If Card, and those like him had the same outlook on boycotting art from authors whose politics clash with their's, they would not be watching many movies or much TV, and the viewership would drop by about 50% along party lines.
I had a similar problem with a site that rented servers. They imaged a new server with Centos for me. My investigation found that it had the same SSL private key pair...and other key pairs that other imaged machines on their system have! I fixed it myself, but I suspect that there are hundreds if not thousands that do not know this.
The interesting issue with this story is that the reason to track the kids is not to infringe on their privacy, but to ensure where they are so the school can get paid by the federal government!
I remember at least 7 years ago when I went to the SETI website and Amazon.com greeted me by name in a little box on the site and asked if I wanted to donate to SETI.
Have you ever gone to a web site to look at some product like insurance then notice that everywhere you go on the web you see insurance ads for that company popping up? Until you figure out which cookie to delete or go to the advertising management's website and opt out you are going to keep seeing that ad!
You are overthinking this. Government and courts are not that smart. We cancel men's sports teams in colleges because there are not enough women to play using the same amount of money.
Today all new cars have several onboard computer systems controlling various functions from brakes to fuel to suspension. The real surprise is not that this car has a problem, but that other cars don't! I have to say that this is a real pat-on-the-back for the programmers writing this code as we don't see this in any other discipline I am aware of
> When a company is so successful that it can "get it" and "do it" for less...
> when a company offers something over an infrastructure that is so expensive
> and offering a product/service on a huge, national scale is the bar that has
> been set... That company will be so incredibly entrenched that it will never
> be rooted out by a startup. Ever.
Ever is too broad a statement. In the 1800's Fulton obtained a monopoly from NY State to run steamboats from NYC to Albany up the Hudson River. Vanderbilt not only had the monopoly overturned in court, but set up a competing company which brought down cost of passage which Fulton started at $10 (VERY expensive in those days) to ZERO. Vanderbilt found that he could make enough money on food and accommodations to pay for the passage.
The anti-monopoly company won by providing a better service for less.
There are many reasons I don't want the government setting standards for protection on my computer. Among them are that since government computers are more likely to be compromised than computers owned by others, why would I take their recommendations? Why expect the government to offer a solution when free solutions are already available through A/V companies and many ISPs? Why would I want a standard government mandated solution when it might not be what I need? Why doesn't Microsoft allow free software updates which would make many more computers not get viruses?
Some A/V companies make their A/V software (like AVG) available for free already. Should I pay the government for a copy?
Many ISPs (AOL, ATT and others) already provide A/V software for free. They determined that if they buy an Anti Virus (A/V) program for you and that stops you from getting infected then they save more than the cost of the A/V. Want a free one? Switch ISPs.
You want the government to MANDATE every computer has A/V? How about my servers that do not connect to the Internet? How about my Linux desktop? Should I be forced by the government to waste resources running A/V programs on an OS that for one reason or another does not need it?
Should I be required to run one on my set top box? How about my Tivo? My car? My phone? Next year, my refrigerator?
What will the government decide I need? The Lobbyist from one or more of the A/V companies will make sure that the specs are drawn in such a way that you can only use THEIR A/V solution. Who will lobby for OSS solutions like ClamAV?
If the government has already found the holy grail of A/V software what incentive so I have of advancing the art by creating a better one? Remember Ada?. It was to replace ALL programming languages used for government contracts.
If I do create a better A/V software, who would buy it? The government has already found the best ones and mandates you buy it or they supply it for free. Will your machine be slowed if it is running the one required by law AND my new improved one?
All in all, when the government solves computer related problems (and many others) like this, they do either too little too late or to much too late (see CAN-SPAM Act of 2003)
Many compromised computers have been compromised because they are running bootleg copies of Microsoft software and MS will not allow them to be updated. Should MS be forced to allow illegal copies to be upgraded?
Keep the government out of my bedroom and off my computer!
The problem with hi-tech solutions in schools is how they are used.
First, this is coming from a tech guy. I have a technical degree and have have been using Linux since '96. You can't call me a Luddite, but I have to question whether introducing tech for techs sake instead of concentrating on the three R's is what kids need, and if it is, are our schools the place to teach tech?
Is the objective to TEACH or to be cool? I have been observing what my kids do in school. They attend schools that can afford whatever tech solutions they want, but is "the best" what we want? Is it a crutch? Does it just help lazy teachers?
Does technology replace teaching? When a student has bad handwriting, the teacher can request a free laptop for that student's use. The student never improves his handwriting and the teacher can read the student's work.
I see students in middle school and high school authoring a power point presentation each week, and maybe three essays each semester. Will they ever learn to write essays or reports, or are these dead arts?
They wanted me to sign a permission slip to make it my responsibility for the safety of a video Ipod (about three years ago) that my son would bring home so he could watch classroom instruction that the teacher did not want to bother to show them during school time. My son lost the $5 pedometer he we had responsibility for the year before. Should I entrust him with a $400+ (at the time) video Ipod? Since I did not give him permission to bring home the Ipod, he had to stay after school to watch the material.
Why can't these teachers show the material during class time? They tell me that there are copyright issues with putting it on the Internet, and I guess they have never heard of password access. They tell me that the Ipod solution will only work with the expensive Ipod, not with software we can install on our home home computer (some kids may not have home computers) or the $29.95 mp3 player my kids have.
The school decided to teach "blogging". Why you need to teach middle school kids to blog is beyond me. They assigned them usernames consisting of their first name, last initial, and the period they were in a specific classroom. This information was available to anyone on the Internet. I informed them that knowing that username Joannahr203-7, was Joannah R and she was in room 203 during 7th period could be a security risk for poor Joannah! The principal told me he was sure that the blogs were not available to anyone outside the school (they were) and that IT people would make sure it was safe for the children (it isn't). My son realized this was a security risk on his own and ignored the teacher and chose a safe pseudonym.
It is called "sexing" a name in the direct mail business.
Nothing new here. My brother's company had software on a SCO machine that ran a Pick Operating System variant that sexed names back in the '90s.
They used the program to examine a name and decide if they should put a "Mr." or "Ms." as the salutation in automatic letters. The hard part about this was generating the database.
The only difference here is that ibm software assigns an avatar based on the sex of a name instead of assigning a salutation.
I noticed that it was slowing down google use when I installed it. I tested AVG against McAfee SiteAdvisor and found that AVG lost, so I just turned off the option and now AVG displays a warning on the icon, but everything else works..
My guess is that there are so many sales in what are usually slow months because this year there is LESS than "nothing" on TV. The writers were on strike, so we don't even get the usual faire of bad TV. New episodes might start in April.
The looming actors strike might mean more game sales, then my analog TVs stop working next year.
Actually the problem with the theory that humans cause global warming is even worse. Those that doubt this theory get little or no funding and proponents of the theory try to gag those that would disagree. The INTENDED consequence is to monopolize the discussion.
Just as the theory at one time said that the earth is flat, that the sun revolves around the earth and twice that we are experiencing global cooling, this is the second time in the last 100 years that the SAME people have said that we are experiencing global warming, and WE are causing it!
It is also interesting to note that those that favor the theory that humans cause global warming are the same people who told me in 1972 that our landfills would be full by 1990 and are the advocates of large government control...with by extension leaves us less free.
Don't let your kids grow up to be cowboys...I mean programmers. Think about law
Unfortunately the career length of a programmer is about the same as a major league baseball player, but as a rule the programmer does not get the multi-million dollar contract.
Programmers need to transition to management, or maybe sales, to continue to be of any value after their low to mid 40s.
Doctors work well into their 60's or 70's. Of course with looming threats of socialized medicine in the air, the next generation of doctors might come entirely from 3rd world countries.
Go into law. Our congresscritters are lawyers. Don't expect socialized law anytime soon.
All I can say is that it has been working for my kids and me for a long time. If it is a placebo then I don't know how it cures kids too young to understand what they were given, but it does.
Here's an example: There are two basic homeopathic cures for the flu. In years when the flu lasts 10 days for everyone I know, it lasts maybe four of five days for the people who take the remedy. Is this placebo? I don't know, but for a remedy that costs maybe $10US or $15US, I have to believe that it is worth a chance!
The best thing is that since it is a one molar solution diluted 100 to one 30 times then spritzed on small sugar pills, if it does not work, it can't hurt you.
Mainstream? You can find Hyland's Teething Tablets in just about any drug store.
Presidents do not make law. Read the US constitution. It is called separation of powers. Just as the president cannot subpoena secret documents from congress, congress cannot force the president to give them up.
The congress also cannot take powers given to the president without a constitutional amendment.
The "Commander in Chief" also gains extra powers when we are at war. Congress cannot take these powers from the president.
Former presidents have signed bills while stating that the bill did not reduce their power.
Some may think it is lame, but it taught my (then) 1st grader to read. My tween started using it and then my wife and then me. Believe it or not...
- There are challenges for every age.
- There are probably more adults than children on it.
They took story writers, animators, and trainers and put them together to make a game that the whole family can play together or separately. It is not extreme, and there are not killer graphics, but the people are great. My wife has heard of two marriages, one which will be in a month or so in Germany...it seems she knew the groom and the mother of the bride, but did not know that they both were about to be related by marriage.
I have met the Slashdot crew a few times at Linux shows and they might not be from the demographic that Disney is shooting for, but there are plenty of Slashdotters who have kids, tweens, or teens and they can have fun with their kids in a friendly environment.
If you see Kane, a red duck with 111 laugh points, or Dr Painless Dentist, a 55 lp black cat in green scrubs with maxed gags, say "hello".
If you are still reading, check out www.toontown.com...and there is one problem, you need to be using IE to get in.
Slashdot Mirror
If Card, and those like him had the same outlook on boycotting art from authors whose politics clash with their's, they would not be watching many movies or much TV, and the viewership would drop by about 50% along party lines.
Be careful not to wake that sleeping bear!
I had a similar problem with a site that rented servers. They imaged a new server with Centos for me. My investigation found that it had the same SSL private key pair...and other key pairs that other imaged machines on their system have! I fixed it myself, but I suspect that there are hundreds if not thousands that do not know this.
Why does this story sound like something out of Atlas Shrugged 2?
The interesting issue with this story is that the reason to track the kids is not to infringe on their privacy, but to ensure where they are so the school can get paid by the federal government!
I remember at least 7 years ago when I went to the SETI website and Amazon.com greeted me by name in a little box on the site and asked if I wanted to donate to SETI.
Have you ever gone to a web site to look at some product like insurance then notice that everywhere you go on the web you see insurance ads for that company popping up? Until you figure out which cookie to delete or go to the advertising management's website and opt out you are going to keep seeing that ad!
It is sad if dimensions are the only argument Apple has.
Can I copyright the golden ratio?
You are overthinking this. Government and courts are not that smart. We cancel men's sports teams in colleges because there are not enough women to play using the same amount of money.
net nutrality is in the eyes of the beholder. Gamers want the advantage that most Slashdotters are fighting against!
Today all new cars have several onboard computer systems controlling various functions from brakes to fuel to suspension. The real surprise is not that this car has a problem, but that other cars don't! I have to say that this is a real pat-on-the-back for the programmers writing this code as we don't see this in any other discipline I am aware of
> When a company is so successful that it can "get it" and "do it" for less...
> when a company offers something over an infrastructure that is so expensive
> and offering a product/service on a huge, national scale is the bar that has
> been set... That company will be so incredibly entrenched that it will never
> be rooted out by a startup. Ever.
Ever is too broad a statement. In the 1800's Fulton obtained a monopoly from NY State to run steamboats from NYC to Albany up the Hudson River. Vanderbilt not only had the monopoly overturned in court, but set up a competing company which brought down cost of passage which Fulton started at $10 (VERY expensive in those days) to ZERO. Vanderbilt found that he could make enough money on food and accommodations to pay for the passage.
The anti-monopoly company won by providing a better service for less.
MUST run 64 bit code? How are they going to put Windows 7 on Netbooks?
Do Netbooks get special dispensation?
And every electrical failure is caused by a "short curcuit"!
Some A/V companies make their A/V software (like AVG) available for free already. Should I pay the government for a copy?
Many ISPs (AOL, ATT and others) already provide A/V software for free. They determined that if they buy an Anti Virus (A/V) program for you and that stops you from getting infected then they save more than the cost of the A/V. Want a free one? Switch ISPs.
You want the government to MANDATE every computer has A/V? How about my servers that do not connect to the Internet? How about my Linux desktop? Should I be forced by the government to waste resources running A/V programs on an OS that for one reason or another does not need it?
Should I be required to run one on my set top box? How about my Tivo? My car? My phone? Next year, my refrigerator?
What will the government decide I need? The Lobbyist from one or more of the A/V companies will make sure that the specs are drawn in such a way that you can only use THEIR A/V solution. Who will lobby for OSS solutions like ClamAV?
If the government has already found the holy grail of A/V software what incentive so I have of advancing the art by creating a better one? Remember Ada?. It was to replace ALL programming languages used for government contracts.
If I do create a better A/V software, who would buy it? The government has already found the best ones and mandates you buy it or they supply it for free. Will your machine be slowed if it is running the one required by law AND my new improved one?
All in all, when the government solves computer related problems (and many others) like this, they do either too little too late or to much too late (see CAN-SPAM Act of 2003)
Many compromised computers have been compromised because they are running bootleg copies of Microsoft software and MS will not allow them to be updated. Should MS be forced to allow illegal copies to be upgraded?
Keep the government out of my bedroom and off my computer!
The problem with hi-tech solutions in schools is how they are used.
First, this is coming from a tech guy. I have a technical degree and have have been using Linux since '96. You can't call me a Luddite, but I have to question whether introducing tech for techs sake instead of concentrating on the three R's is what kids need, and if it is, are our schools the place to teach tech?
Is the objective to TEACH or to be cool? I have been observing what my kids do in school. They attend schools that can afford whatever tech solutions they want, but is "the best" what we want? Is it a crutch? Does it just help lazy teachers?
Does technology replace teaching? When a student has bad handwriting, the teacher can request a free laptop for that student's use. The student never improves his handwriting and the teacher can read the student's work.
I see students in middle school and high school authoring a power point presentation each week, and maybe three essays each semester. Will they ever learn to write essays or reports, or are these dead arts?
They wanted me to sign a permission slip to make it my responsibility for the safety of a video Ipod (about three years ago) that my son would bring home so he could watch classroom instruction that the teacher did not want to bother to show them during school time. My son lost the $5 pedometer he we had responsibility for the year before. Should I entrust him with a $400+ (at the time) video Ipod? Since I did not give him permission to bring home the Ipod, he had to stay after school to watch the material.
Why can't these teachers show the material during class time? They tell me that there are copyright issues with putting it on the Internet, and I guess they have never heard of password access. They tell me that the Ipod solution will only work with the expensive Ipod, not with software we can install on our home home computer (some kids may not have home computers) or the $29.95 mp3 player my kids have.
The school decided to teach "blogging". Why you need to teach middle school kids to blog is beyond me. They assigned them usernames consisting of their first name, last initial, and the period they were in a specific classroom. This information was available to anyone on the Internet. I informed them that knowing that username Joannahr203-7, was Joannah R and she was in room 203 during 7th period could be a security risk for poor Joannah! The principal told me he was sure that the blogs were not available to anyone outside the school (they were) and that IT people would make sure it was safe for the children (it isn't). My son realized this was a security risk on his own and ignored the teacher and chose a safe pseudonym.
Perhaps safe "HEX" is best taught at home.
It is called "sexing" a name in the direct mail business.
Nothing new here. My brother's company had software on a SCO machine that ran a Pick Operating System variant that sexed names back in the '90s.
They used the program to examine a name and decide if they should put a "Mr." or "Ms." as the salutation in automatic letters. The hard part about this was generating the database.
The only difference here is that ibm software assigns an avatar based on the sex of a name instead of assigning a salutation.
> I thought that project was dead.
No, but the development has been arrested...and is scheduled to resume in 15 years.
I noticed that it was slowing down google use when I installed it. I tested AVG against McAfee SiteAdvisor and found that AVG lost, so I just turned off the option and now AVG displays a warning on the icon, but everything else works..
My guess is that there are so many sales in what are usually slow months because this year there is LESS than "nothing" on TV. The writers were on strike, so we don't even get the usual faire of bad TV. New episodes might start in April.
The looming actors strike might mean more game sales, then my analog TVs stop working next year.
TV popularity might never recover.
Actually the problem with the theory that humans cause global warming is even worse. Those that doubt this theory get little or no funding and proponents of the theory try to gag those that would disagree. The INTENDED consequence is to monopolize the discussion.
Just as the theory at one time said that the earth is flat, that the sun revolves around the earth and twice that we are experiencing global cooling, this is the second time in the last 100 years that the SAME people have said that we are experiencing global warming, and WE are causing it!
It is also interesting to note that those that favor the theory that humans cause global warming are the same people who told me in 1972 that our landfills would be full by 1990 and are the advocates of large government control...with by extension leaves us less free.
I drive a nail through the case and platter.
Don't let your kids grow up to be cowboys...I mean programmers. Think about law
Unfortunately the career length of a programmer is about the same as a major league baseball player, but as a rule the programmer does not get the multi-million dollar contract.
Programmers need to transition to management, or maybe sales, to continue to be of any value after their low to mid 40s.
Doctors work well into their 60's or 70's. Of course with looming threats of socialized medicine in the air, the next generation of doctors might come entirely from 3rd world countries.
Go into law. Our congresscritters are lawyers. Don't expect socialized law anytime soon.
X Y Z? Observer bias? REALLY! I have been saying that about the "humans causes global warming" theory for years!
Think about it.
But back to the subject at hand...
Google will find double blind tests involving homeopathic remedies.
Since I have not read them, I can only use my own biased observation.
All I can say is that it has been working for my kids and me for a long time. If it is a placebo then I don't know how it cures kids too young to understand what they were given, but it does.
Here's an example:
There are two basic homeopathic cures for the flu. In years when the flu lasts 10 days for everyone I know, it lasts maybe four of five days for the people who take the remedy. Is this placebo? I don't know, but for a remedy that costs maybe $10US or $15US, I have to believe that it is worth a chance!
The best thing is that since it is a one molar solution diluted 100 to one 30 times then spritzed on small sugar pills, if it does not work, it can't hurt you.
Mainstream? You can find Hyland's Teething Tablets in just about any drug store.
Presidents do not make law.
Read the US constitution. It is called separation of powers. Just as the president cannot subpoena secret documents from congress, congress cannot force the president to give them up.
The congress also cannot take powers given to the president without a constitutional amendment.
The "Commander in Chief" also gains extra powers when we are at war.
Congress cannot take these powers from the president.
Former presidents have signed bills while stating that the bill did not reduce their power.
Some may think it is lame, but it taught my (then) 1st grader to read. My tween started using it and then my wife and then me. Believe it or not...
...and there is one problem, you need to be using IE to get in.
- There are challenges for every age.
- There are probably more adults than children on it.
They took story writers, animators, and trainers and put them together to make a game that the whole family can play together or separately. It is not extreme, and there are not killer graphics, but the people are great. My wife has heard of two marriages, one which will be in a month or so in Germany...it seems she knew the groom and the mother of the bride, but did not know that they both were about to be related by marriage.
I have met the Slashdot crew a few times at Linux shows and they might not be from the demographic that Disney is shooting for, but there are plenty of Slashdotters who have kids, tweens, or teens and they can have fun with their kids in a friendly environment.
If you see Kane, a red duck with 111 laugh points, or Dr Painless Dentist, a 55 lp black cat in green scrubs with maxed gags, say "hello".
If you are still reading, check out www.toontown.com