University administrators looking at students' public facebook pages is perhaps a bit odd, but for administrators to have access to counselling records and private medical records seems like a far more important invasion of privacy to me.
Um, some one please correct me, but I thought that was well illegal and not just immoral.
This is not about the RIAA disappearing as in "going away". This is about the RIAA and IFPI merging operations. This would probably actually make things worse, because the combined agency would be larger, would have jurisdiction over more than just the United States, and would continue doing its current work.
Well, from the Record Industry's point of view "disappearing" or "renaming" RIAA to something else or merging it with any other org so their name gets changed but mission is basically the same would be a good thing. RIAA is bad/evil towards little girls and little old ladys. No one likes that organization. So what to do to fix that? Rename it as something else and keep doing the same things.
Do you honestly think that they're investigating the FCC as a way to say "Thanks FCC, great job standing up to those telcos!" Give me a break. The telcos have called in their bribes amd slapped their bitches into line (i.e. "Congress") to get them to bring the hammer down on the FCC for daring to actually stand up for the consumer on some issues.
Um, what issue has the FCC stood up for consumers for? I can't name any that come to mind.
I'm all for personal privacy but I really can't see the loss of this sort of privacy outweighing the benifits of getting drunk drivers kept in jail or having a factual record for divorce hearings. When peoples safety and lives are at risk there needs to be some intelligent oversight of these issues but you can't have a blanket privacy enforcement. It just doesn't work. I think that a middle ground would apply, especially here. The database should require warrants and be overseen by a provacy advocate group as well as some seriously paranoid geeks for security. But the data should be there if required to prove innocence or guilt.
I don't drink or smoke so this doesn't affect me. My opinion of the matter is very different though. I think if either party wants a divorce it should happen with as little hassle or road blocks as possible. Either party's drinking habits shouldn't matter at all. (What if the guy buys all the beer for the girl to drink, but she divorces him claiming that he's the heavy drinker that buys all the beer?)
I've always been of mixed thoughts on drunk driving and the attitude that MADD has forced onto lot of us. Honestly, there isn't any difference between drunk driving and driving with little sleep. You don't see mothers against sleepy drivers though. Everyone around me wants to treat drunk driving if it was actually on par with murder or rape, which is a really stupid attitude to take. I think someone that was actually in an accident due to drinking should be treated as a murder, but those that just drink and drive, sleep and drive, or eat and drive shouldn't all be treated as murders unless they were in accident that killed some one else due to their behavior.
You can't stop people from doing stupid things. Murder has always been illegal. You really shouldn't have tack extras onto if was caused by drunk driving. Stupid behavior that kills others should be punished the same as behavior that just kills someone. Of course, I think the punishment should be a quick death penalty rather than life in prison.
Also, you may not have realised that the quoted fuel consumption of cars is on a special test cycle. American cars with their hugely over-horsepowered engines (often using a 2 litre plus engine where the Europeans would use 1300cc, and around 200HP where we would use 100) exceed the EPA consumption as soon as you put your foot down, yet most of the power can never be legally used for more than a few seconds. A limited capacity, limited power engine will in reality get better MPG simply because you cannot use it to waste fuel in rapid acceleration followed by heavy braking.
It seems to me that what this demonstrates is that Indians are capable of thinking about what works for their society, which is their huge advantage over most of the Third World.
It is a huge advantage over most of the First World as well. $2.5K new vs $16-25K for most US new cars. That's a huge savings right there. I've always bought 8+ year old cars for $2.5-3K in the US. I'd love to spend about that much on an actual "new" car. I'd need A/C, heat, and FM/radio/MP3 player and able to cruise around at 55 mph. I would think a music option should cost $50-100. I don't know how much A/C, a heater, or boosting the cruising speed up by 10 more mph would cost though.
In the USA the drinking laws vary on a per-state basis. In all of them it is illegal to buy alcohol to under the age of 21. In some states it is illegal to drink under the age of 21, even in the privacy of your own home supervised by your parents (although this is rarely enforced).
Here in the UK you are not allowed to buy alcohol until you are 18 but you are allowed to drink on private property from the age of 5.
We can't help it. Remember we were colonized by your crazy zealots so of course we get crap like this now. If the folks like me that would like everything to be legal at 16 are viewed as far to lax. I figure if some one wants to waste their time and money driving, drinking, smoking, gambling, playing video games, playing sports, or being a boy or girl scout, then I'm going to let them. I see all those activities as equal.
The lesson is not to stop "wrong" behavior. The lesson is not to get caught.
Um, that's been the true golden rule for thousands of years now.
Their is a second part to it though. If you have enough power (be it money, social, or status) then getting caught doesn't matter any more. You are the get out of jail free because jail doesn't apply any more.
And for the Europeans who feel our 'policies on alcohol are bizarre': let's remember - to participate in student athletics in Minnesota, EVERY student must sign a pledge to entirely abstain from alcohol or tobacco as a student athlete, and (as I recall, it was 20 years ago I was in EPHS) even to avoid being PRESENT at such activities. Say what you want about the motivation behind the rule, the simple fact is that every one of them signed such a promise and are now blatantly proved to be breaking it. Busted.
Not a single one of those students voted for that rule. They had to sign that little piece of paper to play their sport. Why should they stop doing what they want anyway? Drug tests will catch illegal drugs, but I don't know if they test for alcohol as well. I'm not surprised at all about them drinking and smoking anyway. They really were forced against their will to sign that document to do some thing that they wanted to do.
If you had to sign something saying that you wouldn't watch TV, play video games, or read slashdot in order to get a drivers license. Wouldn't you sign their stupid document and then do what you want anyway?
Personally, at my school, they have a policy that if you violate a policy outside of school grounds within sight of a school official, or a school official is latter reported of the policy you broke, you will be reprimanded as if you were on school premise. People don't seem to remember that youth are still citizens, and are granted all the rights of the constitution. Schools extend and deploy their power in scary ways, forever under the umbrella "For the Children."
Public school only trains students to live in prison not in a democracy.
You're obviously not a teacher or any type of leader/instructor so I'll just assume you're ignorant and tell you why it is important to know about student's lives.
First, this isn't just a good idea for a teacher... if you want to communicate with someone... be it as a Supervisor, Boss, Teacher... understanding that person as an individual will greatly help you communicate with them and create a rapport that will allow them to trust you as well.
I'd never want you as my boss, supervisor or teacher. None of my teachers was ever able to look that closely at what I did at home. Why? Because I didn't shout it out and kept it to myself. They only knew what my mom may have told them during a parent/teacher meeting. I've never given any boss or supervisor that much personal info. They can and will hold my personal opinions against me and there is really little I can do to stop them from that. The main thing that is my safety is not posting under things other than a names that don't easily match up to mine. You sound like some one that has never entered the real world and had bad teachers, bosses, or supervisors for a 3-6 months.
... as a guy who has a fair bit of difficulty scoring with attractive women, I am really looking forward to the possibility of banging ugly chicks while watching hot porn.
Finally, technology that helps me in important ways.
She'd notice with this version. You are going to have to wait until they shrink it down to contact size.
OK, so you are a self-described "hardcore" gamer...well, I have some sad news for you bucko. As soon as you say you refuse to play a game because either A. it is on a console or B. it is on a game system made by a specific company, you are basically revealing to the world that you are a moron. A complete and total moron.
Um, I strongly disagree with you. Why? I currently only support 3 game platforms: PC, PS2, and N64. I'm cheap. Although I'd like a Wii, I'm not going out to spend the money on another console. Why? I just made a list of $400 of PS2 games that I'd like for Christmas. O.k. I might get $80 of them from my wife and mom, but I've got kids and family's Christmas to think of as well. I support the RPG market on the PS2. I don't care about the PS3, Xwhatever, or the Wii game market. I'm not a moron cause I don't have an infinite amount of money to spend on games.
Your "B", there are many, many valid reasons to boycott game makers that you don't like. If you hate Rockstar games, don't freaking buy Rock Star games. The same can be said of FF and Dragon Quest, if you think FF and DQ are bad games don't buy games from Square-Enix. Here's a hint most of us buy only the games that we like, or the moral platform that we find least offensive. If the only gaming platform that I can find that is least offensive is a pack of cards, then that's what'd I'd support.
Will I miss out on some games? Sure. But my not purchasing games that I don't like, and advising friends and family to avoid certain games will make a difference with those that trust my gaming habits. I'm generally viewed as the adult gamer that'll play nearly anything. If I tell my wife's church friends not buy their kids Rock Star games or just some gory survival horror games, they'll listen and not make purchases of those games.
They'll still buy games though. Usually something like Zelda or Pokemon, but that's votes for those "family friendly games." Heck, I even try to keep them on Nintendo platforms mainly just to avoid the possibility of playing something that they'll object to. I can't do anything about crazies that picket games, but I can do my part to advising folks on purchases that won't offend their morals. Heck, I have my set of morals, and I've thought about never buying FF games just because of their anti-tech/eco-Gaia view point that they push. I don't believe in the morals pushed behind most of the FF games, but I still end up buying and playing them.
They're obvious academic knowledge with clear educational merit. Where exactly is the problem?
Short answer, this is wikipedia and anyone that flunked algebra in can edit the math portion. Unlike the sports or movie fields where they may know some, math and proofs make them feel stupid. So is it any surprise that they want it removed?
Um, you miss something. Using 256 bit or 1025K encryption, yet your password is broken in 5 minutes on OLPC using a dictionary search of the most common passwords. Password1 seems to unlock a vast amount of information.
Brute force is the worst way to crack encryption. It's best if you can crack stupid habits that won't be broken. The thing that I would think that the government's of the world are 10-20 years ahead of everyone else is better algorithms for a long time any PHd math guy in the encryption field was almost always paid by the government. It's only really been in the last say ten years that civilian/commercial has really become in wide spread use. The US gov. might not have some magic quantum computer, but I think that they do have better 10-20 years better encyprtion breaking algorithms that might cut a 10-1000x fold off your time.
What's really bad is that they might be able to build a custom encryption breaking hardware that is 1000x faster than supercomputers at that one task. If I were a government, it would be worth spending a few billion on. I would hope that we've been spending a few million on that every year since the 70s. How far ahead do you think that they could be?
Alot of americans argue they have poor public transport, a gradually increased fuel tax would allow your government to improve such services and the quality of your roads. A fuel tax theoretically provides a buffer against rising oil costs as well.
To be more honest, most people over here don't even want public transport and see it as a waste of their tax money. We do have a fuel tax and it is spent on roads. Most of us are rather happy with our roads.
The *high* fuel costs in america are already getting people to consider better performing cars why not capatilise on this and use it to improve your infrastructure as well.
Any politician over here that would try to make our fuel taxes match anything in the EU would nearly be impeached ASAP. Just because a handful want higher taxes doesn't mean most of us will support them. No matter what the reason.
Some sorts of safeguards are required for this material. Traditionally, this has been up to attornies having professional ethics. A dubious proposition in some cases. Perhaps some sort of "fruit of the poisoned vine" is required for civil evidence.
Just require everything that is discovered to be instantly public domain. This would make corps think a lot before trying to sue each other. Would you sue anyone if you were aware that the other side could publicly air your dirty laundry at the same time?
I realized that our house cleaning robots don't work like the Jetsons led us to believe they would, where they clean the house 10 times faster; they in fact take 10 times as long. They are, however, 100 times more meticulous and therefore they clean the house 10 times as well. I think this is a paradigm shift.
Perhaps there is indeed similar benefits to be reaped from a similar shift in the transportation/aerospace sector.
They might get huge break through in productivity because the roomba series doesn't waste time having zany adventures with the owners.
Believe it or not, even today, we are relearning the same old lessons and yes, still struggle to re-implement some 40-50 years latter. Still doubt me. Go read up on modern rocket engine designs. You'll notice ALL of the current rocket scientists complain about EVERYTHING I just pointed out above. The same old lessons are being relearned, most of the experience has retired, and the same old mistakes are being repeated. In other words, just because it's new doesn't mean it's improved. After all, how can it be improved if they are making the same mistakes which were already resolved 50 years ago?
Hey, we don't even remember how do build pyramids or stone henge. We are amazed by how quickly that the Romans could build stuff. They built a lot of those big impressive buildings in less than 10 years. When the government/king/dictator wants new impressive thing in 5-10 years, we can and will build it. Will anyone recall how it was done in 30-40 years? Nope. It was those mysterious ancients that did it.
We could build some massive long term sustainable power plants that should last 2000-3000 hundred years. Will the kids 100 years later remember how we did it or be able to fix it? Nope. They'll be utterly amazed that we could do anything with the primitive tools that we have today and mysterious aliens must have shown us how to do it.
The real question is, how long before somebody at Walmart figures this out? Most people are skeptical the potential for computers as educational tools, and a generation of poorly designed "educational toys" and badly conceived "computer literacy" projects has only cemented that POV. The biggest impact of the OLPC project may be to educate adults.
Here's what the OLPC did right that so many others have done wrong. You don't need fancy technologies or highly-trained teachers. You need to give kids a solid set of learning software tools. Then you need to get out of the way.
Heck, the spec has a SD Flash card slot doesn't it? That's plenty of space for me to load some e-books be it pdf, txt, or rtf and use it as a cheap e-book reader. It seems that everyone that sells ebook readers wants to sell them around $400-500. If I'm going to spend that much, I'm getting real laptop. Not something that can only read formats from one vendor and maybe not even the standard file formats. I've got tons of crap in.lit and I really hate the MS lit reader. Worst reader ever. I'd rather just use notepad or wordpad.
The things that my kids like to play on our desktop. MS Paint and Sim City 4's terrain editor. I'm sure it'll have some type of paint program. That alone would almost be worth the purchase, if it can do some other standard things on the cheap, they'll have a huge market for it. If the OLPC actually started selling at Walmart, how long would it take for those other laptops to drop from the $400-$500 range down to the $150-200 range?
If there was any laptop being sold at that price point, none of the 3 game systems would sell. The parents would look and think why spend more for a game than something of "educational" value.
The conclusion I draw from the article is that this would be a great christmas present for a lot of children everywhere. (And that's a hint to the makers.)
Last year and this year my daughter (9 year old) asked for a laptop. I think $400-500 is too much for one family member's present no matter how much I'd like to get it for her. Both her and her younger bother were asking about the little $50 30 word game "laptop" toy that's around Walmart. I refuse to purchase one of those. If I buy a laptop for my kids it'll at least be a "real" laptop.
If I could buy a OLPC from Walmart for $100-$150, I could justify getting one for each of my kids. I could almost talk myself into getting one for my wife and myself as well for that price. The OLPC could be the killer "educational" Christmas present that outsells the Wii, Pokemon, Tickle Me Elmo, scooters, and Aqua dots. How long could Walmart keep 1 million of them in stock?
This is the same government that allows low-level employees to take home vast amounts of personal taxpayer information unencrypted on their laptops. The government is absolutely stupid enough to get caught.
The government is vast and composed almost entirely of low-paid operatives. I have no problem believing they could try something like this and get caught. I have a hard time believing in the government as shadowy cabal that is capable of concealing vast conspiracies for years or decades at a time.
Heck, all it would take is for Mr. Government Operative outsourcing his wikipedia edits/editors to their home so that they can telecommute and edit wikipedia from as many different ISPs as possible. Just pay the low rankers somewhere from 2-3x min. wage and give them a secrecy oath and presto you've got your wikipedia editing organization. If you really wanted control of wikipedia, you'd bribe/black mail the admins to delete articles that you don't want appearing.
They don't realize that you can't hide stuff like this on the internet. Did it not even occur to them that it would be changed back five minutes later?
It sounds like some one was cleaning up an article at work and improving the grammar/facts to it. Yeah, I can believe some people will go and massively screw the page up now just cause one individual from a US government IP made some really minor edits.
So which is it John? Are we mutating faster or evolving faster?
In those sections of the world that have peace it is mutating faster. In those sections of the world that there is a war every couple of generations, wide spread diseases, the occasional famine then it's evolution.
Heck, we are evolving better drivers only because bad drivers die. Organizations like MADD have evolved our culture so drinking sober dominates so dunk drivers don't kill us. There are times that I'm mixed about living in dumbed down world vs living in a world with tons of "obvious" things that could kill people, but are allowed. We've been modifying our culture/technology so we don't have to modify our selves.
Think of all the crap that are on modern cars. Most of its safety or environmental stuff so we don't harm each other. We could be wildly polluting and design our cars to kill everyone in all involved vehicles during accidents, if we survived, then we'd be breeding humans that could live in pollution and a driving culture that was extremely paranoid about all accidents.
What nonsense. Hironobu Sakaguchi chose that name because Square was nearly bankrupt in 87, so he expected their next game to be the last.
I like many others read this and think, Square actually made games other/before FF? Damn, I've played FF 1,3 7,8,9,10,& 12 and an GBA of FF2. I know now that they make 4-5 different RPG, the whole Secret of Mana games, Dragon Quest, and those Saga games. I just never heard of Square making anything other than FF way back then.
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University administrators looking at students' public facebook pages is perhaps a bit odd, but for administrators to have access to counselling records and private medical records seems like a far more important invasion of privacy to me.
Um, some one please correct me, but I thought that was well illegal and not just immoral.
This is not about the RIAA disappearing as in "going away". This is about the RIAA and IFPI merging operations. This would probably actually make things worse, because the combined agency would be larger, would have jurisdiction over more than just the United States, and would continue doing its current work.
Well, from the Record Industry's point of view "disappearing" or "renaming" RIAA to something else or merging it with any other org so their name gets changed but mission is basically the same would be a good thing. RIAA is bad/evil towards little girls and little old ladys. No one likes that organization. So what to do to fix that? Rename it as something else and keep doing the same things.
Do you honestly think that they're investigating the FCC as a way to say "Thanks FCC, great job standing up to those telcos!" Give me a break. The telcos have called in their bribes amd slapped their bitches into line (i.e. "Congress") to get them to bring the hammer down on the FCC for daring to actually stand up for the consumer on some issues.
Um, what issue has the FCC stood up for consumers for? I can't name any that come to mind.
I'm all for personal privacy but I really can't see the loss of this sort of privacy outweighing the benifits of getting drunk drivers kept in jail or having a factual record for divorce hearings. When peoples safety and lives are at risk there needs to be some intelligent oversight of these issues but you can't have a blanket privacy enforcement. It just doesn't work. I think that a middle ground would apply, especially here. The database should require warrants and be overseen by a provacy advocate group as well as some seriously paranoid geeks for security. But the data should be there if required to prove innocence or guilt.
I don't drink or smoke so this doesn't affect me. My opinion of the matter is very different though. I think if either party wants a divorce it should happen with as little hassle or road blocks as possible. Either party's drinking habits shouldn't matter at all. (What if the guy buys all the beer for the girl to drink, but she divorces him claiming that he's the heavy drinker that buys all the beer?)
I've always been of mixed thoughts on drunk driving and the attitude that MADD has forced onto lot of us. Honestly, there isn't any difference between drunk driving and driving with little sleep. You don't see mothers against sleepy drivers though. Everyone around me wants to treat drunk driving if it was actually on par with murder or rape, which is a really stupid attitude to take. I think someone that was actually in an accident due to drinking should be treated as a murder, but those that just drink and drive, sleep and drive, or eat and drive shouldn't all be treated as murders unless they were in accident that killed some one else due to their behavior.
You can't stop people from doing stupid things. Murder has always been illegal. You really shouldn't have tack extras onto if was caused by drunk driving. Stupid behavior that kills others should be punished the same as behavior that just kills someone. Of course, I think the punishment should be a quick death penalty rather than life in prison.
Also, you may not have realised that the quoted fuel consumption of cars is on a special test cycle. American cars with their hugely over-horsepowered engines (often using a 2 litre plus engine where the Europeans would use 1300cc, and around 200HP where we would use 100) exceed the EPA consumption as soon as you put your foot down, yet most of the power can never be legally used for more than a few seconds. A limited capacity, limited power engine will in reality get better MPG simply because you cannot use it to waste fuel in rapid acceleration followed by heavy braking.
It seems to me that what this demonstrates is that Indians are capable of thinking about what works for their society, which is their huge advantage over most of the Third World.
It is a huge advantage over most of the First World as well. $2.5K new vs $16-25K for most US new cars. That's a huge savings right there. I've always bought 8+ year old cars for $2.5-3K in the US. I'd love to spend about that much on an actual "new" car. I'd need A/C, heat, and FM/radio/MP3 player and able to cruise around at 55 mph. I would think a music option should cost $50-100. I don't know how much A/C, a heater, or boosting the cruising speed up by 10 more mph would cost though.
In the USA the drinking laws vary on a per-state basis. In all of them it is illegal to buy alcohol to under the age of 21. In some states it is illegal to drink under the age of 21, even in the privacy of your own home supervised by your parents (although this is rarely enforced).
Here in the UK you are not allowed to buy alcohol until you are 18 but you are allowed to drink on private property from the age of 5.
We can't help it. Remember we were colonized by your crazy zealots so of course we get crap like this now. If the folks like me that would like everything to be legal at 16 are viewed as far to lax. I figure if some one wants to waste their time and money driving, drinking, smoking, gambling, playing video games, playing sports, or being a boy or girl scout, then I'm going to let them. I see all those activities as equal.
The lesson is not to stop "wrong" behavior. The lesson is not to get caught.
Um, that's been the true golden rule for thousands of years now.
Their is a second part to it though. If you have enough power (be it money, social, or status) then getting caught doesn't matter any more. You are the get out of jail free because jail doesn't apply any more.
And for the Europeans who feel our 'policies on alcohol are bizarre': let's remember - to participate in student athletics in Minnesota, EVERY student must sign a pledge to entirely abstain from alcohol or tobacco as a student athlete, and (as I recall, it was 20 years ago I was in EPHS) even to avoid being PRESENT at such activities. Say what you want about the motivation behind the rule, the simple fact is that every one of them signed such a promise and are now blatantly proved to be breaking it. Busted.
Not a single one of those students voted for that rule. They had to sign that little piece of paper to play their sport. Why should they stop doing what they want anyway? Drug tests will catch illegal drugs, but I don't know if they test for alcohol as well. I'm not surprised at all about them drinking and smoking anyway. They really were forced against their will to sign that document to do some thing that they wanted to do.
If you had to sign something saying that you wouldn't watch TV, play video games, or read slashdot in order to get a drivers license. Wouldn't you sign their stupid document and then do what you want anyway?
Personally, at my school, they have a policy that if you violate a policy outside of school grounds within sight of a school official, or a school official is latter reported of the policy you broke, you will be reprimanded as if you were on school premise. People don't seem to remember that youth are still citizens, and are granted all the rights of the constitution. Schools extend and deploy their power in scary ways, forever under the umbrella "For the Children."
Public school only trains students to live in prison not in a democracy.
You're obviously not a teacher or any type of leader/instructor so I'll just assume you're ignorant and tell you why it is important to know about student's lives.
First, this isn't just a good idea for a teacher... if you want to communicate with someone... be it as a Supervisor, Boss, Teacher... understanding that person as an individual will greatly help you communicate with them and create a rapport that will allow them to trust you as well.
I'd never want you as my boss, supervisor or teacher. None of my teachers was ever able to look that closely at what I did at home. Why? Because I didn't shout it out and kept it to myself. They only knew what my mom may have told them during a parent/teacher meeting. I've never given any boss or supervisor that much personal info. They can and will hold my personal opinions against me and there is really little I can do to stop them from that. The main thing that is my safety is not posting under things other than a names that don't easily match up to mine. You sound like some one that has never entered the real world and had bad teachers, bosses, or supervisors for a 3-6 months.
... as a guy who has a fair bit of difficulty scoring with attractive women, I am really looking forward to the possibility of banging ugly chicks while watching hot porn.
Finally, technology that helps me in important ways.
She'd notice with this version. You are going to have to wait until they shrink it down to contact size.
Do these cities have StreetView yet? It could provide a vivid picture of what life was like in ancient times. :)
It's only a matter of time.
OK, so you are a self-described "hardcore" gamer...well, I have some sad news for you bucko. As soon as you say you refuse to play a game because either A. it is on a console or B. it is on a game system made by a specific company, you are basically revealing to the world that you are a moron. A complete and total moron.
Um, I strongly disagree with you. Why? I currently only support 3 game platforms: PC, PS2, and N64. I'm cheap. Although I'd like a Wii, I'm not going out to spend the money on another console. Why? I just made a list of $400 of PS2 games that I'd like for Christmas. O.k. I might get $80 of them from my wife and mom, but I've got kids and family's Christmas to think of as well. I support the RPG market on the PS2. I don't care about the PS3, Xwhatever, or the Wii game market. I'm not a moron cause I don't have an infinite amount of money to spend on games.
Your "B", there are many, many valid reasons to boycott game makers that you don't like. If you hate Rockstar games, don't freaking buy Rock Star games. The same can be said of FF and Dragon Quest, if you think FF and DQ are bad games don't buy games from Square-Enix. Here's a hint most of us buy only the games that we like, or the moral platform that we find least offensive. If the only gaming platform that I can find that is least offensive is a pack of cards, then that's what'd I'd support.
Will I miss out on some games? Sure. But my not purchasing games that I don't like, and advising friends and family to avoid certain games will make a difference with those that trust my gaming habits. I'm generally viewed as the adult gamer that'll play nearly anything. If I tell my wife's church friends not buy their kids Rock Star games or just some gory survival horror games, they'll listen and not make purchases of those games.
They'll still buy games though. Usually something like Zelda or Pokemon, but that's votes for those "family friendly games." Heck, I even try to keep them on Nintendo platforms mainly just to avoid the possibility of playing something that they'll object to. I can't do anything about crazies that picket games, but I can do my part to advising folks on purchases that won't offend their morals. Heck, I have my set of morals, and I've thought about never buying FF games just because of their anti-tech/eco-Gaia view point that they push. I don't believe in the morals pushed behind most of the FF games, but I still end up buying and playing them.
They're obvious academic knowledge with clear educational merit. Where exactly is the problem?
Short answer, this is wikipedia and anyone that flunked algebra in can edit the math portion. Unlike the sports or movie fields where they may know some, math and proofs make them feel stupid. So is it any surprise that they want it removed?
Um, you miss something. Using 256 bit or 1025K encryption, yet your password is broken in 5 minutes on OLPC using a dictionary search of the most common passwords. Password1 seems to unlock a vast amount of information.
Brute force is the worst way to crack encryption. It's best if you can crack stupid habits that won't be broken. The thing that I would think that the government's of the world are 10-20 years ahead of everyone else is better algorithms for a long time any PHd math guy in the encryption field was almost always paid by the government. It's only really been in the last say ten years that civilian/commercial has really become in wide spread use. The US gov. might not have some magic quantum computer, but I think that they do have better 10-20 years better encyprtion breaking algorithms that might cut a 10-1000x fold off your time.
What's really bad is that they might be able to build a custom encryption breaking hardware that is 1000x faster than supercomputers at that one task. If I were a government, it would be worth spending a few billion on. I would hope that we've been spending a few million on that every year since the 70s. How far ahead do you think that they could be?
Alot of americans argue they have poor public transport, a gradually increased fuel tax would allow your government to improve such services and the quality of your roads. A fuel tax theoretically provides a buffer against rising oil costs as well.
To be more honest, most people over here don't even want public transport and see it as a waste of their tax money. We do have a fuel tax and it is spent on roads. Most of us are rather happy with our roads.
The *high* fuel costs in america are already getting people to consider better performing cars why not capatilise on this and use it to improve your infrastructure as well.
Any politician over here that would try to make our fuel taxes match anything in the EU would nearly be impeached ASAP. Just because a handful want higher taxes doesn't mean most of us will support them. No matter what the reason.
Some sorts of safeguards are required for this material. Traditionally, this has been up to attornies having professional ethics. A dubious proposition in some cases. Perhaps some sort of "fruit of the poisoned vine" is required for civil evidence.
Just require everything that is discovered to be instantly public domain. This would make corps think a lot before trying to sue each other. Would you sue anyone if you were aware that the other side could publicly air your dirty laundry at the same time?
I realized that our house cleaning robots don't work like the Jetsons led us to believe they would, where they clean the house 10 times faster; they in fact take 10 times as long. They are, however, 100 times more meticulous and therefore they clean the house 10 times as well. I think this is a paradigm shift.
Perhaps there is indeed similar benefits to be reaped from a similar shift in the transportation/aerospace sector.
They might get huge break through in productivity because the roomba series doesn't waste time having zany adventures with the owners.
Believe it or not, even today, we are relearning the same old lessons and yes, still struggle to re-implement some 40-50 years latter. Still doubt me. Go read up on modern rocket engine designs. You'll notice ALL of the current rocket scientists complain about EVERYTHING I just pointed out above. The same old lessons are being relearned, most of the experience has retired, and the same old mistakes are being repeated. In other words, just because it's new doesn't mean it's improved. After all, how can it be improved if they are making the same mistakes which were already resolved 50 years ago?
Hey, we don't even remember how do build pyramids or stone henge. We are amazed by how quickly that the Romans could build stuff. They built a lot of those big impressive buildings in less than 10 years. When the government/king/dictator wants new impressive thing in 5-10 years, we can and will build it. Will anyone recall how it was done in 30-40 years? Nope. It was those mysterious ancients that did it.
We could build some massive long term sustainable power plants that should last 2000-3000 hundred years. Will the kids 100 years later remember how we did it or be able to fix it? Nope. They'll be utterly amazed that we could do anything with the primitive tools that we have today and mysterious aliens must have shown us how to do it.
The real question is, how long before somebody at Walmart figures this out? Most people are skeptical the potential for computers as educational tools, and a generation of poorly designed "educational toys" and badly conceived "computer literacy" projects has only cemented that POV. The biggest impact of the OLPC project may be to educate adults.
.lit and I really hate the MS lit reader. Worst reader ever. I'd rather just use notepad or wordpad.
Here's what the OLPC did right that so many others have done wrong. You don't need fancy technologies or highly-trained teachers. You need to give kids a solid set of learning software tools. Then you need to get out of the way.
Heck, the spec has a SD Flash card slot doesn't it? That's plenty of space for me to load some e-books be it pdf, txt, or rtf and use it as a cheap e-book reader. It seems that everyone that sells ebook readers wants to sell them around $400-500. If I'm going to spend that much, I'm getting real laptop. Not something that can only read formats from one vendor and maybe not even the standard file formats. I've got tons of crap in
The things that my kids like to play on our desktop. MS Paint and Sim City 4's terrain editor. I'm sure it'll have some type of paint program. That alone would almost be worth the purchase, if it can do some other standard things on the cheap, they'll have a huge market for it. If the OLPC actually started selling at Walmart, how long would it take for those other laptops to drop from the $400-$500 range down to the $150-200 range?
If there was any laptop being sold at that price point, none of the 3 game systems would sell. The parents would look and think why spend more for a game than something of "educational" value.
The conclusion I draw from the article is that this would be a great christmas present for a lot of children everywhere. (And that's a hint to the makers.)
Last year and this year my daughter (9 year old) asked for a laptop. I think $400-500 is too much for one family member's present no matter how much I'd like to get it for her. Both her and her younger bother were asking about the little $50 30 word game "laptop" toy that's around Walmart. I refuse to purchase one of those. If I buy a laptop for my kids it'll at least be a "real" laptop.
If I could buy a OLPC from Walmart for $100-$150, I could justify getting one for each of my kids. I could almost talk myself into getting one for my wife and myself as well for that price. The OLPC could be the killer "educational" Christmas present that outsells the Wii, Pokemon, Tickle Me Elmo, scooters, and Aqua dots. How long could Walmart keep 1 million of them in stock?
This is the same government that allows low-level employees to take home vast amounts of personal taxpayer information unencrypted on their laptops. The government is absolutely stupid enough to get caught.
The government is vast and composed almost entirely of low-paid operatives. I have no problem believing they could try something like this and get caught. I have a hard time believing in the government as shadowy cabal that is capable of concealing vast conspiracies for years or decades at a time.
Heck, all it would take is for Mr. Government Operative outsourcing his wikipedia edits/editors to their home so that they can telecommute and edit wikipedia from as many different ISPs as possible. Just pay the low rankers somewhere from 2-3x min. wage and give them a secrecy oath and presto you've got your wikipedia editing organization. If you really wanted control of wikipedia, you'd bribe/black mail the admins to delete articles that you don't want appearing.
They don't realize that you can't hide stuff like this on the internet. Did it not even occur to them that it would be changed back five minutes later?
It sounds like some one was cleaning up an article at work and improving the grammar/facts to it. Yeah, I can believe some people will go and massively screw the page up now just cause one individual from a US government IP made some really minor edits.
So which is it John? Are we mutating faster or evolving faster?
In those sections of the world that have peace it is mutating faster. In those sections of the world that there is a war every couple of generations, wide spread diseases, the occasional famine then it's evolution.
Heck, we are evolving better drivers only because bad drivers die. Organizations like MADD have evolved our culture so drinking sober dominates so dunk drivers don't kill us. There are times that I'm mixed about living in dumbed down world vs living in a world with tons of "obvious" things that could kill people, but are allowed. We've been modifying our culture/technology so we don't have to modify our selves.
Think of all the crap that are on modern cars. Most of its safety or environmental stuff so we don't harm each other. We could be wildly polluting and design our cars to kill everyone in all involved vehicles during accidents, if we survived, then we'd be breeding humans that could live in pollution and a driving culture that was extremely paranoid about all accidents.
What nonsense. Hironobu Sakaguchi chose that name because Square was nearly bankrupt in 87, so he expected their next game to be the last.
I like many others read this and think, Square actually made games other/before FF? Damn, I've played FF 1,3 7,8,9,10,& 12 and an GBA of FF2. I know now that they make 4-5 different RPG, the whole Secret of Mana games, Dragon Quest, and those Saga games. I just never heard of Square making anything other than FF way back then.