There are plenty of human casualties in the Afghan conflict -- though few among Americans -- but the fight seems especially significant in terms of technology and military conflict.
The most staggering statistic out of Afghanistan might be that the first American combat casualty died nearly three months into the "war."
You're ignoring the first battle in the war against terrorism: the terrorism itself. 5000 Americans died. I don't know what numerical system you're using, but that's not "few."
Plus, you act as if this is some of MechWarrior, bots vs. bots. It's not. It's bots vs. people, bots. vs buildings, bots vs. camps. It bears no relation to the sci-fi bot wars of the 'future'. Real people are dying. Many of them, every day. Much more than we believe, actually. The U.S. press isn't publishing the numbers, but the foreign press is. It's high.
Early reports suggest the civilian casualties may be lower than in any other large-scale military operation in modern history.
Don't be suprised when, 8, 15, 45 years from now the real figures come out.
But drone warfare radically alters the equation. Technologically advanced civilian populations --
just as Orwell foresaw -- can send their technological surrogates off to battle one another while humans stay home to wait for the outcome.
This is the purest bunk. If this could work, then why don't we just let the olympics determine territorial disputes? Tie the pole-vault directly to trade embargoes? It's because we have the ability to do more damage to one another that throwing javalins. Consider this:
Two futuristic countries go to war over a continent. For months the sound of exploding drones can be heard over the horizen, as the citizens comfortably go about their business, purchasing copy-protected cds. Then, one day, the war ends. Country A has won. Country A rejoices. But alas! Country B decides they don't want to have won and send over their drones to decimate the population of Country A. You, no one is going to attack meaningless drones if they can just as easily go for meaningful population centres. I'm beginning to understand what all the complaints about JonKatz's ill-thought out posts are about.
They play Jedi knights. That sucks, right? wrong. here's why, according to an article on salon:
"The boy banders will play Jedi Knights in a battle scene, but will be glimpsable only on the DVD release of the film and only for a split second -- before they're blown to high heaven by a pack of bloodthirsty droids."
The problem with GM food is simple, and I'll outline it: GM food may be safe. I don't know. You don't know. If you claim you know one way or another you're either lying or stupid. Here's what's wrong with Genetically modified food: the people in charge of determining whether GM food is safe are the same people who want you to eat GM food. there's absolutly no accountability in the industry. There, that was my rant. Unsupported, unsubstatiated, yet totally accurate.
Maybe this doesn't occur to many in the geek crowd, but as a bona fide child of parents, I can assure you there will be problems. Are the airlines prepared to bring certified tech support personal onboard to augment the flight attendant (and air ranger) crew? What happens when a man with an 8-year-old Toshiba laptop starts trying to stick an RJ-45 into the external modem? And for people who actually have NICs, what about network settings? Sure, it's easy for you and me to pop into Network Neighborhood and set TCP/IP to DHCP, but try telling 300 passengers that over the PA system after "place the mask over your face before assisting others." It'd be great to have, but I can't conceive it as a reality. If it takes a "Boeing flight test team" to "an e-mail with digital photo attachment," think of how well Mommy and Daddy are going to fare.
Re:Why not just assign PINs at purchase?
on
Gift Card Hacking
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Why not just assign a PIN number, stored in the store computer, not on the card, when the card is bought and charged?
That's a flawed suggestion. Gift cards are, typically, gifts. When I buy one at Borders it's not for me, it's for a cousin. And when my Uncle sends me 40 bucks in Best Buy Legal Tender, there's no frickin way I'm going to remember the arbitrary 4-digit number _he_ chose 4 months ago as I'm trying to purchase an extra nintendo controller. See? Gift cards aren't like debit cards. Nobody wants to put that much effort into them, especially the retailer and least of all the customer.
The difference here is that most skyscrapers and canals require _actual physical labor_, not just moving a mouse. Plus, most people play Solitaire as a break, so their potential productivity during Solitaire-playing hours is low.
They sent me an email saying that they'll be accepting credit card payments on the binary watch in "ten days". that was about four days ago. I hope it's true. I want one so bad.
Just as a footnote: in most states, it's not actually illegal to pick a lock to gain entry, although in most cases you could be busted for trespassing, I guess. It is illegal to own a lock-pick with the intent of using it illegally, and it is also illegal to use a lock-pick to burgal a house. Not really important, but just to clarify.
All of us here have our own opinions of the RIAA, copy protection, fair use, and the legal actions the RIAA has taken (mostly along the lines of Hillary Rosen must be atomized), but, as someone who has been directly affected by the RIAA's hubris, what's your opinion all this? Do you think the RIAA is legitimatly -- albeit illegally -- interested in protecting the interests of musicians, or do you think their loyalties lie with the producers and labels? Do you think they think they are really the good guys? Do you think they are after money or control?
One more thing: what do you anticipate will be the end result of the intellectual-property fiasco? Will we be condemned to a world of SDMI and single-use music, or will fair use win out in the end?
I know you said post-WWII, but still, when it comes to sci-fi and technology, it's hard to ignore the contributions of that lovable bearded Frenchman.
Take, for instance, his two space exploration books, _From the Earth to the Moon_ and _Round the Moon_. While it's uncertain whether he accurately predicted such things as the proper launch spot for a lunar craft (Cape Canaveral) or whether scientists based their space race developments off his writings, those two books certainly affected the Apollo missions and other subsequent space exploration.
And, of course, his famous Nautilus, with it's electric screw and incandescent lights (in 1860, I think) proved to be a remarkably accurate glimpse into the future. Not to mention the diving suits, electric charge rifles, etc.
I think it's important, in dealing with the history of sci-fi and it's effects on modern technology to at least touch on the creator of science fiction, even if you don't use it as a major focus of the course.
It felt more like an incorrectly done highlight of Harry Potter's 1st year:
I agree completely. Almost completely. I was more a highlight of Harry's first year than a fully-fleshed movie, but it wasn't done incorrectly. In order to have created what apparently you were expecting, the movie would either have to have been many times longer (something I would have appreciated, but most 8-year-olds would not) or the plot would have to have been compromised to a shorter version of the Sorcerer's Stone (it should be Philosophers Stone) story. In other words, there just wasn't enough time to include the major plot elements that it did along with the minor sub-plots and encounters that it didn't. And, because no one would have been happy if AOLTIMEWARNER had rewritten the book to fit completely into the copius 152-minute time slot, the solution they chose was ultimately the right one. All I can say is, look out for book four on the silver screen: If the first, 250page book was 2.5 hours (with many important narrative elements deleted), imagine a 700page book... pack a lunch!
Even though the rating marks this comment "funny", that was one of the more insightful statements I've heard made about the music industry since the Napster debacle began 3 or 4 years ago. Regardless of whether or not you believe copyrights encourage the production of quality music (which both I and mj6798 do not), their purpose has nothing to do with music at all, and anyone who claims otherwise is lying. Copywrites are about money, and when Hillary Rosen claims that the purpose of the RIAA's anti-p2p campaign is to keep great music alive, she ought to be given a time-out and made to think about what she's done.
I decided to write my congresswoman, Tammy Baldwin, about this issue. If anyone want's to do the same but needs inspiration, here's my letter. It's far from perfect, and it certainly doesn't apply to everyone, but it expresses how I and probably most of you feel, and explains the basic issue. Feel free to rip it off or offer improvements.
Tammy Baldwin,
I've been reading on internet news sites such as Slashdot and Wired about the pending introduction of a bill known as the Security Systems Standards and Certification Act, or SSSCA. It scares me. This bill requires all interactive computer systems -- PCs, palmtops, possibly even VCRs -- to include certified security technologies, under penalty of law. Major backers of this bill include Sen. Fritz Hollings and the entertainment industry, which coincidentally is a major campaign supporter of Sen. Hollings.
I am a student at Madison West High School, and laws such as these, which overstep the bounds of the constitution and interfere with citizen's rights merely to advance the cause of the media industry frankly, well, scare the shit out of me. It's disturbing to imagine a future where restrictions such as the one's included in the SSSCA are considered commonplace.
Therefore, I ask you, as a citizen who will be voting in the next congressional election, to look into this issue and realize what it's effects might be, before it has a chance to get out of hand on the floor. Laws such as the SSSCA simply serve no purpose other than to restrict the rights of consumers in order to make it easier for media conglomerates to control exactly how their content is used.
I fear that although I may have succeeded in expressing my opinion to you, I have not succeeded in expressing the scope of the SSSCA in terms a congresswoman who doesn't intimately understand information technology can comprehend. I have therefore included links to articles which describe the potential effects of the SSSCA better than I did. Please read them and understand the evil of this law.
I'm very glad to see activism against this law. You asked for improvments. Here are my suggestions.
Some suggested grammatical changes for coherency:
Line 3: Copywright Act, which is a similar law that I believe is unconstitutional could read:
Copywright Act, a similar law which I believe to be unconstitutional
Line 5: replace unfair, fifth word, with unconstitutional.
Lines 8-9: There is no point in implementing these security controls in Open Source software, because anyone could easily remove them could read:
Security controls such as these could not be implemented in Open Source software, because any programmer could easily remove them
Also, in the last paragraph, indicating that you don't care about anything else may make your message seem as if it's coming from a wacked-out computer nerd -- Senators aren't interested in appealing to very select groups such as that, you need to indicate how this issue affects everyone. Suggestion:
Draconian laws such as the DMCA and the SSSCA are getting out of hand. They prove to me that many of our so-called elected officials (don't ostracize your audience by making them all bad-- just everyone else) really answer only to commercial interests. I am opposed to any law that restricts my constitutional rights, and the SSSCA is definately one of those. I am confident that you will take the right side on this issue. Don't let commercial media interests defile the constitution.
Those are my suggestions. Feel free to use them as you like.
I'm still waiting for Gyricon and e-Ink
on
Books on Demand
·
· Score: 1
We all understand the benefits of an lcd-based ebook, and of coursethe benefits of print-on-demand machines like this one. What I'm waiting for is a device which will combine the two: a book of Xerox's Gyricon or e-Ink from MIT. Both of these technologies will, eventually, be able to reproduce high resolution text on demand with virtually no power usage except when the text is being changed and very little cost. For us high school students, something like this would be a godsend. The weight of the textbooks I always carry on my back exceeds 20 pounds. Imagine all of that in a 6 oz 8 1/2 x 11 inch hardbound book. Hell, with the right technology, you could even watch movies on it.
Re:The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul
on
American Gods
·
· Score: 1
Alas, Mr. Adams has already completed his long dark tea-time of the soul. So sad.
We have a company here which recycles old systems for companies. They charge something in the reaches of 50 bucks a pop. I'd like to see recycling required by law, because a lot more companies would invest in selling their used computers cheap, or giving them away. I love it when big corporations give computers away. Especially when they give them to me.
Widespread use of flash and macromedia and whatever it's technically called now bugs me, for two reasons. First of all, far too many people are using flash to revert their web pages back to 1995, where a webpage wasn't a webpage unless their was a java applet of wavy water reflecting the sky. The only difference now is that people try to make their wavy water applets themselves, and invariably fail horribly.
There are some exceptions. Those IBM codernaut ads which can be seen occasionally on slashdot are flash, and they work pretty well. Also the mercury ads on Salon most of the time. But those are made by highly paid ad executives and their lackeys. Everyone else sees those ads, thinks hmm, maybe i could make a five minute flash intro to my page which doesn't say anything, ey? Anyway, I know everyone else has already mentioned this, but I haven't, and this seemed like a good opportunity to get it out.
I'm doing a report on UCITA for my high school english class, and this post seemed very relevant. My guess is that somewhere, buried deep within the terms of Earthlink's shrink-wrapped contract agreement, are terms that state "the guarenteed price of $39.95 per month is not in fact gaurenteed, and we can change it whenever we want, and you can't do anything about it cause you signed this contract." Seems rediculous, right? Companies have been doing this for ages, putting rediculous terms in their contracts, and no one complained, because no court ever honored them.
But that's changing, and heading it all up is UCITA. UCITA would make this sort of contract entirely legit. According to many judges, it already is. Even though these sort of terms of agreement usually only apply in limited distribution channels. Even though we (assuming the royal 'we' have signed up for earthlink) never got a chance to read these terms until after we'd bought the service, much less negotiate them. Even though they are in blatent violation of consumer protection laws. This is what UCITA is doing, and although I can't be sure of it (I didn't actually read the terms of agreement. I guess you could say this is hypothetical), this is a perfect example of what we need to protest.
Up in arms, fellow slashdotters! Protest this blatent violation of our rights! Wouldn't it be great if, instead of having to argue over our right to register -sucks.com domains, companies like earthlink simply did business without angering our basic human decency?
myself and my other computer related friend are much more smarter intellectually then any other of our friends
In that case, your only other friends must be George "Strategery" Bush and Dan "Everything I've Ever Said" Quayle. I mean, seriously. How can you expect people to take your claim of superior intelligence seriously if you simultaneously make enough spelling and grammer errors to feed a developing nation for several months?
Far too many educators assume that if they buy a bunch of computers, set them up in a room, and give kids a couple of hours a week to play Magic Carpet (what I used to do on school computers) on them, their kids will magically gain intelligence. The Truth, however, is that computers are, in their raw form, nothing more than implements to assist in learning.
The first thing educators need to do when planning their computer policy is decide how they want the computers to benefit the kids. If they want their kids to learn about computers they might be able to expect that simply tossing the students into a room and letting them figure it out will work. That's probably quite similar to the process many slashdotters used to learn about computers.
If, on the other hand, they expect computers to help kids learn about deforestation, or sentence structure, or black and white photography, they can't just expect the kids to figure it out for themselves, along with the computers. Computers can help, but teachers are and always will be the primary means through which young kids get their information. Expecting a computer to solve all your teaching problems is naive and immature.
Finally, expecting that the prescence of computers in a classroom will automatically make kids score better on stardardized tests and so forth is just plain ludicrous. Unfortunately, this is the general concept harbored by most educators today. It's also one which Microsoft and Intel do their best to encourage. Young kids, given free range on the internet, will invariably gravitate to mtv.com, espn.com, or hotbritneyspearespics.over21only.com. I speak from experience. In order for computers to be useful educational tools, teachers must provide guidance and assistance one hundred percent of the way.
I saw an internet payphone at a gas station in Nowheresville, Ohio yesterday. Put in exhorbant amounts of cash, read Slashdot for a few minutes. These phones are not only not new, they are exceedingly stupid.
I had the radio tuned to NPR and was out driving to crew practice. I don't have my liscense yet, only my permit, and I'm not too great at, you know, not running into things. When I heard the news I just about smashed into a stop sign. It's a damn shame, I tell you. All the really, really creative people seem to die young. Jim Henson, Douglas Adams. Who next, Terry Pratchett?
Slashdot Mirror
There are plenty of human casualties in the Afghan conflict -- though few among Americans -- but the fight seems especially significant in terms of technology and military conflict.
The most staggering statistic out of Afghanistan might be that the first American combat casualty died nearly three months into the "war."
You're ignoring the first battle in the war against terrorism: the terrorism itself. 5000 Americans died. I don't know what numerical system you're using, but that's not "few."
Plus, you act as if this is some of MechWarrior, bots vs. bots. It's not. It's bots vs. people, bots. vs buildings, bots vs. camps. It bears no relation to the sci-fi bot wars of the 'future'. Real people are dying. Many of them, every day. Much more than we believe, actually. The U.S. press isn't publishing the numbers, but the foreign press is. It's high.
Early reports suggest the civilian casualties may be lower than in any other large-scale military operation in modern history.
Don't be suprised when, 8, 15, 45 years from now the real figures come out.
But drone warfare radically alters the equation. Technologically advanced civilian populations --
just as Orwell foresaw -- can send their technological surrogates off to battle one another while humans stay home to wait for the outcome.
This is the purest bunk. If this could work, then why don't we just let the olympics determine territorial disputes? Tie the pole-vault directly to trade embargoes? It's because we have the ability to do more damage to one another that throwing javalins. Consider this:
Two futuristic countries go to war over a continent. For months the sound of exploding drones can be heard over the horizen, as the citizens comfortably go about their business, purchasing copy-protected cds. Then, one day, the war ends. Country A has won. Country A rejoices. But alas! Country B decides they don't want to have won and send over their drones to decimate the population of Country A. You, no one is going to attack meaningless drones if they can just as easily go for meaningful population centres. I'm beginning to understand what all the complaints about JonKatz's ill-thought out posts are about.
Not quite. Ender had no such affliction. In fact, Ender lived to be several thousand years old. Bean was the mutant.
They play Jedi knights. That sucks, right? wrong. here's why, according to an article on salon:
"The boy banders will play Jedi Knights in a battle scene, but will be glimpsable only on the DVD release of the film and only for a split second -- before they're blown to high heaven by a pack of bloodthirsty droids."
Seems okay to me. I just hope it's gory.
The problem with GM food is simple, and I'll outline it: GM food may be safe. I don't know. You don't know. If you claim you know one way or another you're either lying or stupid. Here's what's wrong with Genetically modified food: the people in charge of determining whether GM food is safe are the same people who want you to eat GM food. there's absolutly no accountability in the industry. There, that was my rant. Unsupported, unsubstatiated, yet totally accurate.
Maybe this doesn't occur to many in the geek crowd, but as a bona fide child of parents, I can assure you there will be problems. Are the airlines prepared to bring certified tech support personal onboard to augment the flight attendant (and air ranger) crew? What happens when a man with an 8-year-old Toshiba laptop starts trying to stick an RJ-45 into the external modem? And for people who actually have NICs, what about network settings? Sure, it's easy for you and me to pop into Network Neighborhood and set TCP/IP to DHCP, but try telling 300 passengers that over the PA system after "place the mask over your face before assisting others." It'd be great to have, but I can't conceive it as a reality. If it takes a "Boeing flight test team" to "an e-mail with digital photo attachment," think of how well Mommy and Daddy are going to fare.
Why not just assign a PIN number, stored in the store computer, not on the card, when the card is bought and charged?
That's a flawed suggestion. Gift cards are, typically, gifts. When I buy one at Borders it's not for me, it's for a cousin. And when my Uncle sends me 40 bucks in Best Buy Legal Tender, there's no frickin way I'm going to remember the arbitrary 4-digit number _he_ chose 4 months ago as I'm trying to purchase an extra nintendo controller. See? Gift cards aren't like debit cards. Nobody wants to put that much effort into them, especially the retailer and least of all the customer.
The difference here is that most skyscrapers and canals require _actual physical labor_, not just moving a mouse. Plus, most people play Solitaire as a break, so their potential productivity during Solitaire-playing hours is low.
They sent me an email saying that they'll be accepting credit card payments on the binary watch in "ten days". that was about four days ago. I hope it's true. I want one so bad.
Just as a footnote: in most states, it's not actually illegal to pick a lock to gain entry, although in most cases you could be busted for trespassing, I guess. It is illegal to own a lock-pick with the intent of using it illegally, and it is also illegal to use a lock-pick to burgal a house. Not really important, but just to clarify.
All of us here have our own opinions of the RIAA, copy protection, fair use, and the legal actions the RIAA has taken (mostly along the lines of Hillary Rosen must be atomized), but, as someone who has been directly affected by the RIAA's hubris, what's your opinion all this? Do you think the RIAA is legitimatly -- albeit illegally -- interested in protecting the interests of musicians, or do you think their loyalties lie with the producers and labels? Do you think they think they are really the good guys? Do you think they are after money or control?
One more thing: what do you anticipate will be the end result of the intellectual-property fiasco? Will we be condemned to a world of SDMI and single-use music, or will fair use win out in the end?
I know you said post-WWII, but still, when it comes to sci-fi and technology, it's hard to ignore the contributions of that lovable bearded Frenchman.
Take, for instance, his two space exploration books, _From the Earth to the Moon_ and _Round the Moon_. While it's uncertain whether he accurately predicted such things as the proper launch spot for a lunar craft (Cape Canaveral) or whether scientists based their space race developments off his writings, those two books certainly affected the Apollo missions and other subsequent space exploration.
And, of course, his famous Nautilus, with it's electric screw and incandescent lights (in 1860, I think) proved to be a remarkably accurate glimpse into the future. Not to mention the diving suits, electric charge rifles, etc.
I think it's important, in dealing with the history of sci-fi and it's effects on modern technology to at least touch on the creator of science fiction, even if you don't use it as a major focus of the course.
It felt more like an incorrectly done highlight of Harry Potter's 1st year:
I agree completely. Almost completely. I was more a highlight of Harry's first year than a fully-fleshed movie, but it wasn't done incorrectly. In order to have created what apparently you were expecting, the movie would either have to have been many times longer (something I would have appreciated, but most 8-year-olds would not) or the plot would have to have been compromised to a shorter version of the Sorcerer's Stone (it should be Philosophers Stone) story. In other words, there just wasn't enough time to include the major plot elements that it did along with the minor sub-plots and encounters that it didn't. And, because no one would have been happy if AOLTIMEWARNER had rewritten the book to fit completely into the copius 152-minute time slot, the solution they chose was ultimately the right one. All I can say is, look out for book four on the silver screen: If the first, 250page book was 2.5 hours (with many important narrative elements deleted), imagine a 700page book... pack a lunch!
Even though the rating marks this comment "funny", that was one of the more insightful statements I've heard made about the music industry since the Napster debacle began 3 or 4 years ago. Regardless of whether or not you believe copyrights encourage the production of quality music (which both I and mj6798 do not), their purpose has nothing to do with music at all, and anyone who claims otherwise is lying. Copywrites are about money, and when Hillary Rosen claims that the purpose of the RIAA's anti-p2p campaign is to keep great music alive, she ought to be given a time-out and made to think about what she's done.
I decided to write my congresswoman, Tammy Baldwin, about this issue. If anyone want's to do the same but needs inspiration, here's my letter. It's far from perfect, and it certainly doesn't apply to everyone, but it expresses how I and probably most of you feel, and explains the basic issue. Feel free to rip it off or offer improvements.
2 047211
0 .html
Tammy Baldwin,
I've been reading on internet news sites such as Slashdot and Wired about the pending introduction of a bill known as the Security Systems Standards and Certification Act, or SSSCA. It scares me. This bill requires all interactive computer systems -- PCs, palmtops, possibly even VCRs -- to include certified security technologies, under penalty of law. Major backers of this bill include Sen. Fritz Hollings and the entertainment industry, which coincidentally is a major campaign supporter of Sen. Hollings.
I am a student at Madison West High School, and laws such as these, which overstep the bounds of the constitution and interfere with citizen's rights merely to advance the cause of the media industry frankly, well, scare the shit out of me. It's disturbing to imagine a future where restrictions such as the one's included in the SSSCA are considered commonplace.
Therefore, I ask you, as a citizen who will be voting in the next congressional election, to look into this issue and realize what it's effects might be, before it has a chance to get out of hand on the floor. Laws such as the SSSCA simply serve no purpose other than to restrict the rights of consumers in order to make it easier for media conglomerates to control exactly how their content is used.
I fear that although I may have succeeded in expressing my opinion to you, I have not succeeded in expressing the scope of the SSSCA in terms a congresswoman who doesn't intimately understand information technology can comprehend. I have therefore included links to articles which describe the potential effects of the SSSCA better than I did. Please read them and understand the evil of this law.
http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=01/09/20/
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,46655,0
A current draft of the bill
Thank you for your consideration of this matter.
Sincerely,
Joseph Kohl-Riggs
I'm very glad to see activism against this law. You asked for improvments. Here are my suggestions.
Some suggested grammatical changes for coherency:
Line 3: Copywright Act, which is a similar law that I believe is unconstitutional could read:
Copywright Act, a similar law which I believe to be unconstitutional
Line 5: replace unfair, fifth word, with unconstitutional.
Lines 8-9: There is no point in implementing these security controls in Open Source software, because anyone could easily remove them could read:
Security controls such as these could not be implemented in Open Source software, because any programmer could easily remove them
Also, in the last paragraph, indicating that you don't care about anything else may make your message seem as if it's coming from a wacked-out computer nerd -- Senators aren't interested in appealing to very select groups such as that, you need to indicate how this issue affects everyone. Suggestion:
Draconian laws such as the DMCA and the SSSCA are getting out of hand. They prove to me that many of our so-called elected officials (don't ostracize your audience by making them all bad-- just everyone else) really answer only to commercial interests. I am opposed to any law that restricts my constitutional rights, and the SSSCA is definately one of those. I am confident that you will take the right side on this issue. Don't let commercial media interests defile the constitution.
Those are my suggestions. Feel free to use them as you like.
We all understand the benefits of an lcd-based ebook, and of coursethe benefits of print-on-demand machines like this one. What I'm waiting for is a device which will combine the two: a book of Xerox's Gyricon or e-Ink from MIT. Both of these technologies will, eventually, be able to reproduce high resolution text on demand with virtually no power usage except when the text is being changed and very little cost. For us high school students, something like this would be a godsend. The weight of the textbooks I always carry on my back exceeds 20 pounds. Imagine all of that in a 6 oz 8 1/2 x 11 inch hardbound book. Hell, with the right technology, you could even watch movies on it.
Alas, Mr. Adams has already completed his long dark tea-time of the soul. So sad.
We have a company here which recycles old systems for companies. They charge something in the reaches of 50 bucks a pop. I'd like to see recycling required by law, because a lot more companies would invest in selling their used computers cheap, or giving them away. I love it when big corporations give computers away. Especially when they give them to me.
Widespread use of flash and macromedia and whatever it's technically called now bugs me, for two reasons. First of all, far too many people are using flash to revert their web pages back to 1995, where a webpage wasn't a webpage unless their was a java applet of wavy water reflecting the sky. The only difference now is that people try to make their wavy water applets themselves, and invariably fail horribly.
There are some exceptions. Those IBM codernaut ads which can be seen occasionally on slashdot are flash, and they work pretty well. Also the mercury ads on Salon most of the time. But those are made by highly paid ad executives and their lackeys. Everyone else sees those ads, thinks hmm, maybe i could make a five minute flash intro to my page which doesn't say anything, ey? Anyway, I know everyone else has already mentioned this, but I haven't, and this seemed like a good opportunity to get it out.
I'm doing a report on UCITA for my high school english class, and this post seemed very relevant. My guess is that somewhere, buried deep within the terms of Earthlink's shrink-wrapped contract agreement, are terms that state "the guarenteed price of $39.95 per month is not in fact gaurenteed, and we can change it whenever we want, and you can't do anything about it cause you signed this contract." Seems rediculous, right? Companies have been doing this for ages, putting rediculous terms in their contracts, and no one complained, because no court ever honored them.
But that's changing, and heading it all up is UCITA. UCITA would make this sort of contract entirely legit. According to many judges, it already is. Even though these sort of terms of agreement usually only apply in limited distribution channels. Even though we (assuming the royal 'we' have signed up for earthlink) never got a chance to read these terms until after we'd bought the service, much less negotiate them. Even though they are in blatent violation of consumer protection laws. This is what UCITA is doing, and although I can't be sure of it (I didn't actually read the terms of agreement. I guess you could say this is hypothetical), this is a perfect example of what we need to protest.
Up in arms, fellow slashdotters! Protest this blatent violation of our rights! Wouldn't it be great if, instead of having to argue over our right to register -sucks.com domains, companies like earthlink simply did business without angering our basic human decency?
myself and my other computer related friend are much more smarter intellectually then any other of our friends
In that case, your only other friends must be George "Strategery" Bush and Dan "Everything I've Ever Said" Quayle. I mean, seriously. How can you expect people to take your claim of superior intelligence seriously if you simultaneously make enough spelling and grammer errors to feed a developing nation for several months?
Far too many educators assume that if they buy a bunch of computers, set them up in a room, and give kids a couple of hours a week to play Magic Carpet (what I used to do on school computers) on them, their kids will magically gain intelligence. The Truth, however, is that computers are, in their raw form, nothing more than implements to assist in learning.
The first thing educators need to do when planning their computer policy is decide how they want the computers to benefit the kids. If they want their kids to learn about computers they might be able to expect that simply tossing the students into a room and letting them figure it out will work. That's probably quite similar to the process many slashdotters used to learn about computers.
If, on the other hand, they expect computers to help kids learn about deforestation, or sentence structure, or black and white photography, they can't just expect the kids to figure it out for themselves, along with the computers. Computers can help, but teachers are and always will be the primary means through which young kids get their information. Expecting a computer to solve all your teaching problems is naive and immature.
Finally, expecting that the prescence of computers in a classroom will automatically make kids score better on stardardized tests and so forth is just plain ludicrous. Unfortunately, this is the general concept harbored by most educators today. It's also one which Microsoft and Intel do their best to encourage. Young kids, given free range on the internet, will invariably gravitate to mtv.com, espn.com, or hotbritneyspearespics.over21only.com. I speak from experience. In order for computers to be useful educational tools, teachers must provide guidance and assistance one hundred percent of the way.
I saw an internet payphone at a gas station in Nowheresville, Ohio yesterday. Put in exhorbant amounts of cash, read Slashdot for a few minutes. These phones are not only not new, they are exceedingly stupid.
Maybe he was just picked up by the Vogons. In which case, we've got about 12 minutes to live. Shit.
Damn good books
I had the radio tuned to NPR and was out driving to crew practice. I don't have my liscense yet, only my permit, and I'm not too great at, you know, not running into things. When I heard the news I just about smashed into a stop sign. It's a damn shame, I tell you. All the really, really creative people seem to die young. Jim Henson, Douglas Adams. Who next, Terry Pratchett?