Seriously, ebay one for relatively cheap. The wife found me an old 3630 with compactflash expansion slot... plus wifi card, plus modem for dirt cheap can handle.pdf &.lit & a bajillion other formats.. tho honestly, inspite of my avoidance of microsoft products, I prefer the responsiveness of their Reader so pretty much solely read.lit's (plus it does games, notes, email, web, voice notes, calendar, mp3s, video etc... etc.. ) its just like any of the newer pda/smartphone offerings, just a slower cpu, a bit less on board storage, a bit thicker, a bit heavier... but its still smaller than the average paperback, runs on pocketpc2002 which is older and clumsier, and immensely cheaper than the current pda offering, and funny enough, the screen is LARGER.
i just shuffle file back and forth using the cf card an a separate reader. kinda of OS independent in that way.
but here's the main thing....
it's back lit.
I can read without having another light on to bother the wife.
it has saved our marriage and made me a better husband. (bad husbands' insomnia affects wife.. mine? not so much now)
so it spends its life as my ebook reader.
content? meh. I agree with all the comments about drm and the cost of an ebook being to hogh compared to dead tree editions. project gutenburg and gift cards are my saving graces.
it handles varying latencies pretty well, i've had it sync two desktops over a 10/100 local and a 802.11b and a 802.11g laptop at opposite ends of the house... and it sounded pretty decent.
anything more is excessively costly, complicated and a pain in the ass.
unfortunately, as much as I love the idea of my mythtv... I've had the opposite experience. I've got nfs share over wireless (802.11g) that randomly disconnects itself when idle. and mythtv & the nfs & the wireless require a reboot to function. unfortunately, due to sequencing and timing of boot, the nfs share doesn't always reconnect at boot, and I'm not always able to remember to check the the wireless connection is up, before I check the nfs share to mount the share, before I boot mythtv. If I get in a hurry, or forget to check something- I have to reboot. not that I can blame these issues 100% on mythtv, but unfortunately, it does rely on some inconsistent technologies as I've implemented it. maybe if I had a cat6 run between machines and maybe if i had a better file server it wouldn't choke... but that's not an option for me.
Now when it works, it works wonderfully for watching downloaded video.
ok, first of all, the original post din't specify a "web" solution, or even that it be multi user or what os it was on....
so to that end, I live and die by broderbund/riverdeep's Calendar Creator at work. have for at least five year now. the plus side: flexible recurring events, multi day events span the day cells in month view (simple, but rare and effective), integrated contacts/addressbook, supports mutliple views with different categories in different views, very flexible layout, cut/paste/drag/etc.. can print to pdf/image files. the negatives: windows only, doubtful if its really still being actively developed, I hate the publication/dev companies, no reminder system, not multi-user capable at all, no email integration, no scheduling/meeting/appointment invite system. kinda poor import/export.
now, as to the various webscal options. yes, webcal by knudsen is probably the most well rounded and function standalone calendar... but as other posts have pointed out... it looks and feels "cludgy"... and its not a all in one, single shot done deal kinda of package. it takes some tweaking.
kiko - love it. recommend it. their "natural language" entry is cool. more flexible and accurate than googles. their developers are responsive and intelligent. lacks an integrated email system, but still has a functional invite/meeting system that doesn't force all you peers into the same mail sys. has reminders to email/sms/pop-ups. I like pretty much everything about it in fact. if only they can get that multiday spanning day cells in month view that Calendar Creator and Google have. otherwise, I really really like them.. my other request of them would to offer something like gmail's hosting of your domaim mail. so that again, you're not tied into moving all your calendaring peers to another system, just using your existant accounts. maybe just an imap/pop3 interface to any existant server, with some jscripting glitter and magic for calendaring interaction? I also have to mention that I like their addressbook. if onyl it were acessible to an email client. but i like how it doesn't force fields upon you, and it doesn't leave empty ones sitting there staring you in the face.. makes everything more condensed and pleasant to view.
google calendar- also like it. it has all the normal google strengths, many of kikos. in fact, I'd probably be more infavor of gcal over kiko if i had met it first. but I'm not fond of its pretty much insisting that your calendaring peers also be gmail users. I'm torn as to what I think about the multi calendar interface. I like being able to divide up my life like that and haev separate public/private settings per calendar, but still, within each calendar (or across all of them) I'd still like some lable/tag/categories feature. and while they have the cell spanning feature for multiday events in month view... I big plus- its only for events that aren't using times. big downer. especially in week view, if the event goes from 3 to 4 for 3 days in a row.. why shouldn't that event entry span those dates in those times? I also have a beef with gcal's print output. nasty. I like the overlaying ajaxy events on the screen, why can't i have them in print? Why does everything print across two pages? why can't I click print, then select landscape and a single page?... etc.. etc.. etc.. and for being a part of the "google goodness" with its simplicity over glitz... there are occasions where they may have gone to far.. at least in the config/settings area.
big point of concern and contention with both kiko/gcal
how are they going to make their money? as of my last use of gcal. didn't see any ads. kiko. no ads. yet. subscription for features? which features? how much? subscription for no ads? again, how much? its my one beef with all these "beta" programs.. they lure you in while things are sweet.. but then BAM, once you've invested your data and time into the software/package/service/whatever.. the
(feel free to let me know if I'm missing something that mitigates or eliviates these issues)
a) I'm sorry, but I'd like some better means of archiving and backing up my email than accessing it via pop3 client. especially as admin- I'd need some means of doing this in bulk.
b) ads. while I know it could be worse.. I've been running my own webmail (iloha/squirrel) via imap. no ads. I just like not seeing them, and don't know how much I'd be willing to pay to not see them against my previous setup.
c) visuals. I previously had much more flexibility and better integration with other site/app/branding. sorry a little 149x58-ish pic doesn't really work as "branding" an entire web presence.
d) bulk import. I don't want to leave my mass of imap folders/clutter/organization behind!
e) hosted domains don't get the same "ever growing" storage as normal gmail accounts. small thing, but it seems kinda silly to go with a domain via gmail, but not to get all the gmail "features".
f) change scares me. there are several "features" hinted at, that aren't in play now... like multiple levels/account types, additional services, etc... am I going to get dragged into additional "features I don't want?" are some of my current features going to be moved to "non-free" account levels? I wish I could let it handle all my domain's accounts but my three main... keep those safe during the testing period until things stabalize... assuming that this beta period doesn't last the next 5 years.
in the end, I know- these are paltry things, and for someone who owns nothing but a domain name.. gmail hosting their mail may not be a bad thing.
my ancient ipaq 3650 (or something) has a 512 meg compact flash half full of ebooks.
my preference now tends to be in microsoft's reader format -.lit if only because of how smoothly the page transitions happen on my older hardware.
PDF's take too long and are too jerky between pages.
html & txt just don't have any "features" to them.
what features you ask? what makes my love of ebooks so grand?
-bookmarks that my toddlers can take out (until they get enough manual dexterity to maliciously and purposely remove them. hah! the stylus is a couple of months beyond their control)
-backlighting. I love it. the spouse loves it. and with an heavy duty after market battery, I can go days between charges.
-notes & diagrams. i don't use these features. but they sure seem spiffy. I guess if I'd read anything beyond scfi for leisure I might make use of them.
-"most recent page" / "begin reading" / "furthest read" / "picking up where you left off"... I love these very basic features. imagine, even without a bookmark, opening your book to exactly where you left off. nice. what if you'd doubled back to re-read a section because you were unclear... then go to the furthest read. what if you'd skimmed through the book and decided it was worth reading, but now are somewhere towards the end? "begin reading"... those plus linked tables of contents are great!
now, do I read legal books? honestly, probably not. I try the Baen library. like a lot of it. but it leans kinda heavy on the space opera-ish and fantasy which isn't my bag.
I'd be glad to read "real" books from "real" online book stores, but DAMN! are they expensive. I mean I've seen them from $4.95 to $21.00... geez.. gimme a 99 cent per book thing with DRM that will end my reading it in a week or so. or gimme a $2.00 first publication that's released at the same time as the hardcover. or give me something that's not LUDACRIS. (actually I like ludacris.. good tunes.. snese of humor, I gotta respect him)
when many teachers, while knowing that it is against the law, are forced to copy huge chunks (if not all) of texts books due to a lack of funding. ditto videos ditto software ditto audio
various legislation has been extremely free with mandating the content and tools of education while refusing to finance those means.
Now by "forced" I don't mean that someone is holding a gun to their head, or threatening physical harm in any way. However, their income is. Especially as the insane among the public is moving towards "performance based salaries." Especially in environments where a topic like Health is mandated by state legislature, who funds a single class set of 20 books for a campus which has 2 teachers each with a full 7 period per day class load of 32-36 students each.
Or the fine arts, which some states have legislated as "fundamental curriculumn," and yet also legislate that campuses/districts must increase their spending on Physical Education two-fold. Where do you think they'll take the money from? Fine Arts. and yet then campuses/districts are fined for not providing "core curriculum."
American education as a whole has deteriorated past the point of salvation. We have put the child in charge, given them the legal means to weasel out of any responsibility or olbigation- they do't have to attend classes, they can scream streams of profanity at their teachers, they don't have to turn in their work, and yet some politician thinks that we can force them to learn ethics? No, all we're teaching them is yet another means to avoiding culpability, and giving them examples of the language and structure by which blame can be displaced.
a) [my least intelligent/valid point] until now, I assumed that Austin had a higher percentage of computer literate legal professionals. Thanks for destroying that Mark.
b) their webpage is frontpage'd. Not even "well" frontpage'd. Yet another company that has their secretary "whip out" something for that internet thing "no-one ever looks at." highly unproffesional in appearance.
c) I couldn't find any partner, much less the attorney in question having any experience or training in internet/software law. and again, the appearance of the site kinda would lead one away from having them involved in such things.
d) I hate pointing it out.. but the lawyer in question looks to be relatively very young. I'd hate to imagine one of the partners handing it off to him as either a "disposal client" (after this client, his career's in the disposal) or equally bad, if they've got a senior partner with any common sense- that someone let him take it to these extremes, destroying their firm's image/reputation.
we (parents, teachers, students, employers, etc.. are going to lose in this.
I am a teacher, parent & employers of 16-23 year olds. We've set the education system up for failure, and it will continue to fail at amazing rate as desperate "solutions" such as this are thrown at the system until it kills a substantial percentage of the nation's youth.
first and foremost- I'm going to say I blame the parents. (woohoo! watch that karma drop!) none of this would be necessary if the children were taught, or had it modeled for them, or had the values embedded in them that education was of value. That and the parents are going to have to suck it up and be the bad guy, be the hardass, be the one make certain the child is held accountable for their actions.
A large part of the problem is that the system relieves parents of their duties of parenting. And then in turn holds schools responsible, and then in turn holds teachers responsible.
But guess what, with all the responsibilities and duties and irrelevant tasks that have been placed on teachers- they have no time to teach. In fact, persons with any passion or desire to pass on knowledge and skills in a field are quickly driven out because they don't spend enough time doing attendance in the correct manner, because they don't spend enough time preparing children for a standardized test, because they don't document a complete and unique separate lesson plan/learning system FOR EACH CHILD.
Which, if we allowed those children to who really wanted to learn, to be in the classes of those who really wanted to teach... (in my opinion) making individual plans wouldn't be so bad because you're not trying to force material down the throat of a child who simply doesn't care. As teachers we can't make them care, and yet parents and then administrators, and even future employers, are blaming us for students coming out without a work ethic, without a sense of responsibility, pride in their work, or the common sense to believe that they should show up on time, or do the task they were given through to completion.
how's this relevant to the RFID tags? I used to live in Spring and taught in the district next to it. They're actually a pretty "calm" district comparatively. Not way out on the forefront of education, not in the ghettos. Just another suburban district on the outskirts of a large city. (I've heard rumor that even people in NY and LA recognize Houston as a "large city"). They have the luxury if you will, to try to throw new technology at old problems. they have some cash apparently, they're not having to spend it on metal detectors for every door, but tardiness and skipping? the tags them selves i would imagine are relatively cheap, and the scanners not too bad compared to some of the other ludicrous expenditures I've seen (and while teacher salaries fall in that category, its on the lower end of the spectrum).
I can see how easily this could be sold to a school board, teachers and administrators. School board finally has some means of knowing where every child is. Administrators don't have to spend a fraction of their existing resources to implement or monitor this new system, and if done right, teachers are no longer responsible for the tedious tasks of attendance. (which in and of itself wouldn't be a problem if you didn't have 35 kids all coming in tardy-with various levels/legitimacies of excuses). Only the poor tech resource folks are contemplating suicide.
But as another poster pointed out.. it does nothing for the kids except for give them something else to hate and manipulate. It doesn't hold them responsible for anything.
check it out.. the rendering of the left column of Slashdot has been corrected in this release, as noted under "Major Bug Fixes" #217527
I don't know how I feel about that
or what that says about the prominence of/.
or what that says about the priorities of the moz devs ...I'm so conflicted.
I agree completely. A (possible) example of such a naming would be Xaraya. A "extensible content management system." It was cool- they opened up to the community for naming suggestions, and in the end.. went for something that didn't really mean anything, but sounded vaguely familiar (in spanish i believe?) Which is kinda cool to not have it (necessarily) linguistically attached to english. (my opinion)
It's unique, not bogged down with similarities to other endeavours or product names, readily identifable, and they even have a wav file to instruct you on how to pronounce it. (i still say it wrong in my mind)
all in all, a good name. a good process to get to it!
now this may be standard in juvenile cases.. but it seems very wrong to have the children listed as the plantifs. I sincerely doubt any child EVER has given any thought to the EMF in pervasive technologies. To make it sound as there is a child sitting in fear of the network at school is manipulative and wrong. And even more wrong is to place their names on a public document of this nature which will associate them with ridicule for a long time to come.
then someone should correlate all of the coherent, relevant, intelligent data (as in measurable, and reproducable) and examples presented throughout these discussions and submit them to the parents (Ron Baiman?) and their legal staff in an effort to educate them.
give them the data, allow them to draw their own- now more informed- conclusions.
I would imagine it being gladly received from such a body of technology specialists.
(I wish I knew how much of this was sarcasm and how much is an honest suggestion)
I would assume it would be prudent for any upcoming litigation to have our friend(s) from SCO placed under a gag order from some relevant court to prevent this on-going media circus which may "damage credibility with less technically inclined persons who may make any potential juror pool"...
we could even bring such an action on as a class action suit (perhaps? IANAL)
but it'd sure calm down a lot of this puffing up and chest beating.
Dune... all of them... now that brian herbert and kevin anderson have knocked out their 4 prequels (Butlerian Jihad, Houses Harkonnen, Corrino, Atreides)... i'm looking for any added depth or insite to the original 7 by frank herbert. if only to warm myself up for the rumored 8th and final book to be written from F.H.'s original notes...
not to mention, the series as a whole spans such immense time geography and philosophies on humanity, ecology, and purpose... You can constantly re-read them (my personal goal- re-read the entire collection at least once every 5 years- but then again, I'm freakish that way)
for reasons I won't elaborate- I wound up creating a Hotmail account..
the suprise that makes this article trivial is that there was blatant spam WAITING for me the first time I'd ever checked it- at confirmation!
needless to say, it hadn't been posted on any web site, newsgroup or used in any electronic transaction prior. Hell, I hadn't even written it down on the napkin I was taken notes on yet!
Within 5 MINUTES I had 4 spam mails in my inbox. By the time I had sent a message to their support folks (customer and tech, with full header info- who STILL haven't responded) I had 12.
Obviously, its unusable. How many others have similar experiences?
Slashdot Mirror
Seriously, ebay one for relatively cheap. .pdf & .lit & a bajillion other formats.. .lit's
The wife found me an old 3630 with compactflash expansion slot... plus wifi card, plus modem for dirt cheap
can handle
tho honestly, inspite of my avoidance of microsoft products, I prefer the responsiveness of their Reader so pretty much solely read
(plus it does games, notes, email, web, voice notes, calendar, mp3s, video etc... etc.. )
its just like any of the newer pda/smartphone offerings, just a slower cpu, a bit less on board storage, a bit thicker, a bit heavier...
but its still smaller than the average paperback, runs on pocketpc2002 which is older and clumsier,
and immensely cheaper than the current pda offering, and funny enough, the screen is LARGER.
i just shuffle file back and forth using the cf card an a separate reader.
kinda of OS independent in that way.
but here's the main thing....
it's back lit.
I can read without having another light on to bother the wife.
it has saved our marriage and made me a better husband.
(bad husbands' insomnia affects wife.. mine? not so much now)
so it spends its life as my ebook reader.
content? meh. I agree with all the comments about drm and the cost of an ebook being to hogh compared to dead tree editions.
project gutenburg and gift cards are my saving graces.
I have to second the VLC reccomendation.
best of all, its handles multiple OSs
it handles varying latencies pretty well, i've had it sync two desktops over a 10/100 local and a 802.11b and a 802.11g laptop at opposite ends of the house... and it sounded pretty decent.
anything more is excessively costly, complicated and a pain in the ass.
unfortunately, as much as I love the idea of my mythtv... I've had the opposite experience.
I've got nfs share over wireless (802.11g) that randomly disconnects itself when idle. and mythtv & the nfs & the wireless require a reboot to function. unfortunately, due to sequencing and timing of boot, the nfs share doesn't always reconnect at boot, and I'm not always able to remember to check the the wireless connection is up, before I check the nfs share to mount the share, before I boot mythtv. If I get in a hurry, or forget to check something- I have to reboot. not that I can blame these issues 100% on mythtv, but unfortunately, it does rely on some inconsistent technologies as I've implemented it. maybe if I had a cat6 run between machines and maybe if i had a better file server it wouldn't choke... but that's not an option for me.
Now when it works, it works wonderfully for watching downloaded video.
when it works.
ok, first of all, the original post din't specify a "web" solution, or even that it be multi user or what os it was on....
... and its not a all in one, single shot done deal kinda of package. it takes some tweaking.
... etc.. etc.. etc.. and for being a part of the "google goodness" with its simplicity over glitz... there are occasions where they may have gone to far.. at least in the config/settings area.
.. the
so to that end, I live and die by broderbund/riverdeep's Calendar Creator at work. have for at least five year now.
the plus side: flexible recurring events, multi day events span the day cells in month view (simple, but rare and effective), integrated contacts/addressbook, supports mutliple views with different categories in different views, very flexible layout, cut/paste/drag/etc.. can print to pdf/image files.
the negatives: windows only, doubtful if its really still being actively developed, I hate the publication/dev companies, no reminder system, not multi-user capable at all, no email integration, no scheduling/meeting/appointment invite system. kinda poor import/export.
now, as to the various webscal options.
yes, webcal by knudsen is probably the most well rounded and function standalone calendar... but as other posts have pointed out... it looks and feels "cludgy"
kiko - love it. recommend it. their "natural language" entry is cool. more flexible and accurate than googles. their developers are responsive and intelligent. lacks an integrated email system, but still has a functional invite/meeting system that doesn't force all you peers into the same mail sys. has reminders to email/sms/pop-ups. I like pretty much everything about it in fact. if only they can get that multiday spanning day cells in month view that Calendar Creator and Google have. otherwise, I really really like them.. my other request of them would to offer something like gmail's hosting of your domaim mail. so that again, you're not tied into moving all your calendaring peers to another system, just using your existant accounts. maybe just an imap/pop3 interface to any existant server, with some jscripting glitter and magic for calendaring interaction? I also have to mention that I like their addressbook. if onyl it were acessible to an email client. but i like how it doesn't force fields upon you, and it doesn't leave empty ones sitting there staring you in the face.. makes everything more condensed and pleasant to view.
google calendar- also like it. it has all the normal google strengths, many of kikos. in fact, I'd probably be more infavor of gcal over kiko if i had met it first. but I'm not fond of its pretty much insisting that your calendaring peers also be gmail users. I'm torn as to what I think about the multi calendar interface. I like being able to divide up my life like that and haev separate public/private settings per calendar, but still, within each calendar (or across all of them) I'd still like some lable/tag/categories feature. and while they have the cell spanning feature for multiday events in month view... I big plus- its only for events that aren't using times. big downer. especially in week view, if the event goes from 3 to 4 for 3 days in a row.. why shouldn't that event entry span those dates in those times? I also have a beef with gcal's print output. nasty. I like the overlaying ajaxy events on the screen, why can't i have them in print? Why does everything print across two pages? why can't I click print, then select landscape and a single page?
big point of concern and contention with both kiko/gcal
how are they going to make their money? as of my last use of gcal. didn't see any ads. kiko. no ads. yet. subscription for features? which features? how much? subscription for no ads? again, how much? its my one beef with all these "beta" programs.. they lure you in while things are sweet.. but then BAM, once you've invested your data and time into the software/package/service/whatever
oh, and i want encryption & digital signing capabilities...
as long as I'm dreaming...
(feel free to let me know if I'm missing something that mitigates or eliviates these issues)
a) I'm sorry, but I'd like some better means of archiving and backing up my email than accessing it via pop3 client. especially as admin- I'd need some means of doing this in bulk.
b) ads. while I know it could be worse.. I've been running my own webmail (iloha/squirrel) via imap. no ads. I just like not seeing them, and don't know how much I'd be willing to pay to not see them against my previous setup.
c) visuals. I previously had much more flexibility and better integration with other site/app/branding. sorry a little 149x58-ish pic doesn't really work as "branding" an entire web presence.
d) bulk import. I don't want to leave my mass of imap folders/clutter/organization behind!
e) hosted domains don't get the same "ever growing" storage as normal gmail accounts. small thing, but it seems kinda silly to go with a domain via gmail, but not to get all the gmail "features".
f) change scares me. there are several "features" hinted at, that aren't in play now... like multiple levels/account types, additional services, etc... am I going to get dragged into additional "features I don't want?" are some of my current features going to be moved to "non-free" account levels? I wish I could let it handle all my domain's accounts but my three main... keep those safe during the testing period until things stabalize... assuming that this beta period doesn't last the next 5 years.
in the end, I know- these are paltry things, and for someone who owns nothing but a domain name.. gmail hosting their mail may not be a bad thing.
non-stop.
.lit if only because of how smoothly the page transitions happen on my older hardware.
... I love these very basic features. imagine, even without a bookmark, opening your book to exactly where you left off. nice. what if you'd doubled back to re-read a section because you were unclear... then go to the furthest read. what if you'd skimmed through the book and decided it was worth reading, but now are somewhere towards the end? "begin reading" ... those plus linked tables of contents are great!
... geez.. gimme a 99 cent per book thing with DRM that will end my reading it in a week or so. or gimme a $2.00 first publication that's released at the same time as the hardcover. or give me something that's not LUDACRIS.
lots of them.
my ancient ipaq 3650 (or something) has a 512 meg compact flash half full of ebooks.
my preference now tends to be in microsoft's reader format -
PDF's take too long and are too jerky between pages.
html & txt just don't have any "features" to them.
what features you ask? what makes my love of ebooks so grand?
-bookmarks that my toddlers can take out (until they get enough manual dexterity to maliciously and purposely remove them. hah! the stylus is a couple of months beyond their control)
-backlighting. I love it. the spouse loves it. and with an heavy duty after market battery, I can go days between charges.
-notes & diagrams. i don't use these features. but they sure seem spiffy. I guess if I'd read anything beyond scfi for leisure I might make use of them.
-"most recent page" / "begin reading" / "furthest read" / "picking up where you left off"
now, do I read legal books? honestly, probably not. I try the Baen library. like a lot of it. but it leans kinda heavy on the space opera-ish and fantasy which isn't my bag.
I'd be glad to read "real" books from "real" online book stores, but DAMN! are they expensive. I mean I've seen them from $4.95 to $21.00
(actually I like ludacris.. good tunes.. snese of humor, I gotta respect him)
when many teachers, while knowing that it is against the law, are forced to copy huge chunks (if not all) of texts books due to a lack of funding.
ditto videos
ditto software
ditto audio
various legislation has been extremely free with mandating the content and tools of education while refusing to finance those means.
Now by "forced" I don't mean that someone is holding a gun to their head, or threatening physical harm in any way. However, their income is. Especially as the insane among the public is moving towards "performance based salaries." Especially in environments where a topic like Health is mandated by state legislature, who funds a single class set of 20 books for a campus which has 2 teachers each with a full 7 period per day class load of 32-36 students each.
Or the fine arts, which some states have legislated as "fundamental curriculumn," and yet also legislate that campuses/districts must increase their spending on Physical Education two-fold. Where do you think they'll take the money from? Fine Arts. and yet then campuses/districts are fined for not providing "core curriculum."
American education as a whole has deteriorated past the point of salvation. We have put the child in charge, given them the legal means to weasel out of any responsibility or olbigation- they do't have to attend classes, they can scream streams of profanity at their teachers, they don't have to turn in their work, and yet some politician thinks that we can force them to learn ethics? No, all we're teaching them is yet another means to avoiding culpability, and giving them examples of the language and structure by which blame can be displaced.
... pssst...
they already do it..
that's what we call "education" these days.
a) [my least intelligent/valid point] until now, I assumed that Austin had a higher percentage of computer literate legal professionals. Thanks for destroying that Mark.
b) their webpage is frontpage'd. Not even "well" frontpage'd. Yet another company that has their secretary "whip out" something for that internet thing "no-one ever looks at." highly unproffesional in appearance.
c) I couldn't find any partner, much less the attorney in question having any experience or training in internet/software law. and again, the appearance of the site kinda would lead one away from having them involved in such things.
d) I hate pointing it out.. but the lawyer in question looks to be relatively very young. I'd hate to imagine one of the partners handing it off to him as either a "disposal client" (after this client, his career's in the disposal) or equally bad, if they've got a senior partner with any common sense- that someone let him take it to these extremes, destroying their firm's image/reputation.
actually, I completely agree with your assessment.
no parting of company necessary!
we (parents, teachers, students, employers, etc.. are going to lose in this.
I am a teacher, parent & employers of 16-23 year olds. We've set the education system up for failure, and it will continue to fail at amazing rate as desperate "solutions" such as this are thrown at the system until it kills a substantial percentage of the nation's youth.
first and foremost- I'm going to say I blame the parents. (woohoo! watch that karma drop!) none of this would be necessary if the children were taught, or had it modeled for them, or had the values embedded in them that education was of value. That and the parents are going to have to suck it up and be the bad guy, be the hardass, be the one make certain the child is held accountable for their actions.
A large part of the problem is that the system relieves parents of their duties of parenting. And then in turn holds schools responsible, and then in turn holds teachers responsible.
But guess what, with all the responsibilities and duties and irrelevant tasks that have been placed on teachers- they have no time to teach. In fact, persons with any passion or desire to pass on knowledge and skills in a field are quickly driven out because they don't spend enough time doing attendance in the correct manner, because they don't spend enough time preparing children for a standardized test, because they don't document a complete and unique separate lesson plan/learning system FOR EACH CHILD.
Which, if we allowed those children to who really wanted to learn, to be in the classes of those who really wanted to teach... (in my opinion) making individual plans wouldn't be so bad because you're not trying to force material down the throat of a child who simply doesn't care. As teachers we can't make them care, and yet parents and then administrators, and even future employers, are blaming us for students coming out without a work ethic, without a sense of responsibility, pride in their work, or the common sense to believe that they should show up on time, or do the task they were given through to completion.
how's this relevant to the RFID tags? I used to live in Spring and taught in the district next to it. They're actually a pretty "calm" district comparatively. Not way out on the forefront of education, not in the ghettos. Just another suburban district on the outskirts of a large city. (I've heard rumor that even people in NY and LA recognize Houston as a "large city"). They have the luxury if you will, to try to throw new technology at old problems. they have some cash apparently, they're not having to spend it on metal detectors for every door, but tardiness and skipping? the tags them selves i would imagine are relatively cheap, and the scanners not too bad compared to some of the other ludicrous expenditures I've seen (and while teacher salaries fall in that category, its on the lower end of the spectrum).
I can see how easily this could be sold to a school board, teachers and administrators. School board finally has some means of knowing where every child is. Administrators don't have to spend a fraction of their existing resources to implement or monitor this new system, and if done right, teachers are no longer responsible for the tedious tasks of attendance. (which in and of itself wouldn't be a problem if you didn't have 35 kids all coming in tardy-with various levels/legitimacies of excuses). Only the poor tech resource folks are contemplating suicide.
But as another poster pointed out.. it does nothing for the kids except for give them something else to hate and manipulate. It doesn't hold them responsible for anything.
It doesn't actually DO anything.
and the funny thing is, the instant i booted the new version- guess what bug i saw?
check it out.. the rendering of the left column of Slashdot has been corrected in this release,
/.
...I'm so conflicted.
as noted under "Major Bug Fixes" #217527
I don't know how I feel about that
or what that says about the prominence of
or what that says about the priorities of the moz devs
I agree completely. A (possible) example of such a naming would be Xaraya. A "extensible content management system." It was cool- they opened up to the community for naming suggestions, and in the end.. went for something that didn't really mean anything, but sounded vaguely familiar (in spanish i believe?) Which is kinda cool to not have it (necessarily) linguistically attached to english. (my opinion)
It's unique, not bogged down with similarities to other endeavours or product names, readily identifable, and they even have a wav file to instruct you on how to pronounce it. (i still say it wrong in my mind)
all in all, a good name. a good process to get to it!
you must teach in a centex district jest north of austin....
sounds pretty familiar.
now this may be standard in juvenile cases.. but it seems very wrong to have the children listed as the plantifs. I sincerely doubt any child EVER has given any thought to the EMF in pervasive technologies. To make it sound as there is a child sitting in fear of the network at school is manipulative and wrong. And even more wrong is to place their names on a public document of this nature which will associate them with ridicule for a long time to come.
give them the data, allow them to draw their own- now more informed- conclusions.
I would imagine it being gladly received from such a body of technology specialists.
(I wish I knew how much of this was sarcasm and how much is an honest suggestion)
when did /. start hosting the intrusive, drop-down Dell ads?
have I been lucky enough to not get them? has this been annoying people for awhile now?
can we at least ask that the banner ads stay in the banner area?
(I know and apologize for off topic [maybe I'll submit a story?], but at least I didn't go anonymous!)
I would assume it would be prudent for any upcoming litigation to have our friend(s) from SCO placed under a gag order from some relevant court to prevent this on-going media circus which may "damage credibility with less technically inclined persons who may make any potential juror pool" ...
we could even bring such an action on as a class action suit (perhaps? IANAL)
but it'd sure calm down a lot of this puffing up and chest beating.
Dune... all of them...
now that brian herbert and kevin anderson have knocked out their 4 prequels (Butlerian Jihad, Houses Harkonnen, Corrino, Atreides)... i'm looking for any added depth or insite to the original 7 by frank herbert. if only to warm myself up for the rumored 8th and final book to be written from F.H.'s original notes...
not to mention, the series as a whole spans such immense time geography and philosophies on humanity, ecology, and purpose... You can constantly re-read them (my personal goal- re-read the entire collection at least once every 5 years- but then again, I'm freakish that way)
Obviously, its unusable. How many others have similar experiences?