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User: jholder

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Comments · 65

  1. I'm seeing oracle P/E today at 18.6 -- where are you getting 53?

  2. No doubt the phone companies whose processes were criminally negligent in allowing a person like this to engineer transfer of the number will also be brought to trial and punished.

    Ha ha ha. I crack myself up!

  3. Steve Jobs on Tech in Education: on Teachers Resist High-tech Push In Idaho Schools · · Score: 1

    From a 1996 Wired Magazine interview. ( http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.02/jobs_pr.html ):

    Wired:
    Could technology help by improving education?

    Steve Jobs:
    I used to think that technology could help education. I've probably spearheaded giving away more computer equipment to schools than anybody else on the planet. But I've had to come to the inevitable conclusion that the problem is not one that technology can hope to solve. What's wrong with education cannot be fixed with technology. No amount of technology will make a dent.

    It's a political problem. The problems are sociopolitical. The problems are unions. You plot the growth of the NEA [National Education Association] and the dropping of SAT scores, and they're inversely proportional. The problems are unions in the schools. The problem is bureaucracy. I'm one of these people who believes the best thing we could ever do is go to the full voucher system.

    I have a 17-year-old daughter who went to a private school for a few years before high school. This private school is the best school I've seen in my life. It was judged one of the 100 best schools in America. It was phenomenal. The tuition was $5,500 a year, which is a lot of money for most parents. But the teachers were paid less than public school teachers - so it's not about money at the teacher level. I asked the state treasurer that year what California pays on average to send kids to school, and I believe it was $4,400. While there are not many parents who could come up with $5,500 a year, there are many who could come up with $1,000 a year.

    If we gave vouchers to parents for $4,400 a year, schools would be starting right and left. People would get out of college and say, "Let's start a school." You could have a track at Stanford within the MBA program on how to be the businessperson of a school. And that MBA would get together with somebody else, and they'd start schools. And you'd have these young, idealistic people starting schools, working for pennies.

    They'd do it because they'd be able to set the curriculum. When you have kids you think, What exactly do I want them to learn? Most of the stuff they study in school is completely useless. But some incredibly valuable things you don't learn until you're older - yet you could learn them when you're younger. And you start to think, What would I do if I set a curriculum for a school?

    God, how exciting that could be! But you can't do it today. You'd be crazy to work in a school today. You don't get to do what you want. You don't get to pick your books, your curriculum. You get to teach one narrow specialization. Who would ever want to do that?

    These are the solutions to our problems in education. Unfortunately, technology isn't it. You're not going to solve the problems by putting all knowledge onto CD-ROMs. We can put a Web site in every school - none of this is bad. It's bad only if it lulls us into thinking we're doing something to solve the problem with education.

    Lincoln did not have a Web site at the log cabin where his parents home-schooled him, and he turned out pretty interesting. Historical precedent shows that we can turn out amazing human beings without technology. Precedent also shows that we can turn out very uninteresting human beings with technology.

    It's not as simple as you think when you're in your 20s - that technology's going to change the world. In some ways it will, in some ways it won't.

  4. Lack of character shines through.... on World's Worst PR Guy Gives His Side · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Looking back, Christoforo is still a little shocked that what he thought would remain a private email conversation got blown into an Internet event the way it did." This show a blinding misunderstanding of the Internet. I always act/write/post/upload and assume anything i send to anyone could end up in the faces of the planet. To not do so invites this kind of idiocy. The measure of the man is that he acted the way he did because he thought he was acting 'in secret'. People who act this way are not the kind of people I trust to work with me reliably.

  5. EMF bursts from CFL bulbs on 'Wi-Fi Illness' Spreads To Ontario Public Schools · · Score: 1

    CFL bulbs themselves, in the way their ballasts operate, send strange EMF spiky behavior throughout the electrical system they are attached to, i.e. , the school building. Supposedly, they are horrible for people. Wireless routers, no effect by comparison.

  6. Re:Hooch on The Race To Beer With 50% Alcohol By Volume · · Score: 1

    Utopias is, at 24%, about the highest you can get with yeast fermentation - they use a very specially bred super-strain of yeast with very high alcohol tolerance... most yeast quit somewhere between 9 and 15%, up to about 17% for some champagne yeasts. Utopias is surprisingly good (I tasted it at the Great American Beer Festival) - a port-like beer, if you will. I do not think it is worth the asking price of $100 a bottle, though. I completely agree that any form of distillation causes beer to stop being beer, as well.

  7. They patented email! on Twitter Faces Patent Infringement Lawsuit · · Score: 5, Interesting

    As far as I can tell, email distribution lists and automated rules for re-sending email after receiving them from an email list is also covered under the claims in this patent. How did the patent examiners fail to see this?

  8. Re:Fonts and encoding on CJKV Information Processing 2nd ed. · · Score: 1

    This looks really good, I'd definitely have gotten this book if it existed back when I had to learn all this stuff starting in 1997-2000.

  9. Great Book. Could use an Arabic supplement. on CJKV Information Processing 2nd ed. · · Score: 3, Informative

    I used the first ed years ago, and sure enough, Unicode, OTF, anf PDF dominate my world now. The only thing that is complicated enough to need additional exposition would be Arabic, with it's ability to not only combine RTL and LTR text (Hebrew does as well) but has to be shaped contextually.

  10. It's called a Wii-mote! on Microsoft Trying To Patent a 'Magic Wand' · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Wonder if they get into trouble with Nintendo.

  11. Re:Adult Gaming? Hah! on On the Advent of Controversial Video Games · · Score: 1

    I always liked that poem... Eliot is freaking brilliant. "Let us go then, you and I / When the evening is spread out against the sky / Like a patient etherised upon a table..." I do vastly prefer "The Four Quartets" tho, particularly Burnt Norton.

    My best friend in high school liked Prufrock so much, he memorized the entire poem (1100 words) for the fun of it.

  12. Re:overpaid? on Pentagon Lost Billions, Pennies At a Time · · Score: 1

    You are incorrect, because you failed to take into account the fact the the size of houses now are much larger than the size of houses then. Some data, partly from census.gov, and some other trending sites:

    Recent statistics from the National Association of Home Builders show that the average American home grew from 983 square feet in 1950 to 2,434 square feet in 2005... and increase in size of about 2.5... The average house price in 1950 was $8,450.00, while average wages per year was $3,210.00 (house cost = about 2.6 time more than salary).

    In 2004, the average house price was $221,000 and median salary (didn't find the average, but the median in 1950 was in the mid 7k range, making this comparison skew even more in favor of the argument I'm advancing) was $48,934... (house cost = about 4.5 times more than salary).

    If we adjust that by price per square foot, the price per square foot of a house in 1950 was about $8.60. The price per square foot in 2004 was about $90.80.

    The change from 1950 to 2004 in salary is a factor of 15.2 times larger in 2004. The change in cost per square foot for a house was a factor only 10.56 times larger.

    My conclusion? We are getting more house for our money now than we were in 1950. They only cost so much more because they are 2.6 times larger houses! Or, conversely, our houses are currently undervalued. Or they are 'just right' because the land the house is built on, on average, is a smaller lot.

  13. What is the cost to develop the software it runs? on Kindle 2 Tear-Down Reveals Price of Components · · Score: 1

    I assume the rest of the cost is R&D, software dev costs, and a little profit. Sounds about right for any company that doesn't want to go under.

  14. Re:Agism in the achievment system! on Slashdot Launches User Achievements · · Score: 1

    Found one: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=98/06/16/1047201
    From 1998 -- Predates the linking of submissions with user accounts, so that explains it.

  15. Agism in the achievment system! on Slashdot Launches User Achievements · · Score: 1

    I submitted at least one story that was posted (thought I think it was far more than that) back in the very early days of slashdot. But WAH! No achievement for me. I want my Ponies!

  16. Kull Wahad! on Slashdot Launches User Achievements · · Score: 1

    I want me The Maker! Where did I put my thumper?

  17. dailywtf.com did it better. on The Guardian Shifts To Twitter After 188 Years of Ink · · Score: 1

    But nice try anyway.

  18. Re:Slaughterhouse Cases on PC Repair In Texas Now Requires a PI License · · Score: 1

    "The law very specifically states that it applies to companies doing work as a private security consultant. As a PC service shop, I certainly don't position or consider myself to be in the place of a private security consultant." If you are providing services that secure a machine from trojans/spyware/etc (surely a very common activity for a repair shop) then you are actually acting as a security consultant; I'm not sure if the TX law would interpret it that way, but I suspect so.

  19. Saw it in the newspaper 1st - slashdot is slipping on Mars Had an Ancient Impact Like Earth · · Score: 1

    I know slashdot has jumped the shark when the 'news' they publish is after the print media has it. I can't recall ever reading something in the morning paper before slash has something one it, but here it is. No wonder it seems I'm reading /. less and less these days.

  20. Re:in other news on Road Rage Linked To Automobile Bumper Stickers · · Score: 2, Insightful

    More rage and bluster. If you drive like you type, you are in need of counseling.

  21. Re:in other news on Road Rage Linked To Automobile Bumper Stickers · · Score: 1

    I hope I'm never on the road with you. Sounds like you have some real issues. 10 over and passing ppl? don't blame them. Blame your own issues.

  22. I downgraded Pidgin when I saw this change on Pidgin Controversy Triggers Fork · · Score: 1

    As soon as I realized I couldn't resize the text entry box, I downgraded my Pidgin client (since I've saved off every download) to a release that does. Strange as it may sound, this one feature was just about my most compelling reason to use Pidgin. I don't want it to resize for me; I want control.

  23. Re:Liberal Arts Has Its Place on For CS Majors, How Important Is the "Where?" · · Score: 1

    "definitely go for summer internships" This applies to any school you go to. if you don't get good internships (or a least internships in your field, good or not), you will not be as qualified as a student who did, no matter where you go. This is the key. I've interviewed students with MS degrees and MA degrees in computer science, and the ones without any intern experience were pitiful interviewers, and very poor candidates, without exception. You must intern to get the best jobs.

  24. & Apple continues to give Xcode to all OSX use on Microsoft to Give Away Developer Tools to Students · · Score: 1

    *sigh*

  25. Price of Gas and Groceries up enough to compensate on Is the CD Becoming Obsolete? · · Score: 1

    Serious, the way the cost of food and gasoline have gone up, I'm sure many people have far less discretionary income for things like the latest bad pop album. And they are probably not the only industry that will see a decline. That said, my CD buying will remain unchanged, but I don't buy many anyway, and the stuff I buy is never the stuff they are marketing... things from the back catalog in Jazz, mostly. I get my really cool new stuff from Indie artists on the internet without the record company middleman.