US Crime Rates are down or unchanged on average since 1978 across the board in the US, so the increase in violent video games has *not* caused a corresponding increase in crime.
I know: I moved from a terrible market in Europe to Canada, where the prices are simply unacceptable. I currently refuse to give a single cent to have a (mobile) phone. And I survive just fine.
Well, if things were terrible in Europe and worse in Canada... it sounds like nothing at all short of free cell service can make you happy.
I'd be surprised if MS and Nokia can get a product to market fast enough to stem the Android invasion.
Re:Nokia and Microsoft join forces for combined FA
on
Why Nokia Is Toast
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· Score: 1
Um... you called Windows mobile devices "superb." If that were the case, then Nokia has made a brilliant move. Reality is that Windows Mobile has sucked for some time, and continues to suck. IT managers who buy Microsoft end up getting canned when the CEO is on the golf course and his friends start showing how cool their friends Android and iPhones are. "Well our phones have Outlook..." just doesn't really make up for the lack of general utility.
Nokia would have been better off to have jumped on Android or finished bringing Meego to market.
Now it happens that this is only for as long as the regulation there stays lax enough that companies are allowed to rape the consumers.
Perhaps you are not aware of what is going on here: players like Virgin Mobile, SquareTalk and other "prepaid" phone vendors are now selling phones as follows: basic phones are $10-$50, feature phones are running $30-$100 and you can get an Android powered smartphone for under $150. Monthly rates range from $30 for a basic plan to $60 for unlimited everything (on some carriers, unlimited means unlimited, on others, it means unlimited until you hit the limit). Many people I know are switching away from contract vendors because it makes no sense to overpay $20-$40 every month when you can keep your number and move. Oh, and prepaid just means you pay month ahead instead of being billed month arrears.
Competition does things regulation can never do. You just have to make sure that there actually is competition.
Mainly because teachers are overloaded or simply lazy. Tests that only test rote memorization and projects that can easily be "paraphrased" and show little original thought are easily identified by teachers that are making sure students learn. Education also needs to take into account that there is instant access to information in the real world, which puts a premium on people being able to understand, apply and use information.
That Linux still uses Unix permissions is a testament to elegant, simple design that works. Sure, you can create more granular security models, but in the end, you really can only do three things with a file: execute read write. Having worked with VMS and NT, I always got a chuckle out of having the permissions to write to a file, but not delete it. How's that empty file doing for ya?
There is a difference between acting like a fifth grader and confronting an issue like an adult. Oh, and it helps to be confronting something that is an actual falsehood.
If my opinion is so pointless and insignificant, then why respond at all? Calling me names does little other than prove that there are intellectual lightweights on both sides of the issue. I had originally thought the lightweights were exclusively creationists.
it seems pretty obvious that people teaching things a majority of parents disagree with should not be teaching in that community.
Except when those parents are wrong. It's important that teachers are allowed to share the knowledge they have collected in their own educations. After all, that is how teaching works.
Repeating arguments long since shot down is not valuable questioning in class.
If students cannot test their preconceived beliefs, they cannot find out that they are faulty. Students often challenge what they are hearing in class with what they've been taught at home or at church. A good teacher sees these as opportunities for learning. Sometimes you use debate and discussion. One of my favorite science teachers in high school would simply challenge people who brought up creationism to come up with an experiment that could replicate it.
Sometimes the best way is to simply let the truth speak for itself. One of the most formative lectures I had in college was on embryology. As we walked through photos of the development of a human, our professor compared it to other animals, showing the remarkable similarities that exist at different development stages.
Regardless, government has no business legislating scientific theory. It's absurd to think a legislature, judge, king or president can tell nature what to do.
First of all, no one is saying that a theory's weaknesses can't be discussed, but these kinds of laws are not designed to do that, they are designed to give weight to Creationism and ID
Government has no business legislating what scientific theories are correct and incorrect, strong or weak or what science is to be taught or not taught. I find it equally absurd that evolutionists and creationists think the correct laboratory to prove their theories is a legislature or a court room.
That's not really true. So long as GitHub gets a competent lawyer, they should be able to limit Sony's requests for evidence substantially. GitHub isn't accused of infringement, they are simply being notified under the DMCA. It's not surprising they acted quickly, that's what the law says to do.
Depending on how GitHub's errors and omissions insurance works, they may have more money you think to pay for a defense should Sony get stupid with them.
The W3C has never really had complete control of HTML. Those who write the browser effectively can extend or cripple HTML features at will. Netscape added many new features and everyone simply had to live with the results. IE did some nasty things to CSS and we all had to live with that, too.
Not really. Maintaining infrastructure for sending out invoices and statements can be expensive. Amazon's pricing is fantastic compared to maintaining your own email server and admin to deal with inevitable spam complaints and Comcast blacklisting.
Being on the board and sponsoring projects doesn't reveal what Oracle is trying to get out of the situation.
WRT LibreOffice, at first I thought the situation was caused by miscommunication with Oracle or was simple developers wanting to get rid of the handcuffs on development that were imposed by Sun. Now I am not so sure because of the Android lawsuit.
I'm not sure what Oracle's intent was with OpenOffice, but their actions sure caused a lot of very good people to leave in a hurry. Between this and the Android situation, it seems like Oracle really doesn't get free software, or worse, sees free software as the enemy. I'm not sure which. Regardless, I'm thankful that I get to use OpenOffice and now LibreOffice.
For sysadmin work, a real mechanical keyboard and a high resolution/bigger screen is a requirement so you can see what you are doing. The keyboard needs to have a full set of keys (meaning 5 rows, so you have numbers and symbols in the right place), including numeric keys to be practical.
I have one of the original T-Mobile G-1's (the first Android phone). It has a very nice slide out keyboard and is amazing at doing SSH with ConnectBot, which is nearly the best SSH application I've used on any computer. Unfortunately, the G-1 is getting long in the tooth... so I'll probably upgrade soon.
What you are dealing with is a situation where the company is using "bench time" where the programmer isn't producing revenue, or isn't doing the job that his salary is allocated against. To the company, bench time is basically free (yes, it does have a real cost, but it's a sunk cost, so it's perceived as being already paid for), and there isn't enough of it for a major project. So the application is updated by whoever is free, and the QA guy gets to test and bugfix when he is available. The situation sucks, but you are unlikely to get the owner to change his mind because once you turn maintaining the system into a major project, the owner may want to hire lower cost people to do the work or may even rather scrap the system and invest in something better.
If you want to discuss it with the owner, start the conversation with a simple question: is the system worth investing in? If the answer is yes, ask why more resources haven't been invested in the software. Sometimes business owners know the answer is yes, but have higher priorities - like revenue producing work so you can stay employed.
The TSA is simply a job creation program that has gone amok. At first it was extra baggage screeners, but it's now grown to the point that the only jobs they could think of involve fondling people. I think the idea is that if they get sued often enough, it will create lots of jobs for paralegals, expert witnesses and attorneys. The TSA likes machines because machines need operators, and each operator is one more job. In short the TSA is the biggest farce I've ever seen the government create, and it can't be closed down completely quickly enough.
First, I cut my teeth on coding for SCO Unix and AT&T 3B2 systems. I'm a little aware of what could be done on Unix vs Microsoft in the 80s and 90s. NT was huge. It led to CAD, productivity, accounting and other applications being ported to NT was POSIX compatible and had a pretty nice GUI compared to Unix at the time (Motif and Open Look were the two common GUIS). Oh, an programming on MS was a dream at the time vs Unix.
Second, WP left the Unix market because of declining sales. I'm not sure you can attribute the decline in anything other than Wintel boxes delivering more value for the dollar than X terminals and costing $5000 less than Unix workstations. Fragmentation I'm sure was a factor... but it's hard to argue that a Wintel box wasn't the right move vs the Unix options of the day.
Sure, there are some parallels between the Unix situation through the 90 and Android now. But there are some HUGE differences:
* Android is $pretty much free, Unix was a minimum of $450/user with Motif (or Open Look) back in the day.
* Android has a dominant and growing market share. Unix never did on commodity level equipment.
* Android has a much stronger foundation behind it. OSF and Unix International just didn't have the ability to so effectively control the base "distribution" of Unixes that the Open Handset Alliance does with Android.
* Differences between Android installs are largely driven by hardware, and a little eye candy tossed on top. Differences in 90s Unixes were BSD v AT&T + GUI differences.
* It's nearly always easier to support one platform that many. So what, and how is that news?
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US Crime Rates are down or unchanged on average since 1978 across the board in the US, so the increase in violent video games has *not* caused a corresponding increase in crime.
I know: I moved from a terrible market in Europe to Canada, where the prices are simply unacceptable. I currently refuse to give a single cent to have a (mobile) phone. And I survive just fine.
Well, if things were terrible in Europe and worse in Canada... it sounds like nothing at all short of free cell service can make you happy.
I'd be surprised if MS and Nokia can get a product to market fast enough to stem the Android invasion.
Um... you called Windows mobile devices "superb." If that were the case, then Nokia has made a brilliant move. Reality is that Windows Mobile has sucked for some time, and continues to suck. IT managers who buy Microsoft end up getting canned when the CEO is on the golf course and his friends start showing how cool their friends Android and iPhones are. "Well our phones have Outlook..." just doesn't really make up for the lack of general utility.
Nokia would have been better off to have jumped on Android or finished bringing Meego to market.
Now it happens that this is only for as long as the regulation there stays lax enough that companies are allowed to rape the consumers.
Perhaps you are not aware of what is going on here: players like Virgin Mobile, SquareTalk and other "prepaid" phone vendors are now selling phones as follows: basic phones are $10-$50, feature phones are running $30-$100 and you can get an Android powered smartphone for under $150. Monthly rates range from $30 for a basic plan to $60 for unlimited everything (on some carriers, unlimited means unlimited, on others, it means unlimited until you hit the limit). Many people I know are switching away from contract vendors because it makes no sense to overpay $20-$40 every month when you can keep your number and move. Oh, and prepaid just means you pay month ahead instead of being billed month arrears.
Competition does things regulation can never do. You just have to make sure that there actually is competition.
Just toss a couple fishin' worms in the blender.
Personally, I'd rather people with issues do their beating, raping and killing in video games rather than in real life.
Mainly because teachers are overloaded or simply lazy. Tests that only test rote memorization and projects that can easily be "paraphrased" and show little original thought are easily identified by teachers that are making sure students learn. Education also needs to take into account that there is instant access to information in the real world, which puts a premium on people being able to understand, apply and use information.
That Linux still uses Unix permissions is a testament to elegant, simple design that works. Sure, you can create more granular security models, but in the end, you really can only do three things with a file: execute read write. Having worked with VMS and NT, I always got a chuckle out of having the permissions to write to a file, but not delete it. How's that empty file doing for ya?
There is a difference between acting like a fifth grader and confronting an issue like an adult. Oh, and it helps to be confronting something that is an actual falsehood.
If my opinion is so pointless and insignificant, then why respond at all? Calling me names does little other than prove that there are intellectual lightweights on both sides of the issue. I had originally thought the lightweights were exclusively creationists.
it seems pretty obvious that people teaching things a majority of parents disagree with should not be teaching in that community.
Except when those parents are wrong. It's important that teachers are allowed to share the knowledge they have collected in their own educations. After all, that is how teaching works.
Repeating arguments long since shot down is not valuable questioning in class.
If students cannot test their preconceived beliefs, they cannot find out that they are faulty. Students often challenge what they are hearing in class with what they've been taught at home or at church. A good teacher sees these as opportunities for learning. Sometimes you use debate and discussion. One of my favorite science teachers in high school would simply challenge people who brought up creationism to come up with an experiment that could replicate it.
Sometimes the best way is to simply let the truth speak for itself. One of the most formative lectures I had in college was on embryology. As we walked through photos of the development of a human, our professor compared it to other animals, showing the remarkable similarities that exist at different development stages.
Regardless, government has no business legislating scientific theory. It's absurd to think a legislature, judge, king or president can tell nature what to do.
First of all, no one is saying that a theory's weaknesses can't be discussed, but these kinds of laws are not designed to do that, they are designed to give weight to Creationism and ID
Government has no business legislating what scientific theories are correct and incorrect, strong or weak or what science is to be taught or not taught. I find it equally absurd that evolutionists and creationists think the correct laboratory to prove their theories is a legislature or a court room.
That's not really true. So long as GitHub gets a competent lawyer, they should be able to limit Sony's requests for evidence substantially. GitHub isn't accused of infringement, they are simply being notified under the DMCA. It's not surprising they acted quickly, that's what the law says to do.
Depending on how GitHub's errors and omissions insurance works, they may have more money you think to pay for a defense should Sony get stupid with them.
The W3C has never really had complete control of HTML. Those who write the browser effectively can extend or cripple HTML features at will. Netscape added many new features and everyone simply had to live with the results. IE did some nasty things to CSS and we all had to live with that, too.
Not really. Maintaining infrastructure for sending out invoices and statements can be expensive. Amazon's pricing is fantastic compared to maintaining your own email server and admin to deal with inevitable spam complaints and Comcast blacklisting.
Being on the board and sponsoring projects doesn't reveal what Oracle is trying to get out of the situation.
WRT LibreOffice, at first I thought the situation was caused by miscommunication with Oracle or was simple developers wanting to get rid of the handcuffs on development that were imposed by Sun. Now I am not so sure because of the Android lawsuit.
I'm not sure what Oracle's intent was with OpenOffice, but their actions sure caused a lot of very good people to leave in a hurry. Between this and the Android situation, it seems like Oracle really doesn't get free software, or worse, sees free software as the enemy. I'm not sure which. Regardless, I'm thankful that I get to use OpenOffice and now LibreOffice.
For sysadmin work, a real mechanical keyboard and a high resolution/bigger screen is a requirement so you can see what you are doing. The keyboard needs to have a full set of keys (meaning 5 rows, so you have numbers and symbols in the right place), including numeric keys to be practical.
I have one of the original T-Mobile G-1's (the first Android phone). It has a very nice slide out keyboard and is amazing at doing SSH with ConnectBot, which is nearly the best SSH application I've used on any computer. Unfortunately, the G-1 is getting long in the tooth... so I'll probably upgrade soon.
What you are dealing with is a situation where the company is using "bench time" where the programmer isn't producing revenue, or isn't doing the job that his salary is allocated against. To the company, bench time is basically free (yes, it does have a real cost, but it's a sunk cost, so it's perceived as being already paid for), and there isn't enough of it for a major project. So the application is updated by whoever is free, and the QA guy gets to test and bugfix when he is available. The situation sucks, but you are unlikely to get the owner to change his mind because once you turn maintaining the system into a major project, the owner may want to hire lower cost people to do the work or may even rather scrap the system and invest in something better.
If you want to discuss it with the owner, start the conversation with a simple question: is the system worth investing in? If the answer is yes, ask why more resources haven't been invested in the software. Sometimes business owners know the answer is yes, but have higher priorities - like revenue producing work so you can stay employed.
The TSA is simply a job creation program that has gone amok. At first it was extra baggage screeners, but it's now grown to the point that the only jobs they could think of involve fondling people. I think the idea is that if they get sued often enough, it will create lots of jobs for paralegals, expert witnesses and attorneys. The TSA likes machines because machines need operators, and each operator is one more job. In short the TSA is the biggest farce I've ever seen the government create, and it can't be closed down completely quickly enough.
First, I cut my teeth on coding for SCO Unix and AT&T 3B2 systems. I'm a little aware of what could be done on Unix vs Microsoft in the 80s and 90s. NT was huge. It led to CAD, productivity, accounting and other applications being ported to NT was POSIX compatible and had a pretty nice GUI compared to Unix at the time (Motif and Open Look were the two common GUIS). Oh, an programming on MS was a dream at the time vs Unix.
Second, WP left the Unix market because of declining sales. I'm not sure you can attribute the decline in anything other than Wintel boxes delivering more value for the dollar than X terminals and costing $5000 less than Unix workstations. Fragmentation I'm sure was a factor... but it's hard to argue that a Wintel box wasn't the right move vs the Unix options of the day.
Sure, there are some parallels between the Unix situation through the 90 and Android now. But there are some HUGE differences:
* Android is $pretty much free, Unix was a minimum of $450/user with Motif (or Open Look) back in the day.
* Android has a dominant and growing market share. Unix never did on commodity level equipment.
* Android has a much stronger foundation behind it. OSF and Unix International just didn't have the ability to so effectively control the base "distribution" of Unixes that the Open Handset Alliance does with Android.
* Differences between Android installs are largely driven by hardware, and a little eye candy tossed on top. Differences in 90s Unixes were BSD v AT&T + GUI differences.
* It's nearly always easier to support one platform that many. So what, and how is that news?
This.
Thanks.