Financial issues are not inconvenient; you have to pay for your car, but you have to pay for that train ticket too. I missed seeing accidents and breakdowns, which definitely fall into the category of inconvenience - of course, both of those occur on public transit as well (accidents are uncommon on rail systems, but not impossible, while breakdowns happen all the time).
And yes, I hate commuting, but I would hate living in the suburbs a lot worse. And I like my job too much to leave it just because of location. So, it's 90 minutes on the train, each way, every day.
No, all the negatives you mentioned are financial, not inconvenient.
Inconveniences of public transit: your schedule must conform to the transit schedule. Less privacy/personal space. Certain restrictions (e.g. I can't take my bike on Metra, despite the fact that it would make for a great commute for me to take the train to the nearest station and then bike from there to work.) Your route is restricted based on available transit routes.
Benefits of public transit: peace of mind. Cheaper, overall, in many cases. Can be quicker, or at least equally quick. Allows you to do other things.
Benefits of a car: Flexibility. For certain things (shopping) I can't imagine doing without a car, since I tend to shop in bursts, rather than go get a few things every couple days. Road trips.
Note: I take transit to work at least half the time, and many times my car will sit in the garage for weeks at a time. Transit is great, but cars have a place too.
Wah wah wah socioeconomics wah wah wah I don't want people to be able to serve their country to pay for college wah wah wah.
I have very real problems with forced service. I have no problem with paying a fair wage for a dirty and sometimes dangerous job. Are upper-class kids going to go into the military? No, not very often. But it provides a pretty decent way for lower class kids with no opportunities to get training and an education if they want it.
As opposed to mandatory service, where there's zero societal benefit (other than easing a few people's minds because "Poor people aren't being forced by socioeconomics to fight anymore!" - yeah, now they, along with everyone else, are being forced by force of law to fight, for zero benefit. Nicely done.)
Yes, let's have a draft! Because I swear to you, and I will swear to the draft board, that if you force me to join and then give me a gun, my conscientious objection will consist of taking said gun and emptying its rounds into the nearest unoccupied (hey, I don't want to hurt anyone) non-explosive (see previous) armed forces property. I have no issue with the military; I have major issues with other people trying to force me to do something.
If your sole opposition to eating meat is the cruel agribusiness conditions as opposed to the whole concept of killing animals for eating, then all you have to do (like I try to) is only eat verifiably cruelty-free animal products. Its easier than you think, except when you go out to eat.
It is a modem. Modulate (encode song data into PCM) and demodulate (inverse process).
A lot easier than doing USB, honestly. And it isn't Windows-only - the data format ought to be very easy to reverse engineer, and all you technically *need* to decode it is an audio file recorder and some C code.
How are you going to grade these self-directed students meaningfully if they're working on what they want to work on?
Market-based solutions aren't always right, and that's what you just advocated.
I don't want cost effective education. I want to force people to learn, because I hate dealing with people who lack the minimal education of reading, writing, and mathematics. I think it should be criminal to be that dumb. I think for our society to function well it is essential that everyone have a bare modicum of learning.
And screw your planning over centuries - got proof it'll work? If not, generate some before you ask me to pay to screw kids up. I can do that right now by hiring bad teachers, without paying to change the entire system.
Then you had bad teachers. Mine encouraged me to come up with alternate ways of doing things, and were happy to help me work through them. Self-motivation in combination with a good teacher is great; anything in combination with a bad teacher isn't great. But a self-motivated student will NOT learn more than that same student combined with a competent teacher.
I was lucky enough to go to a public school which actually tried to, and did, attract very good teachers. Then our school district administration changed, and a lot of the teachers started leaving. Most of them now teach at prep academies, because they were in fact very good. The rest of them retired in disgust.
While laws are not immutable, he was asking for an immediate and practical solution. Yours is neither.
It wasn't forced. Each and every one of those students chose it voluntarily (it was an alternate track high school, so you could go to one of three tracks for high school - the 'traditional' comprehensive, an 'alternative' school which was more aimed at fine arts than the three Rs, and the 'self-directed' school). But the truth is, the self-directed learners are just plain rare, and we have made a public commitment to educate *everyone* in this country. That does involve a certain amount of forcing people to learn.
For that matter, even people who *do* like to learn often do better with structure in their learning. And I don't think its too much to expect that everyone graduating our school systems be able to do a certain basic subset of things: read and write at a functional level, do basic math (I'd advocate no less than high school level geometry and algebra - while not everything is day-to-day useful for non science/math types, the concepts are often needed), a reasonable knowledge of the history of the country you live in and at least a passing knowledge of world history, a certain appreciation for literature. Oddly enough, these are exactly the sort of subjects mandated by most education laws.
The private school where I grew up was expensive; their math and science programs were *significantly* behind the ones at the public schools, at least for TAG track kids, and the English/history programs were marginally better. And this wasn't even a parochial private school; this was a standard "Pay us money for a better education" private school. The parochials in district, well, didn't come close to comparing to the public schools.
Not all public schools are bad; not all private schools are good. You can do quite well by researching what school districts are good and moving there when you decide you want to have kids.
Before you begin though, understand that we're state mandated to provide instruction on specific topics in a specific timeframe.
I know it's a lot of text and all, but read the comment.
Personally, I got a lot out of our 'state-mandated' curriculum... but then, I had good teachers, which can make up for a lot.
By the way, we had something similar to what you described in our school district. It worked very poorly, because most students aren't adequately self-motivated to learn. Except, as it turned out, about good places to get lunch in town, and which teachers would smoke pot with you.
What is AOL going to do? They are going to re-brand Firefox as Netscape. A new skin later, they have a *very* good browser... with the backing of what was once upon a time one hell of an Internet brand.
It makes quite a bit of business sense, actually - for a minimal cash investment, they get a damn good browser to give to the brand they helped destroy, in an attempt to recreate it.
You can teach technique, allowing someone to draw a passable Neo (for example). You can't teach art; nothing will ever teach someone to be able to create original work on the level of the Sistine Chapel, Adam's photos, or some of The Designer's Republic's better works. Rules are technique - knowing how and when to break the rules is part of where the art comes in.
Ask an artist who's just getting started; much like open source, there are commercial artists who are starting to build a portfolio and need work, any work, and will work free/cheap.
Re:Smells like bullshit
on
The Music Man
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· Score: 1
Even assuming 15 songs per CD (a somewhat high number on average), 900,000 songs is 60,000 CDs. 60,000 CDs, at 5 per CD (an almost certainly low estimate) is still $300,000.
Cheaper? No. Even with legal bills, he might come out ahead.
Re:He's a what? He's a what?
on
The Music Man
·
· Score: 1
To hell with whether the man has rights - *copy them now*. Do your best to find the original musicians; if you can't, make copies and donate them to LoC, the Smithsonian's folk music program, etc.
I'm not advocating infringement in the general case, but in a case where it is in fact a one of a kind recording, you owe it to musical historians to make a copy just in case, and LoC and Smithsonian would be very happy to get those copies. In fact, contacting them ahead of time might be nice, in that they may well be willing to handle getting a good recording of it made, finding the original musician, etc.
And yes, collectors suck. The whole point of buying music is to listen to it.
Honestly, TI doesn't care (usually) about throwing one or two of damn near anything to nearly anyone. Essentially, those one or two are *retail* sales; TI doesn't really do retail.
For instance, the local On Semi rep for our area will give me 5-10 of anything I want from them, because he knows it makes me more likely to use On parts when I do a design... if I do, they get sales of millions of semiconductors. Even if the part is for something I'm doing at home, it doesn't hurt their chances. Sampling, to the reps, is about mindshare, not about the 3 bucks they might be losing by giving away the parts for free. TI, by the way, is particularly good - they'll sample some really nice stuff, including high end ADCs.
It would take a LOT of sampling (more sampling than is likely, even if half of/. started actually building things) to really impact one of the semi companies.
The rule I try to live by - do I need one or two? Sample it. Do I need 10 or more? Digikey order.
That quote seemed a bunch of crap until I looked at the link and saw that it was not "1051 operations per second on at most 1031 bits of information", but rather "10^51 operations on at most 10^31 bits of information."
Ah, missing the exponent sign. Good times. Interesting link, thanks.
No, that would be option 2. He specified MIT/BSD license where fork and sale is allowed. For licenses where fork, modify, and release without contributing back isn't allowed, option 2 simply isn't allowed.
Slashdot Mirror
Financial issues are not inconvenient; you have to pay for your car, but you have to pay for that train ticket too. I missed seeing accidents and breakdowns, which definitely fall into the category of inconvenience - of course, both of those occur on public transit as well (accidents are uncommon on rail systems, but not impossible, while breakdowns happen all the time).
And yes, I hate commuting, but I would hate living in the suburbs a lot worse. And I like my job too much to leave it just because of location. So, it's 90 minutes on the train, each way, every day.
No, all the negatives you mentioned are financial, not inconvenient.
Inconveniences of public transit: your schedule must conform to the transit schedule. Less privacy/personal space. Certain restrictions (e.g. I can't take my bike on Metra, despite the fact that it would make for a great commute for me to take the train to the nearest station and then bike from there to work.) Your route is restricted based on available transit routes.
Benefits of public transit: peace of mind. Cheaper, overall, in many cases. Can be quicker, or at least equally quick. Allows you to do other things.
Benefits of a car: Flexibility. For certain things (shopping) I can't imagine doing without a car, since I tend to shop in bursts, rather than go get a few things every couple days. Road trips.
Note: I take transit to work at least half the time, and many times my car will sit in the garage for weeks at a time. Transit is great, but cars have a place too.
Wah wah wah socioeconomics wah wah wah I don't want people to be able to serve their country to pay for college wah wah wah.
I have very real problems with forced service. I have no problem with paying a fair wage for a dirty and sometimes dangerous job. Are upper-class kids going to go into the military? No, not very often. But it provides a pretty decent way for lower class kids with no opportunities to get training and an education if they want it.
As opposed to mandatory service, where there's zero societal benefit (other than easing a few people's minds because "Poor people aren't being forced by socioeconomics to fight anymore!" - yeah, now they, along with everyone else, are being forced by force of law to fight, for zero benefit. Nicely done.)
Yes, let's have a draft! Because I swear to you, and I will swear to the draft board, that if you force me to join and then give me a gun, my conscientious objection will consist of taking said gun and emptying its rounds into the nearest unoccupied (hey, I don't want to hurt anyone) non-explosive (see previous) armed forces property. I have no issue with the military; I have major issues with other people trying to force me to do something.
If your sole opposition to eating meat is the cruel agribusiness conditions as opposed to the whole concept of killing animals for eating, then all you have to do (like I try to) is only eat verifiably cruelty-free animal products. Its easier than you think, except when you go out to eat.
I was really thinking rats... but then I did just see The Deer Hunter, and am back to my usual pathological hostility to all living things.
Zombie rats, that's how I'd get around the living part.
I'd like a basement I could keep alligators in.
It would make keeping my relatives kids quiet during dinner a lot easier.
"Hey, Scotty, want to see a real live alligator?"
"Sure, Uncle K!"
"Well, if you don't shut up, you'll see one up close. Specifically, you will see its teeth."
It is a modem. Modulate (encode song data into PCM) and demodulate (inverse process).
A lot easier than doing USB, honestly. And it isn't Windows-only - the data format ought to be very easy to reverse engineer, and all you technically *need* to decode it is an audio file recorder and some C code.
Bud Melvin uses one onstage. Well, actually he uses a regular GB with Nanoloop, but same idea.
It's kitsch. If you only need a little bit, and want the retro sound, why not?
Where are you planning to take the money from?
How are you going to grade these self-directed students meaningfully if they're working on what they want to work on?
Market-based solutions aren't always right, and that's what you just advocated.
I don't want cost effective education. I want to force people to learn, because I hate dealing with people who lack the minimal education of reading, writing, and mathematics. I think it should be criminal to be that dumb. I think for our society to function well it is essential that everyone have a bare modicum of learning.
And screw your planning over centuries - got proof it'll work? If not, generate some before you ask me to pay to screw kids up. I can do that right now by hiring bad teachers, without paying to change the entire system.
Then you had bad teachers. Mine encouraged me to come up with alternate ways of doing things, and were happy to help me work through them. Self-motivation in combination with a good teacher is great; anything in combination with a bad teacher isn't great. But a self-motivated student will NOT learn more than that same student combined with a competent teacher.
I was lucky enough to go to a public school which actually tried to, and did, attract very good teachers. Then our school district administration changed, and a lot of the teachers started leaving. Most of them now teach at prep academies, because they were in fact very good. The rest of them retired in disgust.
While laws are not immutable, he was asking for an immediate and practical solution. Yours is neither.
It wasn't forced. Each and every one of those students chose it voluntarily (it was an alternate track high school, so you could go to one of three tracks for high school - the 'traditional' comprehensive, an 'alternative' school which was more aimed at fine arts than the three Rs, and the 'self-directed' school). But the truth is, the self-directed learners are just plain rare, and we have made a public commitment to educate *everyone* in this country. That does involve a certain amount of forcing people to learn.
For that matter, even people who *do* like to learn often do better with structure in their learning. And I don't think its too much to expect that everyone graduating our school systems be able to do a certain basic subset of things: read and write at a functional level, do basic math (I'd advocate no less than high school level geometry and algebra - while not everything is day-to-day useful for non science/math types, the concepts are often needed), a reasonable knowledge of the history of the country you live in and at least a passing knowledge of world history, a certain appreciation for literature. Oddly enough, these are exactly the sort of subjects mandated by most education laws.
From what I got from the article, unique, in this case, equals a couple extensions and a new UI. And by new UI, we mean new icons and skins.
AOL is hurting too much financially to be restarting real development; expect rebranding taking advantage of the name recognition for Netscape.
The private school where I grew up was expensive; their math and science programs were *significantly* behind the ones at the public schools, at least for TAG track kids, and the English/history programs were marginally better. And this wasn't even a parochial private school; this was a standard "Pay us money for a better education" private school. The parochials in district, well, didn't come close to comparing to the public schools.
Not all public schools are bad; not all private schools are good. You can do quite well by researching what school districts are good and moving there when you decide you want to have kids.
Before you begin though, understand that we're state mandated to provide instruction on specific topics in a specific timeframe.
I know it's a lot of text and all, but read the comment.
Personally, I got a lot out of our 'state-mandated' curriculum... but then, I had good teachers, which can make up for a lot.
By the way, we had something similar to what you described in our school district. It worked very poorly, because most students aren't adequately self-motivated to learn. Except, as it turned out, about good places to get lunch in town, and which teachers would smoke pot with you.
What is AOL going to do? They are going to re-brand Firefox as Netscape. A new skin later, they have a *very* good browser... with the backing of what was once upon a time one hell of an Internet brand.
It makes quite a bit of business sense, actually - for a minimal cash investment, they get a damn good browser to give to the brand they helped destroy, in an attempt to recreate it.
I very much liked MP's control scheme.
I like FPSs too.
Everybody's different. A lot of games, I change the scheme significantly (e.g. Timesplitters 2, I use a heavily modified scheme from the default.)
(Haven't played Gunvalkyrie, so no comparison there.)
There's technique and there's art.
You can teach technique, allowing someone to draw a passable Neo (for example). You can't teach art; nothing will ever teach someone to be able to create original work on the level of the Sistine Chapel, Adam's photos, or some of The Designer's Republic's better works. Rules are technique - knowing how and when to break the rules is part of where the art comes in.
Ask an artist who's just getting started; much like open source, there are commercial artists who are starting to build a portfolio and need work, any work, and will work free/cheap.
Even assuming 15 songs per CD (a somewhat high number on average), 900,000 songs is 60,000 CDs. 60,000 CDs, at 5 per CD (an almost certainly low estimate) is still $300,000.
Cheaper? No. Even with legal bills, he might come out ahead.
To hell with whether the man has rights - *copy them now*. Do your best to find the original musicians; if you can't, make copies and donate them to LoC, the Smithsonian's folk music program, etc.
I'm not advocating infringement in the general case, but in a case where it is in fact a one of a kind recording, you owe it to musical historians to make a copy just in case, and LoC and Smithsonian would be very happy to get those copies. In fact, contacting them ahead of time might be nice, in that they may well be willing to handle getting a good recording of it made, finding the original musician, etc.
And yes, collectors suck. The whole point of buying music is to listen to it.
And my point is that those companies seem to be discovered and forced to fix their mistakes. Isn't that what this story is all about?
Honestly, TI doesn't care (usually) about throwing one or two of damn near anything to nearly anyone. Essentially, those one or two are *retail* sales; TI doesn't really do retail.
/. started actually building things) to really impact one of the semi companies.
For instance, the local On Semi rep for our area will give me 5-10 of anything I want from them, because he knows it makes me more likely to use On parts when I do a design... if I do, they get sales of millions of semiconductors. Even if the part is for something I'm doing at home, it doesn't hurt their chances. Sampling, to the reps, is about mindshare, not about the 3 bucks they might be losing by giving away the parts for free. TI, by the way, is particularly good - they'll sample some really nice stuff, including high end ADCs.
It would take a LOT of sampling (more sampling than is likely, even if half of
The rule I try to live by - do I need one or two? Sample it. Do I need 10 or more? Digikey order.
That quote seemed a bunch of crap until I looked at the link and saw that it was not "1051 operations per second on at most 1031 bits of information", but rather "10^51 operations on at most 10^31 bits of information."
Ah, missing the exponent sign. Good times. Interesting link, thanks.
No, that would be option 2. He specified MIT/BSD license where fork and sale is allowed. For licenses where fork, modify, and release without contributing back isn't allowed, option 2 simply isn't allowed.
Unfortunately, copyright infringement can be a criminal offense.