If boston college were a real academic institution where mature academically motivated people went to become educated in the purest sense it would not. Unfortunately this makes Boston College sound like many private religiously controlled high schools, where calling each other gay is a keen thing to do, and no one really knows what would happen if one left the closet. Normally Jesuits are thought of as people who provide exceptional education, but that may end when a person is gay. Otherwise I would see no reason why it would matter. I went to college many years ago, and no serious student cared who was gay or straight.
I think the linux issue is probably an extension of the conservative conformity that often permeates such institutions. Why would anyone not be a christian? Why would anyone not read the bible? Why would anyone want to be gay? Why would anyone not use MS, the official OS. Why would anyone want to be different?
I am sure that Boston College does not deserve to be bashed, but when you arrest a student for sending an email and being intelligent enough to effectively use a computer, it really makes your school sound remedial and low class.
Solidworks is not giving away Autodesk Academy. Autodesk is not giving away Solidworks. Both are giving away academic versions to people who are unemployed. Solidworks is also giving away version of their software(including stuff one could get for free, like blender and sketch-up) to academics. Why would anyone expect MS to train people on Linux? It is insane.
I like these responses to the current unemployment situation. It is a easy way to get people retrained on your product, which may result in corporate sales later on. More importantly, most of this is a defense against free software.
Without such give aways, how many people would simply go to the library a check out a book on linux. How many people would download free software and learn to use it. One can learn to animate on the free version of blender or learn to code using eclipse or learn general IT skills on Linux. I would say enough that we might see small businesses start that are based on OSS, and that could be a problem to firms that are based on customer support, but selling licenses, like you know who.
In any case, i still think these programs are good. The number of people who can educate themselves are limited, and we have formal schools to help those who need a formal setting. It would be nice, however, if formal schooling did not so often involve closed source, draconian licensed, software.
Within this blog entry the following assertion was made:
So, because Probst is a publisher and has an Amazon Advantage account, he sent Amazon a letter saying "whafa" and he got this in response:
"In consideration of our entire customer base, we exclude "adult" material from appearing in some searches and best seller lists. Since these lists are generated using sales ranks, adult materials must also be excluded from that feature.
Hence, if you have further questions, kindly write back to us.
Best regards,
Ashlyn D
Member Services
Amazon.com Advantage"
So! Probst was wrong! He WAS being persecuted!
This begs several questions. Is the above email genuine? If genuine, was the statement valid or was it an honest misstatement by a customer service person. If the quoted text is true, does Amazon in fact have a policy of excluding items that it considers porn, and was it this policy that was hacked?
I the policy does exist, isn't it much more likely that Amazon was modifying this policy and there was some sort of error in the code, or perhaps a over active coder introduced the feature.
While I agree with you, Powells and Amazon have one thing in common. The are mega book outets that tend to put smaller, more service oriented outlets out out of business. Powells has the other negative impact of encouraging people to travel to their brick and mortar store rather than just visiting their local independent book store, which probably has no other employees than the owners who just love books.
And amazon has one big advantage over Powells. Those stores that Powells would likely be happy to see out of business, Amazon gives them a leg up by posting competitive prices when showing the results of a book. So, if a customer wants to buy from an independent, they can.
I am certainly ambivalent about what Amazon is doing, mostly because I have never bought anything based on the Amazon rank. I assume it is fixed, and this tends to prove it. I am not ambivalent about Powells, and see no reason to buy there, just because they are cool Portland book store. In most cases I can use Amazon used books to find a seller much more local, which means I don't have to excessively pollute the environment just so I can say I order from Portland, where the cool light skinned people live.
A long time ago, I used barnes and noble used book service, which was very good. They messed it up and I went to Amazon. Maybe it is time to go back. Or Alibris.
Hardware design is very hard. Apple has 30 years experience at designing very nice hardware that works, essentially from scratch. Dell has a little more than 20 years experience putting commodity components together to make a PC to be sold at low price points. Even MS, with all it's resources, has trouble actually making hardware that people are actually willing to pay for. The only one in Apples class right now is HP. Alas, much of the stuff falls into the category of cheap PC or too expensive pro. They seem to have trouble controlling costs. I have a beautiful 15" laptop from HP, but it cost as much as the 17" laptop from Apple.
So this is pretty much par for the course. I don't know how much it is going to effect the Macbook Air, simply because Apple does not believe in selling computers based on the number of ports. I like the idea of wireless, but would hope that it would not be just ATT because there are some cheaper deals out there, unless we can use it as part of out iPhone plan, or just a nominal additional cost. Sure, that will happen, it will be another $40. In any case, the battery life of the Air is not so great, and I suspect that broadband might bring it to an hour.
Right now the Air is 2 GB memory, standard. When the 4GB chips become cheap enough, and there is enough battery power, and if heating is not an issue, I suspect we will see that upgrade.
The Dell machine is probably a good choice for someone who need to run windows on the road. The market is those who are willing to pay for a lighter laptop, and the selling point is not going to price or weight or any of those things. It is that you can run Windows and play on the internet wherever you are, and it will be a good experience. The average net-book cannot say that. The air could probably do that using boot camp and an external drive, but that is not nearly as nice of a solution.
Cut the size in half, keep the aspect ratio, and you have an iPod touch or any other touch based device.
The issue with mobile broadband is that at least in the US, it is clear you have to work with the cell providers. I do believe this is going to the next growth area for the Verizon ATT and the like. If these things can be sold for $300, they can be almost given away with a $60 a month broadband contract. How many people who have little need for a full blown computer would buy one of these. Of course, I would want to use Skype, and Verizon clearly does not want that.
People who believe only what they told and not what they observe are always going to be in conflict with science. One can imagine the kind of terror the Galileo and Cupernicus and Brahe caused with their science. Man is no longer the center of the universe, giants in the bible were simply not possible, and other certain events were now put into place. Then we have Newton with his way of understanding the almighty, by active observation of all of creation rather than passive reflection and regurgitation of words written by men who wanted to limit the realm of the almighty. Then we have the favorite bogeymen of the intolerant, Darwin who said we are one people, one race, and therefore all children of god. Overnight anyone who accepted the observational validity of evolution could not longer justify slavery and murder on the basis of the other being created separately. We were all one, and even if look different, killing or enslaving another was just like enslaving or killing one of your own. To this day such a world where we are all one people in unthinkable in many churches, so it is condemned. Climate change is more of the same. It signifies a world where man is in control. We know have the power to make and remake creation. For most people, who live their life in quiet irresponsibility, blaming everything on the sins of others, such responsibility is new and unwelcome development.
For the rest of us, climate change is simply opportunity, so there is no reason to prove it absolutely true. The business opportunities are increadible for those who wish to invest in it. The oil companies don't. The car makers don't, except for the one american company that is not on the verge of insolvency, Ford. This is another thing that tends to identify the extreme conservative and makes him or her fight change. A sense of entitlement to special treatment even when they have not done anything to contribute to society i a generation.
On one hand I agree with this. When any copy has a URL that does not end with.com or certain country domains, it makes me suspicious. Why did they not get a.com address? It is the same question I ask when a business has an email adress @aol.com or @google.com. Are they not technically competent or solvent enough to pay $100 a year for shared hosting?
OTOH, most people get from one place to another through google searches. I don't know if google handles different TLD differently, but I think most people just click one of the first links. I think the.com phenomena has a limited lifetime, and at some point it will be an historical footnote.
That said, this is certainly intended to create a land rush. One can imagine.ibm,.ford,.westinghouse,.tinfoilhat, etc. Not only this, but we will see fights over those domains, which can only make the ruling authority stronger as major corporations will want a well regulated market to make sure that only p&g can register p&g trademarks.
One thing we have seen is that the value of domain has decreased significantly in the past 10 years. This is clearly a way to generate the kind of revenue back from the days when domains fetched a pretty penny.
But not real trekkies. Real trekkies have no use for remastered versions of star trek, or remastered versions of star wars, or that horrible thing they did to red dwarf when they rereleased it.
Honestly, we want something new, even if it is crap. I sort of forgave the remastering of The Star Wars movie, as it was something kind of interesting to do. But everything after that was just redundant.
The iTunes music store is one way of buying albums. They have never been the only game in town, and often buying the physical media is cheaper. The only reason to buy from itunes is that it is hooked up with the ipod and easy to do.
Another reason is that the tracks are not available elsewhere. One can pick a single anecdotal example and say, look, they are selling music that is free elsewhere. My anecdotal example is that I have bought tracks there that I needed in a hurry that I have found no where else. A dollar to solve a problem was a bargain. Some people hate paying a penny more than they have to, likening it to theft, but I am willing to pay for service.
That said I find myself buying from Amazon, both physical media and downloads. This will only increase as ITMS is now 1.29. I wonder if this is a ploy by labels to forestall the monopoly that the iTMS might become, or a ploy by Apple to sacrifice quantity and make it up in higher per sale profits. Honestly it is not every user that is sophisticated enough to do anything outside of the program they use. Look at how many people are afraid of OO.org. Look at how may people said how horrible VLC was in a recent thread here on/., even though we can assume many that those people probably have little experience with the program. Now assume they are also afraid of many other things outside of their comfort zone, like ripping a CD or importing music from Amazon.
In any case music has been in a deflationary spiral for years. The last time we saw music keep up with inflation was the introduction of the CD. Now tracks have been stagnant at 99 cents for 5 years, and even if we believe that they were massively overpriced to begin with, we must assume that an adjustment would happen, at least for premium tracks at a premium store. So instead of all tracks inflation adjusted to $1.15, most tracks stay cut rate, while some rise above inflation. And there are still discount places like Amazon, which, as i said, is where I prefer to shop.
To me that N. Korea got a vehicle even past first stage is impressive. Launch vehicles are hard. If nothing else managing a project that size requires a great deal of skill, I doubt the average MBA can do it. I recall at one place I worked we tried to find an MBA to help us manage. We couldn't find anyone so had to send on of the techs to MBA school.
Even if we get the launch, space is not something we have a lot of first hand experience with. Getting things to work in space is hard. The world is getting more experience now that we have an international space station, and more countries are getting experience operating in space. This can only help everyone long term as innovative solutions are developed.
One may fall to jingoistic and chauvinistic temptation when it comes to this, especially since we have been trained to fear those that are different from us, but I doubt that is useful here. From what I read, the trajectory was orbital, not intercontinental. As we have seen, there are much easier ways to deliver mass destruction than these vehicles. It could be that N. Korea wants to be in the space game, and have such things as communication satellites of their own.
And it would be good that the US does not get too cocky. We are stuck in LEO. To get back to the moon is going to require a learning curve after a generation of inactivity. At this point we may not want to fund it. People think we can magically make it Mars without any baby steps. If there is anything to fear it is that N. Korea is doing science while we are arguing over evolution.
In the olden days there were several ways to do this, though I do not do such work so I never had to do this in practice. Put whatever it is you want to time stamp, put it in an envelope, and mail it to youself. Keep everything sealed until the court unseals it. As already mentioned, many forms are not released in full. If one has a full print, then that can prove ownership. For more technical work, dated and countersigned notebooks can be helpful.
So we are going to be stuck with low power devices that can't edit a picture or a movie. Too bad if I want to do graphical modeling. Everything will be sold on based on power consumption
The problem with the PC industry is that it focuses on one or two numbers, without looking at how those specs actually creates a fast machine. It is like cars being sold by the number of cup holders. Computers are sold by the speed on the CPU and amount of memory. What is not talked about is whether it will function as a computer. Is the bus fast enough to keep the processor running. Is the memory fast enough. Is the memory available for CPU use, or is half of it going to the GPU. This si too much for many consumers to grasp but without it it can be hard to find a functioning computer. It is like cars with enough horse power and four wheel drive, but will tip over if and when the electronic suspension fails.
This is probably for some future feature or premium service that is on by default, just like safesearch. Or it could be some malware protection mechanism in which users are not allowed to go to suspected malware sites without warning that cannot be turned off. Or it could be a suggested site feature where chrome lists places one might want to go based on a vendor paid model.
In any case, I am as suspicious of google as anyone, but this seems like just normal CYA. As long as the filtering can be turned off, there is no issue. It is certainly not like when Google says the own the copyright to anything you create and put on their servers. That feature, while necessary to protect themselves for free service, cannot be turned off.
First, as shown the power of the government is out of control. Homeland security and the like began this trend, and people were happy with it which certain parties were in power because it was used to harass certain other parties they did not like. However, in America giving too much power to the government is dangerous because control shifts and such expansions of power can come back and bite you in the ass. Given that the second hit on google news for this story on a site that advertises the item "The Obama Deception" and has many survivalist stuff, one might assume that the slant in the story is derived from one being hoisted on one's own petard. To be fair though, it seems like the site does speak out against government excesses in general, but it did have a Nazi ad at one reload.
Second, this appears to be a simple domestic dispute. Guy gets a divorce and wife starts accusing him of what he says are false claims. Judge, probably just seeing that this couple can't stand each other, and probably does not want to waste time sorting out the truth, just drops the charges. Who knows who is telling the truth in such cases. I know people who have been accused of cutting other peoples phones off to harass them. I know for a fact that they didn't do it how can you prove it one way or another?
So what does this guy do. Start collecting 'tips' from persons inside the department and posting these accusations online. OK, that makes sense, you get slandered by unsubstantiated charges, so you go out and do the same? This is a good way to make friends with the police. Tell the world that one of them is a child molester, even though it may or may not be true. I telling you this is what I live for. Trying to do my job by helping two people that are too immature and uncivilized to get along with each other, I mean the police are required to investigate any reasonable charge, and then what do I get. My face plastered on the internet as a child molester. Oh yeah, that brightens my day.
Predictably this guy goes too far and gets himself in trouble and the police uses the excuse to take out a problem. Again, overkill, but so is calling a soon-to-be cop a child molester on the internet is not the way to go, especially when all the documentation is apparently yet to be delivered.
Arizona seems to have it's share of messed up policing, but there must be a better way to go about this than ranting on the internet with unsubstantiated claims.
It may or may not be legal, but it may be effective. There is likely little need for a conviction. Simply harassing anybody who hosted the content, and identifying the person or persons responsible will be sufficient to set an example.
For example, look at Ted Stevens. Clearly someone who was abusing power, with a significant portion of his lifestyle given to him by those who wanted political favors. What was necessary was to remove him from power. Locking him up for years would do no one any good. Without power he was no longer a significant threat, and he could be allowed fade away. So the case was made to gain a conviction even if it was a sloppy conviction, and then made it go away after he was removed. Was it ethical? I don't know. But he had the option to bow out, the voters were given the option, and a thin majority decided that he had been there long enough. Justice seems to be served.
In this case, this seems like some initial pain to avoid future pain. Studios are going to take situations like this seriously. It would be better for people not to steal prints just because they want to win cool points with their friends. It causes pain for the rest of us who don't care about the X-Men movies and might look down on people who would risk discomfort just to be the first people to see it. Sure there are a lot of blameless victims here, and sure the FBI went way overboard, but can you imagine a more senseless crime that stealing a print just to show to your friends. Sure, we call it liberating the film, but as we see so often, liberation is not always a desired state.
There is probably not a major player that is not receiving a bailout. We know that MS is getting a new federally funded bridge, and who knows what else. Who know what MS executives lobbied for and got that would directly or indirectly benefit them personally or professionally. We have seen them corrupt the H1B visa system, and then give the finger to country that provided Bill Gates with resources and education by saying the would move to Canada. In Canada they would certainly have health care, but would they get 50% discount on a luxury bridge?
One issue to consider is the time frame. When we burn fossil fuels, we are releasing carbon and other particulates that have been sequestered for millions of years(this may be one reason why the young earthers do not believe in climate change). When one is burning fuel derived from new plant growth, the CO2 that has been processed through the plant last season is released the next season. The gap is not millions of years, but a sometimes a matter of months, not nearly enough time for the atmosphere and planet to settle on a new 'normal' for a new CO2 level. I know we are talking about fermentation, but the principle is the same. The yeasty beasties are releasing carbon that has been removed from the atmosphere, not a million years ago, but last year.
It is true that there are issues of burning fossil fuels in the production of the alcohol, but that is the same as everything else. If I did not go out for drinking, I would go out for dinner, or go out for to a movie. I cannot imagine that producing, distributing, and consuming a bottle of Perrier or soft drink consumes any more resources than average alcohol.
Sometimes a joke is just situation comedy. The fact that the Guardian is an old paper. The fact that it is respected. The fact that it is so unbelievable. That is why it is funny.
Now, if the paper had been the Sun, it would not have been so funny, for any number of reasons. If it had been the WSJ, it would have so believable that it would spread and caused all sort of chaos like affecting stock prices.
Also, how are you computing the total number of Achievements? If you add up my achievements (and if I add the powers of two I get closer) but it doesn't come out to be the number you posted.
All real geeks know that you count power of 2 only for computer achievements, such as writing unreadable c code. For nature achievements we count by e, naturally.
The Apple machines are not really base consumer machines. They are either small business home office machines or high level consumer machines. People who feel they need or want this machine are going to pay for it. People who don't won't.
One comparison is the Nikon Camera. Some will buy buy a D300 for $1,500. They will want the features, and have the skill to use them. Some will want the D80 because of the simplicity and the fact that it is plastic and lighter. Even a D80, at $400, is pricier than a click and shoot, that for many people will do a good job at $200.
Apple has not been a company that sells to the average consumer. At least not until the iPod, which the average consumer has decided is worth the money despite the apple tax. It is not a problem because consumers have options for the cheap, point and click, option.
In Texas, the NCLB test, at least in high school, is predominately a process oriented test. The students have to understand the nature or science, i.e. how one creates a hypothesis, collects data, crunches numbers, decide if they hypothesis is correct, and apply the conclusions to real world problems. While are taught within the context of this framework, it is not very useful within the framework of the test kids have to pass for graduation.
For instance, kids must know that f=ma, even though we know that it is a highly inaccurate expression. In fact f=d(mv)/(dt), a concept not taught at the high school level. The closest students come to this is f=m (v2-v1)/(t2-t1) which is close but still inaccurate as it does not include the mass changing events at high velocity. So, are students to be given all these details they do not need to know? Perhpas after they pass their exit level and are seniors, but honestly if strengths and weaknesses of every law was debated, there would be no teaching going on. I can imagine in third grade discussing the fact that the earth is not an exact sphere, and that there is no reason to believe that the earth is sphere if one does not want to, and perhaps these students who do not believe can even sue the state for not allowing them to pass because the students family believes the earth is flat and so they answered related questions based on those beliefs.
In the end the only thing to conclude, once again, is that that vast majority of Texas students, who seem to have little trouble differentiating between personal belief and scientific fact, and end up passing all their tests with good scores, are much smarter than the people on the Board, who seem to have some deficiency that prevents them from doing the same.
Even it were more than a non-binding resolution, I would somewhat agree with this. IF I could take action against the certain christian who defames my religion by saying I am going hell because I do not believe in their death cult, the world would be a much better place. Or every time a extreme catholic imposed their fractured view of reality by calling me a devil worshipper, thus implying that I had the equal evilness to them in coming up with such a construct, we would certainly be safer from the terrorist that block our private businesses and harass our citizens.
Honestly, certain power hungry zealots of every so-caled faith need to told what they are doing is wrong.
All this may be true, but the article states that Acer sold it with Vista pre installed. It is not surprising, because, as you mentioned others have done the same. The problem is that today, unlike the 90's, nobody warrants their machine for basic functionality after you leave the store. Apple was the last on to so do. So, the only recourse for these types of problems where the machines does not work as advertised is to sue.
Here is the thing. Computer labs are evolving. We need a collaborative space full of shared resouces or various designs. Sometimes that space is just going to have tables, printers, wireless networks, and scanners. Sometimes that space is going to have more specialized computer equipment that can be used to for more intensive applications, like data modeling and image analysis and manipulation. These can be done on laptop, but a lab full of really beefed up desktops are necessary if the school is really concerned about teaching.
In terms of software, many schools just buy blanket licenses for common software like Mathematica. You pay your media fee and run the software. But as mentioned above, even having the software does not mean the computer will run it well. I sometimes would write the process on machine and run on another. I suspect that most students do have a laptop, but that laptop is not the only computing resource they need.
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I think the linux issue is probably an extension of the conservative conformity that often permeates such institutions. Why would anyone not be a christian? Why would anyone not read the bible? Why would anyone want to be gay? Why would anyone not use MS, the official OS. Why would anyone want to be different?
I am sure that Boston College does not deserve to be bashed, but when you arrest a student for sending an email and being intelligent enough to effectively use a computer, it really makes your school sound remedial and low class.
I like these responses to the current unemployment situation. It is a easy way to get people retrained on your product, which may result in corporate sales later on. More importantly, most of this is a defense against free software.
Without such give aways, how many people would simply go to the library a check out a book on linux. How many people would download free software and learn to use it. One can learn to animate on the free version of blender or learn to code using eclipse or learn general IT skills on Linux. I would say enough that we might see small businesses start that are based on OSS, and that could be a problem to firms that are based on customer support, but selling licenses, like you know who.
In any case, i still think these programs are good. The number of people who can educate themselves are limited, and we have formal schools to help those who need a formal setting. It would be nice, however, if formal schooling did not so often involve closed source, draconian licensed, software.
Within this blog entry the following assertion was made:
This begs several questions. Is the above email genuine? If genuine, was the statement valid or was it an honest misstatement by a customer service person. If the quoted text is true, does Amazon in fact have a policy of excluding items that it considers porn, and was it this policy that was hacked?
I the policy does exist, isn't it much more likely that Amazon was modifying this policy and there was some sort of error in the code, or perhaps a over active coder introduced the feature.
And amazon has one big advantage over Powells. Those stores that Powells would likely be happy to see out of business, Amazon gives them a leg up by posting competitive prices when showing the results of a book. So, if a customer wants to buy from an independent, they can.
I am certainly ambivalent about what Amazon is doing, mostly because I have never bought anything based on the Amazon rank. I assume it is fixed, and this tends to prove it. I am not ambivalent about Powells, and see no reason to buy there, just because they are cool Portland book store. In most cases I can use Amazon used books to find a seller much more local, which means I don't have to excessively pollute the environment just so I can say I order from Portland, where the cool light skinned people live.
A long time ago, I used barnes and noble used book service, which was very good. They messed it up and I went to Amazon. Maybe it is time to go back. Or Alibris.
So this is pretty much par for the course. I don't know how much it is going to effect the Macbook Air, simply because Apple does not believe in selling computers based on the number of ports. I like the idea of wireless, but would hope that it would not be just ATT because there are some cheaper deals out there, unless we can use it as part of out iPhone plan, or just a nominal additional cost. Sure, that will happen, it will be another $40. In any case, the battery life of the Air is not so great, and I suspect that broadband might bring it to an hour.
Right now the Air is 2 GB memory, standard. When the 4GB chips become cheap enough, and there is enough battery power, and if heating is not an issue, I suspect we will see that upgrade.
The Dell machine is probably a good choice for someone who need to run windows on the road. The market is those who are willing to pay for a lighter laptop, and the selling point is not going to price or weight or any of those things. It is that you can run Windows and play on the internet wherever you are, and it will be a good experience. The average net-book cannot say that. The air could probably do that using boot camp and an external drive, but that is not nearly as nice of a solution.
The issue with mobile broadband is that at least in the US, it is clear you have to work with the cell providers. I do believe this is going to the next growth area for the Verizon ATT and the like. If these things can be sold for $300, they can be almost given away with a $60 a month broadband contract. How many people who have little need for a full blown computer would buy one of these. Of course, I would want to use Skype, and Verizon clearly does not want that.
For the rest of us, climate change is simply opportunity, so there is no reason to prove it absolutely true. The business opportunities are increadible for those who wish to invest in it. The oil companies don't. The car makers don't, except for the one american company that is not on the verge of insolvency, Ford. This is another thing that tends to identify the extreme conservative and makes him or her fight change. A sense of entitlement to special treatment even when they have not done anything to contribute to society i a generation.
OTOH, most people get from one place to another through google searches. I don't know if google handles different TLD differently, but I think most people just click one of the first links. I think the .com phenomena has a limited lifetime, and at some point it will be an historical footnote.
That said, this is certainly intended to create a land rush. One can imagine .ibm, .ford, .westinghouse, .tinfoilhat, etc. Not only this, but we will see fights over those domains, which can only make the ruling authority stronger as major corporations will want a well regulated market to make sure that only p&g can register p&g trademarks.
One thing we have seen is that the value of domain has decreased significantly in the past 10 years. This is clearly a way to generate the kind of revenue back from the days when domains fetched a pretty penny.
Honestly, we want something new, even if it is crap. I sort of forgave the remastering of The Star Wars movie, as it was something kind of interesting to do. But everything after that was just redundant.
Another reason is that the tracks are not available elsewhere. One can pick a single anecdotal example and say, look, they are selling music that is free elsewhere. My anecdotal example is that I have bought tracks there that I needed in a hurry that I have found no where else. A dollar to solve a problem was a bargain. Some people hate paying a penny more than they have to, likening it to theft, but I am willing to pay for service.
That said I find myself buying from Amazon, both physical media and downloads. This will only increase as ITMS is now 1.29. I wonder if this is a ploy by labels to forestall the monopoly that the iTMS might become, or a ploy by Apple to sacrifice quantity and make it up in higher per sale profits. Honestly it is not every user that is sophisticated enough to do anything outside of the program they use. Look at how many people are afraid of OO.org. Look at how may people said how horrible VLC was in a recent thread here on /., even though we can assume many that those people probably have little experience with the program. Now assume they are also afraid of many other things outside of their comfort zone, like ripping a CD or importing music from Amazon.
In any case music has been in a deflationary spiral for years. The last time we saw music keep up with inflation was the introduction of the CD. Now tracks have been stagnant at 99 cents for 5 years, and even if we believe that they were massively overpriced to begin with, we must assume that an adjustment would happen, at least for premium tracks at a premium store. So instead of all tracks inflation adjusted to $1.15, most tracks stay cut rate, while some rise above inflation. And there are still discount places like Amazon, which, as i said, is where I prefer to shop.
Even if we get the launch, space is not something we have a lot of first hand experience with. Getting things to work in space is hard. The world is getting more experience now that we have an international space station, and more countries are getting experience operating in space. This can only help everyone long term as innovative solutions are developed.
One may fall to jingoistic and chauvinistic temptation when it comes to this, especially since we have been trained to fear those that are different from us, but I doubt that is useful here. From what I read, the trajectory was orbital, not intercontinental. As we have seen, there are much easier ways to deliver mass destruction than these vehicles. It could be that N. Korea wants to be in the space game, and have such things as communication satellites of their own.
And it would be good that the US does not get too cocky. We are stuck in LEO. To get back to the moon is going to require a learning curve after a generation of inactivity. At this point we may not want to fund it. People think we can magically make it Mars without any baby steps. If there is anything to fear it is that N. Korea is doing science while we are arguing over evolution.
In the olden days there were several ways to do this, though I do not do such work so I never had to do this in practice. Put whatever it is you want to time stamp, put it in an envelope, and mail it to youself. Keep everything sealed until the court unseals it. As already mentioned, many forms are not released in full. If one has a full print, then that can prove ownership. For more technical work, dated and countersigned notebooks can be helpful.
The problem with the PC industry is that it focuses on one or two numbers, without looking at how those specs actually creates a fast machine. It is like cars being sold by the number of cup holders. Computers are sold by the speed on the CPU and amount of memory. What is not talked about is whether it will function as a computer. Is the bus fast enough to keep the processor running. Is the memory fast enough. Is the memory available for CPU use, or is half of it going to the GPU. This si too much for many consumers to grasp but without it it can be hard to find a functioning computer. It is like cars with enough horse power and four wheel drive, but will tip over if and when the electronic suspension fails.
What we have is another useless arbitrary metric.
In any case, I am as suspicious of google as anyone, but this seems like just normal CYA. As long as the filtering can be turned off, there is no issue. It is certainly not like when Google says the own the copyright to anything you create and put on their servers. That feature, while necessary to protect themselves for free service, cannot be turned off.
Second, this appears to be a simple domestic dispute. Guy gets a divorce and wife starts accusing him of what he says are false claims. Judge, probably just seeing that this couple can't stand each other, and probably does not want to waste time sorting out the truth, just drops the charges. Who knows who is telling the truth in such cases. I know people who have been accused of cutting other peoples phones off to harass them. I know for a fact that they didn't do it how can you prove it one way or another?
So what does this guy do. Start collecting 'tips' from persons inside the department and posting these accusations online. OK, that makes sense, you get slandered by unsubstantiated charges, so you go out and do the same? This is a good way to make friends with the police. Tell the world that one of them is a child molester, even though it may or may not be true. I telling you this is what I live for. Trying to do my job by helping two people that are too immature and uncivilized to get along with each other, I mean the police are required to investigate any reasonable charge, and then what do I get. My face plastered on the internet as a child molester. Oh yeah, that brightens my day.
Predictably this guy goes too far and gets himself in trouble and the police uses the excuse to take out a problem. Again, overkill, but so is calling a soon-to-be cop a child molester on the internet is not the way to go, especially when all the documentation is apparently yet to be delivered.
Arizona seems to have it's share of messed up policing, but there must be a better way to go about this than ranting on the internet with unsubstantiated claims.
For example, look at Ted Stevens. Clearly someone who was abusing power, with a significant portion of his lifestyle given to him by those who wanted political favors. What was necessary was to remove him from power. Locking him up for years would do no one any good. Without power he was no longer a significant threat, and he could be allowed fade away. So the case was made to gain a conviction even if it was a sloppy conviction, and then made it go away after he was removed. Was it ethical? I don't know. But he had the option to bow out, the voters were given the option, and a thin majority decided that he had been there long enough. Justice seems to be served.
In this case, this seems like some initial pain to avoid future pain. Studios are going to take situations like this seriously. It would be better for people not to steal prints just because they want to win cool points with their friends. It causes pain for the rest of us who don't care about the X-Men movies and might look down on people who would risk discomfort just to be the first people to see it. Sure there are a lot of blameless victims here, and sure the FBI went way overboard, but can you imagine a more senseless crime that stealing a print just to show to your friends. Sure, we call it liberating the film, but as we see so often, liberation is not always a desired state.
There is probably not a major player that is not receiving a bailout. We know that MS is getting a new federally funded bridge, and who knows what else. Who know what MS executives lobbied for and got that would directly or indirectly benefit them personally or professionally. We have seen them corrupt the H1B visa system, and then give the finger to country that provided Bill Gates with resources and education by saying the would move to Canada. In Canada they would certainly have health care, but would they get 50% discount on a luxury bridge?
It is true that there are issues of burning fossil fuels in the production of the alcohol, but that is the same as everything else. If I did not go out for drinking, I would go out for dinner, or go out for to a movie. I cannot imagine that producing, distributing, and consuming a bottle of Perrier or soft drink consumes any more resources than average alcohol.
Now, if the paper had been the Sun, it would not have been so funny, for any number of reasons. If it had been the WSJ, it would have so believable that it would spread and caused all sort of chaos like affecting stock prices.
All real geeks know that you count power of 2 only for computer achievements, such as writing unreadable c code. For nature achievements we count by e, naturally.
One comparison is the Nikon Camera. Some will buy buy a D300 for $1,500. They will want the features, and have the skill to use them. Some will want the D80 because of the simplicity and the fact that it is plastic and lighter. Even a D80, at $400, is pricier than a click and shoot, that for many people will do a good job at $200.
Apple has not been a company that sells to the average consumer. At least not until the iPod, which the average consumer has decided is worth the money despite the apple tax. It is not a problem because consumers have options for the cheap, point and click, option.
For instance, kids must know that f=ma, even though we know that it is a highly inaccurate expression. In fact f=d(mv)/(dt), a concept not taught at the high school level. The closest students come to this is f=m (v2-v1)/(t2-t1) which is close but still inaccurate as it does not include the mass changing events at high velocity. So, are students to be given all these details they do not need to know? Perhpas after they pass their exit level and are seniors, but honestly if strengths and weaknesses of every law was debated, there would be no teaching going on. I can imagine in third grade discussing the fact that the earth is not an exact sphere, and that there is no reason to believe that the earth is sphere if one does not want to, and perhaps these students who do not believe can even sue the state for not allowing them to pass because the students family believes the earth is flat and so they answered related questions based on those beliefs.
In the end the only thing to conclude, once again, is that that vast majority of Texas students, who seem to have little trouble differentiating between personal belief and scientific fact, and end up passing all their tests with good scores, are much smarter than the people on the Board, who seem to have some deficiency that prevents them from doing the same.
Honestly, certain power hungry zealots of every so-caled faith need to told what they are doing is wrong.
All this may be true, but the article states that Acer sold it with Vista pre installed. It is not surprising, because, as you mentioned others have done the same. The problem is that today, unlike the 90's, nobody warrants their machine for basic functionality after you leave the store. Apple was the last on to so do. So, the only recourse for these types of problems where the machines does not work as advertised is to sue.
In terms of software, many schools just buy blanket licenses for common software like Mathematica. You pay your media fee and run the software. But as mentioned above, even having the software does not mean the computer will run it well. I sometimes would write the process on machine and run on another. I suspect that most students do have a laptop, but that laptop is not the only computing resource they need.