Yes, now imagine how much more fun it would be to be young, but to be able to command the salary of someone much older. He simply cut out 3-4 years of bullshit.
Oh, that's just plain crap. Assuming that college courses are the "core" part of the college experience then this kid was able to experience five years worth of college in one year and for the princely sum of $200. Unless your "goals" revolve around "wine, women, and song" you'd be hard pressed to say that you would be better off spending more time goofing around in college. This kid basically has a four year head start on everyone else that went into UVA at the same time he did. What's more, he apparently has a new goal, and a new set of sponsors that are willing to pay for that goal. Even if the new goal doesn't turn out to be his life long ambition he'll be miles ahead of the "floaters" that simply follow the course of least resistance. Floaters often find out that they have made a wrong turn. It just takes them longer to realize it. After five years of college they start thinking that perhaps they should have gone to a technical school.
Heck, I'd even bet that having a degree makes it easier for this kid to meet girls.
Oh please. This kid just whizzed through college using precious little time and none of his own capital. I guarantee you that he understands more about economics than you do. Now this kid can pursue his own interests with his degree already in hand and the opportunities that come with a degree and a story that clearly manifests a strong work ethic.
While you (and I) are floating through life trying to figure out what it is that we want, this kid is setting goals and achieving them. Even if his master plan isn't 100% perfect he's gotten his degree in a fifth of the time that it takes most people. He could spend the next 3 years backpacking in Peru and still be ahead.
Yes, I remember Windows NT for MIPS. That hardly means that you can buy such a beast today. Even if you could buy NT for MIPs what are the chances of it running on something that is 95% compatible?
Besides, what sort of freakshow would rather run Windows NT 3.51 on MIPs over Linux? The most sophisticated piece of software that is likely to run on such a system is notepad.exe.
Patent issues are only likely to be problematic if the Chinese try to sell these machines in the U.S. If they are for the Chinese market there really is very little that the MIPs folks can do, even if they are using MIPs patents.
As much as I would like to be able to get my hands on an inexpensive MIPs-alike Linux box I don't think this is going to be available in my neck of the woods anytime soon.
Conservatism and Technology do not go together - never noticed that?
I don't consider myself a Luddite, if that is what you mean. I don't read paper books anymore, for example, unless they are from an author that I am already acquainted with whose books are not available in an unencrypted ebook. Most of my reading these days is done on a PDA, and so you don't have to convince me of the value of being able to carry around an entire library of easily searchable books in my pocket. It's not going to be long before "publishing" won't have anything to do with paper. I am convinced of that.
I simply don't think that something is better simply because it is "shiny."
Most new ideas are stupid. That's just how things are. When a new idea isn't stupid, it is generally readily apparent. Take, as an example, the automobile. The gas powered car had been around for years before it became something that normal people had anything to do with. It wasn't really the invention of the automobile that changed people's lives, but the much smaller advances that made the automobile actually practical. Early hand crafted cars weren't for everyone, but when Henry Ford made the automobile affordable by mass producing it that's when it changed the world.
General purpose Windows laptops for students is like putting hand crafted cars in everyone's garage. You'd be better off with a horse. Build a device that is smaller, more rugged, less expensive, and not connected to the general Internet and you have a completely different gizmo. That could work.
Call me conservative if it makes you happy, but I'll wait for folks to create a gizmo that has a snowball's chance in Hell of actually working in a school environment. Until then books aren't such a bad alternative.
I agree that the proper device could replace books, and could be an invaluable tool to students. I disagree that a laptop is the proper device. What's really needed is basically a glorified special purpose PDA. Properly done this gizmo would almost certainly be less expensive than the jumble of books we buy for students today, and it would be more useful as well. I am not arguing against digitalization or progress. I am merely arguing against what I believe is a horribly botched implementation of a sound idea.
A general purpose Windows laptop in the hands of every 6th-8th grader would be an unmitigated disaster. Not only would it be far more expensive than books, but it would be far harder to maintain, and it would open up any number of cans of worms. Rolling out laptops now would only prolong the process of going digital because such an effort would fail miserably and would be used for a generation as an example of why paper is king.
If it makes you feel better I don't think that 6th-8th graders should be driving cars. With proper training I don't mind if 6th graders ride a horse. They probably shouldn't ride the horse to school though.
That being the case, I might be in favor of a ruggedized (but inexpensive) device that was not a general purpose computer. I have used an old Handspring for years now to read, and the idea of being able to carry around an entire searchable library in your backpack has definite possibilities. The problem with this is that the publishing companies would almost certainly want to equip this will all sorts of DRM so that they control the access to their text books. If this gizmo had certain limited access to public networks it would probably be acceptable to concerned parents like myself. It might even be possible to make something inexpensive enough that it wouldn't be a target for thieves (eventually).
Load the beast up with school-type software, and include optional tools for programming it (at the very least it should come with Python:), and you'd have something that I could agree with. The OLPC stuff comes close, but I don't expect that it would work in the U.S. In the third world there's little danger involved in connecting to whatever mesh networks might be available to the villager. In New York you probably don't want to give your 6th grader access to any random network that he could connect to. The OLPC is also almost inexpensive enough that you could throw it away if it doesn't work (or, more likely, replace it with a hot spare and send the busted one off for repairs).
Of course, that's not even close to what's being suggested. Not even remotely close. Give a standard Windows laptop to every 6-8th grader and you are going to end up neck deep in serious problems while spending a fortune.
If it's conservative to oppose stupid ideas, then sign me up for conservatism.
Back when I was in school the "school computer lab" wasn't connected to the Internet. In fact, I still remember when they hooked up the first Appletalk network so that we could share a printer and play nettrek on the Macs. Pretending that you could use the same volunteer labor force to take care of hundreds of laptops all potentially connected to the Internet and in the hands of 6-8th graders is ridiculous.
The stakes are much higher these days than they were "back then." What is the school district going to do when they find out that some enterprising young six grader has taken his school laptop and used it to create and distribute child pornography? That's a far more valuable commodity than the ability to create Powerpoint presentations.
Heck, I'm all for computer labs. I'm even for computer labs where students participate in the administration of the machines. That's a far cry from handing out expensive laptops that are basically impossible to police properly. Laptops will disappear and laptops will be used for nefarious purposes. If you could lock the laptops down then they would almost certainly be less useful than less expensive desktop systems.
Actually that's more than part of the problem. Many schools don't have halfway competent network administrators, and they certainly don't have the resources to maintain that many laptops, and they would have to maintain them. After all, if little Johnny's laptop stops working, and that laptop is important to his participation in school then someone is going to have to fix it, and in many cases the parents aren't going to be able to afford to.
What's more, this would give each of these children a tool that would allow them to get online at any hotspot on the planet, and lots of parents are going to have a problem with that. Sure, there are probably ways to make it so that the wireless card only works at school, but then why not simply use much less expensive desktop machines?
This doesn't even take into account problems of sabotage, theft, or accidental damage. Do we really need kids in urban areas carrying around hundreds of dollars of computer equipment? Plus, every year hundreds of thousands of school books get destroyed. Computers are far more fragile than books, and more expensive to boot.
Basically, giving kids a general purpose laptop is a horrible idea with very few redeeming virtues.
This is the sort of thing that happens when institutional investors start to become "unhappy" with a company's management. Microsoft is sitting on a pile of money that's not getting very good returns. Heck, you could put Microsoft's cash pile in an index fund and do better. About the only thing that's keeping the route from being more general is the hope that new versions of MS Office and Windows will improve profitability dramatically. If this doesn't happen (and new versions of MS Office and Windows have lots of competition from perfectly usable old versions of MS Office and Windows), then investors are going to want Microsoft to move in a radically different direction.
It's really all about price. Assuming that Nintendo doesn't do something crazy it is going to be far less expensive than the other consoles. Hard core gamers are going to pick one up so they can play the Nintendo exclusive titles, and folks that are only interested in buying one console will be far more likely to purchase the least expensive console, assuming that the games for it are any good.
Nintendo's games are likely to be very good.
The DS vs. PSP showdown is quite similar actually. On paper the PSP should be way cooler, but it is not. For most people the DS was way less expensive and the games were fun. Next thing you know there are far more DSes in the market than PSPs and anyone writing games for handhelds is forced to take that into consideration. Developers could harness the added power of the PSP and sell the game to the three handheld owners that don't have a DS, or they could target the DS and sell to everyone.
The Wii is going to be fun, and it is going to cost a whole lot less than the competition. For folks that don't have an unlimited budget that's a big selling point.
Exactly. Free Software has plenty of JVMs and compilers. Heck, the Free Software world has too many JVMs and compilers. What's needed are Java compatible class libraries under a license that is both amenable to proprietary and Free Software developers.
At this point Sun is simply trying to draw support away from the various Free Java implementations. Sun knows that if the Free Software implementations ever become popular that its chances of controling Java long term are essentially flushed down the toilet. Sun reacted too late with Solaris, and it is desperate to keep Java from suffering a similar fate. So it is doing everything in its power to keep people away from Free Software Java-alike systems.
If Sun were serious it would A) concentrate on releasing the Java class libraries, and B) it would have given Java developers some guidance on the license that it will be using. Everything else is just fluff.
Of course some people know better than I do. That's why every company tries to hire smart people. In most cases they even hire a business manager (or CEO) to actually run the business. That doesn't change the fact that the person that puts in the capital gets to make the choices. After all, you can always fire a CEO.
Even in cooperatives power is generally doled out according to who put in the most capital. In that sense they are run just like any other corporation. The folks fronting the money get to make the decisions. Any sort of business endeavor that is organized differently is doomed to failure. After all, why would I put my capital into a business, especially a risky small business, if some dork that doesn't put in as much capital as I do gets just as much say in how the business is run.
I agree. However, in this case it is Microsoft that is feeling the squeeze. In a lot of cases the Free Software that people want to run on Windows competes directly with software that Microsoft sells. Having this software available for Windows means that it is not necessary to have UNIX knowledge to deploy Free Software applications. However, once you are using Free Software applications on Windows it becomes trivial to migrate to some other platform. Not only does Free Software on Windows loosen Microsoft's grasp on customers, but it makes it much harder for Microsoft to use its market power to embrace and extend protocols.
Yes, but there is a large market of folks that either A) have dealt with Cisco's so-called support and aren't impressed or B) would rather simply have a preconfigured spare box for less price than a single Cisco.
If there is one thing that Linux has proved it is that you can't underestimate inexpensive and "good enough." You may not be interested in what Vyatta is selling right now, but I would bet that enough people are interested that the next gen Vyatta is even more competitive. In the long run, the low end of the technology spectrum tends to improve and gobble up marketshare from the guys asking for big margins.
Clearly I need to do my research before posting about video games that I don't play. Thanks for clearing that up for me. Seriously, you were relatively nice to me even when my post was completely clueless.
Microsoft is a company comprised of individuals with a preponderance of their net wealth wrapped up in MSFT. The MSFT stock price is more important than any Microsoft product. Microsoft has two ridiculously profitable products, Windows and Office, that have both saturated their respective markets, and yet the stock is still priced as if it were a growth stock. Microsoft also has a huge pile of money.
Put all that together and you have a company that can't help but get into any business that is remotely related to its core Windows and MS Office businesses. Microsoft has more than enough money to get into any business, and so it simply waits for a competitor to come across a business with high enough profit margins to make breaking into the business worth Microsoft's while. It then cobbles something together, ties it to either Windows or MS Office, and markets the heck out of it. Microsoft does this because ten percent growth means that Microsoft's stock is hugely overvalued. Microsoft either has to bust into some of these emerging markets, or billions of dollars of MSFT value with disappear.
That's actually an excellent point, and your point is made even more excellent by the fact that I had mis-remembered the facts in this particular case. I'd forgotten that in this case you needed a third-party mod to see the "nekkid people." My bad, someone please mod down my original post. You can't blame the original producer for something that a third-party did.
The parents didn't file a lawsuit. The FTC did. They're the folks that prosecute companies that say one thing in their advertising and then do something else. Blaming parents for believing what Hot Coffee put on the label seems somewhat unfair to me. I bet that you would complain if the folks at Mars replaced the peanuts in your Snickers bar with dried cockroach larvae without changing the label.
Long story short, people tend to complain when what the purchase doesn't match what the manufacturer put on the label.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, now imagine how much more fun it would be to be young, but to be able to command the salary of someone much older. He simply cut out 3-4 years of bullshit.
Oh, that's just plain crap. Assuming that college courses are the "core" part of the college experience then this kid was able to experience five years worth of college in one year and for the princely sum of $200. Unless your "goals" revolve around "wine, women, and song" you'd be hard pressed to say that you would be better off spending more time goofing around in college. This kid basically has a four year head start on everyone else that went into UVA at the same time he did. What's more, he apparently has a new goal, and a new set of sponsors that are willing to pay for that goal. Even if the new goal doesn't turn out to be his life long ambition he'll be miles ahead of the "floaters" that simply follow the course of least resistance. Floaters often find out that they have made a wrong turn. It just takes them longer to realize it. After five years of college they start thinking that perhaps they should have gone to a technical school.
Heck, I'd even bet that having a degree makes it easier for this kid to meet girls.
Oh please. This kid just whizzed through college using precious little time and none of his own capital. I guarantee you that he understands more about economics than you do. Now this kid can pursue his own interests with his degree already in hand and the opportunities that come with a degree and a story that clearly manifests a strong work ethic.
While you (and I) are floating through life trying to figure out what it is that we want, this kid is setting goals and achieving them. Even if his master plan isn't 100% perfect he's gotten his degree in a fifth of the time that it takes most people. He could spend the next 3 years backpacking in Peru and still be ahead.
Good for him.
I couldn't agree more. Deadlifts and cleans also worked wonders for my carpal tunnel syndrome. Start light. It shouldn't hurt to lift.
That's a good point. I've done that sort of thing myself a time or two. Not with Windows, though. I get no joy out of running Windows.
You certainly aren't going to be able to sell Windows NT 3.51 on Godson to consumers, though.
Yes, I remember Windows NT for MIPS. That hardly means that you can buy such a beast today. Even if you could buy NT for MIPs what are the chances of it running on something that is 95% compatible?
Besides, what sort of freakshow would rather run Windows NT 3.51 on MIPs over Linux? The most sophisticated piece of software that is likely to run on such a system is notepad.exe.
Patent issues are only likely to be problematic if the Chinese try to sell these machines in the U.S. If they are for the Chinese market there really is very little that the MIPs folks can do, even if they are using MIPs patents.
As much as I would like to be able to get my hands on an inexpensive MIPs-alike Linux box I don't think this is going to be available in my neck of the woods anytime soon.
One thing is certain. Microsoft can't pretend that these Linux computers are going to end up running Windows.
I don't consider myself a Luddite, if that is what you mean. I don't read paper books anymore, for example, unless they are from an author that I am already acquainted with whose books are not available in an unencrypted ebook. Most of my reading these days is done on a PDA, and so you don't have to convince me of the value of being able to carry around an entire library of easily searchable books in my pocket. It's not going to be long before "publishing" won't have anything to do with paper. I am convinced of that.
I simply don't think that something is better simply because it is "shiny."
Most new ideas are stupid. That's just how things are. When a new idea isn't stupid, it is generally readily apparent. Take, as an example, the automobile. The gas powered car had been around for years before it became something that normal people had anything to do with. It wasn't really the invention of the automobile that changed people's lives, but the much smaller advances that made the automobile actually practical. Early hand crafted cars weren't for everyone, but when Henry Ford made the automobile affordable by mass producing it that's when it changed the world.
General purpose Windows laptops for students is like putting hand crafted cars in everyone's garage. You'd be better off with a horse. Build a device that is smaller, more rugged, less expensive, and not connected to the general Internet and you have a completely different gizmo. That could work.
Call me conservative if it makes you happy, but I'll wait for folks to create a gizmo that has a snowball's chance in Hell of actually working in a school environment. Until then books aren't such a bad alternative.
I agree that the proper device could replace books, and could be an invaluable tool to students. I disagree that a laptop is the proper device. What's really needed is basically a glorified special purpose PDA. Properly done this gizmo would almost certainly be less expensive than the jumble of books we buy for students today, and it would be more useful as well. I am not arguing against digitalization or progress. I am merely arguing against what I believe is a horribly botched implementation of a sound idea.
A general purpose Windows laptop in the hands of every 6th-8th grader would be an unmitigated disaster. Not only would it be far more expensive than books, but it would be far harder to maintain, and it would open up any number of cans of worms. Rolling out laptops now would only prolong the process of going digital because such an effort would fail miserably and would be used for a generation as an example of why paper is king.
If it makes you feel better I don't think that 6th-8th graders should be driving cars. With proper training I don't mind if 6th graders ride a horse. They probably shouldn't ride the horse to school though.
That being the case, I might be in favor of a ruggedized (but inexpensive) device that was not a general purpose computer. I have used an old Handspring for years now to read, and the idea of being able to carry around an entire searchable library in your backpack has definite possibilities. The problem with this is that the publishing companies would almost certainly want to equip this will all sorts of DRM so that they control the access to their text books. If this gizmo had certain limited access to public networks it would probably be acceptable to concerned parents like myself. It might even be possible to make something inexpensive enough that it wouldn't be a target for thieves (eventually).
Load the beast up with school-type software, and include optional tools for programming it (at the very least it should come with Python :), and you'd have something that I could agree with. The OLPC stuff comes close, but I don't expect that it would work in the U.S. In the third world there's little danger involved in connecting to whatever mesh networks might be available to the villager. In New York you probably don't want to give your 6th grader access to any random network that he could connect to. The OLPC is also almost inexpensive enough that you could throw it away if it doesn't work (or, more likely, replace it with a hot spare and send the busted one off for repairs).
Of course, that's not even close to what's being suggested. Not even remotely close. Give a standard Windows laptop to every 6-8th grader and you are going to end up neck deep in serious problems while spending a fortune.
If it's conservative to oppose stupid ideas, then sign me up for conservatism.
Back when I was in school the "school computer lab" wasn't connected to the Internet. In fact, I still remember when they hooked up the first Appletalk network so that we could share a printer and play nettrek on the Macs. Pretending that you could use the same volunteer labor force to take care of hundreds of laptops all potentially connected to the Internet and in the hands of 6-8th graders is ridiculous.
The stakes are much higher these days than they were "back then." What is the school district going to do when they find out that some enterprising young six grader has taken his school laptop and used it to create and distribute child pornography? That's a far more valuable commodity than the ability to create Powerpoint presentations.
Heck, I'm all for computer labs. I'm even for computer labs where students participate in the administration of the machines. That's a far cry from handing out expensive laptops that are basically impossible to police properly. Laptops will disappear and laptops will be used for nefarious purposes. If you could lock the laptops down then they would almost certainly be less useful than less expensive desktop systems.
Actually that's more than part of the problem. Many schools don't have halfway competent network administrators, and they certainly don't have the resources to maintain that many laptops, and they would have to maintain them. After all, if little Johnny's laptop stops working, and that laptop is important to his participation in school then someone is going to have to fix it, and in many cases the parents aren't going to be able to afford to.
What's more, this would give each of these children a tool that would allow them to get online at any hotspot on the planet, and lots of parents are going to have a problem with that. Sure, there are probably ways to make it so that the wireless card only works at school, but then why not simply use much less expensive desktop machines?
This doesn't even take into account problems of sabotage, theft, or accidental damage. Do we really need kids in urban areas carrying around hundreds of dollars of computer equipment? Plus, every year hundreds of thousands of school books get destroyed. Computers are far more fragile than books, and more expensive to boot.
Basically, giving kids a general purpose laptop is a horrible idea with very few redeeming virtues.
This is the sort of thing that happens when institutional investors start to become "unhappy" with a company's management. Microsoft is sitting on a pile of money that's not getting very good returns. Heck, you could put Microsoft's cash pile in an index fund and do better. About the only thing that's keeping the route from being more general is the hope that new versions of MS Office and Windows will improve profitability dramatically. If this doesn't happen (and new versions of MS Office and Windows have lots of competition from perfectly usable old versions of MS Office and Windows), then investors are going to want Microsoft to move in a radically different direction.
It's really all about price. Assuming that Nintendo doesn't do something crazy it is going to be far less expensive than the other consoles. Hard core gamers are going to pick one up so they can play the Nintendo exclusive titles, and folks that are only interested in buying one console will be far more likely to purchase the least expensive console, assuming that the games for it are any good.
Nintendo's games are likely to be very good.
The DS vs. PSP showdown is quite similar actually. On paper the PSP should be way cooler, but it is not. For most people the DS was way less expensive and the games were fun. Next thing you know there are far more DSes in the market than PSPs and anyone writing games for handhelds is forced to take that into consideration. Developers could harness the added power of the PSP and sell the game to the three handheld owners that don't have a DS, or they could target the DS and sell to everyone.
The Wii is going to be fun, and it is going to cost a whole lot less than the competition. For folks that don't have an unlimited budget that's a big selling point.
Exactly. Free Software has plenty of JVMs and compilers. Heck, the Free Software world has too many JVMs and compilers. What's needed are Java compatible class libraries under a license that is both amenable to proprietary and Free Software developers.
At this point Sun is simply trying to draw support away from the various Free Java implementations. Sun knows that if the Free Software implementations ever become popular that its chances of controling Java long term are essentially flushed down the toilet. Sun reacted too late with Solaris, and it is desperate to keep Java from suffering a similar fate. So it is doing everything in its power to keep people away from Free Software Java-alike systems.
If Sun were serious it would A) concentrate on releasing the Java class libraries, and B) it would have given Java developers some guidance on the license that it will be using. Everything else is just fluff.
Of course some people know better than I do. That's why every company tries to hire smart people. In most cases they even hire a business manager (or CEO) to actually run the business. That doesn't change the fact that the person that puts in the capital gets to make the choices. After all, you can always fire a CEO.
Even in cooperatives power is generally doled out according to who put in the most capital. In that sense they are run just like any other corporation. The folks fronting the money get to make the decisions. Any sort of business endeavor that is organized differently is doomed to failure. After all, why would I put my capital into a business, especially a risky small business, if some dork that doesn't put in as much capital as I do gets just as much say in how the business is run.
I couldn't agree more.
I agree. However, in this case it is Microsoft that is feeling the squeeze. In a lot of cases the Free Software that people want to run on Windows competes directly with software that Microsoft sells. Having this software available for Windows means that it is not necessary to have UNIX knowledge to deploy Free Software applications. However, once you are using Free Software applications on Windows it becomes trivial to migrate to some other platform. Not only does Free Software on Windows loosen Microsoft's grasp on customers, but it makes it much harder for Microsoft to use its market power to embrace and extend protocols.
Yes, but there is a large market of folks that either A) have dealt with Cisco's so-called support and aren't impressed or B) would rather simply have a preconfigured spare box for less price than a single Cisco.
If there is one thing that Linux has proved it is that you can't underestimate inexpensive and "good enough." You may not be interested in what Vyatta is selling right now, but I would bet that enough people are interested that the next gen Vyatta is even more competitive. In the long run, the low end of the technology spectrum tends to improve and gobble up marketshare from the guys asking for big margins.
Clearly I need to do my research before posting about video games that I don't play. Thanks for clearing that up for me. Seriously, you were relatively nice to me even when my post was completely clueless.
Microsoft is a company comprised of individuals with a preponderance of their net wealth wrapped up in MSFT. The MSFT stock price is more important than any Microsoft product. Microsoft has two ridiculously profitable products, Windows and Office, that have both saturated their respective markets, and yet the stock is still priced as if it were a growth stock. Microsoft also has a huge pile of money.
Put all that together and you have a company that can't help but get into any business that is remotely related to its core Windows and MS Office businesses. Microsoft has more than enough money to get into any business, and so it simply waits for a competitor to come across a business with high enough profit margins to make breaking into the business worth Microsoft's while. It then cobbles something together, ties it to either Windows or MS Office, and markets the heck out of it. Microsoft does this because ten percent growth means that Microsoft's stock is hugely overvalued. Microsoft either has to bust into some of these emerging markets, or billions of dollars of MSFT value with disappear.
That's actually an excellent point, and your point is made even more excellent by the fact that I had mis-remembered the facts in this particular case. I'd forgotten that in this case you needed a third-party mod to see the "nekkid people." My bad, someone please mod down my original post. You can't blame the original producer for something that a third-party did.
My bad.
The parents didn't file a lawsuit. The FTC did. They're the folks that prosecute companies that say one thing in their advertising and then do something else. Blaming parents for believing what Hot Coffee put on the label seems somewhat unfair to me. I bet that you would complain if the folks at Mars replaced the peanuts in your Snickers bar with dried cockroach larvae without changing the label.
Long story short, people tend to complain when what the purchase doesn't match what the manufacturer put on the label.