But frankly, there's nothing like holding and reading a real book by the bedside or on the go.
I love books. I started reading at 2. I worked at an independent bookstore for three years in high school. Then at a library in college. I love books.
Why would anyone ever want to read an ebook? Paper is so much nicer....This is what I always used to say...
Then I tried reading an ebook on my Clie. At bedtime. I've got to say -- reading a book on a small bright handheld, no need for a reading lamp, being able to put it down and nod off... WOW. Reading in bed has never been so nice!
Moral of the story: Don't knock it 'till you try it.
For season 4 it was averaging around a 1.4, so getting up to a 2.0 is not a huge leap, but it is some work.
...and you base this "not a huge leap" on what, exactly? A show that is in the crapper, at least according to the people who look at these numbers. And what about the amount of money it costs to produce each show? Farscape is a tremendously expensive show to produce. And to go from 1.4 to 2.0 means 50% more viewers -- that's pretty substantial, especially after four seasons -- you have to figure those who want to watch it ARE watching it. You'd have to have every other person who watches the show convince someone new to watch it, coming in for the last season...
We can talk about artistic merit all we want but last I checked, the business was a for profit one.
Yeah, except I think Twirlip of the Mists(615030)'s original point was still a pretty good one. For about 2 or 3 months there, back in 99 or something, Ask Jeeves was my search enginge of choice. Then I started using Google, never looking back.
Frankly, I had sort of assumed Ask Jeeves had died. It amazes me that with Google around anyone would even consider using something like Ask Jeeves. Don't get me wrong -- competition is healthy! But whether you allow banner ads/popups/subscriptions won't save your sinking ship if you are Ask Jeeves fighting google!!!
Because dolphins and whales really aren't so terribly bright. "Dogs with good PR" is how one of my professors once described dolphins.
Ah, well, there you go. If your professor said it, it must be so. No need to consider whale songs or the speed at which dolphins learn or the possible potential things we could do from the other intelligent life we know exists in the universe!!!
Let the hunting resume!! AC's professor said it was ok!!!
Seriously, though -- 95% of what I (and, by extension, everyone else, naturally) do on a laptop is send email or review/write documents. A laptop battery lasts 2-3 hours -- tops. A laptop with bag weighs 5-10 lbs. A new laptop starts at around $1000 (US).
A fully loaded handheld, with keyboard, applications and internet access, can be had for under $500.
And now for my dream -- a handheld with 32-256MB storage, color, hires (320x320, not THAT hard, is it?), keyboard, wireless internet and vibrating notification for new emails/IMs... I love my Clie, I really do, but I wish I could use it with a keyboard *AND* wireless internet at the same time.
As for your wish, JohnFluxx(413620), I'd say keep at the vi and coding -- then take a quick consulting job and work an extra 2 hours and that keyboard will be YOURS. $99 retail. Approx. half that if you keep your eyes open for Open Box/rebates/returns at Best Buy/Circuit City...
Funny you should mention this. I gave up using my Palm about 2 years ago. It's strictly a toy.
Ever buy a fold-up keyboard for a Palm? And use something like WordSmith? Ever just slip the keyboard and the Palm into your pocket, go someplace and just WRITE? Having the keyboard with me everywhere is what made it a killer "app" for me. Meetings, coffeeshops... no more yellow pads. No more searching for information. I've always got it with me. And before I saw the keyboard, I couldn't even imagine it.
The most exciting part, for me, about something new is waiting to see how people innovate. I'd keep watching the Segway...
I'll probably get modded as flamebait for this one, but the question is QUITE valid:
Isn't it arrogant BIGOTRY to be spending tens of billions of dollars on the space program and on probes that will never reach anything outside our solar system but almost zero money is allocated funding research into communicating with dolphins and whales.
We eat the only other intelligent life we do know exists. Or put them in crappy movies.
Amazing post. You really hit most of the salient points that I've heard. I am impressed.
Personally, I'd like to back #7:
7) Interstellar travel is impossible, for some currently unknown reason. Perhaps there are giant invisible particles between the stars - they could even be the source of that missing mass we hear so much about - that an unlucky spacecraft could slam into, instantly halting its journey to a nearby star. This is admittedly an unlikely proposition, but we'd be foolish to think we know everything about the feasibility of interstellar travel. Perhaps it's impossible regardless of your level of technological advancement - hence, no alien colonies scattered about the galaxy
Faster than light travel is impossible. The amounts of energy/fuel/TIME that would go into "interstellar travel" are, pardon the pun, astronomical. 39,900,000,000,000 km. to the NEAREST star. (To give you an idea of how FAR this really is, the.9 trillion KM (as in the 39.9 TRILLION KM) is almost 100 times further than voyager probes have travelled, zipping along at 17.3 km/second.) But no one really cares ALL that much the Centauris...so we need to go much further. Maybe hundreds of times further.
Are we going to sustain a civilization to wait the 10,000 years for a probe to go to the NEAREST star? Are we going to somehow pack a group of several thousand travellers in a ship and expect them to not all kill each other? Quite a bet, considering writing, and consequently, all of recorded human history, has been around about that long. It would be an expensive trip. As in, less expensive to feed everyone, produce cheap clean energy on earth kind of expensive.
And then what do they do when they get there and the "there" is -30F all the time or has too much argon in the atmosphere or nasty little bacteria everywhere...? People assume that you can just "terraform" a planet. HOW? Press a button? Launch a "genesis" missile? Give me a break.
The fact of the matter is that the distances were are talking about are VAST. We KNOW faster than light travel is impossible. Civilizations may exist elsewhere. I can't say for sure. None of us can. Be we certainly aren't going to be doing exchange programs with them!!!
No matter how many statistical guesses different scientists make, the question of habitable planets, not to mention the question of other intelligences, will not be answered without actually going out and visiting them. This will not happen in your lifetime. You will not know. Sorry!
Someone actually modded that flamebait!?!? Are you kidding? Do you think we'll just be able to get a bigger mirror on Hubble and presto suddenly we can see there is life on other planets? The poster was right -- we will need to VISIT these places.
And visiting them will cost tremendous amounts of resources. The smartest people and wads and wads of money taking a one way trip that will take thousands of years. Unless somebody invents a warp engine. But just because you stayed up every dateless Friday night eating pizza and watching the crew clean out the injector coils doesn't actually mean FTL (faster than light) travel is even possible.
So... we need to visit these planets. It will take a huge chunk of earth's resources and thousands of years.
This will not happen in your lifetime.
You will not know.
sigh -- Slashdot. Open-minded only when it likes the answer...
Seriously, someone should mod the beloved Anonymous Coward above me up into the stratosphere. Confusing "doggy dog" for "dog eat dog".
One phrase makes no sense: "Doggy dog" -- what kind of world would that be, a doggy dog world? One with lots of hydrants? Or leashes? Or biscuits? Why, why, why would you ever use a phrase such as this?
The other -- "dog eat dog" -- now, this makes some sense. You can get an idea of what a dog eat dog world might look like. Mean, hungry dogs, viciously going after weaker dogs. *boohhaaa* Getting shivers just picturing it. Yeah...that is an expression that means something.
English is full of idioms. They add to the richness of our shared experience. But when otherwise intelligent people with intelligent things to say miss something as basic as this, well, let's just say your credibility was lost on MANY. Spelling, grammar -- these things are also important when making a point. If you have something to say, PRESENT IT WELL.
But you might choose to disregard all of this anyway. You might not care enough about your own opinion to take some care when presenting it... *sigh* Its like leading a dead horse to water...
If the reality of the market is such that even teenagers won't work for the minimum wage, IMHO the minimum wage has been, de facto, repealed. That's not true in every single state, but in my experience, it's true in most states.
Again -- if market forces dictate that to hire candidates, most jobs pay more than the minimum wage: Great!!! (I, for one, am pleased to see that this is the case in the IT industry. Things may seem bad, but no one is making $5.15/hour.) The government chooses where to set that "minimum" wage. But certainly everyone wants to be making more than that if they can...
I still don't get your point by the way. It might have something to do with a fundamental assumption you make about government. You wrote the following was the problem:
The tactic of instead of getting a legislative consensus and passing a law, that instead you can use gov't gridlock to kill laws.
Um, that "tactic" is part of the framework that was intentionally weaved into most of our governmental institutions. Legislative/Executive/Judical. National/State. House/Senate. The entire system has checks and balances busting out all over the place. This wasn't by accident. It isn't a "problem" or a "symptom" of something dire when we see gridlock -- it is an intended feature of the system.
And I guess I'm still shaky on how "gridlock" in the debate over changing the minimum wage law has ONE BLESSED THING to do with public support of public education... but I would love to see you make that connection for me. Seriously.
I would think that the original poster was talking about the teacher doing the babysitting and not the six year olds being baby sat. From what I understand, the teacher shapes the situation and that is what is being talked about here.
Whoa, there. Your post goes from intriguing to rambling...
Why should that computer teacher slave away in a public school when if s/he's good, s/he can get a corporate trainer job that is less work and pays $10-20,000 per year more than public education?
I'll agree with you: there is an interesting story to be told about market forces causing a scarcity of good technology teachers. Do you know of any good programmers want to get paid $32,000/year for the first few years? Technical trainers might not make as much as sysadmins, but they make more than school teachers. (An even more interesting story to be told would be about the other incentives that could be used to help correct this. But that's a different topic.)
So today we see a situation where the minimum wage is often irrelevant -- in many states no one will work for the federal minimum wage because it's unrealistically low. It's so low that many states have minimum wage laws higher than the federal level, and so in effect we've de facto repealled the minimum wage law.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. If the federal minimum wage is $5.15/hour and some states choose to make their minimum wage HIGHER, the minimum wage is still $5.15/hour. Nothing has been "repealed" de facto or otherwise.
I wonder if the same tactic is being used to do away with public education...
What "tactic"? I don't even get what conspiracy you might even be hinting at here... the conspiracy of market forces?
Our education system should consist of the basic fundimentals..Math general scientific method, language and grammer, and logical thought are the most important things we can teach.
Grammar and spelling fundamentals appear to be in order, too.
Which brings up the interesting matter about the variety of facts available on the Internet -- spelling variations, different dates listed for events that obviously only happened once, crackpot theories and more... It seems like it is more important than ever to teach those all important critical thinking skills to kids...maybe even as a computer skill? Or an Internet skill?
Part of the problem is that many schools are staffed with teachers fresh out of school themselves and put into situations that equate to nothing more than glorified babysitting.
So often I hear people talking about how they are victims of circumstance and don't have any options/choices/responsibilities. Part of the problem here is that people assume that their situations are nothing more than glorified babysitting. When you assume you are in a situation where you can't stimulate/challenge/innovate, you won't. When you assume that you have a group of young minds sitting in front of you each day, waiting to be shaped and sharpened and taught how to learn, you can achieve that. You might not achieve it. You might have things standing in your way that make it more difficult than you would prefer. There isn't any sure path. Education is still more art than science. But you certainly won't achieve anything if you think you've been "put into a situation" out of your control.
(And just to be 100% off-topic, I agree with the parent poster about parents making sure that after school doesn't become an 8 hour TV-watching, video-game-playing marathon.)
The article mentions the possibility of making car tires that get 90% better grip in icy conditions, yet this article cares more about skiers.
For some reason, I'm thinking someone's vision on the uses for technology is a little out of focus here.
...Or maybe they don't live in shockingly cold places like many of the rest of us (Minneapolis, MN here -- hi everyone) where they need to DRIVE in conditions like that constantly for 5-7 months of the year. It is one thing to live in Southern California and take a drive to the mountains to ski every once in a while -- it is something else completely to have to drive 20 miles to work on a frozen freeway...
That's the world we're headed for. "At least W. made us secure from terrorist attack" -- and he won't, but we'll have to pretend he did.
Italy had a government where people were scared to talk about the trains running on time.
George W. believes in trains.
?????
Fascism!!!
(Apologies go out to Trey and Matt for butchering something of theirs to make a point...)
See -- the current US Administration plan may or may not be making us safer from terrorism. But at what point will we have to "pretend" anything!?! -- last time I checked, we had free speech, we had the vote, we had a free press... you might not always like the votes being cast or the stories being covered in the press. But our democracy is still healthy enough that you can go out and speak your mind.
Or was your last post just a mirage?
Someone should tell me what the mechanism is that I should be looking out for -- where these evil people will start to take away my right to freely express myself.
Otherwise I will be forced to conclude that this is just a new form of political correctness -- you disagree with your opponent so you claim they are secretly fascists intent on evil. Sloppy intellectual reasoning, if you ask me.
Folks, the internet is dying because...I don't use the net as much as I did
Two quotes from two parts of your message, spliced together to sum up your message. I should get a +5 insightful for that alone...
If you haven't noticed, the Internet has a significantly higher percentage of advertisements than it did in 1994 (100% more, approximately). It also has a few more people using it. Sure, you have tens of millions of people out there now TYPING IN ALL CAPS or sending checks to Nigeria...but what are you doing to do? Or are you making up your own definition of the Internet? You wrote:
Folks, the internet is dying because it became the true meaning of free speech, communication and information. Corporations are slowly killing the net, which requires Goverments to get their hands in on regulating things.
Not quite sure what you meant there but I will attempt to get it right with the best of intentions...let me know if I get it wrong. Seriously.
OK, on the cusp of 2003 you have ads "flooding" the Internet -- except it really isn't THAT odious. The daily newspaper in my city is about 40% ad space. CNN -- on cable, which I am already PAYING for -- is nearly 1/4 ads per half hour. The Internet, as a medium, is far more ad free than other mediums precisely because peole have CHOSEN COLLECTIVELY to make it that way. Not by government regulation... (which I suspect you secretly want, but for YOUR pet cause, "free Internet, no ads, etc") --
* Government regulations are a very clumsy tool for carrying out popular will.
* Government regulators/legislators have trouble gauging popular will. You could say the crystal ball is cloudy
* Market forces are much more immediate, accurate indicators of popular will
Note, when I say "market forces" I am talking about the collective action of masses of people unhindered by extreme legislation (taxation, threat of punishment, etc.) -- usually the actors making the decisions form coalitions and give themselves names like "Harley Davidson" or "Coors" -- but they are still groups of people acting together. (I suspect my side points are setting me up for a flame and the main point is getting lost, so, back to the main point...)
So, by and large, popups are annoying. Banner ads are annoying. And you know what? THEY AREN'T VERY EFFECTIVE, EITHER. People don't buy that much from them! "Just don't look" and they slowly start to go away... or evolve into something slicker that we don't mind.
...unless you have a problem with that "something slicker" -- thinking the Internet should be "pure" like it "used to be" -- if you haven't noticed, the Internet USED to be a government funded research project that only select academics could use. If you feel (and I suspect but cannot prove that you do) that UNIVERSAL ACCESS to the Internet is a very good thing... that giving all people the ability to use this cyber space to express their ideas is a very good thing... how do you propose to pay for it?!?
Volunteerism, altruism, charity... The world would be a better place with more of this. On a macro and micro level. So get started. But in the meantime -- these routers and pipes and servers and content writers and network engineers monitoring their openview stations... and PHBs that this army needs to keep it marching in the right direction... these cost money.
If you can come up with a better way, please share your magical answer so we can all have a slightly more enjoyable browsing experience. I suspect you have none and I don't mind putting my faith in the market forces which will (not so) slowly arrive at an acceptable answer. That's the magic of the market.
Oh, and stash your paranoia, too...The Internet DOES allow for free speech, communication and information. Only the most draconian measures even put a dent into the complete freedom people still have to say whatever is on their mind. You have something to say about civil liberties? Sign your name to it!
Or...if you REALLY think the government is out to get you, the computer will eventually be the last place you'll want to post ideas, anyway. Too many trails to be left.
My personal take on the whole issue is: You might disagree with the leadership or the opinions being expressed, but if you live in a Western style democracy -- this is still YOUR government, YOU (collectively) have a say in what is carried out. If I have something to say, I'll sign my name to it. How many people on Slashdot automatically filter away anonymously posted messages, anyway? The real world is the same way. If I have something to say, I'd rather have my voice carry to everyone. Forming cells and clusters of underground groups seems a rather unhealthy symptom and a bad way to bring about change...I could be wrong.
I think it is healthy that we have privacy advocates continually pointing to potential threats on the horizon. I think it is unhealthy to obsess too much over these boogeymen, failing to remember just how vital and alive this freedom of expression still is.
The point being, the government isn't going to stupidly cause a mass uprising by forcing this down our throats in one big dose, it will break it down into smaller ones that few people will get worked up about until you have an entire generation used to the fact that their entire personal life is on the government record
The point that the privacy nuts come so close to getting so right and then end up getting so wrong is this:
The reason why these little forms of monitoring and tracking will be odious and everywhere isn't because of the government imposing draconian laws or trying to track everybody. Sorry, folks, but last time I checked most of us live in fairly healthy democracies and if a groudswell of people take the time to voice their opinions, that opinion carries the day... No, the reason to be scared -- the face that this sort of omnipresent monitoring will take -- will be in the forms mentioned in the curril's post just above:
So maybe we should do it for people who are charged but out on bail as well.
And surely it would be OK for parents to do that in order to keep track of their kids.
And by extension, we should do the same for mentally ill patients and other wards of the state.
And speaking of such things, there is no reason why your employer shouldn't be able to require you to wear one on the job to make sure you aren't slacking off. After all, trucking companies already have something like that in place.
Yup and yup -- the thing is, we will let it go as far as we, as a society let it go. But don't confuse this with "the government" being out to do something. It is we, as a society, making the trade-off and giving up this privacy. No need to ascribe nefarious intentions ("the government" oooo) where there may be none but the end result is still nasty... Is it really any less offensive to have AOLTimeWarner/CocaCola/Barnes and Noble/Starbucks/Merck tracking your every move and using this to build a profile on you?
Of course narcissist that I am, I always check to see how many people have replied to my comments. (+5 is nice, but seeing REPLIES 10+ is always what gives me that warm fuzzy feeling...)
Maybe I should have left out that disclaimer, eh?
(Thanks for the embedded tip about the spelling mistake, btw. I am a bit of a stickler for getting it right so the ego was a little bruised to see that one slip past -- but since someone else took the time to catch it and point it out, my faith in the world grew by almost exactly the same amount. I'd call it a wash, wouldn't you?)
just new take on a tried and true con that has been around for probably centuries.
Yup. Getting people to offer up their credit card numbers has been around for centuries.
The Spanish and English coming to North America and STEALING the American Indians' land? Nope -- they got them to offer up their credit card numbers and then purchased the land fraudulantly.
The Soviets STEALING the soverignty of Eastern Bloc nations? Nope -- they just got them to offer up their credit card numbers...
Don't even get me STARTED about the 2000 election...
Television is a great medium to get this information out to the public! So is the internet. BUT, the good thing about TV is that if you don't want to watch it, you can turn it OFF. If they continue this activity with making deals with internet companies and put pop-ups/banners on everyone's screens, it just going to end up making a lot of people upset.
Wow. Looks like someone doesn't get away from their computer enough.
All I'm trying to say is, the same holds true for the Internet. It is nifty, sure, but there is a GIANT WORLD OUT THERE. If the banner ads or other things really get to you, you can turn it OFF.
What sort of nonsense are you going off about here?
Companies have the right to run their companies the way management sees fit. I for one could made a good argument for the liability of random tech support people speaking for the company in off-hours being too risky. The point is they HAVE made this choice. And, what, because you DISAGREE with their BUSINESS DECISIONS, you are going to boycott their product? Oh, wait, not even a boycott, no, some sort of uber-hip guerillia marketing terrorism directed at the person who meets with his or her vice presidents on a regular basis? PLEASE.
(1) Find worthy problems to get your undies in a bunch over.
(2) Grow up before you suggest "solutions"
(3) Figure out who the "them" is you are attacking...
Slashdot Mirror
I suspect you have self-esteam issues.
...says the anonymous coward...
...who can't spell...
*grins* All good here.
But frankly, there's nothing like holding and reading a real book by the bedside or on the go.
...This is what I always used to say...
I love books. I started reading at 2. I worked at an independent bookstore for three years in high school. Then at a library in college. I love books.
Why would anyone ever want to read an ebook? Paper is so much nicer.
Then I tried reading an ebook on my Clie. At bedtime. I've got to say -- reading a book on a small bright handheld, no need for a reading lamp, being able to put it down and nod off... WOW. Reading in bed has never been so nice!
Moral of the story: Don't knock it 'till you try it.
For season 4 it was averaging around a 1.4, so getting up to a 2.0 is not a huge leap, but it is some work.
...and you base this "not a huge leap" on what, exactly? A show that is in the crapper, at least according to the people who look at these numbers. And what about the amount of money it costs to produce each show? Farscape is a tremendously expensive show to produce. And to go from 1.4 to 2.0 means 50% more viewers -- that's pretty substantial, especially after four seasons -- you have to figure those who want to watch it ARE watching it. You'd have to have every other person who watches the show convince someone new to watch it, coming in for the last season...
We can talk about artistic merit all we want but last I checked, the business was a for profit one.
Yeah, except I think Twirlip of the Mists(615030)'s original point was still a pretty good one. For about 2 or 3 months there, back in 99 or something, Ask Jeeves was my search enginge of choice. Then I started using Google, never looking back.
Frankly, I had sort of assumed Ask Jeeves had died. It amazes me that with Google around anyone would even consider using something like Ask Jeeves. Don't get me wrong -- competition is healthy! But whether you allow banner ads/popups/subscriptions won't save your sinking ship if you are Ask Jeeves fighting google!!!
Because dolphins and whales really aren't so terribly bright. "Dogs with good PR" is how one of my professors once described dolphins.
Ah, well, there you go. If your professor said it, it must be so. No need to consider whale songs or the speed at which dolphins learn or the possible potential things we could do from the other intelligent life we know exists in the universe!!!
Let the hunting resume!! AC's professor said it was ok!!!
(why are they so expensive??)
Three words: Supply and demand.
Or two even better words: Market forces.
Seriously, though -- 95% of what I (and, by extension, everyone else, naturally) do on a laptop is send email or review/write documents. A laptop battery lasts 2-3 hours -- tops. A laptop with bag weighs 5-10 lbs. A new laptop starts at around $1000 (US).
A fully loaded handheld, with keyboard, applications and internet access, can be had for under $500.
And now for my dream -- a handheld with 32-256MB storage, color, hires (320x320, not THAT hard, is it?), keyboard, wireless internet and vibrating notification for new emails/IMs... I love my Clie, I really do, but I wish I could use it with a keyboard *AND* wireless internet at the same time.
As for your wish, JohnFluxx(413620), I'd say keep at the vi and coding -- then take a quick consulting job and work an extra 2 hours and that keyboard will be YOURS. $99 retail. Approx. half that if you keep your eyes open for Open Box/rebates/returns at Best Buy/Circuit City...
Incidentally, does anyone know how much weight the Segway is designed to handle?
From the How Stuff Works Website:
Weight capacity: 250 pound (110 kg) person with 75 pounds (34 kg) of cargo.
(Good link about more Segway stuff without all of the marketing hype at Howstuffworks, too.)
Offtopic alert -- but I had to reply:
Funny you should mention this. I gave up using my Palm about 2 years ago. It's strictly a toy.
Ever buy a fold-up keyboard for a Palm? And use something like WordSmith? Ever just slip the keyboard and the Palm into your pocket, go someplace and just WRITE? Having the keyboard with me everywhere is what made it a killer "app" for me. Meetings, coffeeshops... no more yellow pads. No more searching for information. I've always got it with me. And before I saw the keyboard, I couldn't even imagine it.
The most exciting part, for me, about something new is waiting to see how people innovate. I'd keep watching the Segway...
I'll probably get modded as flamebait for this one, but the question is QUITE valid:
...go figure...
Isn't it arrogant BIGOTRY to be spending tens of billions of dollars on the space program and on probes that will never reach anything outside our solar system but almost zero money is allocated funding research into communicating with dolphins and whales.
We eat the only other intelligent life we do know exists. Or put them in crappy movies.
Amazing post. You really hit most of the salient points that I've heard. I am impressed.
.9 trillion KM (as in the 39.9 TRILLION KM) is almost 100 times further than voyager probes have travelled, zipping along at 17.3 km/second.) But no one really cares ALL that much the Centauris...so we need to go much further. Maybe hundreds of times further.
Personally, I'd like to back #7:
7) Interstellar travel is impossible, for some currently unknown reason. Perhaps there are giant invisible particles between the stars - they could even be the source of that missing mass we hear so much about - that an unlucky spacecraft could slam into, instantly halting its journey to a nearby star. This is admittedly an unlikely proposition, but we'd be foolish to think we know everything about the feasibility of interstellar travel. Perhaps it's impossible regardless of your level of technological advancement - hence, no alien colonies scattered about the galaxy
Faster than light travel is impossible. The amounts of energy/fuel/TIME that would go into "interstellar travel" are, pardon the pun, astronomical. 39,900,000,000,000 km. to the NEAREST star. (To give you an idea of how FAR this really is, the
Are we going to sustain a civilization to wait the 10,000 years for a probe to go to the NEAREST star? Are we going to somehow pack a group of several thousand travellers in a ship and expect them to not all kill each other? Quite a bet, considering writing, and consequently, all of recorded human history, has been around about that long. It would be an expensive trip. As in, less expensive to feed everyone, produce cheap clean energy on earth kind of expensive.
And then what do they do when they get there and the "there" is -30F all the time or has too much argon in the atmosphere or nasty little bacteria everywhere...? People assume that you can just "terraform" a planet. HOW? Press a button? Launch a "genesis" missile? Give me a break.
The fact of the matter is that the distances were are talking about are VAST. We KNOW faster than light travel is impossible. Civilizations may exist elsewhere. I can't say for sure. None of us can. Be we certainly aren't going to be doing exchange programs with them!!!
No matter how many statistical guesses different scientists make, the question of habitable planets, not to mention the question of other intelligences, will not be answered without actually going out and visiting them. This will not happen in your lifetime. You will not know. Sorry!
Someone actually modded that flamebait!?!? Are you kidding? Do you think we'll just be able to get a bigger mirror on Hubble and presto suddenly we can see there is life on other planets? The poster was right -- we will need to VISIT these places.
And visiting them will cost tremendous amounts of resources. The smartest people and wads and wads of money taking a one way trip that will take thousands of years. Unless somebody invents a warp engine. But just because you stayed up every dateless Friday night eating pizza and watching the crew clean out the injector coils doesn't actually mean FTL (faster than light) travel is even possible.
So... we need to visit these planets. It will take a huge chunk of earth's resources and thousands of years.
This will not happen in your lifetime.
You will not know.
sigh -- Slashdot. Open-minded only when it likes the answer...
Seriously, someone should mod the beloved Anonymous Coward above me up into the stratosphere. Confusing "doggy dog" for "dog eat dog".
One phrase makes no sense: "Doggy dog" -- what kind of world would that be, a doggy dog world? One with lots of hydrants? Or leashes? Or biscuits? Why, why, why would you ever use a phrase such as this?
The other -- "dog eat dog" -- now, this makes some sense. You can get an idea of what a dog eat dog world might look like. Mean, hungry dogs, viciously going after weaker dogs. *boohhaaa* Getting shivers just picturing it. Yeah...that is an expression that means something.
English is full of idioms. They add to the richness of our shared experience. But when otherwise intelligent people with intelligent things to say miss something as basic as this, well, let's just say your credibility was lost on MANY. Spelling, grammar -- these things are also important when making a point. If you have something to say, PRESENT IT WELL.
But you might choose to disregard all of this anyway. You might not care enough about your own opinion to take some care when presenting it... *sigh* Its like leading a dead horse to water...
If the reality of the market is such that even teenagers won't work for the minimum wage, IMHO the minimum wage has been, de facto, repealed. That's not true in every single state, but in my experience, it's true in most states.
Again -- if market forces dictate that to hire candidates, most jobs pay more than the minimum wage: Great!!! (I, for one, am pleased to see that this is the case in the IT industry. Things may seem bad, but no one is making $5.15/hour.) The government chooses where to set that "minimum" wage. But certainly everyone wants to be making more than that if they can...
I still don't get your point by the way. It might have something to do with a fundamental assumption you make about government. You wrote the following was the problem:
The tactic of instead of getting a legislative consensus and passing a law, that instead you can use gov't gridlock to kill laws.
Um, that "tactic" is part of the framework that was intentionally weaved into most of our governmental institutions. Legislative/Executive/Judical. National/State. House/Senate. The entire system has checks and balances busting out all over the place. This wasn't by accident. It isn't a "problem" or a "symptom" of something dire when we see gridlock -- it is an intended feature of the system.
And I guess I'm still shaky on how "gridlock" in the debate over changing the minimum wage law has ONE BLESSED THING to do with public support of public education... but I would love to see you make that connection for me. Seriously.
I would think that the original poster was talking about the teacher doing the babysitting and not the six year olds being baby sat. From what I understand, the teacher shapes the situation and that is what is being talked about here.
...or did I just get trolled, anonymous coward?
Whoa, there. Your post goes from intriguing to rambling...
Why should that computer teacher slave away in a public school when if s/he's good, s/he can get a corporate trainer job that is less work and pays $10-20,000 per year more than public education?
I'll agree with you: there is an interesting story to be told about market forces causing a scarcity of good technology teachers. Do you know of any good programmers want to get paid $32,000/year for the first few years? Technical trainers might not make as much as sysadmins, but they make more than school teachers. (An even more interesting story to be told would be about the other incentives that could be used to help correct this. But that's a different topic.)
So today we see a situation where the minimum wage is often irrelevant -- in many states no one will work for the federal minimum wage because it's unrealistically low. It's so low that many states have minimum wage laws higher than the federal level, and so in effect we've de facto repealled the minimum wage law.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. If the federal minimum wage is $5.15/hour and some states choose to make their minimum wage HIGHER, the minimum wage is still $5.15/hour. Nothing has been "repealed" de facto or otherwise.
I wonder if the same tactic is being used to do away with public education...
What "tactic"? I don't even get what conspiracy you might even be hinting at here... the conspiracy of market forces?
Our education system should consist of the basic fundimentals..Math general scientific method, language and grammer, and logical thought are the most important things we can teach.
...maybe even as a computer skill? Or an Internet skill?
Grammar and spelling fundamentals appear to be in order, too.
Which brings up the interesting matter about the variety of facts available on the Internet -- spelling variations, different dates listed for events that obviously only happened once, crackpot theories and more... It seems like it is more important than ever to teach those all important critical thinking skills to kids
Part of the problem is that many schools are staffed with teachers fresh out of school themselves and put into situations that equate to nothing more than glorified babysitting.
So often I hear people talking about how they are victims of circumstance and don't have any options/choices/responsibilities. Part of the problem here is that people assume that their situations are nothing more than glorified babysitting. When you assume you are in a situation where you can't stimulate/challenge/innovate, you won't. When you assume that you have a group of young minds sitting in front of you each day, waiting to be shaped and sharpened and taught how to learn, you can achieve that. You might not achieve it. You might have things standing in your way that make it more difficult than you would prefer. There isn't any sure path. Education is still more art than science. But you certainly won't achieve anything if you think you've been "put into a situation" out of your control.
(And just to be 100% off-topic, I agree with the parent poster about parents making sure that after school doesn't become an 8 hour TV-watching, video-game-playing marathon.)
The article mentions the possibility of making car tires that get 90% better grip in icy conditions, yet this article cares more about skiers.
...Or maybe they don't live in shockingly cold places like many of the rest of us (Minneapolis, MN here -- hi everyone) where they need to DRIVE in conditions like that constantly for 5-7 months of the year. It is one thing to live in Southern California and take a drive to the mountains to ski every once in a while -- it is something else completely to have to drive 20 miles to work on a frozen freeway...
For some reason, I'm thinking someone's vision on the uses for technology is a little out of focus here.
(Apologies go out to Trey and Matt for butchering something of theirs to make a point...)
See -- the current US Administration plan may or may not be making us safer from terrorism. But at what point will we have to "pretend" anything!?! -- last time I checked, we had free speech, we had the vote, we had a free press
Or was your last post just a mirage?
Someone should tell me what the mechanism is that I should be looking out for -- where these evil people will start to take away my right to freely express myself.
Otherwise I will be forced to conclude that this is just a new form of political correctness -- you disagree with your opponent so you claim they are secretly fascists intent on evil. Sloppy intellectual reasoning, if you ask me.
Folks, the internet is dying because...I don't use the net as much as I did
...unless you have a problem with that "something slicker" -- thinking the Internet should be "pure" like it "used to be" -- if you haven't noticed, the Internet USED to be a government funded research project that only select academics could use. If you feel (and I suspect but cannot prove that you do) that UNIVERSAL ACCESS to the Internet is a very good thing ... that giving all people the ability to use this cyber space to express their ideas is a very good thing ... how do you propose to pay for it?!?
Two quotes from two parts of your message, spliced together to sum up your message. I should get a +5 insightful for that alone...
If you haven't noticed, the Internet has a significantly higher percentage of advertisements than it did in 1994 (100% more, approximately). It also has a few more people using it. Sure, you have tens of millions of people out there now TYPING IN ALL CAPS or sending checks to Nigeria...but what are you doing to do? Or are you making up your own definition of the Internet? You wrote:
Folks, the internet is dying because it became the true meaning of free speech, communication and information. Corporations are slowly killing the net, which requires Goverments to get their hands in on regulating things.
Not quite sure what you meant there but I will attempt to get it right with the best of intentions...let me know if I get it wrong. Seriously.
OK, on the cusp of 2003 you have ads "flooding" the Internet -- except it really isn't THAT odious. The daily newspaper in my city is about 40% ad space. CNN -- on cable, which I am already PAYING for -- is nearly 1/4 ads per half hour. The Internet, as a medium, is far more ad free than other mediums precisely because peole have CHOSEN COLLECTIVELY to make it that way. Not by government regulation... (which I suspect you secretly want, but for YOUR pet cause, "free Internet, no ads, etc") --
* Government regulations are a very clumsy tool for carrying out popular will.
* Government regulators/legislators have trouble gauging popular will. You could say the crystal ball is cloudy
* Market forces are much more immediate, accurate indicators of popular will
Note, when I say "market forces" I am talking about the collective action of masses of people unhindered by extreme legislation (taxation, threat of punishment, etc.) -- usually the actors making the decisions form coalitions and give themselves names like "Harley Davidson" or "Coors" -- but they are still groups of people acting together. (I suspect my side points are setting me up for a flame and the main point is getting lost, so, back to the main point...)
So, by and large, popups are annoying. Banner ads are annoying. And you know what? THEY AREN'T VERY EFFECTIVE, EITHER. People don't buy that much from them! "Just don't look" and they slowly start to go away... or evolve into something slicker that we don't mind.
Volunteerism, altruism, charity... The world would be a better place with more of this. On a macro and micro level. So get started. But in the meantime -- these routers and pipes and servers and content writers and network engineers monitoring their openview stations... and PHBs that this army needs to keep it marching in the right direction... these cost money.
If you can come up with a better way, please share your magical answer so we can all have a slightly more enjoyable browsing experience. I suspect you have none and I don't mind putting my faith in the market forces which will (not so) slowly arrive at an acceptable answer. That's the magic of the market.
Oh, and stash your paranoia, too...The Internet DOES allow for free speech, communication and information. Only the most draconian measures even put a dent into the complete freedom people still have to say whatever is on their mind. You have something to say about civil liberties? Sign your name to it!
Or...if you REALLY think the government is out to get you, the computer will eventually be the last place you'll want to post ideas, anyway. Too many trails to be left.
My personal take on the whole issue is: You might disagree with the leadership or the opinions being expressed, but if you live in a Western style democracy -- this is still YOUR government, YOU (collectively) have a say in what is carried out. If I have something to say, I'll sign my name to it. How many people on Slashdot automatically filter away anonymously posted messages, anyway? The real world is the same way. If I have something to say, I'd rather have my voice carry to everyone. Forming cells and clusters of underground groups seems a rather unhealthy symptom and a bad way to bring about change...I could be wrong.
I think it is healthy that we have privacy advocates continually pointing to potential threats on the horizon. I think it is unhealthy to obsess too much over these boogeymen, failing to remember just how vital and alive this freedom of expression still is.
Just my two cents worth. That's all.
The point being, the government isn't going to stupidly cause a mass uprising by forcing this down our throats in one big dose, it will break it down into smaller ones that few people will get worked up about until you have an entire generation used to the fact that their entire personal life is on the government record
The point that the privacy nuts come so close to getting so right and then end up getting so wrong is this:
The reason why these little forms of monitoring and tracking will be odious and everywhere isn't because of the government imposing draconian laws or trying to track everybody. Sorry, folks, but last time I checked most of us live in fairly healthy democracies and if a groudswell of people take the time to voice their opinions, that opinion carries the day... No, the reason to be scared -- the face that this sort of omnipresent monitoring will take -- will be in the forms mentioned in the curril's post just above:
So maybe we should do it for people who are charged but out on bail as well.
And surely it would be OK for parents to do that in order to keep track of their kids.
And by extension, we should do the same for mentally ill patients and other wards of the state.
And speaking of such things, there is no reason why your employer shouldn't be able to require you to wear one on the job to make sure you aren't slacking off. After all, trucking companies already have something like that in place.
Yup and yup -- the thing is, we will let it go as far as we, as a society let it go. But don't confuse this with "the government" being out to do something. It is we, as a society, making the trade-off and giving up this privacy. No need to ascribe nefarious intentions ("the government" oooo) where there may be none but the end result is still nasty... Is it really any less offensive to have AOLTimeWarner/CocaCola/Barnes and Noble/Starbucks/Merck tracking your every move and using this to build a profile on you?
You are so right.
Of course narcissist that I am, I always check to see how many people have replied to my comments. (+5 is nice, but seeing REPLIES 10+ is always what gives me that warm fuzzy feeling...)
Maybe I should have left out that disclaimer, eh?
(Thanks for the embedded tip about the spelling mistake, btw. I am a bit of a stickler for getting it right so the ego was a little bruised to see that one slip past -- but since someone else took the time to catch it and point it out, my faith in the world grew by almost exactly the same amount. I'd call it a wash, wouldn't you?)
just new take on a tried and true con that has been around for probably centuries.
Yup. Getting people to offer up their credit card numbers has been around for centuries.
The Spanish and English coming to North America and STEALING the American Indians' land? Nope -- they got them to offer up their credit card numbers and then purchased the land fraudulantly.
The Soviets STEALING the soverignty of Eastern Bloc nations? Nope -- they just got them to offer up their credit card numbers...
Don't even get me STARTED about the 2000 election...
(Its all a joke, folks, relax.)
Television is a great medium to get this information out to the public! So is the internet. BUT, the good thing about TV is that if you don't want to watch it, you can turn it OFF. If they continue this activity with making deals with internet companies and put pop-ups/banners on everyone's screens, it just going to end up making a lot of people upset.
Wow. Looks like someone doesn't get away from their computer enough.
All I'm trying to say is, the same holds true for the Internet. It is nifty, sure, but there is a GIANT WORLD OUT THERE. If the banner ads or other things really get to you, you can turn it OFF.
What sort of nonsense are you going off about here?
Companies have the right to run their companies the way management sees fit. I for one could made a good argument for the liability of random tech support people speaking for the company in off-hours being too risky. The point is they HAVE made this choice. And, what, because you DISAGREE with their BUSINESS DECISIONS, you are going to boycott their product? Oh, wait, not even a boycott, no, some sort of uber-hip guerillia marketing terrorism directed at the person who meets with his or her vice presidents on a regular basis? PLEASE.
(1) Find worthy problems to get your undies in a bunch over.
(2) Grow up before you suggest "solutions"
(3) Figure out who the "them" is you are attacking...
Just my opinion...