obviously an open-source society of innovators would thrive... as long as people can change their focus from earning dollars to encouraging social growth and sustainability.... oh wait, they are, en mass... don't worry about the gov, they can be subverted through action... put your energy to better use: invent something and use the GPL--or the like--to distribute the idea and encourage it's use and further development.
intellectual property is fraud, and should be illegal.
oh, and to add, i wouldn't give a Kindle to a kid, middle school grade maybe, but no younger without at least turning off the cellphone radio... it emits radiation... and they say nobody under twelve should use a cell phone regularly for this reason. plus i hear the new radios put off more radiation than the old radios, even with the more advanced shielding.
plus it's a fancy tech gadget, they could make kid friendly versions, but i dont see a need for it till they become more common.
when i say student i'm thinking college... i never even considered giving this to a kid till you said something! i'm talking about advanced social and political news, RSS feeds, and government forms... where does that say kid to you?
remember, there are child focused cellphones out there, but they're still 'far and few between'.
the Kindle can display PDFs!... as well as many other textual files, and images (though currently some conversion is necessary for some files); and reads text out loud to you and plays music while you read.
plus it shows you web like pages when browsing/searching for books, so it wouldnt be hard to convert the many variants of wiki's into E-Book reader acceptible formats... say through a third party web portal, in realtime.
the makers of wikipedia.org have a wiktionary.org, and ebook/text book database, as well as many other types of educational and reference sites being built as i type.
then there's netlibrary (a for profit), which many public library systems buy access to so their users can read e-books online.
then there's the Government Printing Office which is looking to make all primary legal materials produced by the U.S. readily available (for all branches and offices of the us gov, this means meeting dialog transcripts at congressional hearings as well as standard legal jargon). they're also looking to "work even more closely with our libraries and reform the Federal Depository Library Program to support them better."
a non profit has built 200 dollar laptops more technically advanced and capable than the Kindle, why cant someone build some cheaper cell network accessible e-book readers to lease out via libraries to people that need them, to sell to people that can afford them, and loan/give to the even less fortunate folk who cant even afford to lease one.
they could build in a 'buy one give one' scheme, and a 'lease one for a friend/student/stranger' scheme. and of course they could also take regular donations.
the possibilities are endless, and i bet students would buy them up in a heart beat, especially if they could check them out for a while with a simple month to month lease agreement. and since they could be distributed at libraries there wouldnt be a problem with advertising or finding retail space!
complete recyclablity would be built in and outdated models or broken units would go back to the manufacturer to become new e-book readers, so the cost of the replacement would be less for owners that turn in their old units at the time of purchase.
it's all so blatantly obvious to me.... if only people werent so greedy we'd have this available instead of a stagnant, closed, proprietary Kindle!
imagine: a database could be created of all the no longer copyrighted reading material and music and then be made available for download, cheap or free, via Kindle, PC, or Mobile phone/PDA.
technically these databases already exist, in several places, but one non-governmental, non-profit could be designated to open access to all the databases through one portal... like a google search engine.
that database/portal would of course keep all the transmission data as simple as possible to keep the connection/downloading costs down.
if there was anybody with the knowhow around to implement such a task it wouldn't be hard to find the funds... unfortunately i'm just a simpleton from nowheresville, with no education to speak of, and no money in the bank to even get things started; by compiling a proposal, contacting like minded individuals, or puting together and mailing out grant request forms.
the fact that the hardware would have limited use would encourage only those really interested to look into obtaining one! and they could be leased--with usage monitored, so an idle one could be reabsorbed into the hand out program, updated when needed, and kept off e-bay.
sure the user could pick and choose their RSS feeds and free e-papers/e-books, but the free features would be severely limited; just free e-papers, free e-books, downloaded textual files, and possibly access to gov/library websites.
the low grade computers were just thrown in there for good measure, but truly i'm really just interested in getting thousands of kindles into the hands of the poor, as well as opening up publicly availably information channels on the device, and lowering the overall cost of manufacturing the device by increasing sales and distribution.
surely even those that would classify for the hand out would be able to afford a normal e-book on occasion, or a newspaper subscription.
i know the kindle is proprietary, and i'd rather it was open source, but it's what is available right now and it's a fantastic little gadget with a world of possibilities.
heck... i stopped reading real books two years ago... i love to read, and i read just about as many words as i used to (3 books a week min), and i still read e-books on occasion, but for some reason i just can't seem to get involved in paper anymore. i'd buy a kindle in a heart beat, just to read free e-books from gutenberg.org but i can't afford the current price at the moment.
with the benefits of digital text there's no reason for 'paper' for-profit news papers to stick around... sure the tech to make newspapers should be maintained, and surely they will be by local niche papers; but even those ought to focus mainly on internet/digital readers, while letting people and businesses 'subscribe' to receive their paper versions.
and then occasionally they could dole out a healthy helping of free randomly distributed paper copies of their paper versions to gain readers (paper the town).
digital books and newspapers allow for more control over the content by the user, easier access to materials, higher mobility, they are also far more environmentally friendly and profitable.
there's really only two reasons for a reader not to transfer to digital media, those being favorability of the reader for paper material and inaccessible prices for the necessary technology.
i wonder if anyone in the Government has considered granting subsidies to the impoverished so they can purchase e-book readers or simple computers for the main purpose of obtaining the status of an informed and educated citizenry. and then also providing free Gov funded access to both social and political news (like free adaptable RSS feeds on amazon's Kindle).
i'm telling you, all we need to do is find people in need who are willing and capable of starting non-profit co-operatives to fill whatever need they have, be it clean automobiles or cheap internet services, and they'll take care of the rest.
our economy isn't going to be saved by giving handouts to the already excessively rich, so they can focus more money into their pockets.
our economy will get better when joe shmoe has more money to put in his bank account because he's not blowing all his dough on over priced crap he doesn't need because he's being overwhelmed by stressful advertising--stress is bad for america.
even the most decent middle class stores pocket around 20% off each item sold (how else do you think they make billions of dollars a year, it's not in pennies, it's in dimes).
anybody ever been to a 70% off sale after Xmas? they're still making a profit off each sale!
i work for an merchandise inventory service... i see in numbers. and i don't like what i see.
i heard somewhere the windows tcp/ip stack (or part of the networking software configurations) is at fault for windows slow connection, in comparison to unix type systems.
i also heard new updates to windows dumb down the connection even more... can't recall if it was for vista or xp. but you can search for, and use, a windows bandwidth optimizer to pretty much fix the issue.
though i'm sure the ram does have some effect, in certain situations. the browser will too!
a successful democracy requires informed citizens.... the duty of the government if to guarantee the citizens remain informed so they can make informed decisions... our government neglects their duties and makes poor decisions in our stead. it is therefor our duty to insist this problem is corrected.
the solution i suggested if a viable and cheap solution to the problem.
EVERYTHING can be built, designed, manufactured, maintained, and derived as open source via free use copyrights and non-profit organizations and co-ops! all we need is the initial start-up funds to get an non-profit business going and we can easily manufacture the best cars, computers, hot water heaters, homes, food, and provide the best health care, insurance, maintenance, ISPs, and recycling centers, et cetera (i forgot to mention entertainment venues, and quality film and music producing orgs).
why not drop billions on revitalizing our country through the development of free public services and organizations that have the sole purpose of enhancing the health, happiness, and effectiveness of the people in our society!
i always thought our taxes should come with a list of the general branches of government, agencies, and purposes our tax dollars could be used for, so we could decide where our money was spent by percentage (like a direct deposit form from an employer)... or just mark a not concerned box. obviously a certain percentage would 'have' to go to certain offices in order for our government to continue functioning, but this would allow the public to directly control the volume of funds to things like the military, educational reform, healthcare, et cetera. it would also give those generally in control over such things a damn clear idea of what the people think about how they do their job.
if education, healthcare, the EPA, and government transparency agencies got votes for 80% of our total tax dollars, and the armed forces got the least amount... i'm pretty sure the top dogs would get the picture; even though they obviously wouldn't be able to use the funds exactly how people wanted... there would have to be a minimum amount for certain things, like the military (and bills could still be passed that ask for more, in times of dire straights).
oh, and the list would have to have estimates for each items last years budget (in percentages, people don't think in billions). there would also have to be a space to fill in or vote for possible future items (call it a suggestion box; so everyone could write in things like Universal Healthcare = 70%).
i can't agree more... i just discovered slashdot, and it makes me so happy to know that there are a bunch of silly and uber-critical geeks on here having intellectual and meaningful flame-wars over such trivial things.
we simply need non-profit co-operative insurance agencies, that can insure everything... and have a basic oath of conduct saying that no person will ever be denied insurance or care because or genetic disposition, et cetera (AKA non-governmental universal healthcare).
i suggest having statewide agencies... not national ones; so, like credit unions, they can join together as a national association and share their knowledge and abilities as a group but retain their individual charms and local seats of administration.
my 5 year old was playing GTA and HALO, last year... now he's in 1st grade ahead of schedule. Kindergarten lasted 4 months.
with a parent sitting behind or beside a child, games and movies can be used as educational tools... no matter how 'adult' they may seem there's something that is learned from them, whether it's 'actively and intentionally learned' is the question. exactly what kind of stories do you think fathers used to read/tell to their children 4 hundred years ago? why is it that only 1 hundred years ago 12 year olds were taking on the responsibilities of adulthood, but today, seesh, i know 40 year olds that have no idea what that means, "the responsibilities of adulthood."
good guys, bad guys, cause and effect, consequences, laws, the concept of property via theft, the dangers of weapons, gravity, speed, the manipulation of objects in space... heck, taylor learned that when you do things people don't like they can loose interest in having you around (call it loosing friends). he learned this from GTA after noticing and questioning why rival gang members were shooting at him while he was on their turf.
i laughed when his grandmother shivered at the sight of him playing HALO, a first person shooter. i used it to encourage him to learn to read (which was a problem), and to teach him to follow directions, as well as--through online play--to work as a group... as well as other things i can't quite recall.
and yes, he realizes the difference between real life and video games... if you ask him what a gang is he currently says "bad guys on GTA" or something along those lines, not a group of notorious criminals who have incorporated to better control their ability to earn a buck, illegally--or something along those lines. more importantly he doesn't think being in a gang or hurting people is cool, even though he does think driving around in a simulated environment destroying things and setting people on fire is.
i don't say, "i can do this, but you can't." if Taylor wants to do something he's not ready for i tell him he can learn, but that he's not ready yet. simple as that. there's nothing he cant do. and i down right expect him to take on and be successful at managing all the responsibility of a grown adult, as long as he's had the opportunity to learn how to.
it's all a question of parenting and personality anyway. not a question of age. a poorly parented individual is probably more likely to act as a criminal, due to the lack of moral leadership, and a well parented individual can still decide later to become a criminal.
but if we're going to remain focused on kids, look to their parents, not their learning tools.
Slashdot Mirror
obviously an open-source society of innovators would thrive... as long as people can change their focus from earning dollars to encouraging social growth and sustainability.... oh wait, they are, en mass... don't worry about the gov, they can be subverted through action... put your energy to better use: invent something and use the GPL--or the like--to distribute the idea and encourage it's use and further development.
intellectual property is fraud, and should be illegal.
can somebody say non-profit television?
. . . follow the quality, follow the desirable.
i hear ya.... personally, i think one of the reasons the executives cut so much good programing is because of the messages they carry.
firefly came off as a fairly anti-christian, anti-government, pro-confederate, pro-crime TV sci-fi/western.
FOX's focus seems to be mainly on entertaining, not educating, and certainly not on encouraging intellectual conversation.
ps: i'm currently watching FF for the first time.
oh, and to add, i wouldn't give a Kindle to a kid, middle school grade maybe, but no younger without at least turning off the cellphone radio... it emits radiation... and they say nobody under twelve should use a cell phone regularly for this reason. plus i hear the new radios put off more radiation than the old radios, even with the more advanced shielding.
plus it's a fancy tech gadget, they could make kid friendly versions, but i dont see a need for it till they become more common.
when i say student i'm thinking college... i never even considered giving this to a kid till you said something! i'm talking about advanced social and political news, RSS feeds, and government forms... where does that say kid to you?
remember, there are child focused cellphones out there, but they're still 'far and few between'.
the Kindle can display PDFs!... as well as many other textual files, and images (though currently some conversion is necessary for some files); and reads text out loud to you and plays music while you read.
plus it shows you web like pages when browsing/searching for books, so it wouldnt be hard to convert the many variants of wiki's into E-Book reader acceptible formats... say through a third party web portal, in realtime.
the makers of wikipedia.org have a wiktionary.org, and ebook/text book database, as well as many other types of educational and reference sites being built as i type.
then there's netlibrary (a for profit), which many public library systems buy access to so their users can read e-books online.
then there's the Government Printing Office which is looking to make all primary legal materials produced by the U.S. readily available (for all branches and offices of the us gov, this means meeting dialog transcripts at congressional hearings as well as standard legal jargon). they're also looking to "work even more closely with our libraries and reform the Federal Depository Library Program to support them better."
a non profit has built 200 dollar laptops more technically advanced and capable than the Kindle, why cant someone build some cheaper cell network accessible e-book readers to lease out via libraries to people that need them, to sell to people that can afford them, and loan/give to the even less fortunate folk who cant even afford to lease one.
they could build in a 'buy one give one' scheme, and a 'lease one for a friend/student/stranger' scheme. and of course they could also take regular donations.
the possibilities are endless, and i bet students would buy them up in a heart beat, especially if they could check them out for a while with a simple month to month lease agreement. and since they could be distributed at libraries there wouldnt be a problem with advertising or finding retail space!
complete recyclablity would be built in and outdated models or broken units would go back to the manufacturer to become new e-book readers, so the cost of the replacement would be less for owners that turn in their old units at the time of purchase.
it's all so blatantly obvious to me.... if only people werent so greedy we'd have this available instead of a stagnant, closed, proprietary Kindle!
imagine: a database could be created of all the no longer copyrighted reading material and music and then be made available for download, cheap or free, via Kindle, PC, or Mobile phone/PDA.
technically these databases already exist, in several places, but one non-governmental, non-profit could be designated to open access to all the databases through one portal... like a google search engine.
that database/portal would of course keep all the transmission data as simple as possible to keep the connection/downloading costs down.
if there was anybody with the knowhow around to implement such a task it wouldn't be hard to find the funds... unfortunately i'm just a simpleton from nowheresville, with no education to speak of, and no money in the bank to even get things started; by compiling a proposal, contacting like minded individuals, or puting together and mailing out grant request forms.
the fact that the hardware would have limited use would encourage only those really interested to look into obtaining one! and they could be leased--with usage monitored, so an idle one could be reabsorbed into the hand out program, updated when needed, and kept off e-bay.
sure the user could pick and choose their RSS feeds and free e-papers/e-books, but the free features would be severely limited; just free e-papers, free e-books, downloaded textual files, and possibly access to gov/library websites.
the low grade computers were just thrown in there for good measure, but truly i'm really just interested in getting thousands of kindles into the hands of the poor, as well as opening up publicly availably information channels on the device, and lowering the overall cost of manufacturing the device by increasing sales and distribution.
surely even those that would classify for the hand out would be able to afford a normal e-book on occasion, or a newspaper subscription.
i know the kindle is proprietary, and i'd rather it was open source, but it's what is available right now and it's a fantastic little gadget with a world of possibilities.
heck... i stopped reading real books two years ago... i love to read, and i read just about as many words as i used to (3 books a week min), and i still read e-books on occasion, but for some reason i just can't seem to get involved in paper anymore. i'd buy a kindle in a heart beat, just to read free e-books from gutenberg.org but i can't afford the current price at the moment.
ever heard of an e-book reader?
with the benefits of digital text there's no reason for 'paper' for-profit news papers to stick around... sure the tech to make newspapers should be maintained, and surely they will be by local niche papers; but even those ought to focus mainly on internet/digital readers, while letting people and businesses 'subscribe' to receive their paper versions.
and then occasionally they could dole out a healthy helping of free randomly distributed paper copies of their paper versions to gain readers (paper the town).
digital books and newspapers allow for more control over the content by the user, easier access to materials, higher mobility, they are also far more environmentally friendly and profitable.
there's really only two reasons for a reader not to transfer to digital media, those being favorability of the reader for paper material and inaccessible prices for the necessary technology.
i wonder if anyone in the Government has considered granting subsidies to the impoverished so they can purchase e-book readers or simple computers for the main purpose of obtaining the status of an informed and educated citizenry. and then also providing free Gov funded access to both social and political news (like free adaptable RSS feeds on amazon's Kindle).
i'm telling you, all we need to do is find people in need who are willing and capable of starting non-profit co-operatives to fill whatever need they have, be it clean automobiles or cheap internet services, and they'll take care of the rest.
our economy isn't going to be saved by giving handouts to the already excessively rich, so they can focus more money into their pockets.
our economy will get better when joe shmoe has more money to put in his bank account because he's not blowing all his dough on over priced crap he doesn't need because he's being overwhelmed by stressful advertising--stress is bad for america.
even the most decent middle class stores pocket around 20% off each item sold (how else do you think they make billions of dollars a year, it's not in pennies, it's in dimes).
anybody ever been to a 70% off sale after Xmas? they're still making a profit off each sale!
i work for an merchandise inventory service... i see in numbers. and i don't like what i see.
so we need open, at cost, co-operative, 301c, non profit, internet service providers!
wow, really?
i wonder where else that business model could prove useful, when stimulating our economy or saving our environment are concerned?
i heard somewhere the windows tcp/ip stack (or part of the networking software configurations) is at fault for windows slow connection, in comparison to unix type systems.
i also heard new updates to windows dumb down the connection even more... can't recall if it was for vista or xp. but you can search for, and use, a windows bandwidth optimizer to pretty much fix the issue.
though i'm sure the ram does have some effect, in certain situations. the browser will too!
a successful democracy requires informed citizens.... the duty of the government if to guarantee the citizens remain informed so they can make informed decisions... our government neglects their duties and makes poor decisions in our stead. it is therefor our duty to insist this problem is corrected.
the solution i suggested if a viable and cheap solution to the problem.
EVERYTHING can be built, designed, manufactured, maintained, and derived as open source via free use copyrights and non-profit organizations and co-ops! all we need is the initial start-up funds to get an non-profit business going and we can easily manufacture the best cars, computers, hot water heaters, homes, food, and provide the best health care, insurance, maintenance, ISPs, and recycling centers, et cetera (i forgot to mention entertainment venues, and quality film and music producing orgs).
why not drop billions on revitalizing our country through the development of free public services and organizations that have the sole purpose of enhancing the health, happiness, and effectiveness of the people in our society!
17 and doesn't understand what death means... that's the parents fault; serves them right!
i always thought our taxes should come with a list of the general branches of government, agencies, and purposes our tax dollars could be used for, so we could decide where our money was spent by percentage (like a direct deposit form from an employer)... or just mark a not concerned box. obviously a certain percentage would 'have' to go to certain offices in order for our government to continue functioning, but this would allow the public to directly control the volume of funds to things like the military, educational reform, healthcare, et cetera. it would also give those generally in control over such things a damn clear idea of what the people think about how they do their job.
if education, healthcare, the EPA, and government transparency agencies got votes for 80% of our total tax dollars, and the armed forces got the least amount... i'm pretty sure the top dogs would get the picture; even though they obviously wouldn't be able to use the funds exactly how people wanted... there would have to be a minimum amount for certain things, like the military (and bills could still be passed that ask for more, in times of dire straights).
oh, and the list would have to have estimates for each items last years budget (in percentages, people don't think in billions). there would also have to be a space to fill in or vote for possible future items (call it a suggestion box; so everyone could write in things like Universal Healthcare = 70%).
sooo... when are we going to be able to buy life-size posters of celebrity MRI's off ebay?
i can't agree more... i just discovered slashdot, and it makes me so happy to know that there are a bunch of silly and uber-critical geeks on here having intellectual and meaningful flame-wars over such trivial things.
we simply need non-profit co-operative insurance agencies, that can insure everything... and have a basic oath of conduct saying that no person will ever be denied insurance or care because or genetic disposition, et cetera (AKA non-governmental universal healthcare).
i suggest having statewide agencies... not national ones; so, like credit unions, they can join together as a national association and share their knowledge and abilities as a group but retain their individual charms and local seats of administration.
and you know that cause he had at least a 2:1 kill:death ratio right? lol... takes after his old man.
my 5 year old was playing GTA and HALO, last year... now he's in 1st grade ahead of schedule. Kindergarten lasted 4 months. with a parent sitting behind or beside a child, games and movies can be used as educational tools... no matter how 'adult' they may seem there's something that is learned from them, whether it's 'actively and intentionally learned' is the question. exactly what kind of stories do you think fathers used to read/tell to their children 4 hundred years ago? why is it that only 1 hundred years ago 12 year olds were taking on the responsibilities of adulthood, but today, seesh, i know 40 year olds that have no idea what that means, "the responsibilities of adulthood." good guys, bad guys, cause and effect, consequences, laws, the concept of property via theft, the dangers of weapons, gravity, speed, the manipulation of objects in space... heck, taylor learned that when you do things people don't like they can loose interest in having you around (call it loosing friends). he learned this from GTA after noticing and questioning why rival gang members were shooting at him while he was on their turf. i laughed when his grandmother shivered at the sight of him playing HALO, a first person shooter. i used it to encourage him to learn to read (which was a problem), and to teach him to follow directions, as well as--through online play--to work as a group... as well as other things i can't quite recall. and yes, he realizes the difference between real life and video games... if you ask him what a gang is he currently says "bad guys on GTA" or something along those lines, not a group of notorious criminals who have incorporated to better control their ability to earn a buck, illegally--or something along those lines. more importantly he doesn't think being in a gang or hurting people is cool, even though he does think driving around in a simulated environment destroying things and setting people on fire is. i don't say, "i can do this, but you can't." if Taylor wants to do something he's not ready for i tell him he can learn, but that he's not ready yet. simple as that. there's nothing he cant do. and i down right expect him to take on and be successful at managing all the responsibility of a grown adult, as long as he's had the opportunity to learn how to. it's all a question of parenting and personality anyway. not a question of age. a poorly parented individual is probably more likely to act as a criminal, due to the lack of moral leadership, and a well parented individual can still decide later to become a criminal. but if we're going to remain focused on kids, look to their parents, not their learning tools.