I've signed up for MOOC classes that seemed interesting, but once I started I realized the subject matter wasn't what I had thought, or that the instructor's style didn't suit me. So I abandoned those classes. I guess I show up as a "failure" as far as the MOOC goes, but I don't think it really reflects my inability to master the material. So it's not just about being able to repeat until mastery is obtained - it's about being able to check courses out./K
Good thing no terrorist can afford to fly first class where they still have metal utensils with meals. And good think no terrorist would think to bring aboard a duty-free liquor bottle they could smash into a sharp weapon. Good thing that the scissors, screwdrivers, canes, high heels, stems of eyeglasses, etc., etc. people are allowed to bring on board couldn't possibly hurt anyone. Good thing the TSA has protected all of us from all possible harm on flights with their wise and discerning policies./K
This is only partly true (only a very small part) and much less so now.
The drug companies did sponsor some thin "throw-away" quick reference books on narrow topics. With the crackdown on drug companies, this is much less true now.
Drug companies didn't and still don't fund or write any of the major medical reference texts that are used primarily. They would sometimes buy them to give away to doctors (again, this happens much less now), but they didn't have input on the content. I've edited major medical texts, and know the editors of other leading texts, and know that drug company concerns had nothing to do with the content.
You must have read the license with a PC. I'm using FireFox on a Mac - when I clicked the link to read the license agreement, I was directed to a page with "MICROSOFT SOFTWARE LICENSE TERMS FOR FIREFOX 1.5+ AND SAFARI ON MACINTOSH OSX 10.4+". See http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/license-mac.aspx /K
...Verizon Wireless won't offer the same level of customer service as it does for the roughly 50 phone models featured in its handset lineup . . . Verizon plans only to ensure the wireless connection is working for customers who buy those devices. "They have to talk to their handset provider or their application provider if they have particular issues," McAdam says. ...
That might be the most ingenious corporate spin I've ever heard. Seriously. You may be right. OTOH, it really isn't reasonable for Verizon or any other provider to provide in depth tech support for a device that they didn't sell you. There will be a certain amount of finger pointing (just like there is now with router problems - the router's tech support people say the problem must be with the internet connection, the ISP says it's with the router...). But I'm willing to wait and see what kind of experience people actually have instead of deciding in advance that it's just a corporate dodge./K
OK, perhaps I've misquoted Jobs per se, but other Apple executives have gone on record as stating that Apple would still use DRM for iTunes even if the labels didn't require it. And some groups (e.g., Bare Naked Ladies) have offered to let their songs be sold without DRM, and Apple has refused. Clearly there is no technical reason, and Apple has never intimated that their contract with the labels is what is holding this up. And selling music isn't "signing a band" - there are independent labels they could contract with for this. Many commentators (e.g. Cory Doctorow) have pointed out that the ITMS DRM provides a barrier for people to switch away from the iPod. Perhaps not a high barrier for most iPod users, but a barrier nonetheless. /K
I'm not sure how the statement "Apple's call to be rid of DRM (while continuing to use it in iTunes)..." fits in with this theme. Sure, the motives for Steve suddenly deciding that DRM is bad may be suspect, but at least Apple is moving in the right direction. Right now, they couldn't drop DRM if they wanted to for the vast majority of their catalog - they are bound by their contracts with the record labels. It would be nice to see them drop DRM from bands who would like to release DRM free music (e.g. BNL).
The issue is one of "chilling effects" - it still unfairly puts a burden on the original poster to "counter-notify", which may not be trivial. And the material is still down for two weeks - which may be enough time for the original filer to accomplish what they want - e.g. having embarrassing videos taken down before an election. /K
Exactly. Apple/iTunes is an easy target, but they're obliged by their contract. This is the same reason that iTunes was available in different countries at different times - it took a while to negotiate the contracts (even in the EU each country's music distributor had to be negotiated with seperately). Honestly, do you think Apple wants to turn away money? I don't believe iTunes is the only store with this issue. So while there are a lot of legitimate complaints about iTunes (esp. the DRM, which isn't entirely driven by the studios), this article was just a cheap shot at an easy target. /K
But that isn't all that is on the page. How about at the top:
Although Debian can be obtained for free and will always remain that way, events such as the problem with the ownership of the term "Linux" have shown that Debian needs to protect its property from any use which could hurt its reputation.
Or (regarding the Debian Official Use Logo):
This logo may only be used if... official approval is given by Debian for its use in this purpose.
It would seem that Debian recognizes that the use of trademarks is important to protecting the reputation of a project, and may even require approval in some cases. So why should they expect FireFox to be any different? /K
I was toying with the idea of getting a new enclosure that was 800 only (since I was going to attach it to my G5), but if apple is going to phase it out, I may just go with the usb2/fw400 version and spare myself from getting stuck with hardware I can't use (like what happened with all my external LaCie SCSI drives).
It's not like FireWire 800 drive is suddenly going to stop working. Unless you're planning on trading in your G5 soon, get the 800 enclosure. Enjoy the extra speed. You can always slap the drive in a new enclosure later.
I'm surprised I haven't seen anyone lament the lack of a floppy drive on the new Macs as well. At least Apple moves forward with their designs instead of trying to accomodate every legacy POS that ever existed so as not to piss-off the one guy in Borneo who still has a serial mouse and 100 baud modem.
Although the bubonic form was technically "survivable" it was still mostly fatal. /K
Re:I'm really enjoying The Baroque Cycle
on
Top 20 Geek Novels
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· Score: 1
Keep going. It is a long slog, but worth it overall. Since each volume is divided into several books, if it got a bit tedious I'd finish a "book", put it down, read another novel, and then coming back to the next "book." Overall Stephenson wraps it up reasonably well. /K
While this is a cool invention, it is clearly being over-hyped. If you RTFA, the device develops a jet of oxygen radicals. Somehow this stream of highly reactive particles is supposed to cause "no harm, when it is directed at human skin" (from the Old Domion link). But "the beam is powerful enough to blast apart bacteria that's crawling on your skin" (from the Daily Press link), and "such a device could destroy tumors without damaging surrounding tissue" (from the Old Dominion link). --- If the device can really distinguish between "bad" cells and "good" cells, that would be an invention worthy of a Nobel Prize. But of course it can't. We already have devices that sterilize inert medical instruments quite efficiently-way more efficiently than waving a tiny beam across their entire surface area. It may have a niche for sterilizing items that are temperature sensitive (and not overly sensitive to highly reactive charged particles). But it clearly won't be a "miracle beam" that can kill bacteria in a wound while leaving healthy tissue unaffected. /K
Just like Debian lets Linus, the Apache Software Foundation, XFree (and soon, X.org), etc., do the heavy lifting. All they do is some Q/A and patching to make the software perform they way they want... /K
The vast ocean of crap software out there is of no concern to us. On a large scale this is not design, it is evolution.
It should concern us. If the noise to signal ratio gets too high, no one will be able to make out the signal. And for software, design might be better than evolution. Otherwise programs end up with a lot of cruft, the sofware equivalent of an appendix - doesn't do anything useful, and occasionally leads to fatal errors./K
Re:Not worth the money
on
NextFest 2005
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· Score: 1
You didn't mention that you get a year of Wired magazine with your admission, so admission works out to nearly free. Even if I have seen some of these things on TV, that's not the same as seeing them up close and having a chance to chat with the developers. A guy at the iRobot booth did a demo of the packbot just because I asked. I really enjoyed the show - might go back tomorrow./K
Sure, you probably could find the info in any of these articles if you looked on the web. But would you have looked? The topics are eclectic, many covering things I'll never build, but it's interesting to read about what others are into. And I like having a physical book. I can read it when I'm at lunch or in a waiting room. I'm looking forward to being a long-time subscriber. I hope it does well./K
Haven't seen much discussion (not that I've read all zillion comments- just the ones modded up) regarding pricing. Some people seem to assume that the Intel Macs will be cheaper. Apple has always had a greater profit margin per box than Wintel mfgrs. They'll want to maintain that, but it will be hard to justify. I can easily see someone saying "But I can buy a computer with the same chip from Dell for $1000 less...". I guess Steve is betting that Apple's proprietary chipset (you know there'll be one, lest every geek load Mac OS X onto a cheap Dell box) and Mac OS X will allow them to charge a premium price. I'm not so sure myself./K
Slashdot Mirror
Udacity announced in November for-pay MOOC classes: http://blog.udacity.com/2013/11/udacity-innovation-is-in-our-dna.html /K
I've signed up for MOOC classes that seemed interesting, but once I started I realized the subject matter wasn't what I had thought, or that the instructor's style didn't suit me. So I abandoned those classes. I guess I show up as a "failure" as far as the MOOC goes, but I don't think it really reflects my inability to master the material. So it's not just about being able to repeat until mastery is obtained - it's about being able to check courses out. /K
Good thing no terrorist can afford to fly first class where they still have metal utensils with meals. And good think no terrorist would think to bring aboard a duty-free liquor bottle they could smash into a sharp weapon. Good thing that the scissors, screwdrivers, canes, high heels, stems of eyeglasses, etc., etc. people are allowed to bring on board couldn't possibly hurt anyone. Good thing the TSA has protected all of us from all possible harm on flights with their wise and discerning policies. /K
I second that. Not extremely technical, but a good first read about relational databases, normalizing, etc. /K
But how can they be sure the kid didn't actually eat some nuts? It's urban legends like this that spread unnecessary fear? /K
This is only partly true (only a very small part) and much less so now.
The drug companies did sponsor some thin "throw-away" quick reference books on narrow topics. With the crackdown on drug companies, this is much less true now.
Drug companies didn't and still don't fund or write any of the major medical reference texts that are used primarily. They would sometimes buy them to give away to doctors (again, this happens much less now), but they didn't have input on the content. I've edited major medical texts, and know the editors of other leading texts, and know that drug company concerns had nothing to do with the content.
I spent my teen and pre-teen years building electronics from freely-available plans. But we never called it "open source" back then, so why start now?
Um, because we have a good general purpose term for it now that wasn't in use when you were a pre-teen? /K
You must have read the license with a PC. I'm using FireFox on a Mac - when I clicked the link to read the license agreement, I was directed to a page with "MICROSOFT SOFTWARE LICENSE TERMS FOR FIREFOX 1.5+ AND SAFARI ON MACINTOSH OSX 10.4+". See http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/license-mac.aspx
/K
...Verizon Wireless won't offer the same level of customer service as it does for the roughly 50 phone models featured in its handset lineup . . . Verizon plans only to ensure the wireless connection is working for customers who buy those devices. "They have to talk to their handset provider or their application provider if they have particular issues," McAdam says. ... That might be the most ingenious corporate spin I've ever heard. Seriously. You may be right. OTOH, it really isn't reasonable for Verizon or any other provider to provide in depth tech support for a device that they didn't sell you. There will be a certain amount of finger pointing (just like there is now with router problems - the router's tech support people say the problem must be with the internet connection, the ISP says it's with the router...). But I'm willing to wait and see what kind of experience people actually have instead of deciding in advance that it's just a corporate dodge./KOK, perhaps I've misquoted Jobs per se, but other Apple executives have gone on record as stating that Apple would still use DRM for iTunes even if the labels didn't require it. And some groups (e.g., Bare Naked Ladies) have offered to let their songs be sold without DRM, and Apple has refused. Clearly there is no technical reason, and Apple has never intimated that their contract with the labels is what is holding this up. And selling music isn't "signing a band" - there are independent labels they could contract with for this. Many commentators (e.g. Cory Doctorow) have pointed out that the ITMS DRM provides a barrier for people to switch away from the iPod. Perhaps not a high barrier for most iPod users, but a barrier nonetheless.
/K
I'm not sure how the statement "Apple's call to be rid of DRM (while continuing to use it in iTunes)..." fits in with this theme. Sure, the motives for Steve suddenly deciding that DRM is bad may be suspect, but at least Apple is moving in the right direction. Right now, they couldn't drop DRM if they wanted to for the vast majority of their catalog - they are bound by their contracts with the record labels. It would be nice to see them drop DRM from bands who would like to release DRM free music (e.g. BNL).
/K
The issue is one of "chilling effects" - it still unfairly puts a burden on the original poster to "counter-notify", which may not be trivial. And the material is still down for two weeks - which may be enough time for the original filer to accomplish what they want - e.g. having embarrassing videos taken down before an election.
/K
Exactly. Apple/iTunes is an easy target, but they're obliged by their contract. This is the same reason that iTunes was available in different countries at different times - it took a while to negotiate the contracts (even in the EU each country's music distributor had to be negotiated with seperately). Honestly, do you think Apple wants to turn away money? I don't believe iTunes is the only store with this issue. So while there are a lot of legitimate complaints about iTunes (esp. the DRM, which isn't entirely driven by the studios), this article was just a cheap shot at an easy target.
/K
Or (regarding the Debian Official Use Logo):
It would seem that Debian recognizes that the use of trademarks is important to protecting the reputation of a project, and may even require approval in some cases. So why should they expect FireFox to be any different?
/K
Agreed. I find it ironic that Debian also has restrictions on their copyrighted logos. See: http://www.debian.org/logos/
/K
I was toying with the idea of getting a new enclosure that was 800 only (since I was going to attach it to my G5), but if apple is going to phase it out, I may just go with the usb2/fw400 version and spare myself from getting stuck with hardware I can't use (like what happened with all my external LaCie SCSI drives).
/K
It's not like FireWire 800 drive is suddenly going to stop working. Unless you're planning on trading in your G5 soon, get the 800 enclosure. Enjoy the extra speed. You can always slap the drive in a new enclosure later.
I'm surprised I haven't seen anyone lament the lack of a floppy drive on the new Macs as well. At least Apple moves forward with their designs instead of trying to accomodate every legacy POS that ever existed so as not to piss-off the one guy in Borneo who still has a serial mouse and 100 baud modem.
Damn, where are my mod points when I need them. I nearly passed out from laughing so hard I couldn't breathe.
/K
Although the bubonic form was technically "survivable" it was still mostly fatal.
/K
Keep going. It is a long slog, but worth it overall. Since each volume is divided into several books, if it got a bit tedious I'd finish a "book", put it down, read another novel, and then coming back to the next "book." Overall Stephenson wraps it up reasonably well.
/K
While this is a cool invention, it is clearly being over-hyped. If you RTFA, the device develops a jet of oxygen radicals. Somehow this stream of highly reactive particles is supposed to cause "no harm, when it is directed at human skin" (from the Old Domion link). But "the beam is powerful enough to blast apart bacteria that's crawling on your skin" (from the Daily Press link), and "such a device could destroy tumors without damaging surrounding tissue" (from the Old Dominion link). --- If the device can really distinguish between "bad" cells and "good" cells, that would be an invention worthy of a Nobel Prize. But of course it can't. We already have devices that sterilize inert medical instruments quite efficiently-way more efficiently than waving a tiny beam across their entire surface area. It may have a niche for sterilizing items that are temperature sensitive (and not overly sensitive to highly reactive charged particles). But it clearly won't be a "miracle beam" that can kill bacteria in a wound while leaving healthy tissue unaffected.
/K
Just like Debian lets Linus, the Apache Software Foundation, XFree (and soon, X.org), etc., do the heavy lifting. All they do is some Q/A and patching to make the software perform they way they want...
/K
The vast ocean of crap software out there is of no concern to us. On a large scale this is not design, it is evolution.
/K
It should concern us. If the noise to signal ratio gets too high, no one will be able to make out the signal. And for software, design might be better than evolution. Otherwise programs end up with a lot of cruft, the sofware equivalent of an appendix - doesn't do anything useful, and occasionally leads to fatal errors.
You didn't mention that you get a year of Wired magazine with your admission, so admission works out to nearly free. Even if I have seen some of these things on TV, that's not the same as seeing them up close and having a chance to chat with the developers. A guy at the iRobot booth did a demo of the packbot just because I asked. I really enjoyed the show - might go back tomorrow. /K
Sure, you probably could find the info in any of these articles if you looked on the web. But would you have looked? The topics are eclectic, many covering things I'll never build, but it's interesting to read about what others are into. And I like having a physical book. I can read it when I'm at lunch or in a waiting room. I'm looking forward to being a long-time subscriber. I hope it does well. /K
Haven't seen much discussion (not that I've read all zillion comments- just the ones modded up) regarding pricing. Some people seem to assume that the Intel Macs will be cheaper. Apple has always had a greater profit margin per box than Wintel mfgrs. They'll want to maintain that, but it will be hard to justify. I can easily see someone saying "But I can buy a computer with the same chip from Dell for $1000 less...". I guess Steve is betting that Apple's proprietary chipset (you know there'll be one, lest every geek load Mac OS X onto a cheap Dell box) and Mac OS X will allow them to charge a premium price. I'm not so sure myself. /K