Do you have confidence in your ability to learn? Will you stick to a four year commitment? You need to answer both of those questions honestly before you head down this road.
The other question is "what will your opportunities be like when you get out?" and that is going to depend in part on what you do during these four years. You might consider trying to get into a company now that might need your skills later. It's sometimes* easier to move around from within a company than to get your foot in the door.
Who ever promised this data would be anonymous? Do you really expect privacy when posting personal stuff on line, even if you don't sign your name in advance?
Good point! Most of my friends and I are all in the same arena when it comes to conversations. We'll talk about the latest distros, why Apple sucks or why Apple is great, why Linux sucks or why Linux is great, why Microsoft sucks, and what we thought of the end of Battlestar Galactica, and universal agreement that none of us would have a shot at Tricia Helfer.
But if someone asked any one of us about the NCAA tournament, we would be lost. I don't think any of us have seen a football game in years, apart from those on the TVs in bars making noise when we're trying to eat. But ask about C++ or Java or software engineering or hacking or networks and our answers would look like a robot quoting pages from textbooks. We might even answer the questions with fragments of code just to be funny. if (geekFunny() != regularHumanFunny()) { profit++; }
So if they can get an AI to make small talk (and not smalltalk) I'd probably want one just to handle all those awkward social situations where I'm the only one in the room not to know who's in the Super Bowl this year.
So because you don't personally have the imagination to envision how this could ever work makes it a bad idea?
There are probably a dozen different really clever solutions, but it only takes one.
God, everyone on Slashdot is whining about how this could never ever work. No wonder people like Steve Jobs rise to prominence. He'd never accept that kind of negative answer from his staff.
I can't believe all the people posting here that have no imaginations, and refuse to view a future any different than their current, obviously perfect, remote control setup.
First, you all seem to think that this "smartphone remote app" will be exactly as stupid as your current universal remotes. I've read "How will I mute the TV on a phone call?" or "I have to buy a smart phone for everyone in the house because I'll have the phone at work when my wife wants to watch TV" or "My smartphone buttons aren't going to work right" or "my old remote is just fine" or any one of a dozen repeated complaints about why this will never work.
This could be über-cool, but you guys are completely missing it.
Tomorrow's smart phones could have play, pause, and stop hard buttons on them -- actually, many phones already do today. The smart phone could have two-way communication with the device (just like Bluetooth controls on headphones do) so the smart phone could discover the states of your devices, and control them appropriately. An RF connection wouldn't have to have the same limitations as IR. The smart phone wouldn't have to be the only remote control device in existence - it could supplement an ordinary remote used by others for those times when you're not present. The smart phone could be location aware, and automatically control your main entertainment system differently than your bedroom TV system.
My stupid phone already mutes my car stereo via Bluetooth when an incoming call arrives, so a smart phone could certainly pause my DVR and show the caller ID on the TV screen when a call arrives.
I'm just amazed at the negativity of all the "it'll never work" responses. Jeez, people, either show a little imagination, or get the frak out of the way for people who have it!
My Bluetooth phone already mutes the car stereo when an incoming call comes in. Why do you think a smartphone remote app has to have the same level of stupid as a regular universal remote?
A smartphone could easily pause the DVR when a call comes in.
And anyone that thinks the Harmony is the best, has never used a JP1 remote. $20 for a remote (I picked it up on sale for $10), and ~$20 (or do-it-yourself) for the cable, and you can program a JP1 remote to do any IR you want. The flexibility people have programmed for these remotes is amazing.
The real value of a Harmony comes from the "usability" of the remote, not the "flexibility" of programming it. (As an aside, the Harmony wins on programming at least 95% of the time, too (Samsung TV IR codes completely suck.) I can have a Harmony remote fully programmed for five devices in 15 minutes or less.)
The key is that Harmony remotes are "use case based", and are not device oriented. Pick one up, and the buttons are labeled with things you want to do: "Watch TV", "Watch DVD", "Listen to Radio", or "Control Lights". The power of this is immediately apparent when you run these remotes through the Mom Test.
Park your mom in front of your entertainment system and hand her the JP1. The first thing she'll do is go to the kitchen and make you a sammich, because she has no frakking idea how to turn your TV on, or how to make the sound come out, or how to change channels. But put a Harmony in her hands, and she'll push the "Watch TV" button. The TV comes on, the cable box comes on, the sound system comes on, the TV sets its input to HDMI-1, the sound system sets its input to AUX-1, and your mom is watching TV.
And if the system gets out of sync, with the TV showing cable and the audio playing FM radio, push the "help" button. It asks questions about the problems and then sends the IR signals that help resync everything.
The Harmony completely changed how I thought about human-TV interactions, and raised it up a level. I own two for my systems, and have bought them for my elderly in-laws, aunts and uncles. Device-oriented remote controls are horse-and-buggy-whips by comparison.
Sure, if your budget is $20, and you've got all the time in the world to mess around with programming it, and nobody else needs to use it, the JP1 is probably more than adequate. But I spent more than that in time wasted answering the first phone call my father-in-law had about getting his TV to switch between Dish and DVD. The Harmony made those phone calls end.
Science = Gotta Wear A Darwin Fish on your car is kind of closed-minded as anything else. It's characterized by surrounding yourself by people who exclusively think like you already think, and not being challenged.
Umm...no.
Science is about using the Scientific Method to explain things. Study the problem. Form a hypothesis. Create an experiment to test your hypothesis. There's endless room for arguments, disagreements, and challenges. But that's not the point.
The point is that applying the scientific method defines what is "Science".
Now certainly, Creationism could be turned into a science. For example, I've studied the problem. My hypothesis is that if I have a sealed, empty box, some $Deity will wave his magic appendage and create a living cat inside it. If a cat appears in my empty box, I have experimentally produced evidence of Creation. That's Science. (Also note that if a cat does NOT appear in my box, that is NOT proof that the $Deity isn't a creator, or that the $Deity doesn't exist -- negative results don't work that way in the Scientific Method -- just that my hypothesis may have been wrong.)
From recent playing with the CHDK software, I can assure you that my Canon SD-750 camera does not appear to respect the switch in terms of write protection. The switch merely enables it to pre-load a firmware flash before booting.
That was the first thing I thought of when I saw this article. Firefox with Adblock Plus loads everything much faster than plain Firefox or IE.
On top of that, it can typically begin rendering earlier, too. I've seen sites that don't render any content until the ad frames are all loaded and positioned in place. So you get to wait around until everything arrives before you see anything. But with Adblock Plus, that's not a problem. I'd personally rather have the meat of the content appear first, followed by proper formatting (if it ever arrives.) In other words, as long as the top of the page is readable first, I don't care how long it takes to render the bottom of the page.
Well, I personally know that InComm is an authorizer to companies that sell iTunes cards at retail, and that unactivated cards have no value. No algorithm is used for those cards, other than the non-sequential generator (to prevent my_card_number+1 fraud.)
But I also know that TFA claims that an algorithm is broken allowing for virtually unlimited generation of cards.
So either TFA is either wrong or deliberately lying (improbable, but not impossible) or both the algorithm and on-line methods are being used by iTunes (neither particularly odd nor improbable.)
You don't have to melt the platters to destroy the data -- you just have to heat the magnetic media beyond its Curie temperature. Of course, that means knowing what the magnetic media of the platters is made of.
The Curie point of neodymium magnets is about 300C, for samarium-cobalt it's up to about 800C, and for iron it's 768C. Your 2000F oven should be plenty hot enough.
sdelete -z works by creating random-filled temporary files on a drive until all space is filled, then it deletes the temporary files. The concept should work equally well on a flash drive.
You could ebay them, if your time is worth nothing. To prep them, you'd have to mount them on a machine and securely wipe them (on a windows box download sdelete for free from sysinternals.) Use the -z option to wipe free space (critical for cleaning flash drives.)
Old drives are not as energy efficient as modern drives, so they cost more to spin -- a RAID would just be an expensive storage container. So unless you have a need for old, small drives (say an old, small machine) the safest advice would be to destroy them.
I like playing with neodymium magnets, so I take my drives apart and harvest them. Bending and flexing the platters will render them unreadable by almost anyone but the NSA, so unless you're protecting treasonable secrets, it's probably not worth the effort to do much more damage than that. (Be careful, glass platters don't flex - they shatter.) If you are that paranoid, heating them beyond their Curie point will absolutely destroy any stored information.
The news said that our local police read Craigslist and bust the guys who hook up in a park down by the river. That's the way law enforcement should deal with these illegal activities: bust them when they happen. End of story.
I think that age group is too young to build robots on any informative level. I'm sorry, but they just won't "get it".
You'd be surprised. When my son was in Cub Scouts (grades 2-5) we had them do this kind of stuff all the time.
Here's a great project that's well within the age range of these kids: Bristlebots! Provide them with all the technical parts: motors, double sided tape, batteries, wires, solder, tools, and safety equipment, everything except for the toothbrush. Give them at least a week's notice to bring in a toothbrush, (provide printed flyers explaining the project) and they'll go home and beg mom or dad to help them find them an old toothbrush they can destroy. Of course you'll need some extras on hand so nobody is left out. But make sure they have plenty of notice. The anticipation is a huge part of the experience.
The flyers serve several purposes: they build excitement, they inform the parents about days and activities, they ask parents to help scrounge up a toothbrush, they can serve as the "permission slip" to use the tools under supervision, and depending on financial circumstances, you can ask parents to pay the cost of the parts. You need to be clear that parts will be provided for all the kids regardless of donations, so as not to leave anyone out. But really, the first hit on the Goog just found pager motors for $1.29, so parts costs should be dirt cheap. Even in a tough situation with a lot of underprivileged kids, you can probably find a couple people willing to donate $20 or so.
On build day, use the older kids to perform the tougher tasks. The 3rd and 4th graders are more than capable of sawing off the toothbrush handles with a hacksaw (provide a vise.) If you have a 5th grader in the group, they might even be capable of soldering, but if not you could still use one as a "third hand" to apply the solder. (Or you can pre-solder the wires yourself before Robot Day.) Direct supervision and proper safety equipment is required, of course, but kids LOVE to use "dangerous" tools. It's a great opportunity to educate them on safety, and there's very little chance of serious injury.
If you print up assembly directions, be sure you test them yourself before build day. Have a pre-made bristlebot to show the kids what they're making.
For the youngest kids, if you can find a way to decorate them (provide them with stickers or whatever) then they get to participate too. There's a tremendous value in getting the kids to do the assembly. It might be slightly beyond the 5-6 year olds (it's definitely kid dependent,) but even the 7-year olds are likely to be able to accomplish it. And the younger kids may just have fun playing with them, but it's still participation.
Be sure to follow up the build event with some kind of organized contest where the kids can enter their robots. It's best to run it the same day so that kids don't have a chance to lose or break their robots or wear out their batteries.
If you operate the bristlebots on a horizontal dry-erase board as the article pictures, you could try having them erase marker lines, or race from one end to the other, or out of a circle, or follow a simple drawn track. Pre-print some award certificates for things like "Robot with the Cleanest Teeth" and a handful of other cheesy awards, and hand them out for things like "the kid who picked the highest number."
Trust me -- if you can organize this little bit, the kids will love it and the parents will beg you to do it again next year.
This is like:
Running the space shuttle on unleaded?
The space shuttle may run on liquid hydrogen, but the Russian liquid fueled rocket boosters burn kerosene (just one tiny step from diesel fuel), so I don't know why that would be such a stretch.
Busking is not without its hazards. A buddy worked in a London office building with no air conditioning (open window, insert fan), and a busker decided to play outside his office every day. For hours. And said busker played the freakin' BAGPIPES!
My buddy is not a violent man, but he came very close.
But it is a business. Music is as designed, packaged and sold as cosmetics are.
I couldn't disagree more.
By your own admission you are in the same business; you're just at the opposite end from the Hannahs and Britneys. You both play for someone in exchange for a reward: you may be playing just to have a gig, a beer, and a good time, but you're still playing for the bar crowd.
And like Britney (or at least like her handlers), you "design and package" your sound to be like the blues bar crowd expects. You "sell" it to the bar manager to get some time on stage. And you have limits, too. At a blues bar, you couldn't play "Put on a Happy Face" (at least not non-ironically) and keep your reputation as blues artists.
Mentally you may claim there's some separation between you and Nashville/LA, but in reality you're both in the exact same business. We're just discussing price. And if you're playing only for beer money, you're not as good at the business aspects as Britney's manager is. (That's not a slam on your artistic talents, btw, it's my point about the business.)
There's your problem. (Emphasis mine.)
It's not "having fun, making music" anymore. It' "cold hard business". When I even hear stuff like "music managers" selecting "target groups" to "monetize" their "product/resource", I'm starting to feel sick. Not that It's not Ok to earn money with your music. But it should not be your dominating factor. By far. Luckily I'm pretty sure, this will not survive P2P file sharing.;)
But it is a business. Music is as designed, packaged and sold as cosmetics are.
At the one end of the spectrum, you've got Muzak -- people who are specifically recording background music to achieve a physiologic response: calm, desire to buy, etc. They are under no pretense as to what they are doing. Artistic freedom is almost non-existent.
At the next level, you've got the Hannah Montanas. She was hired to perform exactly to specifications. She is doing a job, more like an actor playing a rock star. She is under no delusion that what she does is a business. She also has no freedoms.
At the next step it gets more interesting. You've got the Britney Spears type. She may think of herself as an "artist", but she was really just "sorted to the top". Lets say ten thousand artists sent in their music. The label says "I have a contract to deliver a band that will sell hair-care products. She fits best." So they hire the "artist," who is perfectly free to delude herself into thinking she's hot stuff, but in reality she just happened to be the best match to the goal of the label. It's no coincidence that pop stars sound similar. And despite her delusions, she really has very few freedoms.
Further along, you've got the smaller and independent labels. They're only listening for a particular "sound" that fits with their other sounds - electronica, ska, house, whatever. Their promotions, concerts, and all that other stuff align, which makes it easier to promote more of the same. But it's still business.
And at the other end, you have the self-produced or independent music. It can be any sound of any quality. Nobody promotes them, nobody works for them, and they do as they please. That doesn't mean they don't want to perform or to get paid for performing, just that they are on their own. But even they have limits. Picture some garage band at a local show deciding to play a bunch of Spice Girls covers -- they'd either get thrown off the stage, or they'd "readjust" their style back to the show. It's not total freedom at this level, either -- they have to play to their audience.
So I don't know why you "feel sick" about "music managers targeting groups to monetize their products." That's what they do at every level. Its just that some of these people have done it for a long time and are very good at it.
Slashdot Mirror
Do you have confidence in your ability to learn? Will you stick to a four year commitment? You need to answer both of those questions honestly before you head down this road.
The other question is "what will your opportunities be like when you get out?" and that is going to depend in part on what you do during these four years. You might consider trying to get into a company now that might need your skills later. It's sometimes* easier to move around from within a company than to get your foot in the door.
* Guarantee not included.
Who ever promised this data would be anonymous? Do you really expect privacy when posting personal stuff on line, even if you don't sign your name in advance?
Good point! Most of my friends and I are all in the same arena when it comes to conversations. We'll talk about the latest distros, why Apple sucks or why Apple is great, why Linux sucks or why Linux is great, why Microsoft sucks, and what we thought of the end of Battlestar Galactica, and universal agreement that none of us would have a shot at Tricia Helfer.
But if someone asked any one of us about the NCAA tournament, we would be lost. I don't think any of us have seen a football game in years, apart from those on the TVs in bars making noise when we're trying to eat. But ask about C++ or Java or software engineering or hacking or networks and our answers would look like a robot quoting pages from textbooks. We might even answer the questions with fragments of code just to be funny. if (geekFunny() != regularHumanFunny()) { profit++; }
So if they can get an AI to make small talk (and not smalltalk) I'd probably want one just to handle all those awkward social situations where I'm the only one in the room not to know who's in the Super Bowl this year.
So because you don't personally have the imagination to envision how this could ever work makes it a bad idea?
There are probably a dozen different really clever solutions, but it only takes one.
God, everyone on Slashdot is whining about how this could never ever work. No wonder people like Steve Jobs rise to prominence. He'd never accept that kind of negative answer from his staff.
I can't believe all the people posting here that have no imaginations, and refuse to view a future any different than their current, obviously perfect, remote control setup.
First, you all seem to think that this "smartphone remote app" will be exactly as stupid as your current universal remotes. I've read "How will I mute the TV on a phone call?" or "I have to buy a smart phone for everyone in the house because I'll have the phone at work when my wife wants to watch TV" or "My smartphone buttons aren't going to work right" or "my old remote is just fine" or any one of a dozen repeated complaints about why this will never work.
This could be über-cool, but you guys are completely missing it.
Tomorrow's smart phones could have play, pause, and stop hard buttons on them -- actually, many phones already do today. The smart phone could have two-way communication with the device (just like Bluetooth controls on headphones do) so the smart phone could discover the states of your devices, and control them appropriately. An RF connection wouldn't have to have the same limitations as IR. The smart phone wouldn't have to be the only remote control device in existence - it could supplement an ordinary remote used by others for those times when you're not present. The smart phone could be location aware, and automatically control your main entertainment system differently than your bedroom TV system.
My stupid phone already mutes my car stereo via Bluetooth when an incoming call arrives, so a smart phone could certainly pause my DVR and show the caller ID on the TV screen when a call arrives.
I'm just amazed at the negativity of all the "it'll never work" responses. Jeez, people, either show a little imagination, or get the frak out of the way for people who have it!
My Bluetooth phone already mutes the car stereo when an incoming call comes in. Why do you think a smartphone remote app has to have the same level of stupid as a regular universal remote?
A smartphone could easily pause the DVR when a call comes in.
And anyone that thinks the Harmony is the best, has never used a JP1 remote. $20 for a remote (I picked it up on sale for $10), and ~$20 (or do-it-yourself) for the cable, and you can program a JP1 remote to do any IR you want. The flexibility people have programmed for these remotes is amazing.
The real value of a Harmony comes from the "usability" of the remote, not the "flexibility" of programming it. (As an aside, the Harmony wins on programming at least 95% of the time, too (Samsung TV IR codes completely suck.) I can have a Harmony remote fully programmed for five devices in 15 minutes or less.)
The key is that Harmony remotes are "use case based", and are not device oriented. Pick one up, and the buttons are labeled with things you want to do: "Watch TV", "Watch DVD", "Listen to Radio", or "Control Lights". The power of this is immediately apparent when you run these remotes through the Mom Test.
Park your mom in front of your entertainment system and hand her the JP1. The first thing she'll do is go to the kitchen and make you a sammich, because she has no frakking idea how to turn your TV on, or how to make the sound come out, or how to change channels. But put a Harmony in her hands, and she'll push the "Watch TV" button. The TV comes on, the cable box comes on, the sound system comes on, the TV sets its input to HDMI-1, the sound system sets its input to AUX-1, and your mom is watching TV.
And if the system gets out of sync, with the TV showing cable and the audio playing FM radio, push the "help" button. It asks questions about the problems and then sends the IR signals that help resync everything.
The Harmony completely changed how I thought about human-TV interactions, and raised it up a level. I own two for my systems, and have bought them for my elderly in-laws, aunts and uncles. Device-oriented remote controls are horse-and-buggy-whips by comparison.
Sure, if your budget is $20, and you've got all the time in the world to mess around with programming it, and nobody else needs to use it, the JP1 is probably more than adequate. But I spent more than that in time wasted answering the first phone call my father-in-law had about getting his TV to switch between Dish and DVD. The Harmony made those phone calls end.
Science = Gotta Wear A Darwin Fish on your car is kind of closed-minded as anything else. It's characterized by surrounding yourself by people who exclusively think like you already think, and not being challenged.
Umm...no.
Science is about using the Scientific Method to explain things. Study the problem. Form a hypothesis. Create an experiment to test your hypothesis. There's endless room for arguments, disagreements, and challenges. But that's not the point.
The point is that applying the scientific method defines what is "Science".
Now certainly, Creationism could be turned into a science. For example, I've studied the problem. My hypothesis is that if I have a sealed, empty box, some $Deity will wave his magic appendage and create a living cat inside it. If a cat appears in my empty box, I have experimentally produced evidence of Creation. That's Science. (Also note that if a cat does NOT appear in my box, that is NOT proof that the $Deity isn't a creator, or that the $Deity doesn't exist -- negative results don't work that way in the Scientific Method -- just that my hypothesis may have been wrong.)
From recent playing with the CHDK software, I can assure you that my Canon SD-750 camera does not appear to respect the switch in terms of write protection. The switch merely enables it to pre-load a firmware flash before booting.
That's right. We should support those Hollywood writers by buying their stories, not just watching re-runs that make money only for the studios.
Here's one way to support Harlan: buy the book. Make sure he gets paid for his fabulous story.
Oh, wait. It's out of print, and that's a site that sells used copies. Sorry, Harlan!
If my ISP called, that's what I'd tell them too.
"Yeah, my 'kids' must be 'downloading' a lot of stuff. Don't worry I'll go spank them until they stop."
Naughty monkey!
That was the first thing I thought of when I saw this article. Firefox with Adblock Plus loads everything much faster than plain Firefox or IE.
On top of that, it can typically begin rendering earlier, too. I've seen sites that don't render any content until the ad frames are all loaded and positioned in place. So you get to wait around until everything arrives before you see anything. But with Adblock Plus, that's not a problem. I'd personally rather have the meat of the content appear first, followed by proper formatting (if it ever arrives.) In other words, as long as the top of the page is readable first, I don't care how long it takes to render the bottom of the page.
"Google, you fiend, do you really expect me to opt out?"
"No, Mr. MadDogX, I expect you to die."
Isn't that how Doubleclick made their fortune?
Well, I personally know that InComm is an authorizer to companies that sell iTunes cards at retail, and that unactivated cards have no value. No algorithm is used for those cards, other than the non-sequential generator (to prevent my_card_number+1 fraud.)
But I also know that TFA claims that an algorithm is broken allowing for virtually unlimited generation of cards.
So either TFA is either wrong or deliberately lying (improbable, but not impossible) or both the algorithm and on-line methods are being used by iTunes (neither particularly odd nor improbable.)
It's not an XOR situation.
You don't have to melt the platters to destroy the data -- you just have to heat the magnetic media beyond its Curie temperature. Of course, that means knowing what the magnetic media of the platters is made of.
The Curie point of neodymium magnets is about 300C, for samarium-cobalt it's up to about 800C, and for iron it's 768C. Your 2000F oven should be plenty hot enough.
sdelete -z works by creating random-filled temporary files on a drive until all space is filled, then it deletes the temporary files. The concept should work equally well on a flash drive.
You could ebay them, if your time is worth nothing. To prep them, you'd have to mount them on a machine and securely wipe them (on a windows box download sdelete for free from sysinternals.) Use the -z option to wipe free space (critical for cleaning flash drives.)
Old drives are not as energy efficient as modern drives, so they cost more to spin -- a RAID would just be an expensive storage container. So unless you have a need for old, small drives (say an old, small machine) the safest advice would be to destroy them.
I like playing with neodymium magnets, so I take my drives apart and harvest them. Bending and flexing the platters will render them unreadable by almost anyone but the NSA, so unless you're protecting treasonable secrets, it's probably not worth the effort to do much more damage than that. (Be careful, glass platters don't flex - they shatter.) If you are that paranoid, heating them beyond their Curie point will absolutely destroy any stored information.
The news said that our local police read Craigslist and bust the guys who hook up in a park down by the river. That's the way law enforcement should deal with these illegal activities: bust them when they happen. End of story.
I think that age group is too young to build robots on any informative level. I'm sorry, but they just won't "get it".
You'd be surprised. When my son was in Cub Scouts (grades 2-5) we had them do this kind of stuff all the time.
Here's a great project that's well within the age range of these kids: Bristlebots! Provide them with all the technical parts: motors, double sided tape, batteries, wires, solder, tools, and safety equipment, everything except for the toothbrush. Give them at least a week's notice to bring in a toothbrush, (provide printed flyers explaining the project) and they'll go home and beg mom or dad to help them find them an old toothbrush they can destroy. Of course you'll need some extras on hand so nobody is left out. But make sure they have plenty of notice. The anticipation is a huge part of the experience.
The flyers serve several purposes: they build excitement, they inform the parents about days and activities, they ask parents to help scrounge up a toothbrush, they can serve as the "permission slip" to use the tools under supervision, and depending on financial circumstances, you can ask parents to pay the cost of the parts. You need to be clear that parts will be provided for all the kids regardless of donations, so as not to leave anyone out. But really, the first hit on the Goog just found pager motors for $1.29, so parts costs should be dirt cheap. Even in a tough situation with a lot of underprivileged kids, you can probably find a couple people willing to donate $20 or so.
On build day, use the older kids to perform the tougher tasks. The 3rd and 4th graders are more than capable of sawing off the toothbrush handles with a hacksaw (provide a vise.) If you have a 5th grader in the group, they might even be capable of soldering, but if not you could still use one as a "third hand" to apply the solder. (Or you can pre-solder the wires yourself before Robot Day.) Direct supervision and proper safety equipment is required, of course, but kids LOVE to use "dangerous" tools. It's a great opportunity to educate them on safety, and there's very little chance of serious injury.
If you print up assembly directions, be sure you test them yourself before build day. Have a pre-made bristlebot to show the kids what they're making.
For the youngest kids, if you can find a way to decorate them (provide them with stickers or whatever) then they get to participate too. There's a tremendous value in getting the kids to do the assembly. It might be slightly beyond the 5-6 year olds (it's definitely kid dependent,) but even the 7-year olds are likely to be able to accomplish it. And the younger kids may just have fun playing with them, but it's still participation.
Be sure to follow up the build event with some kind of organized contest where the kids can enter their robots. It's best to run it the same day so that kids don't have a chance to lose or break their robots or wear out their batteries.
If you operate the bristlebots on a horizontal dry-erase board as the article pictures, you could try having them erase marker lines, or race from one end to the other, or out of a circle, or follow a simple drawn track. Pre-print some award certificates for things like "Robot with the Cleanest Teeth" and a handful of other cheesy awards, and hand them out for things like "the kid who picked the highest number."
Trust me -- if you can organize this little bit, the kids will love it and the parents will beg you to do it again next year.
This is like:
Running the space shuttle on unleaded?
The space shuttle may run on liquid hydrogen, but the Russian liquid fueled rocket boosters burn kerosene (just one tiny step from diesel fuel), so I don't know why that would be such a stretch.
Is it good to take a stand? Yes.
Am I going to sacrifice my own career for this cause? No.
Damn. I thought I was going to get that job after you announced you were taking a stand.
"It's good for you to take a stand. Good for me, that is."
Busking is not without its hazards. A buddy worked in a London office building with no air conditioning (open window, insert fan), and a busker decided to play outside his office every day. For hours. And said busker played the freakin' BAGPIPES!
My buddy is not a violent man, but he came very close.
But it is a business. Music is as designed, packaged and sold as cosmetics are.
I couldn't disagree more.
By your own admission you are in the same business; you're just at the opposite end from the Hannahs and Britneys. You both play for someone in exchange for a reward: you may be playing just to have a gig, a beer, and a good time, but you're still playing for the bar crowd.
And like Britney (or at least like her handlers), you "design and package" your sound to be like the blues bar crowd expects. You "sell" it to the bar manager to get some time on stage. And you have limits, too. At a blues bar, you couldn't play "Put on a Happy Face" (at least not non-ironically) and keep your reputation as blues artists.
Mentally you may claim there's some separation between you and Nashville/LA, but in reality you're both in the exact same business. We're just discussing price. And if you're playing only for beer money, you're not as good at the business aspects as Britney's manager is. (That's not a slam on your artistic talents, btw, it's my point about the business.)
There's your problem. (Emphasis mine.) It's not "having fun, making music" anymore. It' "cold hard business". When I even hear stuff like "music managers" selecting "target groups" to "monetize" their "product/resource", I'm starting to feel sick. Not that It's not Ok to earn money with your music. But it should not be your dominating factor. By far. Luckily I'm pretty sure, this will not survive P2P file sharing. ;)
But it is a business. Music is as designed, packaged and sold as cosmetics are.
At the one end of the spectrum, you've got Muzak -- people who are specifically recording background music to achieve a physiologic response: calm, desire to buy, etc. They are under no pretense as to what they are doing. Artistic freedom is almost non-existent.
At the next level, you've got the Hannah Montanas. She was hired to perform exactly to specifications. She is doing a job, more like an actor playing a rock star. She is under no delusion that what she does is a business. She also has no freedoms.
At the next step it gets more interesting. You've got the Britney Spears type. She may think of herself as an "artist", but she was really just "sorted to the top". Lets say ten thousand artists sent in their music. The label says "I have a contract to deliver a band that will sell hair-care products. She fits best." So they hire the "artist," who is perfectly free to delude herself into thinking she's hot stuff, but in reality she just happened to be the best match to the goal of the label. It's no coincidence that pop stars sound similar. And despite her delusions, she really has very few freedoms.
Further along, you've got the smaller and independent labels. They're only listening for a particular "sound" that fits with their other sounds - electronica, ska, house, whatever. Their promotions, concerts, and all that other stuff align, which makes it easier to promote more of the same. But it's still business.
And at the other end, you have the self-produced or independent music. It can be any sound of any quality. Nobody promotes them, nobody works for them, and they do as they please. That doesn't mean they don't want to perform or to get paid for performing, just that they are on their own. But even they have limits. Picture some garage band at a local show deciding to play a bunch of Spice Girls covers -- they'd either get thrown off the stage, or they'd "readjust" their style back to the show. It's not total freedom at this level, either -- they have to play to their audience.
So I don't know why you "feel sick" about "music managers targeting groups to monetize their products." That's what they do at every level. Its just that some of these people have done it for a long time and are very good at it.