I have thought in the past that Apple should by RIM. However, given the problems with infrastructure, I wonder if RIM is worth the money. The value in RIM, after all, at least to the outside casual observer, if the secure enterprise centric proprietary communications. Since the reliability of that infrastructure has been thrown into doubt, anyone who buys the company is going to first have to invest heavily in that. Arguably, rebuilding such infrastructure is not Apple's core competency.
Rather I would like to see Apple invest in RIM with the understanding that RIM would exclusively build an App for iOS that seamlessly integrates into the RIM proprietary infrastructure. This would have positive effects for both companies. Apple would be able to sell to enterprise using tools that are already familiar, and RIM would have a funding source to cover the substantial fixed costs associated with it's infrastructure. I think there is value to RIM as an independent agent. RIM only needs to expand it's image as primarily a handset manufacturer. It is beyond that. It provide enterprise solutions.
Mass market web sites going dark or doing other things to raise awareness is useful because many if not most are not aware of the far reaching implications, one of which is the probable increase in costs for many websites to the point they may have shut down. By shutting down today, these sites are expressing these consequences in a concrete fashion that may result in some backlash to the small number of person who support draconian measures to protect even fewer interests, to the point where support is no longer viable. In fact the bill is effectively dead, but will come back if the climate changes after november and the persons who fight for the elite at the expense of the pesants have control of government.
/. is not a website where many are not aware fo the issue. Those that wish to have already taken action./. dark will serve no purpose./. as a place to serve information and coordinate, as it is doing, does. For example, if Wikipedia served pages of links, as/. is, no mass market consumer is going to read it. by going dark, it sends a tangible message.
I know that if some of the barriers to textbook publishing are broken, authors will be willing to sell very cheap textbook. Maybe not 99 cents, but certainly much lower than $150. I am told that some of the books that sell for $20, end up with a dollar or two to the author. Some authors will give away digital copies. I have found many useful textbooks online for free. This will give those authors a way to make some money for a nicely packaged product.
I am looking forward to this. It could undermine some of the high textbook prices, depending on what it is. More importantly, it could bring much needed multimedia presentation to an industry that sorely needs it.
I think it is simply a matter of election year politics. The white house on Saturday indicated that it oppose the bills which any astute politician will take as them saying they are planning on using this as an election year issue, which given the rise of the populous movement that opposes unbridled corporate greed, makes a lot of sense.
This is the way it would work out if the bill were pushed. It would pass the house easily, and some compromise would be made in the senate. If the bill were watered down enough, the president would sign it and the Democrat would campaign agains the Republicans based on another bill that reduces the rights of the common citizen to feel safe against the police. If the bill were not watered down, then the houe would have to go on record for being for such a bill, or just give up on the bill. Either way the Democratic Super Pacs have a lot of fodder against the representatives in the upcoming election.
The Democrats have become quite adept at becoming the minority party and forcing Republicans to take responsibility for their actions. This first happened when all the Democrats voted 'present' for the Republican Study Committee bill, assuring that it would pass, thus forcing Republicans to change votes to insure it did not. The extremely conservative wing on the Republican party knows it has been outflanked, which is why Romney is sailing to a nomination that really should not be his. The last thing conservatives want right now is corporate brain child that can be held up along with Romneys corporate pedigree to deliver the house, senate, and presidency to the Democrats.
There is no such thing as locking you house. Most lock can be picked easily, or a window can be broken, so don't do it.
One of my networks in a somewhat public place where the users have a high motivation to get online. Knowing that there is wireless is inherently insecure, i.e. tools are available for harvesting passwords and MAC addresses, turning off the SSID is simply another tool I use. To me it is a no brainer because it does not cause me any significant problems and many casual users don't know how to connect to a 'hidden' network even if they have the name. That is what 'turning off' the SSID does. It does not make the network invisible, it prevents computers from automatically connecting. It says that this is a closed network and we would appreciate it if you did not join in.
I have seen articles like this where somehow 'hiding' the SSID causes problems for roaming. From where I have seen these articles, I suspect this is an OS specific problem as I have never had this problem. All my equipment connects automatically to my networks unless there is a higher power open competing network. I believe this is a case where certain people do not know how to implement the solution, so they say the solution is bad.
To the matter at hand, closing the network may be part of the solution. Time based access control, in which user accounts that require on the fly credential, is another solution. This is where the user provides an email address, and logs onto the network by clicking on an email link agreeing to the terms and conditions. I would also back it up with sa white list that will prevent all proxy access and make the pipe much less valuable for casual users to crack.
I spent a fair amount of time in my younger day working on legacy code. One thing I did is ignore any comments that actually talked about how function worked. It was probably that the code had changed and the comment had not, so the comment would be useless.
What I do look for are descriptive function names. Reading through code should be like reading an easy book. For instance, each function should do one thing. A descriptive name and clear code has always been enough for me. Coding is not like literature, there are no points for writing obsessively beautiful bullshit. I am not talking about insanely long variable names. I am talking about code that someone familiar with the art can decode in their head.
Which of course is what this argument is about now. It takes skill to write code that can be read by a skilled code monkey. It takes skill to read such code. It is often easier to hire unskilled labor and then complain about the product rather than hiring skilled labor.
When I read the post, I find it an example of a firm that is either extremely uninformed or extremely idealistic about the work the are trying to do.
First when one is creating a product to be mass manufactured, that fact must be designed in at the beginning, not tacked on at the end. It would be unrealistic to expect any product to be successful without working closely with the people who are going to manufacture it.
Second, profitable competent manufacturers in the west is not going to have excess capacity and skilled labour just twiddling their thumbs waiting for customers. These firms are going to have as close to maximum production as possible, and, as new customers come in, they will adjust schedules or add capacity as needed. In places where standards are not high, and people can be taken off the street to run machines, or it acceptable to have machinery idle just waiting for orders, this is different. In any case the pricing structure for manufacturing is not surprising. China has a lot of excess capacity right now, and they are likely just trying to cover costs. Any firm that keeps excess capacity for quick order in the west is going to have to charge a premium.
And the tax just seems like a red herring. Again, how does one enter into a venture without understanding the tax liabilities. I understand that firms do this all the time, and that is why so many go bankrupt, but really. One has a BOM, and one has access to people who know about this things. Getting to the end game and just then realizing that taxes, schedules, and shipping exists seems really lame.
I believe there was a company named Gateway that built very nice and inexpensive dekstop computer. No one though that laptops would overtake desktops because who would buy a throw away machine the could not be upgraded and was usually slower and less responsive than an equally priced desktop.
In 2007 laptops sales were overtaking desktop sales and by late 2008 in the US laptops outsold desktops. The reality was that most people did not want to upgrade machines, that the MS issue made buying machine cheaper than upgrading, and that $400 for 2 or three years of use was not outlandish to many. The simplicity of the machines made the popular. Somethings could not be done on the machine, but enough could. Coincidently, Gateway, who assembled desktops, sold itself at a bargain price around that time, and one unit was defunct by 2009.
Unimaginative and backward thinking business types think consumer attitudes will never change and the way things are done now will always be the way things are done. I don't know if I would ever move to a a tablet for my primary machine, but I do know that several years ago i moved to a laptop as my primary machine, having retired my desktop. Even more interesting is i have almost retired my 17" laptop and use a MacBook Air for the vast majority of my work. All my daily computing resources fit into a case that is about the size of a sunday magazine and a few inches thick.
I would argue that Dell needs to do something creative at this point. It is not doing badly but has seen no real growth since 2009 when it recovered. Essentially two years stagnant. In reality, the stock price, inflation adjusted, is the same as 1997, so that is 14 years of, on average, no growth. Dell, because it is dependent on the whims of MS, cannot really do anything to break out of the death cycle that in plaguing the PC industry, so it claims the cycle does not exist, in much the same way that an addict might deny the effect of the drugs. Something is coming to take over the PC. The PC is not working really well for a lot of people. It may not be tablets, but will be something.
The mistake with economics is that is rooted in belief rather than experimental data. On can use any set of economic data to produce any model, but, as in any science, the only thing that matters is the predictive power of the model. whatever one wants to say, the predictive power of certain models are better than others. Models that support the economies of the western europe have validity as these countries have been around much more longer than the US.
The problem is Ron Paul is he talks a good libertarian line, and even has made some token votes that have had no effect, but in the end he is as responsible for the waste of taxpayer money as anyone else. For instance he redistributed over 2 million dollars to a minority community center in rural areas of his district. I can tell you that there are many churches a private charities that already provide such support, and not sure why a libertarian would want to bring in another actor instead of encouraging existing entities to provide these services.
In addition he appropriated hundreds of millions of dollars to maintain harbors and ship channels in the district. These are places that generate hundreds of millions of dollars every near, and are no longer widely available to the public. There it is arguable that he has perverted the free market by using the government to dictate the use of public space, rather than allow the market to decide what is best. If shipping cannot pay for the resource with public taxpayer welfare, then they should not exist.
He says he does not support the power of homeland security, but has abused homeland security to funnel tens of millions of dollars to his constituents to pay for projects that support their huge houses, land, and expensive commutes through our tax money.
He further provides welfare payment to his rural and suburban constituents through millions of dollars for transportation. Those of us in the city largely pay for our own stuff through city taxes and high property taxes. The other folks, however, do not cover their own costs. So the US taxpayer has to pay for their fancy bus stations, fancy bus stops(3.6 million), mobile health units, remote life flight centers. I believe that libertarians would believe that local folks should have control of what they want and what they are willing to pay for. If some is needed, then we can pay. We don't need welfare checks from washington building us building we don't need. We need good jobs so we can build what we need.
These are points that many are not aware of. Kids, being kids, will damage or steal the computer. In my experience, the loss and damage control is not sufficient and teachers are often blamed for the loss. Systems such as tags that set off an alarm when the laptops leave the room, cable locks, and the like are not budgeted into the cost of the system.
If one is using computers for class, then the computers have to be reliable and the turn around time for repairs has to be short. This is not true at most schools. In my experience, a single dedicated person might be responsible for basic support of 500 machines, with roaming support for other issues. It can be a week to get a computer up and running. For computers that are not critical this is fine, but we are talking about make the machines mission critical.
One way to fix this is to train teachers to do simple maintenance. Much can be done if a teacher was allowed to customize the state of the machine and then given an image that can be use to restore a machine to the known state. In most cases students don't need to store data on a machine, and something like cleanslate, while useful, is a resource hog. Teachers also need to be given control of blacklists and whitelists for their classroom. One reason the computer classroom is going to fail is because teachers are not allowed to manage resources.
The last point is one valid complaint against teachers. Computers, or any equipment, allocated in terms of seniority never makes sense. The executive who types memos in word does not need a superior computer to an entry level developer. The executive may get it because of a hissy fit, but it is not necessary. Likewise I know cases where the freshman class requires superior computers to many upper level classes due to the work they do. Some senior classes may require better equipment, but many can do well on the hand me downs of the freshman class. Sure they may whine, but it is good for them to learn that need outweighs personal hissy fits if one is going to be rational, something I think we should teach.
A full blackout is a reasonable response, because, in the language that is so popular with politicians, SOPA is going to result in excessive regulation that will cost jobs and likely cause significant increases in the cost of services, perhaps to the point where those services will no longer be able to provided on an ad supported or free to consumer basis.
The only impediment is how to make this coordinated. For instance all the Google, Bing, and Yahoo are going to have cooperate. Otherwise any blackout may simply result in loss of customers for one service, not a clear message to call one's representative. I suspect that if the services choose a minute during the day when no results are returned, only a message to call your representative and state your opinion on SOPA, the bill will die. If Google and MS tell users that search will die if SOPA is passed, no amount of politicking will be able to counteract that message.
Anything less is a show of support for SOPA by the major players.
I am not sure I understand why anyone who has GoDaddy at this point. Do they have really cheap prices? Do they have better service for large accounts? Is it hard to transfer large number of domains? I dropped them years ago and have been quite happy with the switch.
As mentioned, the NYT is now taking responsibility for this. I don't know if it was an error or disgruntled employee. I know that this is not the first mistaken email I have received over the holiday. I don't know what precautions these companies have to prevent a single employee from sending mass emails, but it appears the security is minimal.
What I can say is that the headers appear to indicate that the email is from the NYT servers. There are no fancy links in the email that would otherwise be used to obfuscate or otherwise mislead the user. If this was a malicious email, it was simply meant to cause grief to the NYT by flooding the switchboard and possibly angering some thin skin customers in canceling subscriptions.
There is no phony contacts or HTML type links that the user can click.
In the early to mid 1900's, science and math were basically dead in America. Much of the work done on some significant inventions of that time, such as the TV, was not done in the US and was completed in the late 19th century, with only some additional work done in the US, and completed by the 1920's.
It was sputnik that that put science and math back in vogue in the US, and even then it has been touch and go. I don't imagine that many who read this can imagine how hard it is to actually set up an advance math of physics class is school that are controlled by ex cheerleaders and english majors. They cannot understand the importance or the complexity. They think that the computers just magically appeared one day. They don't know the physics and engineering that was required.
Some of this comes from the religious fanatics, and some of these believe that the US is a christian state. While it is somewhat true, the beliefs of our founding fathers were not necessarily the beliefs of the christian fundamentalists and terrorists that want to divert tax a money from the public good to funding their mansions and sports complexes and terrorists cells. One example of this difference is the Jefferson bible. This bible is used by many christians as it focuses on the teaching of Jesus for those who follows his ways and habits, rather than the mysticism which is often used to tell poor people that they are poor simply because they have no faith.
Our founding fathers understood that religion was used to oppress them, which is why the fought against the aristocracy of England. It was understood that the aristocracy was no more chosen by god than a CEO is chosen by god. It was understood that the work of a person, not the lineage, should determine if a person was successful. Just because one was born into a place or a family should not determine if one was blesse by god. The blessed were the ones who would have faith and work. So the US was built on faith, but not the idea that we in the US were more blessed than other simply because we were born in the US. We had to work for the blessing.
This then is problem with math and science. If we are simply blessed because we are born in the US, then we can simply stay on our sofas and watch TV. But if god demands that we act, that we honor the creation, the Math and physics takes on a much greater importance, and one is not blessed simply because one watches Joel Olsteen on a 42" tv in a mansion. It is then required that we take an active role in exploring and expanding the good that the creation can do, which means that we have to get our lazy asses off the sofa and produce something useful, the antithesis to what is taught in too many churches.
I would say it depends if you want to teach coding or use of game engines. I would say in either case, unless students have taken a couple years of high school programming, some basic techniques would first have to be taught. Unless they know OO design, structured development, functional programing, and the like, that will have to taught these basics first. The average high school students does not have a strong relationship, with, for example, variables, strict procedure, and following rules. For instance some students are going to have difficulty differentiating something like i=j++ and i=++j in C++. This is one reason why C++ is such an unpopular language, it requires a level of thought that is expensive.
A few summers ago I taught a class using python. I gave each student an account on a remote web server, and they wrote python using a line editor. By the end of the month they were able to put together a simple text based game played in the web browser. It was kind of fun and taught basic skills. I suspect that the same thing could be done using Flash with graphical games. The point is that if one does not want to get bogged down in the vagaries of programming, then one is going to have to go with something really high level.
While the article may be about homeschooling, the general debate is really questioning the value of a professional certified teacher. The current research push is to show that a certified teacher is no better than an uncertified teacher at achieving progress on standardized test, and the an experienced teacher is actually worse than an inexperienced teacher. Why is so much money being spent on proving these points? Because right now the best districts can do is pay a new uncertified teacher $25K to $40K, have the feds pay off student loans, and then put them in a program to learn to teach. This already is a good deal for the district because funding is greater than salary, and the teacher normally pays several thousand for the teacher program. The downside is there are still requirement that result in a salary of $18-$25 an hour for a first year teacher.
If it can be shown that e-readers are magic bullets that reduce or eliminate the need for professional teachers, then we have a situation where we can hire college graduates, or those with 60 hours of college, give them minimal training, and put them in classroom at $10-$15 an hour. There would be no reason for high wages to attract good people, because if a teacher abuses a student, or if they do not work for the low wages, another can quickly be put in place because there are no real requirements.
Charters schools have shown this can work. Pay is not so low, but work hours are longer than a professional would tolerate(want time with family) and requirements are minimal. Charter schools also get to hand select students by expelling any student for practically any reason. Comprehensive high schools are punished for expelling students for anything less than assault.
So the question is, as always, is not whether an e-reader can replace a teacher is a classroom of somewhat motivated trained students, but if the e-reader can motivate the average student to learn. More importantly, given that 50% of more student do not complete the high school diploma by 18 years of age, can the e-reader help in increasing that rate. Given the number of student who do not read on level, and are still trying to learn to decode words in high school, I would say no.
There are quite a few students who e-reader based classes would be good enough, and for them the education might be cheaper, but given that we are trying to give all kids in the US a common background so they can work and live together in productivity and profit, it is hard to see how further fragmentation is useful. After all, those who can afford a private education already get one, and those who want to be antisocial and think the mainstream is not appropriate for their kids already do so.
When one gives a first grader a pencil and a workbook, without instruction, many of them will just go through all the pages and scribble all over the book. When one gives the AP exam, many free response questions are returned with unrelated drawing and scratches. This tells us two things. One is that all tools must be taught. The other is that unmotivated students must either be motivated or simply allowed to be unproductive.
Most of the time when we talk about new teaching techniques we are really talking about three distinct issues. First, we are talking about how to make teaching cheaper. This often involves giving teachers more students, or lessening the need for highly credentialed teachers. Second we talk about teaching concepts to younger students. For example, Leopold Mozart arguably wrote the book that allowed the teaching of violin to children. Third we talk about motivation, how to teach reluctant students. Much of the current problem with computers in education is the result of the promise that the iPad, just like every other previous technology, is a magic bullet. It is not. It can help with a qualified teacher.
So what does this mean for things like the iPad. First, it is critical that we teach these tools in early grades. Most children are only going to know these tools as a gaming device, so schools must intentionally teach them as productivity tools. A pen, pencil, or paper is not magical. It is simply a tool that allows us to keep track of more things that we can in our head. There is nothing magical about an iPad, it simply allows us store a lot of information and process in a small space. The students who know how to effectively use this tool are simply going to be more productive in school, life, and work. The students who were never taught to use the tools are simply going to be behind everyone else. For example, many of my colloquies in college has never used a mainframe for programming, and spent much time learning what I already knew. Many people my age do not know how to configure a printer to a computer. They end up paying other people to do that work. Everyone I knows how to hook up game console to the TV and play, but really, that does nto help productivity in the least.
ll this leaves then is motivation. Assuming that we teach the use of the iPad, can we convince students to use it productively instead of jut for games. The iPad is new, so using it for not games is a challenge. All new technology is first used for games, as sure as cars are used to race. One way is to shift learning methods from traditional methods to new methods that are consistent with current technology. What Kahn Academy is doing is an intermediate step, but more work will be required. In terms of science, peer reviewed journals have shown that simulations can be an effective teaching tool when running an actual experiment is not practical.
What is left behind in all these discussions is the advance student. Advance technology is critical to the advancement of advance students as such students often require tools to learn that teachers who motivate them to learn.
I was thinking that this is typical of any situation where someone wants to believe something that conflicts with known fact. Such mob delusion predates any technology one wants to name. We see it with the consistent denial that some preist were systematically having sexual relations with minors and some higher up in the Church were sanctioning such relations. Typically the primarily method to quash such facts that are inconsistent with desired truth is to call them 'disrespectful'. I would say that using 'disrespectful' instead of 'unsupportive by reality' is a surely indicative that the facts are reality, and the desired truth is delusional.
My understanding is the the LHC currently involves a worldwide computing grid capable of distributing on the order of a petabyte of data a month, and doing basic analysis of much more. The thing is that the people who work at such places are highly intelligent problem solvers that are not going to throw out ideas simply because it does not meet some preconceived notion. They are not going to say don't paint the roof white simply because no one has done it before. They have problems to solve, and know how to get the funding to do it.
There is not more to say on this. The safety of the crops, like most of what we do when we alter the basic components of our life, will only be revealed with time. Not many people really took seriously the threat of 'fast food', yet now it threatens the US national security and the planet. A lager percentage of the kids are too obese to fight or dim witted to sit in a chair and fly remote drones or other remote actions.
Food security is now the issue. We are increasingly seeing our food controlled by a small number of multination agents. Much like the banks, we are the taxpayer is increasing going to be on the hook in guarantee profits and bonuses for the executives in exchange for the food we need.
To be sure in some parts of the world GM crops may be part of the solution, but those are not the parts of the world that are going to generate profits. Those are the parts of the world where the western world already ships the excess food at the taxpayer expense and multinations make deals to sell the products at a fraction of what they charge in the developed world, again forcing taxpayers in the developed world to generate the private profits.
Honestly the fact that I don't need a phone is the reason I have smart phone. I paid huge monthly fees for a phone I never used. I cancelled my land line because I never talk on the phones, and now pay slightly huger fees for a phone i use, not for talking, but for mail, browsing, texting. I am actually getting value for my money. I recall when I have my palm V how I thought it would be perfect if it had a phone, not for talking, but so I would not have to carry my big phone around. When I got a razr that was nice, but if I wanted data I stil had to carry a palm, or buy an equal size gadget for the back of the razr and double enter all data. I waiting a fair time to get a smart phone but it was one device, on data entry point, and a phone for the few times I needed it.
For people who are basically at home or at the office and that is all, the smart phone is not such a big deal. But for people who are out and about, and don't want to carry a computer, the smart phone can do many things.
You know for this and other reasons size is not such a big deal. Text compression is extremely efficient and is one reason why we are seeing less binary. Furthermore most people have speeds that make anything around a megabyte load in a second. It is only the most inept web designers that have pages that don't load.
And in my experience that ineptitude does not have to do with page size. It has to do with the number of requests per page. And not allowing a page to load if google analytics or some other ad service is not loading. I hate to tell you, but google is not perfect. More than once i have seen a call to google analytics stall a page. The content on the page was ready to render, but the web bug could not be loaded. So if we are talking about speeds, we are talking about the ads and the way the page handles ads.
In terms of lighting, I would say windows perpendicular to the rows. I there is a lecture area, the computers can be facing into a center, with desks or tables in the center. If the students are going to have to practice techniques that you demonstrate, there should be at least three projectors facing the three directions. Some people have TVs set up, but no one can read those. If you have software to take over the computer and display what is doing, that doesn't work because students just disable or ignore it. Have an elmo so that you can show documents, also connected to all the screens. If you want, get some monitors to set at seated eye level around the room so that students with bad eyesight can look at the monitors. Basically everything you do is mirrored around the room on various devices.
I would recommend something that restores the computer to a known state on restart. I would have a server for each student to store work, and for the teacher to store materials the students much access. This can be done remotely, but even today the WAN is not 100% perfect, so having a LAN in the room i really helpful.If each student can have an account with space limitations, that is also good.
But when I think of a computer lab I also think of maintaining the resources for all computer and providing the relative level of supervision that each student requires. That means that the teachers location is generally behind rows of computers rather than in front. Laptops are good from older or well trained younger students, but not for on level freshman. The reason is that laptops can be easily damaged, for example keyboard ripped up or screen broken, and the whole units has to be replaced. Laptops also have to be secured if they are not collected after every class, preferable with an alarmed cable.
This is an issue as students do not always have a clear way to express their frustration, and sometimes the computer seems the most obvious target, not only because it is a source of frustration but if the computer is not working then they cannot be expected to do work. Also, off task students can inadvertently or purposefully disable a computer. This if sometime done in an attempt to prove the student is smarter than the teacher, but it really doesn't. Defense is always more costly than attack, and a teacher who spends time fixing computers disabled by the smartest students is not teaching, so these smartest kids are denying educational opportunities to others. Therefore a lab has to be setup to minimize time spent on technical issues, and maximize the time the students spend learning fundamental concepts of computing.
Twenty years ago this would have been a dirty trick, but politics has certainly changed. This is amusing because Newt Gingrich was is a key player in the conservative agenda that effected that change. What is really funny is that acquiring this web site is no different from acquiring TV time for an ad that prominently features and promotes Newt Gingrich in a negative and unflattering light. We expect the viewer to be intelligent enough to understand that such attack ads are paid for people that oppose Gingrich. It is not necessary to specifically state that the ad is an attack ad. All that is necessary is to name the official agent that paid for the ad. In some cases this agent is well funded shell company that is not directly related to the opposition.
What is happening right now is that Gingrich neither has any campaign money or super pac money. This is because he squandered his money on such critical campaign events such as his visit to Hawaii in an attempt to win their 4 electoral votes that will surely push him over the top in the election, not to mention the all important greek vote. So, instead of defending himself against these attack ads, something he is well capable of doing, if he had money, he is feigning umbrage to the assaults. He has transformed from the bully to the wimp, and now requires that everyone worships him for the transformations.
It is instructive to compare the number of terrorist who come across the Mexico border as opposed to the Canadian Border. Given that the current precautions tend to push terrorists to canada, one wonders why we are wasting money beefing up the mexico border instead of putting known and effective measure on the Canada Border.
The broader worry is that the use of drones does not seem to require warrants or other checks to make sure that the police are not just recording members of your family in awkward positions.
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Rather I would like to see Apple invest in RIM with the understanding that RIM would exclusively build an App for iOS that seamlessly integrates into the RIM proprietary infrastructure. This would have positive effects for both companies. Apple would be able to sell to enterprise using tools that are already familiar, and RIM would have a funding source to cover the substantial fixed costs associated with it's infrastructure. I think there is value to RIM as an independent agent. RIM only needs to expand it's image as primarily a handset manufacturer. It is beyond that. It provide enterprise solutions.
I am looking forward to this. It could undermine some of the high textbook prices, depending on what it is. More importantly, it could bring much needed multimedia presentation to an industry that sorely needs it.
This is the way it would work out if the bill were pushed. It would pass the house easily, and some compromise would be made in the senate. If the bill were watered down enough, the president would sign it and the Democrat would campaign agains the Republicans based on another bill that reduces the rights of the common citizen to feel safe against the police. If the bill were not watered down, then the houe would have to go on record for being for such a bill, or just give up on the bill. Either way the Democratic Super Pacs have a lot of fodder against the representatives in the upcoming election.
The Democrats have become quite adept at becoming the minority party and forcing Republicans to take responsibility for their actions. This first happened when all the Democrats voted 'present' for the Republican Study Committee bill, assuring that it would pass, thus forcing Republicans to change votes to insure it did not. The extremely conservative wing on the Republican party knows it has been outflanked, which is why Romney is sailing to a nomination that really should not be his. The last thing conservatives want right now is corporate brain child that can be held up along with Romneys corporate pedigree to deliver the house, senate, and presidency to the Democrats.
One of my networks in a somewhat public place where the users have a high motivation to get online. Knowing that there is wireless is inherently insecure, i.e. tools are available for harvesting passwords and MAC addresses, turning off the SSID is simply another tool I use. To me it is a no brainer because it does not cause me any significant problems and many casual users don't know how to connect to a 'hidden' network even if they have the name. That is what 'turning off' the SSID does. It does not make the network invisible, it prevents computers from automatically connecting. It says that this is a closed network and we would appreciate it if you did not join in.
I have seen articles like this where somehow 'hiding' the SSID causes problems for roaming. From where I have seen these articles, I suspect this is an OS specific problem as I have never had this problem. All my equipment connects automatically to my networks unless there is a higher power open competing network. I believe this is a case where certain people do not know how to implement the solution, so they say the solution is bad.
To the matter at hand, closing the network may be part of the solution. Time based access control, in which user accounts that require on the fly credential, is another solution. This is where the user provides an email address, and logs onto the network by clicking on an email link agreeing to the terms and conditions. I would also back it up with sa white list that will prevent all proxy access and make the pipe much less valuable for casual users to crack.
What I do look for are descriptive function names. Reading through code should be like reading an easy book. For instance, each function should do one thing. A descriptive name and clear code has always been enough for me. Coding is not like literature, there are no points for writing obsessively beautiful bullshit. I am not talking about insanely long variable names. I am talking about code that someone familiar with the art can decode in their head.
Which of course is what this argument is about now. It takes skill to write code that can be read by a skilled code monkey. It takes skill to read such code. It is often easier to hire unskilled labor and then complain about the product rather than hiring skilled labor.
First when one is creating a product to be mass manufactured, that fact must be designed in at the beginning, not tacked on at the end. It would be unrealistic to expect any product to be successful without working closely with the people who are going to manufacture it.
Second, profitable competent manufacturers in the west is not going to have excess capacity and skilled labour just twiddling their thumbs waiting for customers. These firms are going to have as close to maximum production as possible, and, as new customers come in, they will adjust schedules or add capacity as needed. In places where standards are not high, and people can be taken off the street to run machines, or it acceptable to have machinery idle just waiting for orders, this is different. In any case the pricing structure for manufacturing is not surprising. China has a lot of excess capacity right now, and they are likely just trying to cover costs. Any firm that keeps excess capacity for quick order in the west is going to have to charge a premium.
And the tax just seems like a red herring. Again, how does one enter into a venture without understanding the tax liabilities. I understand that firms do this all the time, and that is why so many go bankrupt, but really. One has a BOM, and one has access to people who know about this things. Getting to the end game and just then realizing that taxes, schedules, and shipping exists seems really lame.
In 2007 laptops sales were overtaking desktop sales and by late 2008 in the US laptops outsold desktops. The reality was that most people did not want to upgrade machines, that the MS issue made buying machine cheaper than upgrading, and that $400 for 2 or three years of use was not outlandish to many. The simplicity of the machines made the popular. Somethings could not be done on the machine, but enough could. Coincidently, Gateway, who assembled desktops, sold itself at a bargain price around that time, and one unit was defunct by 2009.
Unimaginative and backward thinking business types think consumer attitudes will never change and the way things are done now will always be the way things are done. I don't know if I would ever move to a a tablet for my primary machine, but I do know that several years ago i moved to a laptop as my primary machine, having retired my desktop. Even more interesting is i have almost retired my 17" laptop and use a MacBook Air for the vast majority of my work. All my daily computing resources fit into a case that is about the size of a sunday magazine and a few inches thick.
I would argue that Dell needs to do something creative at this point. It is not doing badly but has seen no real growth since 2009 when it recovered. Essentially two years stagnant. In reality, the stock price, inflation adjusted, is the same as 1997, so that is 14 years of, on average, no growth. Dell, because it is dependent on the whims of MS, cannot really do anything to break out of the death cycle that in plaguing the PC industry, so it claims the cycle does not exist, in much the same way that an addict might deny the effect of the drugs. Something is coming to take over the PC. The PC is not working really well for a lot of people. It may not be tablets, but will be something.
The problem is Ron Paul is he talks a good libertarian line, and even has made some token votes that have had no effect, but in the end he is as responsible for the waste of taxpayer money as anyone else. For instance he redistributed over 2 million dollars to a minority community center in rural areas of his district. I can tell you that there are many churches a private charities that already provide such support, and not sure why a libertarian would want to bring in another actor instead of encouraging existing entities to provide these services.
In addition he appropriated hundreds of millions of dollars to maintain harbors and ship channels in the district. These are places that generate hundreds of millions of dollars every near, and are no longer widely available to the public. There it is arguable that he has perverted the free market by using the government to dictate the use of public space, rather than allow the market to decide what is best. If shipping cannot pay for the resource with public taxpayer welfare, then they should not exist.
He says he does not support the power of homeland security, but has abused homeland security to funnel tens of millions of dollars to his constituents to pay for projects that support their huge houses, land, and expensive commutes through our tax money.
He further provides welfare payment to his rural and suburban constituents through millions of dollars for transportation. Those of us in the city largely pay for our own stuff through city taxes and high property taxes. The other folks, however, do not cover their own costs. So the US taxpayer has to pay for their fancy bus stations, fancy bus stops(3.6 million), mobile health units, remote life flight centers. I believe that libertarians would believe that local folks should have control of what they want and what they are willing to pay for. If some is needed, then we can pay. We don't need welfare checks from washington building us building we don't need. We need good jobs so we can build what we need.
If one is using computers for class, then the computers have to be reliable and the turn around time for repairs has to be short. This is not true at most schools. In my experience, a single dedicated person might be responsible for basic support of 500 machines, with roaming support for other issues. It can be a week to get a computer up and running. For computers that are not critical this is fine, but we are talking about make the machines mission critical.
One way to fix this is to train teachers to do simple maintenance. Much can be done if a teacher was allowed to customize the state of the machine and then given an image that can be use to restore a machine to the known state. In most cases students don't need to store data on a machine, and something like cleanslate, while useful, is a resource hog. Teachers also need to be given control of blacklists and whitelists for their classroom. One reason the computer classroom is going to fail is because teachers are not allowed to manage resources.
The last point is one valid complaint against teachers. Computers, or any equipment, allocated in terms of seniority never makes sense. The executive who types memos in word does not need a superior computer to an entry level developer. The executive may get it because of a hissy fit, but it is not necessary. Likewise I know cases where the freshman class requires superior computers to many upper level classes due to the work they do. Some senior classes may require better equipment, but many can do well on the hand me downs of the freshman class. Sure they may whine, but it is good for them to learn that need outweighs personal hissy fits if one is going to be rational, something I think we should teach.
The only impediment is how to make this coordinated. For instance all the Google, Bing, and Yahoo are going to have cooperate. Otherwise any blackout may simply result in loss of customers for one service, not a clear message to call one's representative. I suspect that if the services choose a minute during the day when no results are returned, only a message to call your representative and state your opinion on SOPA, the bill will die. If Google and MS tell users that search will die if SOPA is passed, no amount of politicking will be able to counteract that message.
Anything less is a show of support for SOPA by the major players.
I am not sure I understand why anyone who has GoDaddy at this point. Do they have really cheap prices? Do they have better service for large accounts? Is it hard to transfer large number of domains? I dropped them years ago and have been quite happy with the switch.
What I can say is that the headers appear to indicate that the email is from the NYT servers. There are no fancy links in the email that would otherwise be used to obfuscate or otherwise mislead the user. If this was a malicious email, it was simply meant to cause grief to the NYT by flooding the switchboard and possibly angering some thin skin customers in canceling subscriptions.
There is no phony contacts or HTML type links that the user can click.
It was sputnik that that put science and math back in vogue in the US, and even then it has been touch and go. I don't imagine that many who read this can imagine how hard it is to actually set up an advance math of physics class is school that are controlled by ex cheerleaders and english majors. They cannot understand the importance or the complexity. They think that the computers just magically appeared one day. They don't know the physics and engineering that was required.
Some of this comes from the religious fanatics, and some of these believe that the US is a christian state. While it is somewhat true, the beliefs of our founding fathers were not necessarily the beliefs of the christian fundamentalists and terrorists that want to divert tax a money from the public good to funding their mansions and sports complexes and terrorists cells. One example of this difference is the Jefferson bible. This bible is used by many christians as it focuses on the teaching of Jesus for those who follows his ways and habits, rather than the mysticism which is often used to tell poor people that they are poor simply because they have no faith.
Our founding fathers understood that religion was used to oppress them, which is why the fought against the aristocracy of England. It was understood that the aristocracy was no more chosen by god than a CEO is chosen by god. It was understood that the work of a person, not the lineage, should determine if a person was successful. Just because one was born into a place or a family should not determine if one was blesse by god. The blessed were the ones who would have faith and work. So the US was built on faith, but not the idea that we in the US were more blessed than other simply because we were born in the US. We had to work for the blessing.
This then is problem with math and science. If we are simply blessed because we are born in the US, then we can simply stay on our sofas and watch TV. But if god demands that we act, that we honor the creation, the Math and physics takes on a much greater importance, and one is not blessed simply because one watches Joel Olsteen on a 42" tv in a mansion. It is then required that we take an active role in exploring and expanding the good that the creation can do, which means that we have to get our lazy asses off the sofa and produce something useful, the antithesis to what is taught in too many churches.
A few summers ago I taught a class using python. I gave each student an account on a remote web server, and they wrote python using a line editor. By the end of the month they were able to put together a simple text based game played in the web browser. It was kind of fun and taught basic skills. I suspect that the same thing could be done using Flash with graphical games. The point is that if one does not want to get bogged down in the vagaries of programming, then one is going to have to go with something really high level.
If it can be shown that e-readers are magic bullets that reduce or eliminate the need for professional teachers, then we have a situation where we can hire college graduates, or those with 60 hours of college, give them minimal training, and put them in classroom at $10-$15 an hour. There would be no reason for high wages to attract good people, because if a teacher abuses a student, or if they do not work for the low wages, another can quickly be put in place because there are no real requirements.
Charters schools have shown this can work. Pay is not so low, but work hours are longer than a professional would tolerate(want time with family) and requirements are minimal. Charter schools also get to hand select students by expelling any student for practically any reason. Comprehensive high schools are punished for expelling students for anything less than assault.
So the question is, as always, is not whether an e-reader can replace a teacher is a classroom of somewhat motivated trained students, but if the e-reader can motivate the average student to learn. More importantly, given that 50% of more student do not complete the high school diploma by 18 years of age, can the e-reader help in increasing that rate. Given the number of student who do not read on level, and are still trying to learn to decode words in high school, I would say no.
There are quite a few students who e-reader based classes would be good enough, and for them the education might be cheaper, but given that we are trying to give all kids in the US a common background so they can work and live together in productivity and profit, it is hard to see how further fragmentation is useful. After all, those who can afford a private education already get one, and those who want to be antisocial and think the mainstream is not appropriate for their kids already do so.
Most of the time when we talk about new teaching techniques we are really talking about three distinct issues. First, we are talking about how to make teaching cheaper. This often involves giving teachers more students, or lessening the need for highly credentialed teachers. Second we talk about teaching concepts to younger students. For example, Leopold Mozart arguably wrote the book that allowed the teaching of violin to children. Third we talk about motivation, how to teach reluctant students. Much of the current problem with computers in education is the result of the promise that the iPad, just like every other previous technology, is a magic bullet. It is not. It can help with a qualified teacher.
So what does this mean for things like the iPad. First, it is critical that we teach these tools in early grades. Most children are only going to know these tools as a gaming device, so schools must intentionally teach them as productivity tools. A pen, pencil, or paper is not magical. It is simply a tool that allows us to keep track of more things that we can in our head. There is nothing magical about an iPad, it simply allows us store a lot of information and process in a small space. The students who know how to effectively use this tool are simply going to be more productive in school, life, and work. The students who were never taught to use the tools are simply going to be behind everyone else. For example, many of my colloquies in college has never used a mainframe for programming, and spent much time learning what I already knew. Many people my age do not know how to configure a printer to a computer. They end up paying other people to do that work. Everyone I knows how to hook up game console to the TV and play, but really, that does nto help productivity in the least.
ll this leaves then is motivation. Assuming that we teach the use of the iPad, can we convince students to use it productively instead of jut for games. The iPad is new, so using it for not games is a challenge. All new technology is first used for games, as sure as cars are used to race. One way is to shift learning methods from traditional methods to new methods that are consistent with current technology. What Kahn Academy is doing is an intermediate step, but more work will be required. In terms of science, peer reviewed journals have shown that simulations can be an effective teaching tool when running an actual experiment is not practical.
What is left behind in all these discussions is the advance student. Advance technology is critical to the advancement of advance students as such students often require tools to learn that teachers who motivate them to learn.
I was thinking that this is typical of any situation where someone wants to believe something that conflicts with known fact. Such mob delusion predates any technology one wants to name. We see it with the consistent denial that some preist were systematically having sexual relations with minors and some higher up in the Church were sanctioning such relations. Typically the primarily method to quash such facts that are inconsistent with desired truth is to call them 'disrespectful'. I would say that using 'disrespectful' instead of 'unsupportive by reality' is a surely indicative that the facts are reality, and the desired truth is delusional.
My understanding is the the LHC currently involves a worldwide computing grid capable of distributing on the order of a petabyte of data a month, and doing basic analysis of much more. The thing is that the people who work at such places are highly intelligent problem solvers that are not going to throw out ideas simply because it does not meet some preconceived notion. They are not going to say don't paint the roof white simply because no one has done it before. They have problems to solve, and know how to get the funding to do it.
Food security is now the issue. We are increasingly seeing our food controlled by a small number of multination agents. Much like the banks, we are the taxpayer is increasing going to be on the hook in guarantee profits and bonuses for the executives in exchange for the food we need.
To be sure in some parts of the world GM crops may be part of the solution, but those are not the parts of the world that are going to generate profits. Those are the parts of the world where the western world already ships the excess food at the taxpayer expense and multinations make deals to sell the products at a fraction of what they charge in the developed world, again forcing taxpayers in the developed world to generate the private profits.
For people who are basically at home or at the office and that is all, the smart phone is not such a big deal. But for people who are out and about, and don't want to carry a computer, the smart phone can do many things.
And in my experience that ineptitude does not have to do with page size. It has to do with the number of requests per page. And not allowing a page to load if google analytics or some other ad service is not loading. I hate to tell you, but google is not perfect. More than once i have seen a call to google analytics stall a page. The content on the page was ready to render, but the web bug could not be loaded. So if we are talking about speeds, we are talking about the ads and the way the page handles ads.
In terms of lighting, I would say windows perpendicular to the rows. I there is a lecture area, the computers can be facing into a center, with desks or tables in the center. If the students are going to have to practice techniques that you demonstrate, there should be at least three projectors facing the three directions. Some people have TVs set up, but no one can read those. If you have software to take over the computer and display what is doing, that doesn't work because students just disable or ignore it. Have an elmo so that you can show documents, also connected to all the screens. If you want, get some monitors to set at seated eye level around the room so that students with bad eyesight can look at the monitors. Basically everything you do is mirrored around the room on various devices.
I would recommend something that restores the computer to a known state on restart. I would have a server for each student to store work, and for the teacher to store materials the students much access. This can be done remotely, but even today the WAN is not 100% perfect, so having a LAN in the room i really helpful.If each student can have an account with space limitations, that is also good.
But when I think of a computer lab I also think of maintaining the resources for all computer and providing the relative level of supervision that each student requires. That means that the teachers location is generally behind rows of computers rather than in front. Laptops are good from older or well trained younger students, but not for on level freshman. The reason is that laptops can be easily damaged, for example keyboard ripped up or screen broken, and the whole units has to be replaced. Laptops also have to be secured if they are not collected after every class, preferable with an alarmed cable.
This is an issue as students do not always have a clear way to express their frustration, and sometimes the computer seems the most obvious target, not only because it is a source of frustration but if the computer is not working then they cannot be expected to do work. Also, off task students can inadvertently or purposefully disable a computer. This if sometime done in an attempt to prove the student is smarter than the teacher, but it really doesn't. Defense is always more costly than attack, and a teacher who spends time fixing computers disabled by the smartest students is not teaching, so these smartest kids are denying educational opportunities to others. Therefore a lab has to be setup to minimize time spent on technical issues, and maximize the time the students spend learning fundamental concepts of computing.
What is happening right now is that Gingrich neither has any campaign money or super pac money. This is because he squandered his money on such critical campaign events such as his visit to Hawaii in an attempt to win their 4 electoral votes that will surely push him over the top in the election, not to mention the all important greek vote. So, instead of defending himself against these attack ads, something he is well capable of doing, if he had money, he is feigning umbrage to the assaults. He has transformed from the bully to the wimp, and now requires that everyone worships him for the transformations.
The broader worry is that the use of drones does not seem to require warrants or other checks to make sure that the police are not just recording members of your family in awkward positions.