This is a good point. Basically, all citizens have a vested interest in voting; the issues affect young people just as much, especially education, and even labor laws in a case such as yours. You may be an exception, but ones differing ideas and opinions do not magically appear when one turns 18.
Dropping the constitutional "right to vote*" age to 12, or some agreed upon "age of reason" would cause candidates to take seriously the issues affecting young citizens, rather than pandering to their parents viewpoints. Any fear that young citizens would vote on the same lines as their parents, or vote based on non-substantive issues (e.g. Gore's daughters are hotter, Bush has better hair) are unfounded because:
If children vote along the same lines as their parents, the net result is the same, excluding some statistical oddity like Democrats having an average 2.9 children, as opposed to Repubs 2.2
Voting on non-substantive issues will be "random noise", which will not cancel out anyone elses vote
Idealism generally begins dying off at age 18, when one begins experiencing the "real world". Lowering the voting age would encourage young citizens to become better informed, and instill the desire to participate in the political process while this idealism is still fresh.
-- *The Constitution ensures the right to vote for all citizens 18 and up. It does not specifically deny the right to anyone not in this class; IIRC, one or two states allows younger citizens to vote. I don't have the specific info, if anyone else does, please feel free to chime in.
Anybody else got Capital One up their fucking nose? They call me every 2-3 weeks hawking their crap credit card, with ridiculous terms (costs you $300 a year just to HAVE the card, with the various fees).
The other day they sent me an item that looks just like a FedEx envelope, but it said something like "Airborne Express" on it, reproduced right down to the addresses in a handwriting font and checkmarks in various boxes.
Just imagine if telemarketers and junk mailers continued with this policy. They would be sending items in personalized envelopes, with randomly generated names and hooks on them (from Jane Petersen, Chairman Reunion Committee). A typical telemarketing cold-call might go like this:
"Hi! What's up? How have you been? How's the kids? Good! Would-you-be-interested-in-a-Capital-One-Visa-at-o nly-50%-A-P-R-interest-and-$1000-a-year- V-I-P-members-fee-if-you-say-what-we-will-send-it- to-you-and-bill-you-for-it"
There's a point at which a novelty form of promotion (The fake FedEx envelope) becomes an out-and-out lie. It's a hard thing to legislate, since there are legitimate forms of bulk mail and email. Basically, before delivering either one a business should have to provide proof of:
A prior business relationship with the receiver
An opt-in, with more info than just a database entry saying "joe.blow@isp.com clicked the checkbox." Electronic signatures anyone?
Method 1 still doesn't save us from unscrupulous companies buying pets.com or other busted dotcoms databases, and calling this a "prior business relationship."
ORBS does work somewhat though, because the majority of spam I get is coming from some bizarre foreign domain that obviously fired up a web server and left SMTP wide open (The Office of the President of El Salvador?). Maybe some forward-thinking on the various server OS distro makers part could make up for the admins short-sightedness?
Or imagine you're the driver of a van delivering groceries and blankets to the homeless. Do you know how many lives are lost every year owing to exposure, simply because of miscommunication between relief agencies and dispatchers? A continuous link with home would solve that dilemma while providing incidental benefits like letting the homeless check their email or search for jobs on the internet.
What is this ridiculous shit? This is what radios and cell phones are for, and they work just fine. Homeless people are not dying because the relief van was barricaded off by a snow bank and didn't have the wireless internet to hit MapQuest and find an alternate route. Also, if you're homeless, you're probably not qualified for a job you'd find on monster.com, and if you were, 50,000 other shitheads who have a home and clean clothes are going to beat you to the interview.
However, I think you, Anne Marie have a career writing commercials for wireless web providers. This sounds like exactly the kind of saccharine bullshit they'd use to sell their product.
Radio will get you somewhere, but cbs are subject to a lot of abuse. Recently in NY, disgruntled ambulance drivers were (illegally) jamming the airwaves by blowing on the receiver each time a dispatch went out to a non-union ambulance. Thankfully, no one was (apparently) killed by the practice, but just the same, it's a scary prospect, and it'd be a lot harder to jam a satellite feed.
Bullshit. Use a cellphone, everyone else does. Not to mention the difficulty, nay, near impossibility of bouncing a signal off a geosynch satellite from a moving vehicle.
The sooner we realize real lives are at stake, the sooner we'll embrace this technology, for the greater good of humanity.
Nope, this is just another hi-tech toy for the middle and upper classes only. The rest of you poor unwashed can have it in 15 years when it's broken, or when we technofetishists find something far better to waste disposable income on.
the cpu horsepower that is available in such a 1 ghz system (indeed quite a bit lower), is more than enough to perform software raid-4 or raid-5 if you want with ide and still have cycles left over after you pump it out a 100base-t ethernet.
It's not the processor, it's the bandwidth of the various buses. IDE - forget about it. Assuming these extra controllers are PCI 2.1, that's 32 bits at 66MHz, split amongst 8 of em. Put a 10GHz processor in there, it ain't gonna cut the mustard, fibre channel scsi-3 in a real server architecture is about the only way. Also, with hi-res digital video and multiple rendering boxen/workstations, i'd go the extra mile and have gigabit fibre everywhere in this network.
So yes, I think this is a bit pricey, slightly impressive, and I think you are talking out of your ass.
That's consumer hardware. With consumer hardware they give you a year warranty or so, and it has been my experience that consumer drives are almost guaranteed to crap out after 2-3 years, regardless of the stated MTBF. Take 16-17 of those and those MTBFs add up, such that you're almost guaranteed a crash in the first year. Not to mention the resource conflicts and reduced efficiency of access with 7-8 IDE controllers in one computer. With SW RAID I don't doubt that it's possible, but there's no reason to run such a high risk of failure.
Of course, those of you who actually read the article know that they only have 4TB LIVE at any one time, and they are ramping that storage up to 10. 100TB is the sum of the tape storage, which is easy to believe as they probably want to "measure twice cut once" and keep everything they create.
I'm not trying to start a flame war, but I've never seen a decent, well-thought-out argument for net access in the schools. Libraries, yes, but how does it improve mastery of classroom subjects ???
I don't think that it does. We've been talking about multimedia as adding to the learning experience for some time now, but what's the big difference between hearing JFK say "Ask not what your country can do for you..." and reading that he said it? It doesn't teach anything.
However, net access with the right resources, updated regularly does make a difference. Being able to have a hyperlinked textbook, with an infinite amount of depth on any subject would be a boon. Not only would they save money on constantly reprinting tons and tons of paper textbooks, but the teacher would become more of a guide, showing students a certain path through history or whatever subject is covered, while the student is free in spare time to read in more detail on topics that interest them. A web book would be impossible to deface (given sufficient security), more accurate since changes could be made after publication, and could be linked to current events of interest.
So yes, if such resources existed, they would justify net access and PCs in schools. It's true that just putting the kid in front of the PC won't instantly make them smarter.
I think that Bush is a bit more knowledgeable than we're led to believe, just like Gore isn't quite as dishonest as we're led to believe.
I completely concur.
Bush is a college-educated man, and I don't doubt that he knows his readin, 'ritin, and 'rithmatic. However, I don't think his ideas are very well thought out, and are the epitome of mealy-mouthed rhetoric. If he could defend his plans and stances against his hardiest critics, I would believe him and vote for him. However, I see him using rhetoric, attacks, and finally stuttering and changing the subject to hide the fact that he has no substance.
I also don't believe Gore told that great lie about inventing the internet. I believe he knew what he was talking about, and assumed whomever he was addressing knew what he was referring to. The quote was taken out of context, and now he has to defend himself constantly against the ridiculous idea that a career politician sat down one day with a programming book, a dumbterm and a time machine and single-handedly invented the internet.
Oh, I see. When a candidate uses technological terms in a "correct" and confident way, that means that he doesn't have any clue as to what he is talking about - or are you just making an ignorant statement based on a tremendous amount of bias?
If he used these sort of terms or analogies constantly, or even sparingly throughout his campaign and in casual speech, I'd believe that he understood what he meant by them. However, it's a bunch of buzzwords cooked up to make W seem a bit hipper, and a little bit hi-tech friendlier, and it doesn't even fit into the context of the speech.
In other words, no; my opinion is well informed, not ignorant. Also, my bias, which is not so tremendous, has been formed by observing the campaigns. I perceive that Gore has better PR and better stage presence, probably due to coaching, but that alone does not make his message more true that W's. However, he has been more forthcoming with facts and explanations in defense of his stances, therefore he has my confidence.
Hack value!! could you imagine the stuff you can do with a modular open-source game console!!
Is it be impossible to build a PS,xbox etc emulator for indrema?
And get your ass sued right off? By Sony and Microsoft of course. Sony let Bleemcast go for now, but do you really think they'd let a Bleemcast2 slip by?
I'd bet someone will have this thing running apache+php and serving websites in no time
Who cares? Why reinvent the wheel?
software library tweaks and upgrades
This is the antithesis of what makes consoles useful. Standardized hardware and fewer levels of abstraction between the hardware and the game code make for easier programming, less interfaces, less workarounds, less bugs.
With a little support, Indrema could do to the gaming console what linux is doing to the software industry.
What, continually playing catch-up? Good point though, while Linux does have its good points as far as cheap, socialist techies and perhaps the server market are concerned, there really isn't anything to draw in the mass consumer market. Maybe there is a market for the Indrema, amongst the OSS-worshipping, technology fetishists on/., but that's only a couple thousand (couple 100,000 at most, if all the trolls buy one too).
But what if they aren't targetting the major game makers? There are plenty of small shops that have wanted to produce games for the abovementioned systems, but can't, because they can't afford the fees.
The bottom line is that the games have to be desireable. The games sell the console, no matter how well intentioned the console maker is in "providing" this platform for said developers to produce their games. If nobody wants said games, nobody will buy the console.
It's a longshot bet for any developer to take, whereas Pokemon, Mario, and sports licenses are sure-thing money in the bank for the big consoles. Keith Courage didn't exactly become a household name, and Bonk was maybe a blip on the cultural radar for TurboGrafx 16. (I actually bought one, so I feel a little bitter about it )
Whereas with Indrema, the developer's kit is free. When you release a game, Indrema gets a cut of whatever you sell it for, so if you freeware your game (usually for publicity) they don't even get a cut then.
And realistically, since they can't expect to make any income off the console and compete on price with the big dogs, this will be their entire income stream. Nobody makes anything off the freeware stuff. And do you really think someone is going to buy the console based on the draw of the freeware games? That's like a mass-market consumer buying a boxed Linux distro because they think StarOffice looks useful.
Face it, the Indrema is vapourware, and was stillborn a while ago. Just like the X-Box, they're promising everything under the sun (Although in some cases less than the X-Box) but the difference is, Microsoft has the raw cash and expertise to push it through.
Even if they do manage to produce the hardware, the mass-market won't give a damn about this. Basically the major VG software manufacturers are circling their wagons around one of the big 4 (Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, and maybe Sega) and are going to get locked down under non-comp deals, if they aren't already. So we have to believe that Indrema, who will have to sell their console at a loss to compete with the big boys and their limitless cash sinks, is still going to be able to convince an independent SW maker to:
pay any applicable licensing,
Take a risk on the little console that could, and
Spend oodles promoting characters/licenses to compete with Mario/Zelda/Sonic, and the various sports licenses that sell the other consoles to the 18+ crowd?
I don't think so. I'd call it a TurboGrafx 16, if I couldn't think of a shorter lived and more ill-conceived console.
Bush can only answer questions on technology as well as he can answer any other questions; that is, parrot whatever the focus group said they wanted to hear. There's zero understanding on his part, as you can tell by how flustered he got in the debates when pressed for details or rebutted.
For what its worth, check out this Wired News story for some of Bush's blather. A quote:
"This is analog thinking in a digital age, 28K thinking in a broadband era, an eight-track ideology in an MP3 world," Bush added.
Sounds like some college intern working on the campaign got a little creative, and the puppet-masters with their hand up W's ass liked it and stuck it in the speech. Does it honestly sound like he has any clue what he is talking about?
You may want to check out Beyond Freedom and Dignity by B.F. Skinner. This is the gentleman who defined and made a study of positive and negative reinforcement, and the gist of this book is that negative reinforcement NEVER works with human beings because it only encourages dishonesty, amongst other things. (Think about the Spartans)
This is the problem with these sorts of benefits in the high-tech industry specifically; that "techies" are usually introverted technology fetishists, with little interest in the benefits that most "normal" people want (family healthcare, daycare, INTELLIGENT investment options).
Companies can just throw a few bones to the majority, hardcore techies (high-risk stock options in lieu of payment, assorted hi tech gadgets, nerf toys) and ignore the majority, who actually need substantive benefits.
I found an interesting article
here on the concept of USEFUL benefits in the hi-tech industry.
I believe Wolfenstein has been open sourced. I don't have the time to hunt it down, but I'm sure you can find the source on 3D Realms website. I think that this is something that every company should look at doing, as most abandonware games are so old that they shouldn't contain any trade secrets or such.
On the topic, I believe that this is just a case of lawyers doing their job. They were told to look for copyright infringement on the web, and they found it, and are pressing charges just as much as they would if it were a game released yesterday and posted on a web site today. We just have to see which game company takes the high road first and sets a policy for allowing abandonware.
Slashdot Mirror
Dropping the constitutional "right to vote*" age to 12, or some agreed upon "age of reason" would cause candidates to take seriously the issues affecting young citizens, rather than pandering to their parents viewpoints. Any fear that young citizens would vote on the same lines as their parents, or vote based on non-substantive issues (e.g. Gore's daughters are hotter, Bush has better hair) are unfounded because:
- If children vote along the same lines as their parents, the net result is the same, excluding some statistical oddity like Democrats having an average 2.9 children, as opposed to Repubs 2.2
- Voting on non-substantive issues will be "random noise", which will not cancel out anyone elses vote
Idealism generally begins dying off at age 18, when one begins experiencing the "real world". Lowering the voting age would encourage young citizens to become better informed, and instill the desire to participate in the political process while this idealism is still fresh.--
*The Constitution ensures the right to vote for all citizens 18 and up. It does not specifically deny the right to anyone not in this class; IIRC, one or two states allows younger citizens to vote. I don't have the specific info, if anyone else does, please feel free to chime in.
The other day they sent me an item that looks just like a FedEx envelope, but it said something like "Airborne Express" on it, reproduced right down to the addresses in a handwriting font and checkmarks in various boxes.
Just imagine if telemarketers and junk mailers continued with this policy. They would be sending items in personalized envelopes, with randomly generated names and hooks on them (from Jane Petersen, Chairman Reunion Committee). A typical telemarketing cold-call might go like this:
There's a point at which a novelty form of promotion (The fake FedEx envelope) becomes an out-and-out lie. It's a hard thing to legislate, since there are legitimate forms of bulk mail and email. Basically, before delivering either one a business should have to provide proof of:- A prior business relationship with the receiver
- An opt-in, with more info than just a database entry saying "joe.blow@isp.com clicked the checkbox." Electronic signatures anyone?
Method 1 still doesn't save us from unscrupulous companies buying pets.com or other busted dotcoms databases, and calling this a "prior business relationship."ORBS does work somewhat though, because the majority of spam I get is coming from some bizarre foreign domain that obviously fired up a web server and left SMTP wide open (The Office of the President of El Salvador?). Maybe some forward-thinking on the various server OS distro makers part could make up for the admins short-sightedness?
However, I think you, Anne Marie have a career writing commercials for wireless web providers. This sounds like exactly the kind of saccharine bullshit they'd use to sell their product.
Bullshit. Use a cellphone, everyone else does. Not to mention the difficulty, nay, near impossibility of bouncing a signal off a geosynch satellite from a moving vehicle. Nope, this is just another hi-tech toy for the middle and upper classes only. The rest of you poor unwashed can have it in 15 years when it's broken, or when we technofetishists find something far better to waste disposable income on.So yes, I think this is a bit pricey, slightly impressive, and I think you are talking out of your ass.
Of course, those of you who actually read the article know that they only have 4TB LIVE at any one time, and they are ramping that storage up to 10. 100TB is the sum of the tape storage, which is easy to believe as they probably want to "measure twice cut once" and keep everything they create.
However, net access with the right resources, updated regularly does make a difference. Being able to have a hyperlinked textbook, with an infinite amount of depth on any subject would be a boon. Not only would they save money on constantly reprinting tons and tons of paper textbooks, but the teacher would become more of a guide, showing students a certain path through history or whatever subject is covered, while the student is free in spare time to read in more detail on topics that interest them. A web book would be impossible to deface (given sufficient security), more accurate since changes could be made after publication, and could be linked to current events of interest.
So yes, if such resources existed, they would justify net access and PCs in schools. It's true that just putting the kid in front of the PC won't instantly make them smarter.
Bush is a college-educated man, and I don't doubt that he knows his readin, 'ritin, and 'rithmatic. However, I don't think his ideas are very well thought out, and are the epitome of mealy-mouthed rhetoric. If he could defend his plans and stances against his hardiest critics, I would believe him and vote for him. However, I see him using rhetoric, attacks, and finally stuttering and changing the subject to hide the fact that he has no substance.
I also don't believe Gore told that great lie about inventing the internet. I believe he knew what he was talking about, and assumed whomever he was addressing knew what he was referring to. The quote was taken out of context, and now he has to defend himself constantly against the ridiculous idea that a career politician sat down one day with a programming book, a dumbterm and a time machine and single-handedly invented the internet.
If he used these sort of terms or analogies constantly, or even sparingly throughout his campaign and in casual speech, I'd believe that he understood what he meant by them. However, it's a bunch of buzzwords cooked up to make W seem a bit hipper, and a little bit hi-tech friendlier, and it doesn't even fit into the context of the speech.In other words, no; my opinion is well informed, not ignorant. Also, my bias, which is not so tremendous, has been formed by observing the campaigns. I perceive that Gore has better PR and better stage presence, probably due to coaching, but that alone does not make his message more true that W's. However, he has been more forthcoming with facts and explanations in defense of his stances, therefore he has my confidence.
It's a longshot bet for any developer to take, whereas Pokemon, Mario, and sports licenses are sure-thing money in the bank for the big consoles. Keith Courage didn't exactly become a household name, and Bonk was maybe a blip on the cultural radar for TurboGrafx 16. (I actually bought one, so I feel a little bitter about it )
And realistically, since they can't expect to make any income off the console and compete on price with the big dogs, this will be their entire income stream. Nobody makes anything off the freeware stuff. And do you really think someone is going to buy the console based on the draw of the freeware games? That's like a mass-market consumer buying a boxed Linux distro because they think StarOffice looks useful.Even if they do manage to produce the hardware, the mass-market won't give a damn about this. Basically the major VG software manufacturers are circling their wagons around one of the big 4 (Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, and maybe Sega) and are going to get locked down under non-comp deals, if they aren't already. So we have to believe that Indrema, who will have to sell their console at a loss to compete with the big boys and their limitless cash sinks, is still going to be able to convince an independent SW maker to:
- pay any applicable licensing,
- Take a risk on the little console that could, and
- Spend oodles promoting characters/licenses to compete with Mario/Zelda/Sonic, and the various sports licenses that sell the other consoles to the 18+ crowd?
I don't think so. I'd call it a TurboGrafx 16, if I couldn't think of a shorter lived and more ill-conceived console.For what its worth, check out this Wired News story for some of Bush's blather. A quote:
Sounds like some college intern working on the campaign got a little creative, and the puppet-masters with their hand up W's ass liked it and stuck it in the speech. Does it honestly sound like he has any clue what he is talking about?I think he was just in a hurry to get FIST PROST.
According to this quiz, I AM Ralph Nader.
You may want to check out Beyond Freedom and Dignity by B.F. Skinner. This is the gentleman who defined and made a study of positive and negative reinforcement, and the gist of this book is that negative reinforcement NEVER works with human beings because it only encourages dishonesty, amongst other things. (Think about the Spartans)
These would all be forms of positive reinforcement.
Companies can just throw a few bones to the majority, hardcore techies (high-risk stock options in lieu of payment, assorted hi tech gadgets, nerf toys) and ignore the majority, who actually need substantive benefits.
I found an interesting article here on the concept of USEFUL benefits in the hi-tech industry.
On the topic, I believe that this is just a case of lawyers doing their job. They were told to look for copyright infringement on the web, and they found it, and are pressing charges just as much as they would if it were a game released yesterday and posted on a web site today. We just have to see which game company takes the high road first and sets a policy for allowing abandonware.
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