Good thoughts. After I posted my original thought, I came to the conclusion that what I termed the beginner laptop doesn't make sense either. But I still think the most useful combination is primarily a wifi device, primarily because as another poster noted, wifi is much cheaper to set up than cable based infrastructure. For example, if the central server node has a satellite downlink, etc. it can receive updated software, etc. without cable infrastructure, and anything available via the server becomes available via the wifi.
USB ports alone don't imply wifi which is why I would include it as a native part of the specification, or a required add-on which would probably be better because if a particular wifi format isn't available or is outdated, the local best version would presumably be included when the laptop was distributed.
Okay, so you have a kajillion kids laptops out there -- which are then quickly out-dated in terms of both hardware and software.
Wouldn't it be a whole lot better to first develop and distribute a "thin client" laptop that is not much more than a browser, screen, keyboard, and Wifi connection, along with substantial enough (and presumably pricier) servers that act as access portals, and then second, a more advanced laptop that can store useful data and other programs usable by more advanced students that qualify for them?
Secondarily, I would think that the first and/or second laptops could be sold as an entry level laptop in the first world countries with a sufficient profit margin (and the ability of educational systems like rural school districts, etc. to purchase a limited number of machines without the profit margin built in) to underwrite the distribution of many more machines to the third world? After all, if the whole thing is done under a non-profit framework, there isn't shareholder bottom line to worry about. What think ye all?
Think about it: When I read today's paper, I am reading for todays {headlines, metro news, weather, photos, comics, entertainment offerings, sales, classified ads} If I want to know what the headlines were a week ago, etc., I go to the paper from a week ago and scan, etc. the same way.
Secondarily, an average newspaper page is what, 17x22 per page, 22x34 unfolded? Which allows detailed halftone and color pictures alongside the data, and still leaves room for the all important revenue producing ads. The average home computer screens is maybe 12x15 max, or half the size, but instead of a dot being 1/200 of an inch, the dot resolution on a monitor is usually set to 1/72 if I remember right. So the newspaper page has what, 18x the "pixel" data space?
These two publication worlds are apples and oranges, and it takes a very clever web design team and a great journalism team to approximate the best part of the newspaper world (dynamic and relevant content + strong fact checking) delivered on an edition basis. Can't say that I have seen that particular combination done very well online myself.
Would this plug-in make Firefox et. al a valid legal target for the [admittedly low and underhanded tactics but technically legal] MPAA and RIAA neo-police?
Yup. Except that you left out the part where a mass-murderer kept up a pretense of having WMD for over ten years, harassed and ultimately got rid of the UN inspectors who were attempting to verify compliance, etc., and it was Hussein's unwillingness to submit to the UN resolutions to open up his former WMD plants, etc. for inspection that triggered the invasion. Had the prior Iraqi regime complied without even the months long final warning process (let alone the ten plus years prior), no bombs, tanks, or other assorted objects that go boom would have ever been needed.
Which means that your point is absolutely invalid in terms of the US acting unilaterally because the US-led coalition was acting in 100% accord with established international convention and law, not the world's popularity contest.
Some folks dislike the idea of the US military having the ability to downgrade the GPS system not -- as some posters have mentioned -- as a response to terrorist threats, but in the more realistic context of a full scale war.
Given that a GPS guided smart-bomb is only as accurate as the GPS signal, do the folks in Paris, France, or {name your own favorite freedom-allied European municipality and country} really want to give another foreign and presumably malignant military power the ability to bomb down to one meter accuracy? Talk about the ultimate terror weapon "country X, give up ________ or our GPS guided weapon will hit elementary school Y", etc., etc.
Somehow I don't think that the free world --or even the non-free countries of the world, for that matter -- has much worry that the US military is going to ever do or be allowed to do something like that, do you?
in my own experience and that of a family member who is also a programmer, we know that Microsoft steals and implements other people's tech all the time, usually putting otherwise viable companies out of business in the mean time because they can selectively manipulate the OS to their advantage, and
software patents exist, and if Visto has a valid patent and doesn't want M$ to steamroller them, they have to defend themselves now.
And if M$ gets the crap kicked out of them and loses a bunch of money because the patent is valid, so much the better. If the patent's not valid, then M$ attorney's have to be paid, AKA Microsoft foots the bill that invalidates the patent for the rest of us. Which is not a bad thing either.
Question is, if the patent is valid, will Visto play nice with the rest of the world and thereby gain favor and $$ in the short and long run, or pull a Unisys (.gif fiasco) style play and shoot themselves in the foot?
The problem with your iterated items #1 and #2 is that no-one has found evidences of the "non-miniscule fraction" other than species identified as extinct which documents the so-called missing links in the archeological or geological record. Seeing that there are fossil evidences from the microscopic to the humongous level, it seems highly unlikely that there is this whole large body of undiscovered evidence which would demonstrate the missing link or transition into the "sudden mutation".
All I am saying is that Darwin's theory is incomplete at present, and like the theory of GR, there are problems with proclaiming it to be the be all and end all of scientific theory on the origins of life at this time.
Correction to my original post. I used the term species, however, that is one level lower than I want, and I don't remember the word that is one step up. For example, there are multiple species of fruit flies, but they are all of the _____ fruit fly family -- that is the level in which I don't think there has been an observable shift across groups, for example, from a fruit fly to an insect that can no longer be considered a fruit fly, no matter how many generations.
Thanks -- I will mostly look at the second link, because although the fruit fly stuff is interesting, they are still fundamentally the same thing, a type of fruit fly.
Wrong. Darwin's theory essentially predicts that the leaves on a given branch of the "tree of life" (your analogy, not mine, but anyway...) will change in response to outside influences such as survival of the fittest, et al. and these influences seem to account for micro-evolution 100%.
What it does not account for is macro-evolution, that is, the changing of one species into another at the chromosomal level by purely natural selection. Having not followed this very closely in the last 10 or so years, I may be out of date, but this is the missing link that would confirm all of the Origin of Species theory, and to my knowledge this link has never been found. In fact, the closest approximations to this have only occurred in laboratory settings where very intelligent designers have preset up the conditions for it, and manipulated a whole lot of variables to keep the randomness of nature from interfering and ruining the experiment(s). Which I think would constitute an "intelligent design" of a sort, though I am not embracing the whole ID philosophy by saying so.
Let me (and the rest of the/. universe) in on the secret if you have reference to any verified scientific publication that purports otherwise, would you?
Sounds to me like you are doing your job well, and are the 'single point of failure' critical resource. Which translates to a) job security in that you are the only point where things can be fixed, and b)job overload, because a one man IT department has to keep up with every change on every workstation and entry point into the network (including software, printers, modems, net connections, etc.) and the points of attack or network/application corruption problems are multiplying faster than a single person can possibly track, unless the company is hopelessly mired in '80s technology.
My suggestion? Management won't pay for insurance against threats that they don't understand. Do a 'Net search and find white papers which show how other similar sized businesses became vulnerable to major IT downtime induced loss of revenue, and/or were sued for major amounts of money because they didn't face the threat sources in time and data was stolen, etc.
If a good presentation using those papers doesn't work, suggest that for Sarbonnes/Oxley regulatory compliance, they need an IT audit, and discuss the single point of failure problem with the auditor.
Finally, if none of the above work, update the resume and get a couple of good job offers in hand, then request a large $$ increase in wage to stay, or leave. There are no other choices.
Trouble is, something akin to fascism is what many large corporations seem to be after, with the dictatorship run by "profit-only" boards of directors. Seems to me they forget the trouble that caused the last time the power of the corporation became to great. Namely well empowered trade unions, cross-corporate product boycotting, not to mention the eventually passage of a whole lot of legislation which limited the malignant powers of the corporation and opened up many many avenues of legal retribution to the workers and consumers. If this is what they want, this is what they will get.
Trouble is, we workers and consumers will have to suffer a great deal of hardship in the mean time unless the corruption is stopped very soon indeed.
Let the fireworks begin. Bet this doesn't stand for more than six months..., as I would guess that there is some prior art out there to invalidate it.
Like the fact that IIRC there were TV tuner cards back in the DOS/Apple II days, and applications that could write text onto the graphic screen at the same time. I personally wrote an app in Clipper that allowed a user to click on an image from a TV screen capture, and move to different places in the application based on "member data", and that was a not too difficult application by a solo programming newbie at the time. Authoring software anyone? Dragon's lair or Space Ace video games? do they apply?.
About what the article actually points out. The fact is that the Firefox browser has been well guided, is a superb open source tool that forced M$ to begin investing in web-related innovation again.
Other main fact is that I have not had one browser based attack succeed on my main computers (work or home), compared to the M$ fiascos that cause a significant amount of our company's IT budget to be consumed in "silly patchwork" fixes, and it doesn't matter to me what Ms. Baker looks like or how much code she has/hasn't written.
What matters is that Firefox and Thunderbird have been well guided, to the extent that there needs to be enough profitibility in a related enterprise to defend both against corporate, copycat, or cracker type attacks.
Sure, Mozilla is our pet lizard, but wouldn't you rather have a good chief lizard wrangler than nobody?
that a "steam" engine requires a lot of water (true only if there is no condensor. AKA the radiator on the front of the car.), and
this would somehow result in a broken down car with no repair facilities able to get someone back on the road. This is an additive system, when it is working, it adds power and mileage, when not, you have your regular gas-guzzling beemer.
Of course at this point this is just a concept system, it remains to see if it ever makes it into production.
My hope would be to see the steam engine addition connect to an electrical hybrid system, and that the main power source be a low-rev/high torque diesel engine. Do that with dynamic braking, etc. and you might just get an automobile engine that is say, 70% as efficient as the big diesel locomotive engines have been for what, 30 years?
Anglo-centric rubbish. It is only Brazil in English, and that might only be the American version. Ever here a native of the country or a Latin language (Spanish, Portugese, Italian, etc.) speaker pronounce the name?
Given that a "mega hit" artist costs more to sign and promote, it seems fairly obvious that a "recording artist promotion company" has to break even. That said, presumably the sheer number of downloads that a mega-hit artist's songs would receive, even $.99 a song seems like it would offer sufficient profit margins, given that the only post-production expense is bandwidth. If not, then flexible pricing will happen
That said, if I become a content provider and am releasing songs via my own small "private internet label", do I want to be locked into 99 cents per song? No, I don't. I might want to offer the songs for a minimal price to build following, but not be locked into that price long term, because if one of my groups or artists turns into a "mega hit" artist, I need to cover my bandwidth expenses and then presumably enjoy a reasonable profit.
The real problem is this: I don't want my offerings to be perceived as low value, or be locked out of participating in an iPod type setting because I don't want to go along with the rest of the industry's pricing structures. Or am I missing the point here?
Though I don't develop much in C++ currently, and haven't had the time to do anything Linux wise in years, I would love to have an identified location for security-bug free algorithms, etc. that I could use if I need to do more C++ work in the future.
The act of listening to a CD on a personal computer is lawful under any reading of the Copyright Act. Playing a CD on a computer for one's personal enjoyment implicates none of the exclusive rights granted to copyright holders under 106. No copies are made or distributed; no derivative works are prepared; and no works are publicly performed. Nonetheless, without an exemption rational consumers would be dissuaded from engaging in this unquestionably lawful activity in light of the security risks posed by protection measures that are a barrier to access.
In other words, I have the right to listen to an audio CD that I purchase where ever I want, PC or CD/DVD player, and there is nothing any copyright holder can do to dictate otherwise. What I don't have the right to do is reproduce and distribute copyrightable content otherwise.
Page six of the pdf makes the exact argument that is needed, on whole, to begin to dismantle the onerous aspects of the DMCA and is nearly perfectly written to do so, because it shows how a legally purchased disk cannot even be listened to on a user's PC even though there is no specific allowance in the DMCA for such a behavior by copyrightable-content producers. Great stuff!!
I agree that it is my choice. But the proliferation of TLDs isn't analagous to a physical address, because in the real world there are zoning restrictions, etc., and I don't really have to worry about shady operators setting up next door or trying to pollute my own property with their crap. For example, a porn shop can't move into my neighborhood, etc.
Analagously, my unique domain name(s) are the neighborhood and after the fact (the proliferation of TLD's) is like having a choice between two bad options:
Pay a big thug (an ICANN registrar) to keep any and all squatters and other assorted nasty folks away from my property (a nice, unique domain name), or
not pay and then watch as all the squatters and other assorted nasty folks pay the big thug and then set up right in my front yard.
Am I the only web domain name holder that hates having to shell out an increasing amount of $$ for each new popular domain extension? Which results in my having to buy up the info, biz, etc. domains ad nauseum because I want to keep my core domain name(s) essentially unique. Will I have to register and park the.xxx domain names to prevent them from affiliating? What if ICANN decides that developing a TLD setup where country "YY" domain extension "XXX" is a good thing?
Slashdot Mirror
USB ports alone don't imply wifi which is why I would include it as a native part of the specification, or a required add-on which would probably be better because if a particular wifi format isn't available or is outdated, the local best version would presumably be included when the laptop was distributed.
As always, I am interested in what others think.
Wouldn't it be a whole lot better to first develop and distribute a "thin client" laptop that is not much more than a browser, screen, keyboard, and Wifi connection, along with substantial enough (and presumably pricier) servers that act as access portals, and then second, a more advanced laptop that can store useful data and other programs usable by more advanced students that qualify for them?
Secondarily, I would think that the first and/or second laptops could be sold as an entry level laptop in the first world countries with a sufficient profit margin (and the ability of educational systems like rural school districts, etc. to purchase a limited number of machines without the profit margin built in) to underwrite the distribution of many more machines to the third world? After all, if the whole thing is done under a non-profit framework, there isn't shareholder bottom line to worry about. What think ye all?
Secondarily, an average newspaper page is what, 17x22 per page, 22x34 unfolded? Which allows detailed halftone and color pictures alongside the data, and still leaves room for the all important revenue producing ads. The average home computer screens is maybe 12x15 max, or half the size, but instead of a dot being 1/200 of an inch, the dot resolution on a monitor is usually set to 1/72 if I remember right. So the newspaper page has what, 18x the "pixel" data space?
These two publication worlds are apples and oranges, and it takes a very clever web design team and a great journalism team to approximate the best part of the newspaper world (dynamic and relevant content + strong fact checking) delivered on an edition basis. Can't say that I have seen that particular combination done very well online myself.
Would this plug-in make Firefox et. al a valid legal target for the [admittedly low and underhanded tactics but technically legal] MPAA and RIAA neo-police?
Which means that your point is absolutely invalid in terms of the US acting unilaterally because the US-led coalition was acting in 100% accord with established international convention and law, not the world's popularity contest.
Given that a GPS guided smart-bomb is only as accurate as the GPS signal, do the folks in Paris, France, or {name your own favorite freedom-allied European municipality and country} really want to give another foreign and presumably malignant military power the ability to bomb down to one meter accuracy? Talk about the ultimate terror weapon "country X, give up ________ or our GPS guided weapon will hit elementary school Y", etc., etc.
Somehow I don't think that the free world --or even the non-free countries of the world, for that matter -- has much worry that the US military is going to ever do or be allowed to do something like that, do you?
And if M$ gets the crap kicked out of them and loses a bunch of money because the patent is valid, so much the better. If the patent's not valid, then M$ attorney's have to be paid, AKA Microsoft foots the bill that invalidates the patent for the rest of us. Which is not a bad thing either.
Question is, if the patent is valid, will Visto play nice with the rest of the world and thereby gain favor and $$ in the short and long run, or pull a Unisys (.gif fiasco) style play and shoot themselves in the foot?
All I am saying is that Darwin's theory is incomplete at present, and like the theory of GR, there are problems with proclaiming it to be the be all and end all of scientific theory on the origins of life at this time.
Am I wrong about that?
Thanks -- I will mostly look at the second link, because although the fruit fly stuff is interesting, they are still fundamentally the same thing, a type of fruit fly.
Wrong. Darwin's theory essentially predicts that the leaves on a given branch of the "tree of life" (your analogy, not mine, but anyway...) will change in response to outside influences such as survival of the fittest, et al. and these influences seem to account for micro-evolution 100%.
What it does not account for is macro-evolution, that is, the changing of one species into another at the chromosomal level by purely natural selection. Having not followed this very closely in the last 10 or so years, I may be out of date, but this is the missing link that would confirm all of the Origin of Species theory, and to my knowledge this link has never been found. In fact, the closest approximations to this have only occurred in laboratory settings where very intelligent designers have preset up the conditions for it, and manipulated a whole lot of variables to keep the randomness of nature from interfering and ruining the experiment(s). Which I think would constitute an "intelligent design" of a sort, though I am not embracing the whole ID philosophy by saying so.
Let me (and the rest of the /. universe) in on the secret if you have reference to any verified scientific publication that purports otherwise, would you?
My suggestion? Management won't pay for insurance against threats that they don't understand. Do a 'Net search and find white papers which show how other similar sized businesses became vulnerable to major IT downtime induced loss of revenue, and/or were sued for major amounts of money because they didn't face the threat sources in time and data was stolen, etc.
If a good presentation using those papers doesn't work, suggest that for Sarbonnes/Oxley regulatory compliance, they need an IT audit, and discuss the single point of failure problem with the auditor.
Finally, if none of the above work, update the resume and get a couple of good job offers in hand, then request a large $$ increase in wage to stay, or leave. There are no other choices.
Trouble is, something akin to fascism is what many large corporations seem to be after, with the dictatorship run by "profit-only" boards of directors. Seems to me they forget the trouble that caused the last time the power of the corporation became to great. Namely well empowered trade unions, cross-corporate product boycotting, not to mention the eventually passage of a whole lot of legislation which limited the malignant powers of the corporation and opened up many many avenues of legal retribution to the workers and consumers. If this is what they want, this is what they will get.
Trouble is, we workers and consumers will have to suffer a great deal of hardship in the mean time unless the corruption is stopped very soon indeed.
Like the fact that IIRC there were TV tuner cards back in the DOS/Apple II days, and applications that could write text onto the graphic screen at the same time. I personally wrote an app in Clipper that allowed a user to click on an image from a TV screen capture, and move to different places in the application based on "member data", and that was a not too difficult application by a solo programming newbie at the time. Authoring software anyone? Dragon's lair or Space Ace video games? do they apply?.
What think ye all?
Other main fact is that I have not had one browser based attack succeed on my main computers (work or home), compared to the M$ fiascos that cause a significant amount of our company's IT budget to be consumed in "silly patchwork" fixes, and it doesn't matter to me what Ms. Baker looks like or how much code she has/hasn't written.
What matters is that Firefox and Thunderbird have been well guided, to the extent that there needs to be enough profitibility in a related enterprise to defend both against corporate, copycat, or cracker type attacks.
Sure, Mozilla is our pet lizard, but wouldn't you rather have a good chief lizard wrangler than nobody?
Of course at this point this is just a concept system, it remains to see if it ever makes it into production.
My hope would be to see the steam engine addition connect to an electrical hybrid system, and that the main power source be a low-rev/high torque diesel engine. Do that with dynamic braking, etc. and you might just get an automobile engine that is say, 70% as efficient as the big diesel locomotive engines have been for what, 30 years?
Brasil is absolutely correct.
Mouse Hunt, anybody?
or call Bill G. and ask for that new and improved mouse for XP from M$, Logitech, et al. I forget...
;-)
****grin******
I sorry.. couldna help meeself....
That said, if I become a content provider and am releasing songs via my own small "private internet label", do I want to be locked into 99 cents per song? No, I don't. I might want to offer the songs for a minimal price to build following, but not be locked into that price long term, because if one of my groups or artists turns into a "mega hit" artist, I need to cover my bandwidth expenses and then presumably enjoy a reasonable profit.
The real problem is this: I don't want my offerings to be perceived as low value, or be locked out of participating in an iPod type setting because I don't want to go along with the rest of the industry's pricing structures. Or am I missing the point here?
Hard to die of both which might just skew the results a little, ya think? :-)
Though I don't develop much in C++ currently, and haven't had the time to do anything Linux wise in years, I would love to have an identified location for security-bug free algorithms, etc. that I could use if I need to do more C++ work in the future.
Here's the text I am referring to:
The act of listening to a CD on a personal computer is lawful under any reading of the Copyright Act. Playing a CD on a computer for one's personal enjoyment implicates none of the exclusive rights granted to copyright holders under 106. No copies are made or distributed; no derivative works are prepared; and no works are publicly performed. Nonetheless, without an exemption rational consumers would be dissuaded from engaging in this unquestionably lawful activity in light of the security risks posed by protection measures that are a barrier to access.
In other words, I have the right to listen to an audio CD that I purchase where ever I want, PC or CD/DVD player, and there is nothing any copyright holder can do to dictate otherwise. What I don't have the right to do is reproduce and distribute copyrightable content otherwise.
Page six of the pdf makes the exact argument that is needed, on whole, to begin to dismantle the onerous aspects of the DMCA and is nearly perfectly written to do so, because it shows how a legally purchased disk cannot even be listened to on a user's PC even though there is no specific allowance in the DMCA for such a behavior by copyrightable-content producers. Great stuff!!
Analagously, my unique domain name(s) are the neighborhood and after the fact (the proliferation of TLD's) is like having a choice between two bad options:
See how it feels a bit different?
When does it end?