It seems to me that like the music labels, many of the newspapers are still hung up on physical distribution of the product. The NYT allows a physical deliver for $14.80 a week. Weekend delivery is $10.80 a week, and Sunday delivery at 7.50 a week. As far as i can tell, all of these include digital access. The full access package, whatever that is, is 7 dollars a week. For fifty cents more I get the sunday newspaper.
Can we say a firm afraid to lose it's printing press? It is natural and even desirable for businesses to go away when they are unwilling to acknowledge that the time of the buggy whip is past and new forms need to be explored. I kind of applaud them for have a $4 and $5 a week option, but when compared with the $7.5 a week option with home sunday delivery, it seems kind of pricey. With the millions of ads on their web pages, and not having to set the pages, and not having to print the pages, I can't believe that a $2.50 plan is not possible. Sure the expenses of the physical paper still exist, but those should be paid by the readers of the physical paper. They are the one's paying $800 a year for delivery of the dead tree edition.
I like the financials time model better. It is simple and understandable. It is basically the same price, but the levels are clearer and it does not differentiate mobile viewing so much
As soon as keyboard designers learn that chiclet keyboard and their decedents make horrible keyboards. My fragile laptop keyboard which merely closes a electrical connection and uses a piece of plastic for feedback is horrible. I demand that large mechanical switches be brought back with their true force feedback and loud noises that can be heard over the din fo the airplane fans cooling my tower.
Which is to say that the first post-switch keyboards were horrible, and not just because we were used to typewriters. However, over time the design got better and we got used to lack of feedback.
I don't know what can be done with onscreen keyboards to make them better, but I look at moden keyboards and would have never thought of the current designs, so I think there might be hope. It will be a combination of people getting used to the new design, of people who hate the new design dying out, and better design. Just like everything else.
I run MS WIndows 7 on my early 2008 macbook. It works as well as any of my dedicated WIndows machines. So bootcamp is a viable option. However, since it helps to max memory, and Windows 7 is hugely expensive, a new machine may be of value.
I am partial o HP Computers. I have one that is 5 years old that is still good for basic tasks. These, though, cost $1000, so it will be cheaper to buy WIndows 7, home premium $200.
I don't see how this is bad for B&N. Unless the hack destroys the DRM of the books, anything that will increase sales of the nook will keep B&N one extra step from bankruptcy.
As far as who will hack it, it may be more than we think. People who have no clue how o install an OS are hacking the iPhone. Of course, a many average users are incapable of following simple instructions, or conceptualizing how a computer works, so they will not be hacking.
It is these types of things that inspire kids to get an education. It was frequent trips to NASA that inspired me to become a technical person. It was observing real scientists doing real science that taught me to be a scientist. We cannot just wave out hands around a beg and plead for students to study math and science, and for teach to competently present the subject. Without real experiences what will the teacher present? Dull facts out of books they have read. Without the ability to see real science what will the students learn? That these things are what far away people do, with no relation to their local opportunities.
This is just one of those short sighted things we do because missiles are more exciting that basic science. A generation of US scientists should be considered loss as a result, and a generation of people able to teach the next generation about science is lost as well. How many billions of dollars is being spent to bootstrap science programs based on pictures in books when we could have have science based on real world experience.
Five years ago much of the OS X kernel tech was open source, just like Android. Much of the OS X specifics was close source, just like many Google apps for Android, and propriety additions could be made, just like Android.
Then one day Apple decided open source and corporate goals no longer meshed. The Apple justification sounds rather similar to the Google justification. That if the code was realeased then people would put it on non-authorized hardware and the user experience would be degraded. The OS was only meant to run on certain hardware, and the substandard stuff that some would chose to put it on would hurt the reputation of the firm.
There was speculation that the source would pretty much become closed long before it essentially did, but fanbois would not hear of it. No Apple would never offend the OSS community. Furthermore, even if it did, the old code would still be out there and some updates would occur, so the modders and developers could still play with it even if they did not have the absolutely latest point release.
It is clear that Google Android is their property. The fact that they sue people who try to make Android phones but do not pay the tribute proves this. The fact that Google removes Apps from Android devices without the end user permissions proves this. So that they would close thier version of Android is unsuprising.
It is clear that Google never had a clear plan to limit the power of the mobile service providers. Their initial plan to sell a phone without service was a non starter because almost no US mobile providers wants to work that way, and the US consumer is used to paying for the phone over time. So they are continuing to cave to the service providers, and Honeycomb is just the end result of this. It has nothing to do with screen sizes, it has to do with Google and telco control. Honeycomb will be the Android accepted on the mobile phone network, it will be written to run on all mobile devices, and it will only be liscensed to those that agree to build phones not to maximize the end user experience, but to maximize the revenue of Google and the mobile service provider.
I would suggest that pretty early on you see the first season, with Hartenll, in as much completeness as available. I think the first series has some very strong serials. I believe many episodes are mssing, so it is hit and miss. This will form a background on the what the show was intended to be.
After that I would take a look at several serials from later doctors. For instance for Troughton the Wheel in Space or the Krotons. For Pertwee Carnival of Monsters. For Baker The Talons of Weng-Chiang or City of Death. And so on. You may like to look at different companions/assistants as well.
Each Doctor has a different feel, and by looking at the various doctors you will find a few favorites. Then you can look for episodes that feature your favorite Doctor or Companion. A limiting factor on this may be available episodes, though Netflix and Itunes has a good selection.
The current incarnation there is no reason to not start with the current series. The last christmas episode, in my mind was quite strong. If you stick with Matt Smith, there is really no reason to go back. If you want to go back further, then start with Eccleston and the relaunch "Rose". There is quite a bit of history and buildup during the first few seasons. I something think the purposefully cut the series apart when they hires Smith. It seems they did this couple times in the before when they felt they were getting bogged down.
One thing with the first twenty some odd series is that they are classic tv. They expected people to sit there and wait for the story to develop. Sometime it is strained when they required a 6 part serial and the 4th and 5th part are clearly filler. There is a lot of corridor acting, of various quality. If one serial is not to your liking, there is probably another that is more dramatic or whatever you want. It can get a bit Shakespearian. But many are really well made TV. Remember the original serials were serials, meant to be wants in small chunks.
Just like the WSJ, and FT, this simply means that I won't be pointing any tweets to the NYT. No traffic driven to the site, no ad revenue. Maybe the $300 a year they want for an ipad subscription will generate sufficient revenue.
One has to wonder if there are some shenanigans going on. Android is spoken of in glowing hyperbolic terms, often asserting that the development team were superheroes, but they did not appear to actually have a product, and were quite quick to sell out to Google, indicating that they might have had known that the Android tech was not something they could get onto the market themselves. Certainly the Danger tech had little success, and has become part of MS.
For Google to get android out so quickly it had to copy the iPhone and other existing model instead of innovating. The one innovation on the smartphone, the open model to the end user, and the keyboard, are not roaring successes. The end user does not have right to keep Apps on the Android if Google wants to delete them, mobile phone vendors are locking the phone, and many models do not have the keyboard. Multitouch with is an non-obvious innovation was lifted from Apple instead of created independently.
This is not to say that the lawsuits are good or bad, just that HTC had a relationship with MS that could have lead to some IP contamination, and Apple clearly has some traction in assertion that it invented a device with others are using without permissions. In this case, neither Apple or MS are patent trolls since they both have unique products that they market. OTOH, the android devices are neither unique or innovative.
Right now a subscription to the physical paper cost abour $400 a year. To deliver to my house they have to pay a fee to transmit the paper to my local newspaper, and then pay my local paper to print and distribute the NYT. We can assume that this a non trivial cost. We can assume that some of the profit. We can also assume that what the papers are trying to fight are the falling ad revenues.
What I can't understand is if the mobile version and web version still have ads, and the printing costs are eliminated, and distribution costs are all but eliminated, why they need to choose the $180 price point a year instead of the $99 price point. I can see $200 on the iPad, with more limited ads.
It is the nature of an enterprise to try to maximize profit. The NYT, and The Daily, and WSJ, all are trying to maximize the value of a product. However, I can see publications like HufPo, using the overestimation of value of the other rags as an opportunity to put them out of business. I have no ill will for the NYT, I have subscribed to the digital editions when they were more reasonably priced. I think they will find few customers at this price point.
There are many other reasons why such an App is appropriate and maybe even necessary. For instance, if I were to rob a store, there is no constitutional or legal theory that requires me to drive by a police station. I am well within my rights to use a map with the locations of police stations and plan my get away accordingly.
Likewise, if I am on the stand, I cannot be compelled to provide evidence against myself. The police cannot use extreme measures to force me to provide evidence against myself.
We are in a panic about drunk driving. Reasonable methods to fight drunk driving is to patrol the areas normally traveled by drunk drivers, stop vehicles that exhibit dangerous behaviors, then give then a ticket for such behavior. If the are show evidence of drunkenness, then charge them, take them to jail, and run a blood alcohol test. if they are drunk put in them in jail for 30 days, or whatever. This is the constitutional method to solve the problem.
Unfortunately, the religious right who makes a habit of spitting on the constitution, want to make not drunk driving illegal, but drinking illegal. They want these checkpoint to infringe on the legal activity of law abiding citizens. They think that everyone should be forced, even at gunpoint, to follow all the social norms they believe are correct.
OTOH, the lawmakers, as we recall from our previous president, don't see much wrong with drunk and reckless driving, and are not willing to punish the people who actually pose a threat on the road. Therefore they play these game of minimal penalties for driver who really pose no threat, while remaining unwilling to remove licenses and give jail time to those that do pose a threat.
In many more conservative parts of the country, such checkpoint has been ruled unconstitutional. Perhaps ironically as the spectrum has moved from fiscal conservatives to social conservatives, the basic tennets of liberty and rule of law has been pushed aside to allow for control of the population by a fanatical and dangerous religious minority. The opposition to this App is an indication of the power of such a force imposing sharia law. Citizens have the freedom to go where they wish on the public roads. Citizens have the right to communicate as the wish over private networks. If such travel or communication is illegal, such things are dealt with by pressing charges for the crime after the fact, not prior restraint. No rational person in the US would deny the constitution guarantees these rights. If it was guns, there would be no issue. We do not have checkpoints for guns. But the religious nuts wants everyone to be unhappy just because they are unhappy.
MS tried to splinter the web with IE and proprietary standards. It failed. Many said that Apple would splinter the web with the lack of Flash on iPhone, but major parts of the web away from that proprietary standard. The parts of the web that do not work on mobile browsers tend to have Apps. The next major attempt at splintering will be the proliferation of paywalls. I don't think these wil success either.
Well, they now have all of T-Mobile towers. Putting up towers is not just a matter of money. There are all these people who want cell signal, but do not want towers. So what can a mobile company do? Buy existing towers.
I do not care about the t-mobile thing because I never considered T-Mobile as a viable competitor. For the most part there are two main level competitors, ATT and Verizon. The choice depends on the service level and use. This will not be effected. Below these two was basically Sprint and T-Mobile. IMHO, if rates are going to effected it will be Sprint raising the rates no that T-Mobile is not longer in the market. Sprint will now dominate the market for people who are looking for less expensive service.
The reason that I think the T-Mobile deal might go through it that it will open up market opportunities for the value companies such as Boost and Cricket. A bunch of T-Mobile customers, who don't want to pay the rates of ATT or Verizon, and aren't well served by Sprint, may go to these other companies. The consumer will only be served by the growth of these value companies. I think Sprint is objective so vehemently because it knows it is going to get squeezed in this new market realities. I believe that Sprint has proven itself to be a firm who can compete. It is the only company that has survived and thrived from the long distance opening.
It is true that a science teacher should include practical experiments, if the kids are going to do the expeiments themselves. If you are just going to demonstrations, then I see no reason why kids should not just be watching videos. I believe the computer simulations are way underrated in a world where schools are more fearful of letting kids do anything useful.
These practical experiments will give the conceptual basis of what will be tested if the kids ever take an AP Science exam. They do not need to be fancy. Heat water measure rate of change. Build a gravity accelerated race track, film the cars, and analyze using free video analysis software. Run 1mw laser though pieces of plastic. And, the most important experiement of all, give them measuring instruments, let them measure things around the room, and then compare results. They will be amazed at how different everyone's mesasurements are. At that age, mean, mode, median, and rage are valid math concepts.
As far as online goes. Look for any and all animated experiments. PHET has many of them. You can download videos of experiments, or have the kids make them, and make scatter plots relating various variables using Tracker Video Analysis. The construction of these graphs meet many objects for high school math and science. I have found online sources to simulate any experiment that I want to do. Most of these are accesible to almost any age group by simply by adjusiting pre-lab instruction and post-lab assessment
Just like in any expeiment, the pre- and post-lab are the thing. Most kids will lean very little from a lab without a pre- and post-lab. Doing the lab is only going to be so successful. The required analysis of what the student has observed is a key learning process. In any lab, online or not, know the concepts that are to be taught, and how they will be reinforced and assesed. For instance on PHET you can make resistors catch fire. Why do they catch fire? Will they catch fire faster if the resistance is increased of the potential or current. This creates an exciting learning activity.
Niether of these states...is the worlds larges ministry o individuals and families impacted by Christianity".
I would like such an app. In my town we have several so-called christian churches that tell families if they give money god will bless them. This of course is the heresy that prompted all protestant faiths. A number of people I have known have been kicked out of their so-called christian households because of what they did. This is the christian's god's love. Kick our family members with whom you disagree.
The thing is I have not seen anything as hate filled as religious literature.
At first Apple wanted apps through safari. This might have been good as the Apps would work on any device, and Apple would have no lockin. But developers and users wanted native apps. So we have the App store, with lockin, and large cuts for Apple.
So what do we have now. Natives Apps that run in he browser. If lockin and Apple rules are such an issue, then why no run he app in a browser? Probably because most develpers like the lockin and he profit opportunities i provides. They my bitch about Apple, but they are not exacty running away.
When I was young, and visiting outside the US, I noticed nearly all the adults has calling cards for personal use. When I grew up I occasionally used them, but they were not the fad in he US. I occasionally used hem, but not often. Since information was not as consolidated as it is now, these were important tools for social ineracion.
I also remember when cards were about legitimacy, not just information. Cards costs non-trivial amounts of money to acquire. Unless one was Jim Rockford with a printing press in the back of the care, business cards was an indication one was a serious presence. Now even professionally run cards less than a meal at a bad restaurant.
I would prefer an email address. There are one button solution. Email a vcard.
Dont be melodramatic. The rights we assign to minors are different from the rights we assign to adults. That is because the responsibilities are different. Most of the time minors have to be in school. They do not have the freedom to choose schools(their parents do) nor do they necessarily have the right to associate freely in school. They don't have the right to bear arms(again their parents do), the list goes on.
Kids do thing because they don't know not to, and, at older ages, because the consequences of being an adult are not in play. Therefore one thing school can do to help kids thrive as adults is to teach effective problem solving and mildly counter behavior that will not be not so mildly countered when they are adults. Abuse is one such behavior.
Verbal abuse is typically not tolerated, especially if it is persistant. The thing about verbal is it is often hearsay, hard to prove. A posting on facebook or a text message is not. It is in print. The fact patterns can be easily proven. Such things can cost a person their job, their family, their freedom. It is up to the schools to teach kids this.
What I would say is the schools might focus more on problem solving that does not involve verbal or physical assault. For the most part we solve our problems by yelling and fighting. Facebook is another way to lash out at person. Doing this occasionally is probably normal and may make the writer feel better, but does not really solve any problems. For big problems there has to be real solution.
The thing is that most of this comes from what rational adults would consider small problems. Someone not being friends anymore.. Someone bumming another person. In adolescence breaking up. For children these are traumatic events and without coping skills can turn into major fights. We can let kids just vent on facebook, which is the easy way, or we can teach coping skills. Skills that will allow the person as an adult to maneuver through job, family, normal social interactions with maximum fluidity. We do want children to grow up to be successful adults, and not hide harmful behind the law.
I think there is a difference between computer as plot device and computer as character and computer as magic. As a plot device, as it was used in Hackers it was quite inoffensive. I like the way they coupled the phones rather than using magic routing to hide the location. It was a valid plot device, like the Enterprise in ST:TOS.
Computer as magic, I really have no opinion one way or another. It is lazy writing, and has nothing to do with the computer. This is Independence day.
The computer as an integral part of the story is War Games and Jumpin Jack Flash are good examples of the form. A not so good one is Leverage. It is my opinion that they misused Data in ST:NG
With charity there is just too much risk with using agents. Even if they are legitimate, there is not way to know how much money will end up in the hands of people that need help. The Red Cross/Red Crescent, MSF, or the like will tend to get help to the people who need it.
What I hear most charities say is that people should give regularly so the agencies will have the resources to handle these emergency.
Nothing is free. When someone gives you something for free, they are lying to you. There are always tangible and intangible benefits that tend to negate the freeness. We have free food programs so we don't have to think about the people who don't have enough to eat, and so that our stuff is safer because people without food will be less likely to steal(outside of self righteous morality, one option to get basics is always theft). In the US we have free education so that it is more likely out kids can increase the standard of living by leveraging technology to get more stuff out of the same or fewer resources. Someone has to pay for the Twitter servers, and those that do will eventually a return on investment, and not just a single digit multiplier. Google does not provide maps because they are company that will do not evil. All of us should know we trade ourselves for servies.
This type of data mining is not something that bothers me. I think it should be more in the open, and maybe regulated to protect the average consumer, but it is not horrible. What I find horrible is places like Krogers and CVS that offer products far above prevailing prices and require one to have a card that will allow them to track and collect huge amounts of private data. Sure, we don't have to shop at CVS or Krogers, and sure they provide the occasional really good deal, but if i were to regulate something it would be these scams, not services that actually provide a useful service in exchange for data.
I have often wondered if packaging movies what a major profit center for Flash, and this is why there is so much competition for alternative movie encapsulation schemes. For instance, Silverlight provides similar functionality but encapsulating movies for Netflix seems to be it's claim to fame.
About the only other advantage that Flash has is that most browser will run Flash content without explicit permissions, and the Flash setting do not allow the opportunity for the user to hold Flash content until wanted. Of course, most browsers have Flash Block as a plugin, and sliverlight does not have such a plugin, so this may mean that Silverlight will win that part, that is the ad part, of the market in the coming year.
So here is my question. Without movies, without ads, is there actually enough of a market for Flash to support development? And outside of these markets, are there actually a large number of applications that genuinely could not be done using open standards and non proprietary tools. That is, as much as some would like to say that Flash is not about movie DRM and ads, is such an assertion really true.
Pretty much there is attack on the public ownership of the airwaves. Certain highly lucrative segments of radio spectrum are owned by the public with a little taxpayer support. These radio stations are funded mostly by private contributions, and meet a public need of publicly controlled radio. This is a problem because corporate control would result in large profits for individuals. The lack of corporate control really irks certain people.
I do not have an issue with reallocating bandwidth What I have a problem with is using backhanded methods to take spectrum away from the public and give it to corporate interests. The reality is that spectrum used for TV and radio were given away when the value of the spectrum was minimal. This give away was the proper thing to do at the time. Corporate interests developed the value of the spectrum, and made the world a better place.
However the world is not different and radio and TV are not necessarily the most efficient use of this spectrum. We see this because of the efforts to take the spectrum away from the public and give it to private individuals. This is not a economically rational solution as it removes taxpayer assets without an equal renumeration to the public purse.
If we need to reallocate spectrum, we need to put all spectrum on the table. We need to allocate a certain amount of spectrum to for the public to use in emergency situations, i.e. ham radio. We need to allocate a certain amount of spectrum to emergency services. We need to take reserve a certain amount of spectrum to publicly controlled radio and tv station. The three steps are needed to insure that out public resources remain public. We do not sell all land to private interest, some remains with the public, and so should be our airwaves.
Then we should take all remaining spectrum and use the free market to reallocate it. Private interests that already own spectrum will be given every opportunity to own that spectrum, but if another party can show that they can do better with it, and pay for it, then there is way, within a free market, to justify giving away resources to a private firm that will not maximize the exploitation of that resource. If Google can use the spectrum to provide broadband that we can stream music over, why should we allow some private to waste the public resource to be yet another radio station playing top 40 music.
Even if a conviction is made, I don't see how the state has the right to push for such data. Just because one is convicted a felony does not mean that we lose all our rights, only certain ones. For instance, a person who is convicted of felony vehicular manslaughter does not necessarily lose their right to drive forever. Niether should we lose our privacy forever just because we bounced a check. If the rules of evidence demands a DNA sample, and a judge agrees, then sure. Even so, I think we are on the slippery slope when we routinely keep the samples.
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Can we say a firm afraid to lose it's printing press? It is natural and even desirable for businesses to go away when they are unwilling to acknowledge that the time of the buggy whip is past and new forms need to be explored. I kind of applaud them for have a $4 and $5 a week option, but when compared with the $7.5 a week option with home sunday delivery, it seems kind of pricey. With the millions of ads on their web pages, and not having to set the pages, and not having to print the pages, I can't believe that a $2.50 plan is not possible. Sure the expenses of the physical paper still exist, but those should be paid by the readers of the physical paper. They are the one's paying $800 a year for delivery of the dead tree edition.
I like the financials time model better. It is simple and understandable. It is basically the same price, but the levels are clearer and it does not differentiate mobile viewing so much
Which is to say that the first post-switch keyboards were horrible, and not just because we were used to typewriters. However, over time the design got better and we got used to lack of feedback.
I don't know what can be done with onscreen keyboards to make them better, but I look at moden keyboards and would have never thought of the current designs, so I think there might be hope. It will be a combination of people getting used to the new design, of people who hate the new design dying out, and better design. Just like everything else.
I am partial o HP Computers. I have one that is 5 years old that is still good for basic tasks. These, though, cost $1000, so it will be cheaper to buy WIndows 7, home premium $200.
As far as who will hack it, it may be more than we think. People who have no clue how o install an OS are hacking the iPhone. Of course, a many average users are incapable of following simple instructions, or conceptualizing how a computer works, so they will not be hacking.
This is just one of those short sighted things we do because missiles are more exciting that basic science. A generation of US scientists should be considered loss as a result, and a generation of people able to teach the next generation about science is lost as well. How many billions of dollars is being spent to bootstrap science programs based on pictures in books when we could have have science based on real world experience.
Then one day Apple decided open source and corporate goals no longer meshed. The Apple justification sounds rather similar to the Google justification. That if the code was realeased then people would put it on non-authorized hardware and the user experience would be degraded. The OS was only meant to run on certain hardware, and the substandard stuff that some would chose to put it on would hurt the reputation of the firm.
There was speculation that the source would pretty much become closed long before it essentially did, but fanbois would not hear of it. No Apple would never offend the OSS community. Furthermore, even if it did, the old code would still be out there and some updates would occur, so the modders and developers could still play with it even if they did not have the absolutely latest point release.
It is clear that Google Android is their property. The fact that they sue people who try to make Android phones but do not pay the tribute proves this. The fact that Google removes Apps from Android devices without the end user permissions proves this. So that they would close thier version of Android is unsuprising.
It is clear that Google never had a clear plan to limit the power of the mobile service providers. Their initial plan to sell a phone without service was a non starter because almost no US mobile providers wants to work that way, and the US consumer is used to paying for the phone over time. So they are continuing to cave to the service providers, and Honeycomb is just the end result of this. It has nothing to do with screen sizes, it has to do with Google and telco control. Honeycomb will be the Android accepted on the mobile phone network, it will be written to run on all mobile devices, and it will only be liscensed to those that agree to build phones not to maximize the end user experience, but to maximize the revenue of Google and the mobile service provider.
After that I would take a look at several serials from later doctors. For instance for Troughton the Wheel in Space or the Krotons. For Pertwee Carnival of Monsters. For Baker The Talons of Weng-Chiang or City of Death. And so on. You may like to look at different companions/assistants as well.
Each Doctor has a different feel, and by looking at the various doctors you will find a few favorites. Then you can look for episodes that feature your favorite Doctor or Companion. A limiting factor on this may be available episodes, though Netflix and Itunes has a good selection.
The current incarnation there is no reason to not start with the current series. The last christmas episode, in my mind was quite strong. If you stick with Matt Smith, there is really no reason to go back. If you want to go back further, then start with Eccleston and the relaunch "Rose". There is quite a bit of history and buildup during the first few seasons. I something think the purposefully cut the series apart when they hires Smith. It seems they did this couple times in the before when they felt they were getting bogged down.
One thing with the first twenty some odd series is that they are classic tv. They expected people to sit there and wait for the story to develop. Sometime it is strained when they required a 6 part serial and the 4th and 5th part are clearly filler. There is a lot of corridor acting, of various quality. If one serial is not to your liking, there is probably another that is more dramatic or whatever you want. It can get a bit Shakespearian. But many are really well made TV. Remember the original serials were serials, meant to be wants in small chunks.
Just like the WSJ, and FT, this simply means that I won't be pointing any tweets to the NYT. No traffic driven to the site, no ad revenue. Maybe the $300 a year they want for an ipad subscription will generate sufficient revenue.
For Google to get android out so quickly it had to copy the iPhone and other existing model instead of innovating. The one innovation on the smartphone, the open model to the end user, and the keyboard, are not roaring successes. The end user does not have right to keep Apps on the Android if Google wants to delete them, mobile phone vendors are locking the phone, and many models do not have the keyboard. Multitouch with is an non-obvious innovation was lifted from Apple instead of created independently.
This is not to say that the lawsuits are good or bad, just that HTC had a relationship with MS that could have lead to some IP contamination, and Apple clearly has some traction in assertion that it invented a device with others are using without permissions. In this case, neither Apple or MS are patent trolls since they both have unique products that they market. OTOH, the android devices are neither unique or innovative.
What I can't understand is if the mobile version and web version still have ads, and the printing costs are eliminated, and distribution costs are all but eliminated, why they need to choose the $180 price point a year instead of the $99 price point. I can see $200 on the iPad, with more limited ads.
It is the nature of an enterprise to try to maximize profit. The NYT, and The Daily, and WSJ, all are trying to maximize the value of a product. However, I can see publications like HufPo, using the overestimation of value of the other rags as an opportunity to put them out of business. I have no ill will for the NYT, I have subscribed to the digital editions when they were more reasonably priced. I think they will find few customers at this price point.
Likewise, if I am on the stand, I cannot be compelled to provide evidence against myself. The police cannot use extreme measures to force me to provide evidence against myself.
We are in a panic about drunk driving. Reasonable methods to fight drunk driving is to patrol the areas normally traveled by drunk drivers, stop vehicles that exhibit dangerous behaviors, then give then a ticket for such behavior. If the are show evidence of drunkenness, then charge them, take them to jail, and run a blood alcohol test. if they are drunk put in them in jail for 30 days, or whatever. This is the constitutional method to solve the problem.
Unfortunately, the religious right who makes a habit of spitting on the constitution, want to make not drunk driving illegal, but drinking illegal. They want these checkpoint to infringe on the legal activity of law abiding citizens. They think that everyone should be forced, even at gunpoint, to follow all the social norms they believe are correct.
OTOH, the lawmakers, as we recall from our previous president, don't see much wrong with drunk and reckless driving, and are not willing to punish the people who actually pose a threat on the road. Therefore they play these game of minimal penalties for driver who really pose no threat, while remaining unwilling to remove licenses and give jail time to those that do pose a threat.
In many more conservative parts of the country, such checkpoint has been ruled unconstitutional. Perhaps ironically as the spectrum has moved from fiscal conservatives to social conservatives, the basic tennets of liberty and rule of law has been pushed aside to allow for control of the population by a fanatical and dangerous religious minority. The opposition to this App is an indication of the power of such a force imposing sharia law. Citizens have the freedom to go where they wish on the public roads. Citizens have the right to communicate as the wish over private networks. If such travel or communication is illegal, such things are dealt with by pressing charges for the crime after the fact, not prior restraint. No rational person in the US would deny the constitution guarantees these rights. If it was guns, there would be no issue. We do not have checkpoints for guns. But the religious nuts wants everyone to be unhappy just because they are unhappy.
MS tried to splinter the web with IE and proprietary standards. It failed. Many said that Apple would splinter the web with the lack of Flash on iPhone, but major parts of the web away from that proprietary standard. The parts of the web that do not work on mobile browsers tend to have Apps. The next major attempt at splintering will be the proliferation of paywalls. I don't think these wil success either.
I do not care about the t-mobile thing because I never considered T-Mobile as a viable competitor. For the most part there are two main level competitors, ATT and Verizon. The choice depends on the service level and use. This will not be effected. Below these two was basically Sprint and T-Mobile. IMHO, if rates are going to effected it will be Sprint raising the rates no that T-Mobile is not longer in the market. Sprint will now dominate the market for people who are looking for less expensive service.
The reason that I think the T-Mobile deal might go through it that it will open up market opportunities for the value companies such as Boost and Cricket. A bunch of T-Mobile customers, who don't want to pay the rates of ATT or Verizon, and aren't well served by Sprint, may go to these other companies. The consumer will only be served by the growth of these value companies. I think Sprint is objective so vehemently because it knows it is going to get squeezed in this new market realities. I believe that Sprint has proven itself to be a firm who can compete. It is the only company that has survived and thrived from the long distance opening.
These practical experiments will give the conceptual basis of what will be tested if the kids ever take an AP Science exam. They do not need to be fancy. Heat water measure rate of change. Build a gravity accelerated race track, film the cars, and analyze using free video analysis software. Run 1mw laser though pieces of plastic. And, the most important experiement of all, give them measuring instruments, let them measure things around the room, and then compare results. They will be amazed at how different everyone's mesasurements are. At that age, mean, mode, median, and rage are valid math concepts.
As far as online goes. Look for any and all animated experiments. PHET has many of them. You can download videos of experiments, or have the kids make them, and make scatter plots relating various variables using Tracker Video Analysis. The construction of these graphs meet many objects for high school math and science. I have found online sources to simulate any experiment that I want to do. Most of these are accesible to almost any age group by simply by adjusiting pre-lab instruction and post-lab assessment
Just like in any expeiment, the pre- and post-lab are the thing. Most kids will lean very little from a lab without a pre- and post-lab. Doing the lab is only going to be so successful. The required analysis of what the student has observed is a key learning process. In any lab, online or not, know the concepts that are to be taught, and how they will be reinforced and assesed. For instance on PHET you can make resistors catch fire. Why do they catch fire? Will they catch fire faster if the resistance is increased of the potential or current. This creates an exciting learning activity.
I would like such an app. In my town we have several so-called christian churches that tell families if they give money god will bless them. This of course is the heresy that prompted all protestant faiths. A number of people I have known have been kicked out of their so-called christian households because of what they did. This is the christian's god's love. Kick our family members with whom you disagree.
The thing is I have not seen anything as hate filled as religious literature.
So what do we have now. Natives Apps that run in he browser. If lockin and Apple rules are such an issue, then why no run he app in a browser? Probably because most develpers like the lockin and he profit opportunities i provides. They my bitch about Apple, but they are not exacty running away.
I also remember when cards were about legitimacy, not just information. Cards costs non-trivial amounts of money to acquire. Unless one was Jim Rockford with a printing press in the back of the care, business cards was an indication one was a serious presence. Now even professionally run cards less than a meal at a bad restaurant.
I would prefer an email address. There are one button solution. Email a vcard.
Kids do thing because they don't know not to, and, at older ages, because the consequences of being an adult are not in play. Therefore one thing school can do to help kids thrive as adults is to teach effective problem solving and mildly counter behavior that will not be not so mildly countered when they are adults. Abuse is one such behavior.
Verbal abuse is typically not tolerated, especially if it is persistant. The thing about verbal is it is often hearsay, hard to prove. A posting on facebook or a text message is not. It is in print. The fact patterns can be easily proven. Such things can cost a person their job, their family, their freedom. It is up to the schools to teach kids this.
What I would say is the schools might focus more on problem solving that does not involve verbal or physical assault. For the most part we solve our problems by yelling and fighting. Facebook is another way to lash out at person. Doing this occasionally is probably normal and may make the writer feel better, but does not really solve any problems. For big problems there has to be real solution.
The thing is that most of this comes from what rational adults would consider small problems. Someone not being friends anymore.. Someone bumming another person. In adolescence breaking up. For children these are traumatic events and without coping skills can turn into major fights. We can let kids just vent on facebook, which is the easy way, or we can teach coping skills. Skills that will allow the person as an adult to maneuver through job, family, normal social interactions with maximum fluidity. We do want children to grow up to be successful adults, and not hide harmful behind the law.
I think there is a difference between computer as plot device and computer as character and computer as magic. As a plot device, as it was used in Hackers it was quite inoffensive. I like the way they coupled the phones rather than using magic routing to hide the location. It was a valid plot device, like the Enterprise in ST:TOS.
Computer as magic, I really have no opinion one way or another. It is lazy writing, and has nothing to do with the computer. This is Independence day.
The computer as an integral part of the story is War Games and Jumpin Jack Flash are good examples of the form. A not so good one is Leverage. It is my opinion that they misused Data in ST:NG
What I hear most charities say is that people should give regularly so the agencies will have the resources to handle these emergency.
This type of data mining is not something that bothers me. I think it should be more in the open, and maybe regulated to protect the average consumer, but it is not horrible. What I find horrible is places like Krogers and CVS that offer products far above prevailing prices and require one to have a card that will allow them to track and collect huge amounts of private data. Sure, we don't have to shop at CVS or Krogers, and sure they provide the occasional really good deal, but if i were to regulate something it would be these scams, not services that actually provide a useful service in exchange for data.
About the only other advantage that Flash has is that most browser will run Flash content without explicit permissions, and the Flash setting do not allow the opportunity for the user to hold Flash content until wanted. Of course, most browsers have Flash Block as a plugin, and sliverlight does not have such a plugin, so this may mean that Silverlight will win that part, that is the ad part, of the market in the coming year.
So here is my question. Without movies, without ads, is there actually enough of a market for Flash to support development? And outside of these markets, are there actually a large number of applications that genuinely could not be done using open standards and non proprietary tools. That is, as much as some would like to say that Flash is not about movie DRM and ads, is such an assertion really true.
I do not have an issue with reallocating bandwidth What I have a problem with is using backhanded methods to take spectrum away from the public and give it to corporate interests. The reality is that spectrum used for TV and radio were given away when the value of the spectrum was minimal. This give away was the proper thing to do at the time. Corporate interests developed the value of the spectrum, and made the world a better place.
However the world is not different and radio and TV are not necessarily the most efficient use of this spectrum. We see this because of the efforts to take the spectrum away from the public and give it to private individuals. This is not a economically rational solution as it removes taxpayer assets without an equal renumeration to the public purse.
If we need to reallocate spectrum, we need to put all spectrum on the table. We need to allocate a certain amount of spectrum to for the public to use in emergency situations, i.e. ham radio. We need to allocate a certain amount of spectrum to emergency services. We need to take reserve a certain amount of spectrum to publicly controlled radio and tv station. The three steps are needed to insure that out public resources remain public. We do not sell all land to private interest, some remains with the public, and so should be our airwaves.
Then we should take all remaining spectrum and use the free market to reallocate it. Private interests that already own spectrum will be given every opportunity to own that spectrum, but if another party can show that they can do better with it, and pay for it, then there is way, within a free market, to justify giving away resources to a private firm that will not maximize the exploitation of that resource. If Google can use the spectrum to provide broadband that we can stream music over, why should we allow some private to waste the public resource to be yet another radio station playing top 40 music.
A dingo. Spare me the annoying ads on the iPad.
Even if a conviction is made, I don't see how the state has the right to push for such data. Just because one is convicted a felony does not mean that we lose all our rights, only certain ones. For instance, a person who is convicted of felony vehicular manslaughter does not necessarily lose their right to drive forever. Niether should we lose our privacy forever just because we bounced a check. If the rules of evidence demands a DNA sample, and a judge agrees, then sure. Even so, I think we are on the slippery slope when we routinely keep the samples.