Sounds like what you want is one of these. From the website:
* Networks: GSM, UMTS (W-CDMA) 850/900/1800/1900 (GSM/UMTS), 2.4GHz (UMTS) * UMA on 802.11 and Bluetooth * 3 Megapixel Kodak-quality camera * Works as a peer or a hub on 802.11, share your GPRS and 3G connection with your friends * 11G hard disk * Supports MP3, Ogg Vorbis, and WAV music * Standardized headset jacks, none of this Nokia-proprietary nonsense we usually do * Opens up to show full colour 1024x600 touchscreen and miniture keyboard
Price: $0 with service, $49 unlocked
Quite honestly, I wouldn't touch that kind of thing with a bargepole, I prefer flip phones.
The major issue with mobile phones having a lot of features at the moment isn't the fact they have features, it's that they're the wrong features and the phones are usually badly designed.
If I could get a phone like the one you described (especially with the standardized 2.5mm jack - take note Nokia with your overpriced and uncomfortable headsets), I'd buy it in an instant. Also useful would be USB so you could plug in a keyboard and mouse if you happen to have one handy - not important, but definitely useful.
I didn't know they were rolling out EDGE already, that's cool.
The frequency makes a little bit of a difference but not much. My reception in both my old apartment and new house is fine and comparable to Cingular's, AT&T's (before they merged), etc. Actually it's fractionally better (and was a lot better in the apartment) but that's the luck of the draw more than anything else.
As for needing a PDA, what's wrong with a notepad and calculator? I see you also want to be able to browse the web, but people have been carrying around portable units for keeping themselves updated on the latest happenings for a long time - they're called "Radios" and "Newspapers".
Clue to parent: It's 2005! We don't have to lug around huge sacks of gadgets just to ensure we can have music and stuff right now. There's absolutely nothing wrong with wanting a small box that does a whole range of things I find useful and need regularly.
This is the computer age. Computers are multifunction devices that can be programmed to do almost anything. What we lack is a willingness to include enough extras to make them that flexible. It doesn't add much to the cost of a PDA to add cellphone and camera functionality, nor to add a cheap keyboard and an HD. If we can incorporate all of this into one device, then why shouldn't we?
And if portability is the issue, why not carry a bag? It doesn't have to be a handbag, despite your sexist assertion that it does.
Sexist assertion? Back that up, please! All I said was that men can't generally get away with carrying handbags. That's the society we live in.
Really, this sounds like a lot of nerdy using-technology-for-its-own sake. There are perfectly acceptable alternatives that exist today that you can use today. Use them. Stop expecting Nokia and Motorola and IBM to bail you out all the time
Oh sure, a Slashdotter criticising another for being a nerd. Oh har har.
I'm not expecting anyone to bail me out, I'm merely describing the type of device I'd want. What's wrong with that?
Sounds like you want a lot, and you're precisely the kind of person who's ruining mobile phones with your demands for more and more. What happened to "Do one thing, do it well?"
It's hard these days to get any kind of phone that doesn't support a whole bunch of stuff I don't want or need. I want something simple, that I can use to call people on. A black and white, or LED, display, no stupid ports or modes or anything. Just dial the number and it calls it. How hard can it be? And why the move from analog? At least I could hear people on my old analog phone.
If I want to listen to music on the go, with "custom playlists" and other crap like that, I'll use my cassette recorder. That's what it was designed to do, and it does it without needing everything stored on a computer or stupid UIs or anything. Swapping playlists is a matter of swapping tapes. Choosing playlists to take with me is a matter of loading myself up with a bag of tapes. The UI couldn't be easier. No DRM or other evils like that.
As for needing a PDA, what's wrong with a notepad and calculator? I see you also want to be able to browse the web, but people have been carrying around portable units for keeping themselves updated on the latest happenings for a long time - they're called "Radios" and "Newspapers".
All of these are reliable technologies that do what they're supposed to do. Instead you want some overcomplicated piece of junk that you probably have to spend hundreds of dollars on and will throw away in due course. Why waste the money? And if portability is the issue, why not carry a bag? It doesn't have to be a handbag, despite your sexist assertion that it does.
Really, this sounds like a lot of nerdy using-technology-for-its-own sake. There are perfectly acceptable alternatives that exist today that you can use today. Use them. Stop expecting Nokia and Motorola and IBM to bail you out all the time.
Do you really NEED a music player combined with your cell phone?
Well, no, I don't NEED this, but then I don't need a music player at all. The fact is though that I don't like carrying around a bunch of gadgets everywhere. Right now, I leave the iPod at work most of the time because I only have so much pocket space, and dragging it home together with my cellphone and wallet is a PITA. Don't even ask about my digital camera, which stays at home most of the time gathering dust. If I were a woman, something like a handbag would make such gadget carrying more practical, but I'm not and the more I carry, the less comfortable I am and the more likely I am to leave things behind.
The deal is systems like this make music players more practical. If you can combine something with the same functionality as my iPod, my cellphone, and a digital camera, into one pocketable device, I'm there. Even better, include the rest of the PDA too (except without those stupid, touch screen orientated UIs and portrait orientations, which are impractical - I want a keyboard, please, if I'm expected to enter text. Ideally, the platform should be based upon Free Software, preferably under a GPL compatable license, if not the GPL.) I'm actually not asking for a lot:
A GSM/GPRS/UMTS phone, preferably one that takes two SIMs, allowing it to listen on two networks simultaneously. Quadband and UMA support would be perfect
A 3 megapixel Kodak-quality camera
The ability to act as an 802.11g peer or hub, with the machine showing up as a basic server on the network that you can just copy files to and from, plus network routing for when the phone's in GPRS/etc mode.
a 10G (or better) mini-HD, so I can store all my music rather than have to decide what music I'm going to listen to in advance
Good MP3 and Ogg support
Standardized 2.5mm handsfree and 3.5mm stereo headset jacks
Openable to reveal a landscape touchscreen plus a minikeyboard
Some years ago, this'd have been difficult. Today, all of these exist in different boxes. How hard can it be to combine them all into one multifunction unit, with the cost benefits of one CPU running the show?
You're highly unlikely to be locked into Cingular. While initial sales will be to Cingular, (a) Cingular do, occasionally, unlock their phones for use with other carriers, and (b) the likelyhood is that the phones will be sold to other carriers too, and it will be easy to get unlocked versions.
It's a GSM phone, as long as it's not locked, switching to a different carrier will be a matter of putting in your SIM.
It'll probably take longer than it does for people to realise that downloading copyrighted materials without authorization to evade the "high" costs of CDs and DVDs (TEN DOLLARS?! YOU WANT TEN DOLLARS FOR A DVD OF MY FAVOURATE MOVIE IN A FORM THAT MEANS I CAN WATCH IT OVER AND OVER AGAIN?! ARE YOU MAD?!!!), risking massive fines and usually finding materials of variable quality, just isn't working.
T-Mobile does, for $20/month plus a regular plan, but the service is capped at 56kbps. Hopefully they'll upgrade to UMTS soon which should solve that particular problem.
To the idiot who said "Good luck getting a signal", the fact you can't in your particular location is of no concern to the rest of us. Different mobile operators have different strengths in different locations. T-Mobile over here (South East Florida) has excellent coverage, comparable to the "big 2".
Unless you happen to know exactly where someone lives, it's generally inadvisable to claim they'll have difficulty getting a signal, whether it's T-Mobile, Cingular, Sprint, Verizon, Alltel, MetroPCS, or anyone else.
While this is technically true, the grandparent is still correct because the policy of the Linux trademark holders is only to demand cash from those trying to register Linux in their trademarks.
And let's repeat: somebody who doesn't want to _protect_ that name would
never do this. You can call anything "MyLinux", but the downside is that
you may have somebody else who _did_ protect himself come along and send
you a cease-and-desist letter. Or, if the name ends up showing up in a
trademark search that LMI needs to do every once in a while just to
protect the trademark (another legal requirement for trademarks), LMI
itself might have to send you a cease-and-desist-or-sublicense it letter.
So using the word "dick" in a mean way towards someone is somehow a "manhating" statement? And calling someone a "bitch" is an animal hating statement?! What the fuck?!?!
Well, yeah, if the person using the term has actually thought about it and deliberately chosen that word, then yes, the users are being manhating or woman/animal hating respectively in the two examples you give.
Well, except me of course, I was being ironic (which I hoped was obvious, but there's at least one idiot moderator who appears not to have been)
The point I was making was that the words have meanings, and their usage was what the original poster was objecting to. The person I was responding to thought that the original poster was complaining that someone was criticised, whereas it was their being compared to female genitalia as an insult that was the issue.
And since when does the word "cunt" not have negative connotations?
You're missing the point really. Yeah, most people who use it are not being misogynist, but only because they haven't actually thought about what the word means before hand. The word does have a meaning. Saying "Hey, it's ok, because even though it actually means female genitalia, it's a negative description of them and therefore isn't sexist" is a little like saying "Hey, it's ok for me to call someone I dislike a nigger, because even though it's a word used to describe blacks, it's a negative description of them, and therefore isn't racist".
It's language, dude. Some language reflects misogynist, racist, or other underlying hangups. If you actually think about the words you use before using them, and still use them, it says a lot about you. I don't think in this case the author was being anything other than lazy, but whatever the case, the original poster was questioning the use of the word "cunt", not the criticism of a specific person, when he or she described it as misogynist.
It has to do with the word used, not the intended target. The word "cunt", meaning a woman's genitalia, was used to insult someone thus implying that it has negative connotations.
That said, the writer was probably lazy, I seriously doubt the guy thought about what he was writing, the fucking dick.
I'm not sure it's a meaningful definition of market where things that aren't comparable with one another and do not actively displace one another in usefulness are deemed competitors.
eg, I don't consider "Tom's Diner" to compete with "Beethoven's 9th Symphony". This is not because I'm a music snob (though I'm not saying I'm not), it's just, well, why the hell would someone who wants both feel like they have to get one or the other? Unless prices were so absurd that someone would have to choose one or the other in their entire lives, the likelihood is that most people would end up getting both if they liked both and wanted the ability to listen to both on their own terms.
The same would be true even if the pieces were comparable, if it was Beethoven's 9th vs Beethoven's 5th, for example.
The PSP's relatively expensive, the DS is $130 (down from an almightly wallet-busting $150...) It's not that much pricier than the GameBoy is, and I wouldn't be surprised if the GB's been more expensive.
I think, actually, this is 90% of the reason why Nintendo is wiping the floor with Sony on this score is that they've realised that the majority of their customers want something small, and cheap, that lets them play games. Sony's produced a relatively large device that's costlier that's attempting to do a whole bunch of things that, really, it shouldn't be trying to do. Sony talks about the DS having gimmicks? It just hasn't realised that UMD drives are going to see far less use than the DS's touchscreen (the latter of which, to me, is a good idea.)
I'd be surprised if anything resembling the PSP is still selling in a year, at least at the current price. If Sony finds a way of selling the unit for $100, then they might stand a chance. More likely, I can see Sony incorporating something else that, essentially, makes it a different product.
You can always ask for the $25 cash instead of the $50 "store credit." I guess there's a reason why the "store credit" is so much larger than the cash option...
Unfortunately, according to the settlement, you can't use the credit against the iTunes Music Store.
"Store Credit" means a credit in the amount of $50 redeemable toward the purchase of any Apple-branded products or services
(except iTunes downloads, iTunes Music Store Cards, iTunes Gift Certificates, or any other product redeemable for iTunes downloads or cash) at either The Apple Store (Online) or at a kiosk (a computer linked to The Apple Store (Online)) located in a "brick and mortar" Apple retail store, issued as a discount code number. Store Credit may be transferred once but may not be aggregated or redeemed for cash. Store Credit may be used to purchase multiple products but, in all instances, the full value of the Store Credit must be used up or exhausted in a single transaction. Store Credit does not apply to any shipping, handling and sales tax charges applicable. Store Credit will expire eighteen (18) months after the date of issuance.
My, admittedly limited, understand of OS writing is that the exact opposite is true. You are dealing with the processor directly and performance is crucial so ASM is used a fair bit.
Believe it or not, a large proportion of OS X's kernel is written in C++. You can download the source to Darwin, which contains the kernel, from various websites. I don't think Apple cares that much about performance in terms of the types of things achievable with assembler tweaks.
There are various low level operations you generally have to resort to assembler for, but for the most part, modern programmers tend to avoid such things, especially as the days of the 68000 and 6809, where you could program something in assembler, look back, and say "That's a beautiful program", are no longer with us. Putting too much in assembler results in maintenance problems. And also means you can't get around a future processor incompatability simply by tweaking the compiler and recompiling all your code.
JUST LIKE the sum total of Windows is called Windows
Windows isn't a kernel. For your analogy to be correct, Windows would have to be called KRNL386.EXE by the majority of morons, just as GNU is called Linux by the majority of morons.
My friend loves Rum and Coke. You can bet she hates it when she goes into an unlicensed bar and has to ask for a "Rum and Cola-based Drink Product" or else face horrendous lawsuits.
Well, actually, that never happens, because using the word "Coke" in that context (as long as the bar tender is, actually, using the product of that name produced by the Coca-Cola Company) is perfectly legal and not a trademark infringement.
If a distro is bundling Linux with their system, then it's fine to refer to (that part) as Linux. However, calling the entire thing "Something-or-other Linux" is another matter. And registering "Something-or-other Linux" as a trademark is out of the question without Linus's permission (which is where we came in.)
I heard that not only will it include VoIP, but it'll include a new web browser (probably Firefox based) and run on a Linux(tm)-based operating system called GoogleOS.
(Ah say, Ah say, that there's a joke, son, a joke.)
Probably worth mentioning, because some people seem to think it's an issue: it's not necessary to infringe upon a trademark to make a program work the way you want it to work. There's nothing inherently wrong with trademarks, either in theory or in practice, in fact, when properly used they provide a useful way of ensuring people can't pass off their stuff as something else.
Not that they're impossible to abuse, but I don't see any evidence Linus is abusing them. Actually, I'd go further than that: At the moment, Linus isn't making any money from the operation, seeing it as something that should be self-funding and non-profit. I know a lot of people are defending him against supposed charges that this is not what's happening, as if there'd be something wrong if it was a profitable operation.
But if he wants to make a profit from it, I'm not going to criticise him for that. He did some initial work that, while it may be overrated (the GNU tools form a bigger, more complicated, and IMNSHO, more useful part of the end user operating system than his kernel), was useful to many people and captured a lot of mindshare. He associated a corruption of his name to that program. And he has managed that project for more than a decade. In the view of most free software people, and I'm one of them, it would be unethical for him to be rewarded by crippling the program itself, preventing people from being able to improve it and to help one another. But making money from the mindshare aspect, from being able to say "This is Linux, the Real Thing. The version officially blessed by Linus Torvalds, as you can see from the name"? That's fine by me. That's actually beneficial to everyone.
The software continues to be free. Sure, my version will have to be called "Squiggix". Your version will have to be called "Nuclearelephantix". The fact we can't call them Linux, we can't claim they're the real thing without actually funding the project, is hardly damaging to our freedom. And it certainly helps Linus, should he ever want to, to make sure his name is only a[tt]ached to versions he has control over (a key artistic moral right - nobody should have to be associated with something they didn't endorse), and helps end users choose on the basis of active support for Linux, and the stamp of approval of a known person.
The manufacturers do not benefit from DRM. They're pushing digital TV et al because they stand to make a huge amount of money from replacing 150 million television sets in the US alone. DRM makes the devices more expensive and more cumbersome for the end consumer.
It's the content producers who have pushed for DRM. As they see it, analog had a natural "copy prevention" element to it that copies would always be degraded compared to what they're copied from, so a fourth-generation copy would truly suck. With digital that's not the case. So they're pushing these awful, evil, hacks, and using a combination of legislation and a simple refusal to license content to systems outside of the DRM'd sphere to force manufacturers to go along with it.
Wierdly, my original response to this doesn't show up, so...
I hate car analogies, but I think the parent (it's an AC post if you're reading at +1 with ACs at zero or below) is better than the grandparent.
I really don't understand the logic here. Yes, the kids did something wrong. They should be disciplined within the school's disciplinary system, and should have their access to the laptops removed. The school itself should also be working out why this happened, and doing something about it. But felony charges? That's completely unnecessary, it's overkill, and it's an utter waste of taxpayer's money.
One thing that baffles me is why the school returned the laptops, password changed or no password changed, after "previous offenses". Once it was proven the kids were abusing school equipment, wouldn't it have made more sense to require they stay in school under supervision when using replacement equipment? I'm not claiming the kids aren't in the wrong, it's just, well, dumb.
Slashdot Mirror
The major issue with mobile phones having a lot of features at the moment isn't the fact they have features, it's that they're the wrong features and the phones are usually badly designed.
If I could get a phone like the one you described (especially with the standardized 2.5mm jack - take note Nokia with your overpriced and uncomfortable headsets), I'd buy it in an instant. Also useful would be USB so you could plug in a keyboard and mouse if you happen to have one handy - not important, but definitely useful.
The frequency makes a little bit of a difference but not much. My reception in both my old apartment and new house is fine and comparable to Cingular's, AT&T's (before they merged), etc. Actually it's fractionally better (and was a lot better in the apartment) but that's the luck of the draw more than anything else.
I'm in a relatively rural area, FWIW.
This is the computer age. Computers are multifunction devices that can be programmed to do almost anything. What we lack is a willingness to include enough extras to make them that flexible. It doesn't add much to the cost of a PDA to add cellphone and camera functionality, nor to add a cheap keyboard and an HD. If we can incorporate all of this into one device, then why shouldn't we?
Sexist assertion? Back that up, please! All I said was that men can't generally get away with carrying handbags. That's the society we live in. Oh sure, a Slashdotter criticising another for being a nerd. Oh har har.I'm not expecting anyone to bail me out, I'm merely describing the type of device I'd want. What's wrong with that?
It's hard these days to get any kind of phone that doesn't support a whole bunch of stuff I don't want or need. I want something simple, that I can use to call people on. A black and white, or LED, display, no stupid ports or modes or anything. Just dial the number and it calls it. How hard can it be? And why the move from analog? At least I could hear people on my old analog phone.
If I want to listen to music on the go, with "custom playlists" and other crap like that, I'll use my cassette recorder. That's what it was designed to do, and it does it without needing everything stored on a computer or stupid UIs or anything. Swapping playlists is a matter of swapping tapes. Choosing playlists to take with me is a matter of loading myself up with a bag of tapes. The UI couldn't be easier. No DRM or other evils like that.
As for needing a PDA, what's wrong with a notepad and calculator? I see you also want to be able to browse the web, but people have been carrying around portable units for keeping themselves updated on the latest happenings for a long time - they're called "Radios" and "Newspapers".
All of these are reliable technologies that do what they're supposed to do. Instead you want some overcomplicated piece of junk that you probably have to spend hundreds of dollars on and will throw away in due course. Why waste the money? And if portability is the issue, why not carry a bag? It doesn't have to be a handbag, despite your sexist assertion that it does.
Really, this sounds like a lot of nerdy using-technology-for-its-own sake. There are perfectly acceptable alternatives that exist today that you can use today. Use them. Stop expecting Nokia and Motorola and IBM to bail you out all the time.
The deal is systems like this make music players more practical. If you can combine something with the same functionality as my iPod, my cellphone, and a digital camera, into one pocketable device, I'm there. Even better, include the rest of the PDA too (except without those stupid, touch screen orientated UIs and portrait orientations, which are impractical - I want a keyboard, please, if I'm expected to enter text. Ideally, the platform should be based upon Free Software, preferably under a GPL compatable license, if not the GPL.) I'm actually not asking for a lot:
- A GSM/GPRS/UMTS phone, preferably one that takes two SIMs, allowing it to listen on two networks simultaneously. Quadband and UMA support would be perfect
- A 3 megapixel Kodak-quality camera
- The ability to act as an 802.11g peer or hub, with the machine showing up as a basic server on the network that you can just copy files to and from, plus network routing for when the phone's in GPRS/etc mode.
- a 10G (or better) mini-HD, so I can store all my music rather than have to decide what music I'm going to listen to in advance
- Good MP3 and Ogg support
- Standardized 2.5mm handsfree and 3.5mm stereo headset jacks
- Openable to reveal a landscape touchscreen plus a minikeyboard
Some years ago, this'd have been difficult. Today, all of these exist in different boxes. How hard can it be to combine them all into one multifunction unit, with the cost benefits of one CPU running the show?It's a GSM phone, as long as it's not locked, switching to a different carrier will be a matter of putting in your SIM.
It'll probably take longer than it does for people to realise that downloading copyrighted materials without authorization to evade the "high" costs of CDs and DVDs (TEN DOLLARS?! YOU WANT TEN DOLLARS FOR A DVD OF MY FAVOURATE MOVIE IN A FORM THAT MEANS I CAN WATCH IT OVER AND OVER AGAIN?! ARE YOU MAD?!!!), risking massive fines and usually finding materials of variable quality, just isn't working.
To the idiot who said "Good luck getting a signal", the fact you can't in your particular location is of no concern to the rest of us. Different mobile operators have different strengths in different locations. T-Mobile over here (South East Florida) has excellent coverage, comparable to the "big 2".
Unless you happen to know exactly where someone lives, it's generally inadvisable to claim they'll have difficulty getting a signal, whether it's T-Mobile, Cingular, Sprint, Verizon, Alltel, MetroPCS, or anyone else.
I did too. The ban wasn't in force in 1998, it was introduced shortly afterwards.
Well, that's it at present, anyway.
Well, except me of course, I was being ironic (which I hoped was obvious, but there's at least one idiot moderator who appears not to have been)
The point I was making was that the words have meanings, and their usage was what the original poster was objecting to. The person I was responding to thought that the original poster was complaining that someone was criticised, whereas it was their being compared to female genitalia as an insult that was the issue.
You're missing the point really. Yeah, most people who use it are not being misogynist, but only because they haven't actually thought about what the word means before hand. The word does have a meaning. Saying "Hey, it's ok, because even though it actually means female genitalia, it's a negative description of them and therefore isn't sexist" is a little like saying "Hey, it's ok for me to call someone I dislike a nigger, because even though it's a word used to describe blacks, it's a negative description of them, and therefore isn't racist".It's language, dude. Some language reflects misogynist, racist, or other underlying hangups. If you actually think about the words you use before using them, and still use them, it says a lot about you. I don't think in this case the author was being anything other than lazy, but whatever the case, the original poster was questioning the use of the word "cunt", not the criticism of a specific person, when he or she described it as misogynist.
That said, the writer was probably lazy, I seriously doubt the guy thought about what he was writing, the fucking dick.
eg, I don't consider "Tom's Diner" to compete with "Beethoven's 9th Symphony". This is not because I'm a music snob (though I'm not saying I'm not), it's just, well, why the hell would someone who wants both feel like they have to get one or the other? Unless prices were so absurd that someone would have to choose one or the other in their entire lives, the likelihood is that most people would end up getting both if they liked both and wanted the ability to listen to both on their own terms.
The same would be true even if the pieces were comparable, if it was Beethoven's 9th vs Beethoven's 5th, for example.
I think, actually, this is 90% of the reason why Nintendo is wiping the floor with Sony on this score is that they've realised that the majority of their customers want something small, and cheap, that lets them play games. Sony's produced a relatively large device that's costlier that's attempting to do a whole bunch of things that, really, it shouldn't be trying to do. Sony talks about the DS having gimmicks? It just hasn't realised that UMD drives are going to see far less use than the DS's touchscreen (the latter of which, to me, is a good idea.)
I'd be surprised if anything resembling the PSP is still selling in a year, at least at the current price. If Sony finds a way of selling the unit for $100, then they might stand a chance. More likely, I can see Sony incorporating something else that, essentially, makes it a different product.
You can always ask for the $25 cash instead of the $50 "store credit." I guess there's a reason why the "store credit" is so much larger than the cash option...
Sorry.
There are various low level operations you generally have to resort to assembler for, but for the most part, modern programmers tend to avoid such things, especially as the days of the 68000 and 6809, where you could program something in assembler, look back, and say "That's a beautiful program", are no longer with us. Putting too much in assembler results in maintenance problems. And also means you can't get around a future processor incompatability simply by tweaking the compiler and recompiling all your code.
My friend loves Rum and Coke. You can bet she hates it when she goes into an unlicensed bar and has to ask for a "Rum and Cola-based Drink Product" or else face horrendous lawsuits.
Well, actually, that never happens, because using the word "Coke" in that context (as long as the bar tender is, actually, using the product of that name produced by the Coca-Cola Company) is perfectly legal and not a trademark infringement.
If a distro is bundling Linux with their system, then it's fine to refer to (that part) as Linux. However, calling the entire thing "Something-or-other Linux" is another matter. And registering "Something-or-other Linux" as a trademark is out of the question without Linus's permission (which is where we came in.)
(Ah say, Ah say, that there's a joke, son, a joke.)
Probably worth mentioning, because some people seem to think it's an issue: it's not necessary to infringe upon a trademark to make a program work the way you want it to work. There's nothing inherently wrong with trademarks, either in theory or in practice, in fact, when properly used they provide a useful way of ensuring people can't pass off their stuff as something else.
Not that they're impossible to abuse, but I don't see any evidence Linus is abusing them. Actually, I'd go further than that: At the moment, Linus isn't making any money from the operation, seeing it as something that should be self-funding and non-profit. I know a lot of people are defending him against supposed charges that this is not what's happening, as if there'd be something wrong if it was a profitable operation.
But if he wants to make a profit from it, I'm not going to criticise him for that. He did some initial work that, while it may be overrated (the GNU tools form a bigger, more complicated, and IMNSHO, more useful part of the end user operating system than his kernel), was useful to many people and captured a lot of mindshare. He associated a corruption of his name to that program. And he has managed that project for more than a decade. In the view of most free software people, and I'm one of them, it would be unethical for him to be rewarded by crippling the program itself, preventing people from being able to improve it and to help one another. But making money from the mindshare aspect, from being able to say "This is Linux, the Real Thing. The version officially blessed by Linus Torvalds, as you can see from the name"? That's fine by me. That's actually beneficial to everyone.
The software continues to be free. Sure, my version will have to be called "Squiggix". Your version will have to be called "Nuclearelephantix". The fact we can't call them Linux, we can't claim they're the real thing without actually funding the project, is hardly damaging to our freedom. And it certainly helps Linus, should he ever want to, to make sure his name is only a[tt]ached to versions he has control over (a key artistic moral right - nobody should have to be associated with something they didn't endorse), and helps end users choose on the basis of active support for Linux, and the stamp of approval of a known person.
It's the content producers who have pushed for DRM. As they see it, analog had a natural "copy prevention" element to it that copies would always be degraded compared to what they're copied from, so a fourth-generation copy would truly suck. With digital that's not the case. So they're pushing these awful, evil, hacks, and using a combination of legislation and a simple refusal to license content to systems outside of the DRM'd sphere to force manufacturers to go along with it.
I hate car analogies, but I think the parent (it's an AC post if you're reading at +1 with ACs at zero or below) is better than the grandparent.
I really don't understand the logic here. Yes, the kids did something wrong. They should be disciplined within the school's disciplinary system, and should have their access to the laptops removed. The school itself should also be working out why this happened, and doing something about it. But felony charges? That's completely unnecessary, it's overkill, and it's an utter waste of taxpayer's money.
One thing that baffles me is why the school returned the laptops, password changed or no password changed, after "previous offenses". Once it was proven the kids were abusing school equipment, wouldn't it have made more sense to require they stay in school under supervision when using replacement equipment? I'm not claiming the kids aren't in the wrong, it's just, well, dumb.