Can Bush, Cheney, Limbaugh, Hannity & Roberstson be convinced to be the pioneers (like Bugs Bunny giving Yosemite Sam the bum's rush out the door) or maybe they'll be able to do that to Gore, Hillary, Colmes, Sharpton & Dean?
Either way it'll end up a reality series on Fox.
This is the same Dvorak...
on
Online! The Book
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
... who's been predicting the imminent death of Apple for 20+ years.
And now he claims "...no more junk email"
OK. That's quite simply not possible, and he must know it.
"Packed with secrets never before revealed"
You're telling me there's a lot (wnough to "pack" a book this size) important useful things about the internet that only these three people knew until now?
His older version of this was required reading for my tech-ed undergrads and grads. It makes sense to hear this opinion, to see how to balance what's going on.
These guns-or-butter argument is secondary to the proper funding of education as a whole.
I'm sorry - but I saw my first Macintosh immediately after completing college and a year of grad school, and seeing the undeniable utility of nothing more than MacWrite/MacDraw was astounding. Computers do indeed beling in schools. To not do so would be denying students the power that everyone else has in dealing with information. The world has changed too much to go back.
I'm going to use the language of apple/mac for two reasons - I know it better, and because apple has been able to deliver secure-able workstations and out-of-the-box tools that get stuff done. Easy productivity tools for students at a wide range of ages. If you want to substitute comparable tools and systems from wintel or OSS, great.
Todd focuses on things like kids learning powerpoint, kids using turnkey learning systems, and teachers being ad hoc tech mavens.
He's right - these are problems, but precisely because they are the wrong approaches, not because computers in the classroom are inherently wrong.
Powerpoint - Unless there's a separate app, the student edition of MS Office is just cheaper. MS Office used by kids borders on mental abuse. No student needs a WP app with 1100 menu items. Our kids use Keynote and swear by it and mastered it in very short time.
Turnkey systems - these are the least proven of anything anyone ever thought of for educational use. Almost to a unit, they do not use proven techniques or leverage sound educational philosophy or psychology, or do it on a superficial or cartoon basis.
Teachers as techies - the focus should be on using computers as a tool to find, assemble, process, and create information and understanding. This is all using retail level stuff that all teachers can get to know easily: browser, wp, ss, paint, photos, movies, presentation...
As for the comparison to construction paper etc. - when we were in school (the 60s) the two slits thru which you were allowed to express yoursleves were book reports and shoebox dioramas. Compare this to what can be done out of the box with Safari, iLife, Keynote and AppleWorks. W much wider spectrum without so much as cracking a manual.
Shut down IMs, email, and other distractions. Make it accessible across the board. Do it right. But keep doing it.
i have this burided somewhere in a pile of pulp and ink, but it would be great (especially given the subject matter and nelson's foresight) to have this in digital form...
There is no inherent search feature embedded in the protocols of the net. One had to be invented, and business did so build one with very cool original technology. Google is a business - it exists to make money. It makes money by selling its search engine and ads and being good so people will use it.
Shopping is one use, not the only one.
Like the power companies and MS before them they are a 'want' that will soon become a 'need'. One of two things may then happen - people start making anti-trust noises and/or want it ubiquitous and as usual, accountable, like public utilities. As for the former, they're not guilty of the sort of nonsense MS could think up on its laziest afternoon. As for the latter, because they're a proprietary system with lots-n-lots of trade secrets, it's hard to imagine the transparency needed to operate as such a utility.
On the other hand, go read the history of Edison & Westinghouse...
If you went to any studio in Hollywood and said we want to make a movie:... where everyone knows what happens at the end...... so much so that the name is synonymous with fateful disaster...... that's three and a half hours long...... and aim it at the 13-19 year old demographic...... they'd laugh you out of the office.
You'd have to call it"Titanic" and it'd be the top grossing film of all time by half.
You create drama on the screen from what you have and do it well, and people will pay real money for that and praise your work.
Peter's darn smart. He's doing things right from many angles. When I saw the very first teaser of Fellowship and saw Elijah Wood's face and that ring - it was the very image I'd had in my mind since reading the trilogy+ as our entire sophomore english course in 1974.
I know what happens, and I still want to see it. It's the storyteller's craft involved here, and there's a remarkably tight line between what JRR put on the page and what Peter puts on film.
On the other hand, I prefer to listen to the stories at Lake Woebegon - my imagination is allowed to take the little pieces and make them whole. Disney tried telecasting PHC and it failed miserably after a few weeks. Being at a live broadcast of PHC however is stunning. "Shelob & Gollum Live! On Ice!" would be a disaster. Go figure.
I'm guessing they're looking at the success of Speedpass and FastLane devices and continuing the argument to its 'logical extreme'. First it was 'bring the cash', next 'bring the proxy for cash' then 'bring something / know something' - have the proxy/card and know your code. That's a successful model because stealing a atm/debit card isn't enough - you have to have the thing that's (supposed to be only) in the owner's brain. If they hold you up for cash, it's gone. If they hold you up for debit/credit, a phone call with your last bill in hand stops them cold within very short time. When my house was robbed, they didn't take the cards in plain sight. Too easy - i knew they were missing. When a local restaurant started photocopying cards in the back room, no one knew until it was after the thefts. The credit card model - where you can use them without knowing anything - is in need of revision - adding a pin would be good - the CVN system is too easily foiled with trivial methods.
If the key is my retina or my fingertip, I can bring you on a tour of neighborhoods where you would soon check over your shoulder at the atm for someone approaching with a knife or a grapefruit spoon.
Speedpass works well because you now simply bring something - tag, watchband, etc.. and you're buying a tank of gas or a bag of snacks or a car wash - if you lose it you'll see that soon (it's a personal item) and the damage will be minimal (unless they stand at a mobil station and make a sign that says 'free gas!' - in which case one would hope the attendants would call someone...)
So for small payments it seems like a good solution - they're testing it at Stop&Shop supermarket in Boston - i'd be a little wary-er about this - you can load up a cart with dvds and lobsters and swipe and go...
The speedpass watch is nice because it's innocuous - the owner knows it's a speedpass, nefarious persons think it's a cheap timex. That seems better than the speedpass itself - easily identified and take-able.
The iButton model is also enticing - it's a piece of jewlery, and to a potential thief, it's like the final scene in the 2nd thomas crown affair - you'd have to go after every piece of jewelry in sight to get a live one. Until of course they're ubiquitous.
It really is a fox hunt - and until it's tested, you aren't going to get people wanting this without knowing the unintended consequences...
1. Battery life. He's on the low side, and I guess the 8+hour fliers will be inconvenienced.
2. Jogging at the exact moment the buffer needs filling... this is an astronomical chance and not worth mentioning.
3. Um, right - carry 20 discs and a player vs. this small unit. That's a matter of choice. Hardly compelling.
4. High quality recordings...well you already have the ability to do that with the computer you're using for the back end of all this... no one buys an iPod as a standalone.
5. Choice. Um, so he's saying that by using any of those other players you get a choice of exactly one other format in a bunch of stores who all use WMA (he notes that it's secure - but doesn't note the faiplay drm of apple) all from stores with smaller selections, obscure catalogs or the status quo in illegal downloads.
I mean, jeez -this guy could piss off Mary Worth. Maybe he thinks since the open source movement is just as he characterizes it, then it can't gice him a cosmic IT wedgie - guess someone hasn'ty bee following the SCO badminton game.
This should in now way be construed as an entre for Eric (/Bruce/Linus/Richard) to launch a salvo. Really,
Not to mention where else should you embrace open source but in academia.
And here's the punchline, from netcraft:
The site www.princeton.edu is running Apache/1.3.4 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.1.8 SSLeay/0.9.0b on Solaris.
What's in my classic apps folder? Claris Home Page - yeah, yeah, yeah... GPSY & DeLorme Street Atlas 6 - no decent replacements yet Photoshop LE - Elements is at present too cumbersome for the $100 PageMaker 6.x - still does a yeoman's job balanced against the upgrade cost Microsoft Works - for playing whack-a-mole with legacy docs
Gotta say I was drooling when they announced the G4 iBooks, lamenting my Applecare isn't up til May, but this has breathed new life into my iBook 500. I backed up to Peerless (hush - they were $50 EOL) and did an upgrade install - no problems so far. Given the backup, I may backup again now and do an erase install...
Everything is much faster. Mail.app has to reindex, Preview will now be my pdf viewer, and the calculator actually remembers which mode you quit it in. Sorry I paid for Koalacalc. The network panel is informative and rather than a clicking party.
Only drawback is without Quartz Extreme my Expose is doing about 3 fps, but it still does what's needed.
Only grip is that the new finder windows w/o toolbars have a very subtle facing - then you enable the new finder windows in full regalia, and they get the old brushed metal, which looks rough in comparison.
"Ass-munch"? "f*cking idiot"? "Apple tard"? "Complete sucker?" "Titanic idiot?" Nice. You see this sort of behavior all over the place: If you have the facts, pound the facts. If you don't have the facts, pound the table.
I know the point - the iPod is tough to beat at its price point, never mind impossible to beat at $80. The truth is you still can't show me an off-the-shelf $80 MP3 player at Walmart that matches the iPod. And my friends couldn't care less which brand of player I use.
But you bit, took me up on the challenge, and somehow thought Dell was selling a $399 unit for $70. Sweet.
BTW it's a $44 mouse, but mostly I just use the trackpad.
Yes, well looks can be deceiving. (1) Rio Karma doesn't meet the criteria - it's Win only, not apparently mountable, no contact/cal sync, etc... (2) Call 1-800-WWW-Dell - ask about the Rio Karma - they'll explain that that was a pricing mistake. This is a $399 unit, they said their price when they fix the mistake will be a shade under that, but nowhere near $77. Thanks for playing!
Oh, goody - so the world can do to our fridges, treos and tivos what they're already doing to too many of the public IP devices.
And I can't wait til I have to keep track of a few dotted quad-quad-quad-quads (?) or every time the router needs poking with a stick. AH! I've just been handed a note - that IPv6 addresses will be shortened - from 16 three-digit decimal numbers to - WHAT? 8 four digit hex numbers? Ah! Much much better!
And of course if all these addresses are public (aka static) then for each one you have to keep track of addr, mask, gate, and at least 2 dns addresess...
"...Napster, it will launch as the world's largest online service with over half a million tracks from all the major labels and hundreds of independents on October 29. Napster goes way beyond individual downloads, offering advanced services such as unlimited downloads, customized radio, shared playlists, music videos and more. "
Uh, Apple has 400K songs by that date,
iTunes has customized radio, iTunes has shared playlists (sharers see them, right?) ITMS has music videos. Apple has "more". Hell, son - everyone has "more".
What good is "unlimted downloads" - you download it once, you own it, you do what you want. Why would I want unlimted downloads - it certainly doesn't mean that ITMS has a "full" meter... what the hell does this mean?
Ok, I have karma to burn, so I'll see your troll and call it.
Bowie, you find its equivalent at WalMart for $80 and I'll buy you one. But remember - it has to be it's equivalent - You said $350 - actually they make a 10GB for $299 or 20 GB for $399 - but here's your challenge find one at WalMart for $80 that has 10 GB, under 6 oz, firewire or usb2 sync, 8 hours on a rechargeable battery, Mac/Windows compatible, contact and calendar management, mountable as a hard drive, and since it's Sunday, I'll give you a pass on the photo storage/sync, on-the-go playlists and built-in games.
(he said with karma to burn) What have you done with the Eugenia we all know and love - you know, the damning with faint praise, lak of spel cjekr, unmitigated beos - er, bias - er, well, you know...
Ok, couldn't resist. I take back all the flame emails - not because it's a favorable-to-Mac review, but because she's far more even handed and objective than ever. Brava, Eugenia!
Slashdot Mirror
.. and check the weather forecast - they finally found something too weird for California.
And it was AFTER electing Ahnold as Governor.
Can Bush, Cheney, Limbaugh, Hannity & Roberstson be convinced to be the pioneers (like Bugs Bunny giving Yosemite Sam the bum's rush out the door) or maybe they'll be able to do that to Gore, Hillary, Colmes, Sharpton & Dean?
Either way it'll end up a reality series on Fox.
... who's been predicting the imminent death of Apple for 20+ years.
And now he claims "...no more junk email"
OK. That's quite simply not possible, and he must know it.
"Packed with secrets never before revealed"
You're telling me there's a lot (wnough to "pack" a book this size) important useful things about the internet that only these three people knew until now?
Hogwash.
His older version of this was required reading for my tech-ed undergrads and grads. It makes sense to hear this opinion, to see how to balance what's going on.
These guns-or-butter argument is secondary to the proper funding of education as a whole.
I'm sorry - but I saw my first Macintosh immediately after completing college and a year of grad school, and seeing the undeniable utility of nothing more than MacWrite/MacDraw was astounding. Computers do indeed beling in schools. To not do so would be denying students the power that everyone else has in dealing with information. The world has changed too much to go back.
I'm going to use the language of apple/mac for two reasons - I know it better, and because apple has been able to deliver secure-able workstations and out-of-the-box tools that get stuff done. Easy productivity tools for students at a wide range of ages. If you want to substitute comparable tools and systems from wintel or OSS, great.
Todd focuses on things like kids learning powerpoint, kids using turnkey learning systems, and teachers being ad hoc tech mavens.
He's right - these are problems, but precisely because they are the wrong approaches, not because computers in the classroom are inherently wrong.
Powerpoint - Unless there's a separate app, the student edition of MS Office is just cheaper. MS Office used by kids borders on mental abuse. No student needs a WP app with 1100 menu items. Our kids use Keynote and swear by it and mastered it in very short time.
Turnkey systems - these are the least proven of anything anyone ever thought of for educational use. Almost to a unit, they do not use proven techniques or leverage sound educational philosophy or psychology, or do it on a superficial or cartoon basis.
Teachers as techies - the focus should be on using computers as a tool to find, assemble, process, and create information and understanding. This is all using retail level stuff that all teachers can get to know easily: browser, wp, ss, paint, photos, movies, presentation...
As for the comparison to construction paper etc. - when we were in school (the 60s) the two slits thru which you were allowed to express yoursleves were book reports and shoebox dioramas. Compare this to what can be done out of the box with Safari, iLife, Keynote and AppleWorks. W much wider spectrum without so much as cracking a manual.
Shut down IMs, email, and other distractions. Make it accessible across the board. Do it right. But keep doing it.
just add the radio card to any os9/X than can (slot loading iMacs on up, iBooks on up) and press 'share'
do all the protective stuff of course...
i have this burided somewhere in a pile of pulp and ink, but it would be great (especially given the subject matter and nelson's foresight) to have this in digital form...
There is no inherent search feature embedded in the protocols of the net.
One had to be invented, and business did so build one with very cool original technology.
Google is a business - it exists to make money.
It makes money by selling its search engine and ads and being good so people will use it.
Shopping is one use, not the only one.
Like the power companies and MS before them they are a 'want' that will soon become a 'need'.
One of two things may then happen - people start making anti-trust noises and/or want it ubiquitous and as usual, accountable, like public utilities.
As for the former, they're not guilty of the sort of nonsense MS could think up on its laziest afternoon. As for the latter, because they're a proprietary system with lots-n-lots of trade secrets, it's hard to imagine the transparency needed to operate as such a utility.
On the other hand, go read the history of Edison & Westinghouse...
If you went to any studio in Hollywood and said we want to make a movie: ... where everyone knows what happens at the end... ... so much so that the name is synonymous with fateful disaster... ... that's three and a half hours long... ... and aim it at the 13-19 year old demographic... ... they'd laugh you out of the office.
You'd have to call it"Titanic" and it'd be the top grossing film of all time by half.
You create drama on the screen from what you have and do it well, and people will pay real money for that and praise your work.
Peter's darn smart. He's doing things right from many angles. When I saw the very first teaser of Fellowship and saw Elijah Wood's face and that ring - it was the very image I'd had in my mind since reading the trilogy+ as our entire sophomore english course in 1974.
I know what happens, and I still want to see it. It's the storyteller's craft involved here, and there's a remarkably tight line between what JRR put on the page and what Peter puts on film.
On the other hand, I prefer to listen to the stories at Lake Woebegon - my imagination is allowed to take the little pieces and make them whole. Disney tried telecasting PHC and it failed miserably after a few weeks. Being at a live broadcast of PHC however is stunning. "Shelob & Gollum Live! On Ice!" would be a disaster. Go figure.
I'm guessing they're looking at the success of Speedpass and FastLane devices and continuing the argument to its 'logical extreme'. First it was 'bring the cash', next 'bring the proxy for cash' then 'bring something / know something' - have the proxy/card and know your code. That's a successful model because stealing a atm/debit card isn't enough - you have to have the thing that's (supposed to be only) in the owner's brain. If they hold you up for cash, it's gone. If they hold you up for debit/credit, a phone call with your last bill in hand stops them cold within very short time. When my house was robbed, they didn't take the cards in plain sight. Too easy - i knew they were missing. When a local restaurant started photocopying cards in the back room, no one knew until it was after the thefts. The credit card model - where you can use them without knowing anything - is in need of revision - adding a pin would be good - the CVN system is too easily foiled with trivial methods.
.
If the key is my retina or my fingertip, I can bring you on a tour of neighborhoods where you would soon check over your shoulder at the atm for someone approaching with a knife or a grapefruit spoon
Speedpass works well because you now simply bring something - tag, watchband, etc.. and you're buying a tank of gas or a bag of snacks or a car wash - if you lose it you'll see that soon (it's a personal item) and the damage will be minimal (unless they stand at a mobil station and make a sign that says 'free gas!' - in which case one would hope the attendants would call someone...)
So for small payments it seems like a good solution - they're testing it at Stop&Shop supermarket in Boston - i'd be a little wary-er about this - you can load up a cart with dvds and lobsters and swipe and go...
The speedpass watch is nice because it's innocuous - the owner knows it's a speedpass, nefarious persons think it's a cheap timex. That seems better than the speedpass itself - easily identified and take-able.
The iButton model is also enticing - it's a piece of jewlery, and to a potential thief, it's like the final scene in the 2nd thomas crown affair - you'd have to go after every piece of jewelry in sight to get a live one. Until of course they're ubiquitous.
It really is a fox hunt - and until it's tested, you aren't going to get people wanting this without knowing the unintended consequences...
I mean this is like breaking into the Louvre and stealing a crayon drawing
I seem to have a couple of videos of Fat Bastard rushing the stage at the Enchanted Tiki Room...
1. Battery life. He's on the low side, and I guess the 8+hour fliers will be inconvenienced.
2. Jogging at the exact moment the buffer needs filling... this is an astronomical chance and not worth mentioning.
3. Um, right - carry 20 discs and a player vs. this small unit. That's a matter of choice. Hardly compelling.
4. High quality recordings...well you already have the ability to do that with the computer you're using for the back end of all this... no one buys an iPod as a standalone.
5. Choice. Um, so he's saying that by using any of those other players you get a choice of exactly one other format in a bunch of stores who all use WMA (he notes that it's secure - but doesn't note the faiplay drm of apple) all from stores with smaller selections, obscure catalogs or the status quo in illegal downloads.
is at least 51% FUD.
figured i'd do it myself and save you all the trouble... ;-)
I mean, jeez -this guy could piss off Mary Worth. Maybe he thinks since the open source movement is just as he characterizes it, then it can't gice him a cosmic IT wedgie - guess someone hasn'ty bee following the SCO badminton game.
This should in now way be construed as an entre for Eric (/Bruce/Linus/Richard) to launch a salvo. Really,
Not to mention where else should you embrace open source but in academia.
And here's the punchline, from netcraft:
The site www.princeton.edu is running Apache/1.3.4 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.1.8 SSLeay/0.9.0b on Solaris.
What's in my classic apps folder?
Claris Home Page - yeah, yeah, yeah...
GPSY & DeLorme Street Atlas 6 - no decent replacements yet
Photoshop LE - Elements is at present too cumbersome for the $100
PageMaker 6.x - still does a yeoman's job balanced against the upgrade cost
Microsoft Works - for playing whack-a-mole with legacy docs
Gotta say I was drooling when they announced the G4 iBooks, lamenting my Applecare isn't up til May, but this has breathed new life into my iBook 500. I backed up to Peerless (hush - they were $50 EOL) and did an upgrade install - no problems so far. Given the backup, I may backup again now and do an erase install...
Everything is much faster. Mail.app has to reindex, Preview will now be my pdf viewer, and the calculator actually remembers which mode you quit it in. Sorry I paid for Koalacalc. The network panel is informative and rather than a clicking party.
Only drawback is without Quartz Extreme my Expose is doing about 3 fps, but it still does what's needed.
Only grip is that the new finder windows w/o toolbars have a very subtle facing - then you enable the new finder windows in full regalia, and they get the old brushed metal, which looks rough in comparison.
"Ass-munch"? "f*cking idiot"? "Apple tard"? "Complete sucker?" "Titanic idiot?" Nice. You see this sort of behavior all over the place: If you have the facts, pound the facts. If you don't have the facts, pound the table.
I know the point - the iPod is tough to beat at its price point, never mind impossible to beat at $80. The truth is you still can't show me an off-the-shelf $80 MP3 player at Walmart that matches the iPod. And my friends couldn't care less which brand of player I use.
But you bit, took me up on the challenge, and somehow thought Dell was selling a $399 unit for $70. Sweet.
BTW it's a $44 mouse, but mostly I just use the trackpad.
Yes, well looks can be deceiving.
(1) Rio Karma doesn't meet the criteria - it's Win only, not apparently mountable, no contact/cal sync, etc...
(2) Call 1-800-WWW-Dell - ask about the Rio Karma - they'll explain that that was a pricing mistake. This is a $399 unit, they said their price when they fix the mistake will be a shade under that, but nowhere near $77.
Thanks for playing!
Oh, goody - so the world can do to our fridges, treos and tivos what they're already doing to too many of the public IP devices.
And I can't wait til I have to keep track of a few dotted quad-quad-quad-quads (?) or every time the router needs poking with a stick. AH! I've just been handed a note - that IPv6 addresses will be shortened - from 16 three-digit decimal numbers to - WHAT? 8 four digit hex numbers? Ah! Much much better!
And of course if all these addresses are public (aka static) then for each one you have to keep track of addr, mask, gate, and at least 2 dns addresess...
Sounds like a military operation to me!
Sounds like just the power plant to light up their aircraft carrier of a 17" laptop they're selling...
"...Napster, it will launch as the world's largest online service with over half a million tracks from all the major labels and hundreds of independents on October 29. Napster goes way beyond individual downloads, offering advanced services such as unlimited downloads, customized radio, shared playlists, music videos and more. "
Uh, Apple has 400K songs by that date,
iTunes has customized radio,
iTunes has shared playlists (sharers see them, right?)
ITMS has music videos.
Apple has "more". Hell, son - everyone has "more".
What good is "unlimted downloads" - you download it once, you own it, you do what you want. Why would I want unlimted downloads - it certainly doesn't mean that ITMS has a "full" meter... what the hell does this mean?
Ok, I have karma to burn, so I'll see your troll and call it.
Bowie, you find its equivalent at WalMart for $80 and I'll buy you one. But remember - it has to be it's equivalent - You said $350 - actually they make a 10GB for $299 or 20 GB for $399 - but here's your challenge find one at WalMart for $80 that has 10 GB, under 6 oz, firewire or usb2 sync, 8 hours on a rechargeable battery, Mac/Windows compatible, contact and calendar management, mountable as a hard drive, and since it's Sunday, I'll give you a pass on the photo storage/sync, on-the-go playlists and built-in games.
Knock yerself out, boy-o.
"after all, Apple has never written any Windows software, let alone had to deal with the vagries of the Windows installation process..."
OK - so far someone pointed out QT, how about Claris/AppleWorks, Home Page, FileMaker Pro, DVD@ccess, WebObjects...
(he said with karma to burn)
What have you done with the Eugenia we all know and love - you know, the damning with faint praise, lak of spel cjekr, unmitigated beos - er, bias - er, well, you know...
Ok, couldn't resist. I take back all the flame emails - not because it's a favorable-to-Mac review, but because she's far more even handed and objective than ever. Brava, Eugenia!
You're gettin' dope slapped by the provost and the comptroller and the Texas lege...
Not to mention the next site visit by NSF - that should be a hoot.
This should be on the Apple Hot News page.