to the point where everyone can download games, heck, just outside of my city broadband has been promised for the last 5 years and still people are stuck with dial up.
Funny, because most of the westerners I know that read/love/collect comics are in their late 20s early 30s. I think the whole "comic are for kids" thing died out years ago.
Sure, but all western comics are alike. Everyone goes home happy in the end, someone gets weird powers, etc. Manga has a much more broader scope, from sci fi, to fantasy, to comedy, to romance, to whatever.
And even with graphic novels taken into consideration, the culture is totally different. In Japan, a grown man reading manga is seen as totally normal, in the US a grown man reading any sort of comic books, graphic novel or not is seen as odd. Because of this publishers hesitate to publish mature graphic novels for fear of a lack of western readers. Japan doesn't have that problem and so a lot more manga gets created and then the top few novels that sold well in Japan and deemed "localizable" are translated (and sometimes ruined...) and imported into the USA.
One should view required math classes as vocational. Sure, there are some people who absolutely love math, there are others who absolutely despise it. Same thing with English, History, Biology, etc. Math beyond basic algebra does not benefit most people. Sure, you could argue that it expands their minds, but for most people taking only the basic required math, anything longer then the final will be quickly forgotten. I have no problems with viewing math as being purely vocational for required math classes. If you want to expand it in more advanced elective courses, go ahead, but unless someone is majoring in math or wishes to go into a math-based discipline, logarithms, long formulas, graphing, etc won't really help them and it hurts other students (especially at a high school level, not so much as college) when there are kids who don't really grasp (or get good grades) in math because of the teacher. In my opinion, all required classes should be as basic as possible, you don't need to know about all the obscure wars in history if you want to major in computer science, similarly the historian shouldn't have to know calculus.
School, while not on the job training, takes the place of it here in the USA in 2009. Colleges who aren't highly selective should remember that they are looked at as job training. Far too many jobs require college degrees, this leaves a bunch of people who aren't really intellectually minded in colleges.
Ultimately, it is the responsibility of the student to learn the material. The teacher can ask whether the kids get the material, and explain it dozens of times. The kids may say yes, but not really get it (thinking they do but don't, or knowing so and not wanting to look stupid to others), and then do poorly on the exam. At that point, where does the blame lie? It's somewhere in between, but a teacher can only go so far. The students have to come the other half of the way. The difficulty is that many don't, and that's why student evaluations are worthless.
Sure, but in some classes (mostly math/science classes), the teacher poorly explains a concept, the students don't understand it, the teacher reteaches it in the same way, and then over half the class fails the test. Or worse yet, rather then reteaching it, the teacher points to another class which is a chapter ahead and then continues poorly teaching, only at a breakneck pace and the kids still fail the exam. Teachers should teach in a way that makes sense, if they can't teach in a way that most of the class can understand it, the teacher either A) Needs to make the exams easier by say, making it be multiple choice or something B) Drop the subject if it isn't important (some concepts in math and science though, this is impossible to do) C) Teach it a different way.
A teacher who points to lazy students when half their class is failing needs to blame themselves for poorly teaching the material. Unless it was an advanced, AP, Honors, or elective class that wasn't required to take to graduate. For example, in high school, the algebra class needed for everyone to graduate should be incredibly easy and clear for everyone, while the Calculus III class can be a lot harder because only a few students choose to take it, and it isn't required to graduate.
I'm not perfect at my job, but I try my best and make sure I'm prepared. Some of my kids do well, and others don't. Others come to less than 50% of the classes and do very poorly (and then wonder why). The thing I've learned is that you can never, ever please everyone, at least if you want grades to be an accurate measure of performance. If you hand out A's, everyone will love you; if you don't, you'll make some of them very unhappy, regardless of how good you really are.
Sure, if you only make it to 50% of the classes, you aren't going to do well. The problem is, colleges and high schools force students to take boring, uninteresting classes that won't help them in their chosen field. Most people aren't interested in classes that are of little to no benefit to them in the long (or short) run, so they will look for easy As.
Most probably the kids that aren't doing well either A) Don't see the class as a whole being useful, such as an aspiring journalist that is forced to take calculus B) Don't learn the way you teach, whether they don't learn with labs, lectures, notes, reading, etc. Some people can't learn one way, but easily learn another way. Some people can't hardly remember what they read, but if they do something hands on they will remember it for life and apply it. C) Don't give a crap about anything. Yes, there are some students who really don't give a crap about anything, but if students can take more classes they believe have meaning, I'm sure you will see grades and attitude improve.
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Sure, Theora is great, so is OGG Vorbis and FLAC... Unfortunately I can't really play any of those formats save for on my computer, and if I'm using something other than Linux, I most likely will have to install extra software in order to play them. So no, I don't think this will be some big improvement until I can play them on everything without extra software.
My preferred default behavior would be to have all rendering, animation, and scripting functions stop on all non-visible tabs, but not to suspend simple downloading of data.
But that really wouldn't work for everyone else, Most of the people that I know listen to music, have web-based IM, listen to a video or have some other script-based thing on their non-active tabs. Thats one of the main reasons why people use tabs to browse. And making that being a default option would kinda defeat the purpose.
Having something like pandora playing in the background is rare enough (only done once per session), that I wouldn't mind having to right click and select a "execute while in background" option.
Yes, but a lot of people have different things open that I can't see this working without a bunch of complaints that it is broken. I see your point, and I can see how it might work for you, but I can't see it working for most other people, Flash and JavaScript in tabs are just too valuable.
I'm not against an option, or an add-on for this, I just can't see it being a mainstream feature that most of the public would want.
There are a lot of people who aren't exactly rich that have multiple cars. A decent (used) SUV can be found for a bit less than $5K, and cars run from dirt cheap to quite expensive.
Sure, but how is that going to work? The USA isn't going to really want to build any more nuclear reactors, the people of the USA are mostly against it (most will agree with it in principle, but any time you propose a site, there will be a vocal majority opposing it around there). The USA doesn't want Russia to be enriching uranium only in Russia because the USA doesn't view Russia as secure enough. The USA doesn't want China to be in charge of it either because China is on shaky political grounds with the USA. I don't think that France or the UK really want to have enrichment on a global scale because of the same things as the USA.
And thats assuming that that Russia or China isn't opposed to any of this.
Private companies are always better. You can choose not to support them. For example, if you don't believe that putting in a railway to a certain place is a good idea, the most you can do is not vote for it, and if you are in the minority, you end up still paying for it. With a private company, you don't have to pay for a companies mismanagement*.
*This is assuming that the government isn't like America in 2008/2009 and bailing out any halfway failing company left and right at taxpayer expense
Finally, I can read, talk on the phone, etc. while I'm on the bus or walking. Can't do that in the car. The time I spend driving may be shorter, but that time is spent accumulating stress, not relaxing and regenerating.
Don't know what bus you have been on, but on all the ones I have been on, its been anything but relaxing or regenerating. You sit down next to some person who smells, listen to half a dozen phone conversations, see someone who you just know has every type of communal sickness imaginable, etc.
On the other hand, in my car I can mostly control the noise level, can choose my route to route around traffic or construction areas, and I don't have to be near annoying people.
Then again, I've only rode the bus when I was on business trips, so your results might vary. (I live in the suburbs and work in a larger suburb so riding the bus isn't exactly an option unless I feel like walking 25 miles to the nearest bus stop when work is only a 30 mile drive)
WTF do you need three or more cars for in a 2-person household?
For a few reasons, one would be in case a car got totaled, broke down with something too expensive to repair, or you needed to lend a car to friends/family for a while. I can see owning an older SUV for when you need to transport many people, but keeping two cars to go to work in and for general driving.
Sure, but there are a lot of problems with that for the general public. For example, a lot of people (including me) fire up YouTube, Pandora, or other web-based music services in another tab then listen to the music and then browse in different tabs. I also usually open up Facebook in another tab, and like the fact that if I get a message it alerts me with a sound so I can go back to the tab.
Sure, it would be useful as an option, but I think this is more add-on territory because of how little it would benefit most people.
No one is copying anyone, its a general trend. When you have tabs finally introduced to all major browsers including IE, people are going to get used to them and start to like them even more, and not just us geeks but the general public. At the same time you get multi-core CPUs in newer computers save for budget models. So, you have the perfect scenario in which to isolate tabs into different threads/processes. Mix that in with the general trend towards dynamic HTML pages using obscene amounts of JavaScript (previously most were done in plugins like Flash and Java), and you have a need to do it.
[citation needed] Seriously. It's not like I paid for my A/V software. It's not like I run scans when I'm using the system, so my work isn't being slowed.
Ok, but that either means one of many things:
A) You pirated your AV software, which, being illegal, should include the full retail price when figuring out total cost of ownership
B) You have a free AV, which, might not be protecting you enough (depending on which AV you have) And either way, you aren't necessarily 100% protected without it being scanned often
Then, vs. just OSX, the hardware's cheaper, you can upgrade it and futureproof it, so you don't need to buy an entirely new $1.5k machine, and software's same price or cheaper, with more options
The hardware is not cheaper. Find me a notebook with a built in multi-touch trackpad, decent resolution webcam, nice-ish keyboard, about 2 gigs of DDR3 RAM, Intel Dual Core CPU, GeForce 9400M or equivalent graphics and you will get a system close to $1300, the price of a Macbook with the same specs. Sure, one could argue that you don't need all the hardware, but the hardware itself isn't that expensive compared to the competition.
While Windows does have more software choices, a Mac is going to be able to do a whole lot more out of the box. And third party software is about the same price, but first party isn't. You can get iWork for about $50, while Office costs much more.
And as for security, may I point you to the Mac-only botnet that was recently discovered due to pirated copies of iLife, or iWork, or whatever it was? Stupid people will fuck up any system you give them, regardless of OS. Windows is not inherently superior or inferior, it's just the one that does what I need.
Yes, any system you allow to execute an untrusted binary can be compromised. The difference is, by hiding file extensions and other exploits, Windows makes it a lot easier to run said untrusted stuff.
DNC? Did not capsize?
Or if you are a grammar nazi it is Did Not Capitalize
Here's the thing: UAC is one layer of defense against this (even though UAC is never called a protective layer, it seems). If there is no verified publisher, UAC will say that the publisher is unknown and thus, in theory, it should trigger a red flag with people. That's how all of my computer illiterate friends approach it, and they've never had problems.
Heck, just about all legitimate programs I download from a non-major publisher says that the publisher is unknown. About the only programs that I have installed with a "known" publisher are Firefox, and iTunes. The rest still say unknown publisher.
Today I had to explain to my father that he didn't need to reinstall flash just because some website said so. One of those video sites had simply changed media-servers and since it wasn't on the whitelist the vids began suddenly getting blocked by noscript again.
But that is mostly a flaw in noscript (which, judging from your post, you installed on your father's machine) rather then the site or any viruses.
So I glad I was young when computers were new ._. and old before they got really dangerous (in virus terms).
Really most viruses actually aren't dangerous now. Most try to sell you something via adware or other malware. On the other hand, most viruses before that became popular decided to wreck havoc on Windows (or DOS) by changing registry values, clobbering partion tables, wiping hard disks, infecting floppies, etc. Today, viruses are merely annoyances unless by chance you get a nasty keylogger or such.
Plus, OSes other than Windows are immune to most viruses (sure, they might get them in the future, but not now), OS X is quite mature and very much usable, and same with Linux. Plus both have lower total cost of ownership.
Frankly, I'm truly amazed that the invasion of personal freedoms in the UK and US have gone as far as they have as fast as they have.
Its only to be expected. People are wanting to sacrifice personal liberty for "safety" safety for what they don't know though. People always think its not going to happen to them. They see a few college kids get busted for using P2P to download music at college, they figure, its not going to happen to me because I'm not on a college network. They see a single mother get sued for using P2P to download new, popular music, they figure its not going to happen to me because I only download obscure '70s hits and techno. They don't see themselves in any danger at all.
Honestly, while not surprising it does draw striking parallels to the post WWI world where the desire for national greatness even if it meant putting a president in for life, letting a dictator run Germany, Italy and just about every other European country, loyalty to a "divine" emperor, even if it meant the deaths of you and the men under your command, and restricting any sort of human rights.
Its Obama's administration that keeps refusing though.
The difference is, enforcement. For example, people have recorded mix tapes for years while technically being in violation of copyright, no one cared though. Today, the digital equivalent of mix tapes are likely to get you sued if you exchange them over a digital means. People have also copied books via handwriting or more recently with copy machines and then sent those to people, which again, was technically illegal but no one cared. Today, even the of ripping a book into a digital format can possibly be interpreted as illegal and be sued, even more so if you distributed your ripped book.
Its only in the past 20 years that big businesses have managed to make everyone a criminal and charge them with a crime. Prior to that, unless you were making money off of it, you were safe. Today, anyone is a potential target.
There is a fine balance imo. China is like Geocities. There is a lot of shit coming out China for every geniune innovation.
The same could be said for any market, thats why we have reviews, if every game was as good as *insert favorite game here, as to not start a flamewar* then there wouldn't be a need for game reviews. Same thing for books, etc.
The nice thing about China though is, everything is cheap and unhampered by corporations. For example, if they manage to get Bluetooth in there, they aren't going to disable tethering, etc. like what the phone monopolies in the USA make vendors do. You similarly are going to get cheap, unlocked phones. Most people's phones (especially 20-somes and teenagers) don't have a long life. For example, a phone accidentally dropped in a cup of coffee is probably going to be dead no matter if it was a top of the line phone from Nokia or Samsung or if it was a generic Chinese crap phone. So quality really doesn't matter, and the cloned phones have enough features that people need in a dumbphone (SMS, calls, sometimes a touchscreen or full keyboard, camera, etc) while not costing $300 unlocked.
While we do need the freedom to improve upon things we also need protection from companies making shoddy knock-offs
Sure, but that already happens in America, if we simply enforce trademark and weak copyright you don't get deceived that the cheap phone you bought was an iPhone, but there will be cheap iPhone-like phones available. Everyone wins. (And if you don't think that the iPhone is already cloned, it already is by most cell phone vendors here in the USA, the difference is you pay $400 for the rip off rather then $100)
Yes, the USA as a whole, seems to be living in a time where WWII just got over. We seem to think that in WWII we singlehandedly A) Rebuilt Europe B) Rebuilt Japan (which, does have some merit to that, but only after we managed to commit some of the most terrible crimes against humanity via the atomic bombs) C) Defeated both Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. When history tells a different story. Then we also brag about our "win" in the Cold War against Soviet Russia *insert some joke here* and how by our superior diplomacy ended up saving humanity, no thanks to Russia, the other nations affected or the Russian people who opposed the Kremlin. Really, the USA thinks that they are the only thing holding humanity back from utter destruction and because of that the USA must be the country you model your countries after, including our draconian copyright laws, lack of free speech or other constitutional guarantees, the encroachment of government into business, the general failure of our economy, etc.
Hm, I wonder why other countries don't want a DMCA style law, could it be that the DMCA is effectively killing the US software/hardware market? Why do we see so many (innovative and clone) products from China? Because they don't have the stupidities of US patent and copyright laws. Imagine the marketplace being flooded with choices, of phones that can do as much as the iPhone, yet cost hundreds less (unlocked of course) and including features not currently found in most phones (open hardware*, dual-sim slots, etc). The USA could easily be first in the technology market, if our lawmakers weren't in the pocketbooks of the RIAA, MPAA and other backwards lobby groups.
*Well, perhaps open hardware is the wrong word, but basically hardware that if off-the-shelf, contains very little proprietary components and can be easily studied/modified.
Well, someone can think of it this way, the universe is just a gigantic game of Conway's game of life, but the laws were programmed by someone or something (an intelligent designer), who can alter the variables in the game when they see fit. Most of the time the game goes on, people live, people die, but occasional the creator kills off a few cells, or creates a few more, that alters the game.
Why is easy. Think of a large business that after a few months of debating decides that they need to migrate from XP (or earlier!) to a more modern OS, so they decide to roll out a few test systems with Vista on them. They get to wrapping it up and see that most of their critical apps work, but the ones that don't they test alternatives, etc. And they are about to buy some Vista licenses for the many computers they have. If MS discontinues Vista, they delay any sort of profit till a year or two after Windows 7 ships for that particular company, or the company may decide that upgrades are too much of a hassle.
It won't happen. Anytime Apple can control the applications, Apple makes you program in the painful language of Objective C or some other language that Apple deems as necessary but most programmers cry out in agony. A large games developer isn't going to spend the time/money into making a console game for something so radically different then the rest of the consoles. The reason for the flood of games for the iPhone are A) People don't expect much, a few hours of solid gameplay and you have a five star rating B) Theres enough crap on there to make even halfway mediocre games shine C) There games are cheap, no more than $10 for the most expensive games, that kind of pricing doesn't really fly with large console games. D) Broadband still isn't to the point where everyone can download games, heck, just outside of my city broadband has been promised for the last 5 years and still people are stuck with dial up.
Funny, because most of the westerners I know that read/love/collect comics are in their late 20s early 30s. I think the whole "comic are for kids" thing died out years ago.
Sure, but all western comics are alike. Everyone goes home happy in the end, someone gets weird powers, etc. Manga has a much more broader scope, from sci fi, to fantasy, to comedy, to romance, to whatever.
And even with graphic novels taken into consideration, the culture is totally different. In Japan, a grown man reading manga is seen as totally normal, in the US a grown man reading any sort of comic books, graphic novel or not is seen as odd. Because of this publishers hesitate to publish mature graphic novels for fear of a lack of western readers. Japan doesn't have that problem and so a lot more manga gets created and then the top few novels that sold well in Japan and deemed "localizable" are translated (and sometimes ruined...) and imported into the USA.
But should one view math merely as vocational?
One should view required math classes as vocational. Sure, there are some people who absolutely love math, there are others who absolutely despise it. Same thing with English, History, Biology, etc. Math beyond basic algebra does not benefit most people. Sure, you could argue that it expands their minds, but for most people taking only the basic required math, anything longer then the final will be quickly forgotten. I have no problems with viewing math as being purely vocational for required math classes. If you want to expand it in more advanced elective courses, go ahead, but unless someone is majoring in math or wishes to go into a math-based discipline, logarithms, long formulas, graphing, etc won't really help them and it hurts other students (especially at a high school level, not so much as college) when there are kids who don't really grasp (or get good grades) in math because of the teacher. In my opinion, all required classes should be as basic as possible, you don't need to know about all the obscure wars in history if you want to major in computer science, similarly the historian shouldn't have to know calculus.
School, while not on the job training, takes the place of it here in the USA in 2009. Colleges who aren't highly selective should remember that they are looked at as job training. Far too many jobs require college degrees, this leaves a bunch of people who aren't really intellectually minded in colleges.
Ultimately, it is the responsibility of the student to learn the material. The teacher can ask whether the kids get the material, and explain it dozens of times. The kids may say yes, but not really get it (thinking they do but don't, or knowing so and not wanting to look stupid to others), and then do poorly on the exam. At that point, where does the blame lie? It's somewhere in between, but a teacher can only go so far. The students have to come the other half of the way. The difficulty is that many don't, and that's why student evaluations are worthless.
Sure, but in some classes (mostly math/science classes), the teacher poorly explains a concept, the students don't understand it, the teacher reteaches it in the same way, and then over half the class fails the test. Or worse yet, rather then reteaching it, the teacher points to another class which is a chapter ahead and then continues poorly teaching, only at a breakneck pace and the kids still fail the exam. Teachers should teach in a way that makes sense, if they can't teach in a way that most of the class can understand it, the teacher either A) Needs to make the exams easier by say, making it be multiple choice or something B) Drop the subject if it isn't important (some concepts in math and science though, this is impossible to do) C) Teach it a different way.
A teacher who points to lazy students when half their class is failing needs to blame themselves for poorly teaching the material. Unless it was an advanced, AP, Honors, or elective class that wasn't required to take to graduate. For example, in high school, the algebra class needed for everyone to graduate should be incredibly easy and clear for everyone, while the Calculus III class can be a lot harder because only a few students choose to take it, and it isn't required to graduate.
I'm not perfect at my job, but I try my best and make sure I'm prepared. Some of my kids do well, and others don't. Others come to less than 50% of the classes and do very poorly (and then wonder why). The thing I've learned is that you can never, ever please everyone, at least if you want grades to be an accurate measure of performance. If you hand out A's, everyone will love you; if you don't, you'll make some of them very unhappy, regardless of how good you really are.
Sure, if you only make it to 50% of the classes, you aren't going to do well. The problem is, colleges and high schools force students to take boring, uninteresting classes that won't help them in their chosen field. Most people aren't interested in classes that are of little to no benefit to them in the long (or short) run, so they will look for easy As.
Most probably the kids that aren't doing well either A) Don't see the class as a whole being useful, such as an aspiring journalist that is forced to take calculus B) Don't learn the way you teach, whether they don't learn with labs, lectures, notes, reading, etc. Some people can't learn one way, but easily learn another way. Some people can't hardly remember what they read, but if they do something hands on they will remember it for life and apply it. C) Don't give a crap about anything. Yes, there are some students who really don't give a crap about anything, but if students can take more classes they believe have meaning, I'm sure you will see grades and attitude improve.