But don't forget: for many (most?) people, the ebook reader is an *additional* device. You probably already have a laptop, you already have shelves of books, I would not be surprised if you had an itouch, or pda, or something like that.
So you already have all these ways to read a book, does it make sense to spend hundreds of dollars on yet another device? Does it make sense to have another thing to carry around? For most people, I would say no.
Maybe the ebook is, in some ways, marginally better for reading a book; I doubt that makes it worth all the trouble and expense.
There was an acer em250 selling at walmart for $228. Only slightly more expensive than an ebook reader, but it was a complete computer - capable of doing about 100X more than a netbook.
Versatility: all pure ebook readers suck. They only really do *one* thing, and they cost more than a netbook. I can use an itouch, ipad, netbook, or whatever to play games, surf the internet, watch movies, listen to music, and run all sorts of applications.
Cost: considering their extremely limited functionality, all pure ebook reader are *way* overpriced. Just buy books, or go to the library, or use the PC, or net device that you have anyway.
Portability: I suppose a PDA, itouch, or iphone would win. If you are okay with reading an entire book on a screen that is smaller than the surface of a credit card.
Battery life: not even an issue with a real book, or a home PC.
Easy to read: home PC - no contest. Although just reading a real book is not bad.
Storage: home PC - no contest. Real books lose badly. Then again: do many people really need hundreds, or thousands, or books with them at any given time?
Durability. Real books win easily. Try throwing your laptop, ebook reader, or whatever off the top of a six story building, or running it over with your car.
Kim Walesh, chief strategist in San Jose's Office of Economic Development, said the report "really nailed" the valley's increasing need for a healthy educational system. Because of post-9/11 restrictions on immigration and increased opportunities in India and China, the valley can't rely on foreign talent as it has in the past 25 years.
Similar articles come out practically every day. They all have the same message: US education system is inadequate, we need the "best and brightest" from offshore nations. Funny thing: the "best and brightest" always come from nations where the average wage is about $1 a day. No smart people in the UK, Germany, or any 1st world nation.
Strange how the country that build that IT industry is no longer capable of producing IT workers. No qualified IT workers from the country responsible for Cisco, Apple, Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, Yahoo, Google, eBay, Amazon, Intel, Dell, etc. No good scientists from a country where one top university holds more Nobel prizes in technology than the entire nation of India.
Remember the massive tech layoffs from one year ago? Practically all the major tech companies fired Americans by the thousands, if not tens of thousands. Yet with all of those unemployed, yet highly qualifed, US techies we need more offshore labor to take even more US jobs. Even with the highest unemployment since the great depression.
BTW: US restrictions on guest workers were a complete toothless joke, and US companies got all the H1Bs they wanted anyway.
Why is he all in a wad over this? He alleged concerns make no sense when his past actions are taken into account - unless he has some hidden agenda. He sees no problem with selling mysql to Sun, and then has a hissy fit about mysql being sold to oracle. Something is not adding up.
Some have suggested that he wants to double-dip. How would he do this? And why would mysql being sold to oracle make any difference?
His present hysteria about the future of postgresql does not make sense to me either. Is there not always the possibility of top FOSS developers being bought out, regardless of who owns mysql? I mean if you want to get all hysterical about improbable "what if" scenarios, then what if some company bought the top postgresql developers, and top mysql developers?
MXLogic uses PostgreSQL as their major production database. I know of some other luggage company in Denver that uses PostgreSQL, but I forget the name of the company.
Occam's razor: off-shore labor is a lot cheaper, therefore employers will off-shore every possible job. If you do your job sitting in front of a computer, then your job can probably be off-shored - if not now, then certainly in the near future.
Furthermore, the simple laws of supply and demand dictate that the few jobs that are not off-shored, will have a glut of qualified applicants. The experienced developers who have their jobs off-shored, will clearly try to leverage their existing training and experience into the few remaining IT jobs that can not be easily off-shored. This causes a glut, and drives down wages.
The IT worker glut will be increased even more by improved automation of information system maintenance, standardization of software, and non-IT specialists who are increasingly sophisticated with information technology.
There can be nothing to stop this devastating trend, due to the following:
1) Corrupt USA politicians 2) USA IT workers are not willing to organize 3) Influential corporations have effectively distorted the issues
So there you go, it's as simple as that.
IMO: this trend is presently in it's infancy. The present trend has very little to do with the present economic slump. In fact, when the US economy recovers, this trend will accelerate even faster. The present situation for US IT workers is much better now, than it will be five years from now.
Within the last few days, slashdot has published internet censorship stories from all these countries.
All of those countries may have differernt motovations, and use different tactics, but the results are similar.
January 01, 2010 China Reaffirms Plans to "Purify" the Internet
> Says crackdown on online pornography is part of overall effort to preserve "national long-term stability," build a "harmonious socialist society," and prevent the "poisoning of young people's physical and mental health," but most likely is all about strengthening its grip on the what could be a dangerous conduit for threatening images and ideas.
January 03, 2010 Your Rights Online: Google Sets Censorship Precedent In India
> "Censorship varies from country to country but India, home to a sixth of the world's population, appears to be shaping up much like China. Not far behind everyone else, Google has increasingly censored websites with an incident where a very popular politician died and Google forcibly deleted and dissolved a group on Orkut where offensive comments about the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh were posted. An official from India's Ministry of Communications and Information Technology said, 'If you are doing business here, you should follow the local law, the sentiments of the people, the culture of the country. If somebody starts abusing Lord Rama on a Web site, that could start riots.' The lengthy opinion piece calls attention to the beginnings of a definitive lack of free speech online for Indian citizens. A spokeswoman for the 'Do No Evil' company explained, 'India does value free speech and political speech. But they are weighing the harm of free speech against violence in their streets.'"
In the USA, I think corporations are behind the censorship. Unethical corporations, and sometimes individuals (possibly backed by corporations), use various legal tricks, and harassment techniques, to remove websites that are not favorable to the interests of those corporations. Sometimes the same corporations have methods of flooding the media with propaganda that is favorable to their interests, or lanching smear campaigns against competiors.
For example, I seem to remember somebody with the initials JVM getting a certain blog removed, and possible arranging a major whitewash on wikipedia. And of course we all remember the harassment of PJ.
Then there was the case of the judge that had three websites removed. I may not care for him personally, but I think the APEX v. tunnelrat case raises some serious issues:
1) When is it right for a judge to expose an anonymous blogger?
2) When is it right for a judge to order a website to be taken down, and personal property (domain name) to be compensated?'
3) Is it illegal to publicly display legal contracts?
4) Does a judge in NJ have jurisdiction over of website that is not hosted in NJ, or owned by a NJ resident?
I don't care what APEX is telling us, or what the court is telling us. The APEX scam is clearly a case of a company bullying a blogger in order to hide information that company finds embarrassing, and maybe even illegal.
January 1, 2010: China: Reaffirms Plans to "Purify" the Internet
Says crackdown on online pornography is part of overall effort to preserve "national long-term stability," build a "harmonious socialist society," and prevent the "poisoning of young people's physical and mental health," but most likely is all about strengthening its grip on the what could be a dangerous conduit for threatening images and ideas.
As part of that effort it says that it intends to create a "blacklist" that will provide "timely information about foreign propaganda, radio and television, publishing and other areas for their disposal."
Massive offshoring, and importing of guest workers, has driven the salaries of many STEM workers below a living wage. US citizens are pushed aside to make room for the flood of offshore workers. Needless to say, this situation discourages Americans from pursuing a STEM career. Smart Americans are studying to go into finance, or something. If the US has not already lost it's technology edge, it soon will.
Might also be worth mentioning that India is extremely protectionist about their own jobs. A few months back, Indians were actually rioting in the street about jobs, in India, being given to Chinese guest workers.
India complaining about US protectionism is like Al-Qaeda complaining about there not being enough peace in the world.
If trains can travel that fast safely. Then it seems we could cut down air traffic considerably. NYC to Atalanta is only about 800 miles, if I could get there by train in four hours, a airplane would offer no time advantage.
If the difference in fuel efficiency is considerable, then maybe the US should consider building something like that?
I'll bet there's a crack-pipe, or something, in about a third of those cars.
Remember when Giuliani started cracking down on subway turnstile jumpers? Lots of people said "why bother." Then it turned it out that a lot of those scofflaws had arrest warrants out on them.
I don't know, but I have heard that doctors love a system of badly filed, illegibly scrawled, notes - a system that only they can understand. Doctors do not want a system where data can be easily transfered, or easily reviewed. Doctor's want to protect their turf, and they want to be immune from any possibly legalities.
Whenever I see a "study" in a pop-media publication, my first thought is: who funded this, and why? IMO, there is usually some agenda involved.
Historically, it has not been all that long that formal credentials have been required for physicians, nurses, lawyers, engineers, accountants, teachers, scientists, architects, etc.
I'll bet that when degrees were first required, for any of those professions, the self trained in those professions were screaming and crying about how they don't need a piece of paper to prove anything, and about how those with formal credentials often had inferior skills.
If software developers don't need formal credentials, then why does anybody else? Why not do away with requirements for all formal training of any kind? Instead, when you go to a new doctor, you can give him, or her, a technical interview. Wouldn't that make more sense?
Slashdot Mirror
- Absolutely no issues with battery life
- By the far most durable: drop from three floor building, step on them, some have lasted for centuries, maybe more
But don't forget: for many (most?) people, the ebook reader is an *additional* device. You probably already have a laptop, you already have shelves of books, I would not be surprised if you had an itouch, or pda, or something like that.
So you already have all these ways to read a book, does it make sense to spend hundreds of dollars on yet another device? Does it make sense to have another thing to carry around? For most people, I would say no.
Maybe the ebook is, in some ways, marginally better for reading a book; I doubt that makes it worth all the trouble and expense.
There was an acer em250 selling at walmart for $228. Only slightly more expensive than an ebook reader, but it was a complete computer - capable of doing about 100X more than a netbook.
Versatility: all pure ebook readers suck. They only really do *one* thing, and they cost more than a netbook. I can use an itouch, ipad, netbook, or whatever to play games, surf the internet, watch movies, listen to music, and run all sorts of applications.
Cost: considering their extremely limited functionality, all pure ebook reader are *way* overpriced. Just buy books, or go to the library, or use the PC, or net device that you have anyway.
Portability: I suppose a PDA, itouch, or iphone would win. If you are okay with reading an entire book on a screen that is smaller than the surface of a credit card.
Battery life: not even an issue with a real book, or a home PC.
Easy to read: home PC - no contest. Although just reading a real book is not bad.
Storage: home PC - no contest. Real books lose badly. Then again: do many people really need hundreds, or thousands, or books with them at any given time?
Durability. Real books win easily. Try throwing your laptop, ebook reader, or whatever off the top of a six story building, or running it over with your car.
Kim Walesh, chief strategist in San Jose's Office of Economic Development, said the report "really nailed" the valley's increasing need for a healthy educational system. Because of post-9/11 restrictions on immigration and increased opportunities in India and China, the valley can't rely on foreign talent as it has in the past 25 years.
Similar articles come out practically every day. They all have the same message: US education system is inadequate, we need the "best and brightest" from offshore nations. Funny thing: the "best and brightest" always come from nations where the average wage is about $1 a day. No smart people in the UK, Germany, or any 1st world nation.
Strange how the country that build that IT industry is no longer capable of producing IT workers. No qualified IT workers from the country responsible for Cisco, Apple, Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, Yahoo, Google, eBay, Amazon, Intel, Dell, etc. No good scientists from a country where one top university holds more Nobel prizes in technology than the entire nation of India.
Remember the massive tech layoffs from one year ago? Practically all the major tech companies fired Americans by the thousands, if not tens of thousands. Yet with all of those unemployed, yet highly qualifed, US techies we need more offshore labor to take even more US jobs. Even with the highest unemployment since the great depression.
BTW: US restrictions on guest workers were a complete toothless joke, and US companies got all the H1Bs they wanted anyway.
It runs Linux. I think it's been shipping since last summer.
http://www.alwaysinnovating.com/touchbook/
Take the phone away from an iPhone, and you have an iTouch. Make an iTouch bigger, and you have an iPad.
Is that basically the way it works?
Comcast will not accept an non-IE browser. So, I suppose it does make to stay with msie, at least it's accepted by more websites.
Why is he all in a wad over this? He alleged concerns make no sense when his past actions are taken into account - unless he has some hidden agenda. He sees no problem with selling mysql to Sun, and then has a hissy fit about mysql being sold to oracle. Something is not adding up.
Some have suggested that he wants to double-dip. How would he do this? And why would mysql being sold to oracle make any difference?
His present hysteria about the future of postgresql does not make sense to me either. Is there not always the possibility of top FOSS developers being bought out, regardless of who owns mysql? I mean if you want to get all hysterical about improbable "what if" scenarios, then what if some company bought the top postgresql developers, and top mysql developers?
I'm just trying to understand this.
MXLogic uses PostgreSQL as their major production database. I know of some other luggage company in Denver that uses PostgreSQL, but I forget the name of the company.
Occam's razor: off-shore labor is a lot cheaper, therefore employers will off-shore every possible job. If you do your job sitting in front of a computer, then your job can probably be off-shored - if not now, then certainly in the near future.
Furthermore, the simple laws of supply and demand dictate that the few jobs that are not off-shored, will have a glut of qualified applicants. The experienced developers who have their jobs off-shored, will clearly try to leverage their existing training and experience into the few remaining IT jobs that can not be easily off-shored. This causes a glut, and drives down wages.
The IT worker glut will be increased even more by improved automation of information system maintenance, standardization of software, and non-IT specialists who are increasingly sophisticated with information technology.
There can be nothing to stop this devastating trend, due to the following:
1) Corrupt USA politicians
2) USA IT workers are not willing to organize
3) Influential corporations have effectively distorted the issues
So there you go, it's as simple as that.
IMO: this trend is presently in it's infancy. The present trend has very little to do with the present economic slump. In fact, when the US economy recovers, this trend will accelerate even faster. The present situation for US IT workers is much better now, than it will be five years from now.
http://techtoil.org/wiki/doku.php?id=articles:no-brainer
Within the last few days, slashdot has published internet censorship stories from all these countries.
All of those countries may have differernt motovations, and use different tactics, but the results are similar.
January 01, 2010
China Reaffirms Plans to "Purify" the Internet
> Says crackdown on online pornography is part of overall effort to preserve "national long-term stability," build a "harmonious socialist society," and prevent the "poisoning of young people's physical and mental health," but most likely is all about strengthening its grip on the what could be a dangerous conduit for threatening images and ideas.
http://www.zeropaid.com/news/87485/china-reaffirms-plans-to-purify-the-internet/
January 03, 2010
Your Rights Online: Google Sets Censorship Precedent In India
> "Censorship varies from country to country but India, home to a sixth of the world's population, appears to be shaping up much like China. Not far behind everyone else, Google has increasingly censored websites with an incident where a very popular politician died and Google forcibly deleted and dissolved a group on Orkut where offensive comments about the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh were posted. An official from India's Ministry of Communications and Information Technology said, 'If you are doing business here, you should follow the local law, the sentiments of the people, the culture of the country. If somebody starts abusing Lord Rama on a Web site, that could start riots.' The lengthy opinion piece calls attention to the beginnings of a definitive lack of free speech online for Indian citizens. A spokeswoman for the 'Do No Evil' company explained, 'India does value free speech and political speech. But they are weighing the harm of free speech against violence in their streets.'"
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/01/03/0123216/Google-Sets-Censorship-Precedent-In-India
In the USA, I think corporations are behind the censorship. Unethical corporations, and sometimes individuals (possibly backed by corporations), use various legal tricks, and harassment techniques, to remove websites that are not favorable to the interests of those corporations. Sometimes the same corporations have methods of flooding the media with propaganda that is favorable to their interests, or lanching smear campaigns against competiors.
For example, I seem to remember somebody with the initials JVM getting a certain blog removed, and possible arranging a major whitewash on wikipedia. And of course we all remember the harassment of PJ.
Then there was the case of the judge that had three websites removed. I may not care for him personally, but I think the APEX v. tunnelrat case raises some serious issues:
1) When is it right for a judge to expose an anonymous blogger?
2) When is it right for a judge to order a website to be taken down, and personal property (domain name) to be compensated?'
3) Is it illegal to publicly display legal contracts?
4) Does a judge in NJ have jurisdiction over of website that is not hosted in NJ, or owned by a NJ resident?
I don't care what APEX is telling us, or what the court is telling us. The APEX scam is clearly a case of a company bullying a blogger in order to hide information that company finds embarrassing, and maybe even illegal.
The case has been covered on several other sites.
Court orders three H-1B sites disabled
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9142806/Court_orders_three_H_1B_sites_disabled
Legal action PR nightmare
http://www.techgoss.com/Story/2109S14-Legal-action-PR-nightmare.aspx
Your Rights Online: Court Orde
It is not just porn that China is censoring.
January 1, 2010:
China: Reaffirms Plans to "Purify" the Internet
Says crackdown on online pornography is part of overall effort to preserve "national long-term stability," build a "harmonious socialist society," and prevent the "poisoning of young people's physical and mental health," but most likely is all about strengthening its grip on the what could be a dangerous conduit for threatening images and ideas.
As part of that effort it says that it intends to create a "blacklist" that will provide "timely information about foreign propaganda, radio and television, publishing and other areas for their disposal."
http://www.zeropaid.com/news/87485/china-reaffirms-plans-to-purify-the-internet/
Massive offshoring, and importing of guest workers, has driven the salaries of many STEM workers below a living wage. US citizens are pushed aside to make room for the flood of offshore workers. Needless to say, this situation discourages Americans from pursuing a STEM career. Smart Americans are studying to go into finance, or something. If the US has not already lost it's technology edge, it soon will.
Might also be worth mentioning that India is extremely protectionist about their own jobs. A few months back, Indians were actually rioting in the street about jobs, in India, being given to Chinese guest workers.
India complaining about US protectionism is like Al-Qaeda complaining about there not being enough peace in the world.
If trains can travel that fast safely. Then it seems we could cut down air traffic considerably. NYC to Atalanta is only about 800 miles, if I could get there by train in four hours, a airplane would offer no time advantage.
If the difference in fuel efficiency is considerable, then maybe the US should consider building something like that?
Noise just ain't as sexy as busting drug dealers.
I'll bet there's a crack-pipe, or something, in about a third of those cars.
Remember when Giuliani started cracking down on subway turnstile jumpers? Lots of people said "why bother." Then it turned it out that a lot of those scofflaws had arrest warrants out on them.
If a boom car is loud from three blocks away, imagine how loud it is in the car.
A few days ago, I observed one of these insanely loud boom cars with a 3 year child strapped into the back. Too bad for that kid's hearing.
Will other search engines have the same restrictions? Or is just google?
Ten years ago, I would have completely agreed with this post. Today, if anything, the Microsoft shills have taken over slashdot.
I don't know, but I have heard that doctors love a system of badly filed, illegibly scrawled, notes - a system that only they can understand. Doctors do not want a system where data can be easily transfered, or easily reviewed. Doctor's want to protect their turf, and they want to be immune from any possibly legalities.
Whenever I see a "study" in a pop-media publication, my first thought is: who funded this, and why? IMO, there is usually some agenda involved.
Why go though all the time, money, and effort, just to be replaced by an H1B?
If Obama wants Americans to study STEM, he should see to it that they will have remunerative employment when they graduate.
Important part of his resume, IMO:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Cuban#Insider_trading_allegations
I don't use google to find amazon or ebay.
Historically, it has not been all that long that formal credentials have been required for physicians, nurses, lawyers, engineers, accountants, teachers, scientists, architects, etc.
I'll bet that when degrees were first required, for any of those professions, the self trained in those professions were screaming and crying about how they don't need a piece of paper to prove anything, and about how those with formal credentials often had inferior skills.
If software developers don't need formal credentials, then why does anybody else? Why not do away with requirements for all formal training of any kind? Instead, when you go to a new doctor, you can give him, or her, a technical interview. Wouldn't that make more sense?