I agree with getting rid of laptops for taking notes as long as the prof isn't just reading his or her Power Point slides. This is especially true if the Power Point presentation is just the canned set of slides provided by the author of the textbook. I'm looking for the prof to provide "added value" by emphasizing what's really important and providing connectivity beyond what's in the book.
If all I'm getting in a class is a rehash of the textbook, I don't need the prof or the class and can save my tuition by just reading the book.
1) Put up a file sharing site with lots of music and movie files.
2) Craft a robots.txt to keep out the RIAA and MPAA. ...
Profit!!!
Robots.txt is a convention that was never intended to restrict checking for illegal content. The idea behind robots.txt is only to keep site indexers such as Google, Yahoo, etc. out of certain directories.
Sorry, but I don't see the benefit of floating the cannon in the ocean. You have a very long structure that must be kept really close to perfectly straight that is subject to currents, waves, coriolis effects, etc. Worse, you are stuck with the projectile emerging into the densest part of the earth's atmosphere.
It would make a lot more sense to build a fixed structure on an appropriate, high mountain near the equator. Places like Peru or Ecuador come to mind as well as Mauna Kea on Hawaii. I'm sure there are more places that would be "developable" and logistically acceptable.
There's always dial up (or you could move to where there's better broadband if it's that important to you).
When I originally upgraded from dial-up, I had choice one of one: ISDN. That's only 128kbs and only if neither channel was being used for voice. I got a deal for the package of around $50 a month (15 years ago, so about your $100 a month now).
As usual here on slashduh and in quite a few other places, people don't seem to understand the difference between a "Right" and an "Entitlement." A right costs no one anything. An entitlement can only be provided if someone pays for it. Some examples:
Depending on where you live, you may have a right to free speech. You can communicate your views to anyone who can hear what you have to say or who can't escape listening to you. It is an entitlement to demand ink, paper and a printing press, radio or TV time or access to some other medium to spread your views. These all cost someone to provide them to you.
You do not have a right to housing or food (regardless of some UN declaration). These can only be provided by your own work or by someone else's work. Somebody has to produce the materials for the house and build the house and someone has to grow the food. They can only be provided at someone's expense.
In the U.S. (and depending on local law) you have the right to "bear arms" (own a gun). That doesn't mean you automatically get a gun. If you wish to own one, you have to purchase it yourself. The right comes for free but someone has to pay for the gun if you want one.
You don't have a right to health care. It can only be provided to you by paying your own way (savings or insurance), forcing health care professionals to render it on demand (that's known as slavery) or by taxing someone else and forcing them to pay for it.
It's really that simple. What are truly "rights" cost no one anything. If it costs someone something, it's an entitlement and it can only be provided by taking something (taxes, property, labor, etc.) away from someone else. A political entity MAY choose to provide some or all of the above entitlements and may even confuse people by calling them "rights" but the fact remains that rights are free.
While true in some economically depressed areas, there are quite a few areas in the States where people choose to live to "get away from it all" (noise, pollution, crime, etc.) that are "out in the sticks" but not economically depressed. These seem to be the people who make the most noise about wanting broadband, paved roads, no critters eating their vegetable gardens, rapid emergency response, schools that teach advanced topics and not just agricultural subjects, etc. That is, they want all of the conveniences of city life while living in the country and they want the other rate payers to subsidize their lifestyle choice to make it happen.
I won't argue the merits of government intervention to provide additional services for disadvantaged areas. I will argue against blindly building out broadband given the above. Also, there are options such as satellite services that don't require any build out and are available regardless of location.
BTW, I live in an area (Colorado near Denver) where this debate keeps coming up. People keep moving out into what were once small farming communities to "get away from it all" but then make all sorts of noise because they still want some of the things that they didn't realize that they were also "getting away from." And, of course, they want the other rate payers to help them pay for it.
Actually, balance of trade calculations have historically ignored payments for intellectual property and services and have only counted raw materials and manufactured goods. This has been pointed out numerous times in the past as people bemoan the balance of trade deficit the the U.S. historically runs. The so called "U.S. balance of trade deficit" really isn't as bad as or doesn't even exist due to all if the money that flows into the U.S. due to IP and services.
Note: this post is based on something I remember from several years ago so it could have changed and I didn't hear about it but I don't think it has. I'd be quite happy if someone were to post a refutation with references since I feel that a number of people use the so-called "balance of trade deficit" for political purposes when, to a large extent, such a deficit only exists in the trade of tangible goods.
Although it should actually be, "blame the people." Back in the 1980s the people of California passed a resolution (Proposition 22?) that required that anything that led to exposure to carcinogens or substances known to cause birth defects had to be labelled. This is one of the reasons wine bottles no longer have lead foil over the cork: some lead atoms could travel from the foil to the glass and then be picked up by the wine when it's poured and then on to the drinker where those one or two lead atoms could then possibly cause a birth defect. Give me a break!
I also remember in the late 1980s that where I was working tried to accommodate smokers by collecting all of the smokers into a single area where they could puff away without exposing anyone else to second hand smoke. That got shot down because the room the smokers moved to would be so contaminated with cigarette smoke that it would be considered carcinogenic to the people who did the cleaning.
Sounds like Apple may have valid legal reasons for not working on equipment that has been contaminated by cigarette smoke.
Only soft of OT plug for my favorite movie: "Thank you for smoking". Absolutely great movie.
"The market" always exists; even under communism. The only question is to what extent has the market been distorted by the politics of pressure?
Talent always seeks opportunity. The problem is that lately the talent in demand has been in proving yourself or your cronies to be multi-billion dollar "victims." You get what you pay for and, go figure, we're now getting a bunch of it. Your and my tax dollars at work.
The United States is a sort of free society and you are still (for at least the time being) free to choose to do what you love. Just be ready to say, "Do you want fries with that?" if the market doesn't pay squat for doing what you love.
Excellent question but, unfortunately, it hit the main/. page on a Saturday. Let's just say that the percentage of readers who are IT professionals drops off significantly over the weekend. Go figure.
Most of your responses so far are along the lines of, "You NAZI! Leave your users alone and let the one's who don't learn get what they deserve." Obviously, not the response of an IT type who has to deal with regulatory requirements and wants to keep his job. You might try the same question again but on a weekday on a computer and network security related site.
Not saying that it didn't take boots on the ground to capture the Marianas bases that the B-29s flew from or Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Just that none of the territorial losses were enough to convince the Japanese military that the war was lost. Quite a few of the Japanese military were fanatically willing to continue fighting even after the atomic bombs to the point of there being several assassination attempts on those associated with attempting to end the war.
Hastings' book is one of several that make the case that the combination of bombings, blockade and mining had brought Japan to the point that resistance was no longer possible. The blockade and mining hadn't just interrupted the flow of war materials; it had also made food imports impossible. Mass starvation was barely averted after the war by massive shipments of food from the U.S. Had the war continued, the deaths due to starvation and diseases associated with malnutrition would have made the casualties from the bombings into a mere drop in the bucket. It took the shock of the atomic bombings plus the Soviet entry into the war (took away their hope for a negotiated peace) to convince the "peace party" to push for and end to the war.
Saying airpower doesn't win wars is probably false. I would suggest that the thermonuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki played a war-winning role.
The bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were nuclear fission bombs. Thermonuclear bombs are fusion bombs. The first fusion bomb wasn't exploded until several years after WWII had ended.
That being said, you'll find Max Hastings book, Retribution, to provide an interesting and well researched take on the factors that led to Japan's surrender. Hastings' position is that the fire raids, mining operations and submarine blockade of Japan were the major factors that led to the surrender. He notes that, at that time and for some time after the war, the Japanese did not consider there to be any significant difference between the atomic raids and the conventional fire raids that were destroying their cities on a regular basis. Finally, he discounts the influence of the Soviet declaration of war and invasion on Manchuria except to the extent that a few, non-military Japanese in the power structure still hoped that the Soviets would help them achieve a negotiated settlement.
Bottom line is that air power and sea power were able to force the Japanese to surrender without "boots on the ground".
You seem to be under the mistaken impression that the technical merits of the alternative product has something to do with the legality of excluding the product through misuse of copyright law or contract requirements. Silly rabbit. Lexmark's competitor would have had just as valid a complaint regarding misuse of copyright law even if their ink cartridges were filled with coloured water.
The difference here is that everyone is subject to copyright laws while Palm freely agreed to the USB-IF specification contract in order to advertise that their product was USB compatible. The court could and, indeed, did find that Lexmark was abusing copyright law in order to exclude competitors. The question of applicability comes down to whether Apple is abusing the contractual agreement of USB-IF by excluding alternate products that abide by the USB-IF requirements thus forcing Palm (and possibly others) to break the USB-IF contract in order to be compatible with Apple.
IANAL and I could be wrong but Lexmark tried to do something like this in order to force people to use Lexmark branded ink cartridges. They put something like "(c) Copyright Lexmark yyyy" in the data that the printer checked to see if the ink cartridge was appropriate. If the Lexmark copyright notice wasn't there, the printer wouldn't use the ink cartridge. They then sued someone who had reverse engineered the interface and sold a competing ink cartridge for copyright violation. The courts held that this use of copyright violated the intent of copyright law and did not constitute infringement.
The difference is that Palm is violating a contractual agreement that says they can only call a port "USB" if they abide by the USB consortium's rules which says they have to correctly identify themselves and not claim to be Apple. It will be interesting to see how this sorts out.
Napoleon's comment as to demonstrators/rioter was the he had, "...dismissed them with a little grapeshot."
The constitution guarantees the right to PEACEFUL assembly and the right of free speech. Free speech does not entitle the speaker to force someone to listen nor does it permit them to cause damage to property if no one cares to listen.
After being a QA manager for several years, I can promise you that EVERYTHING needs to be unit tested. I got way too many piles of crap from the development group that were dead on arrival because the developer(s) didn't think some change warranted bothering with a unit test. Even worse, the problems were usually trivial errors that even the most minimal level of unit testing would have exposed.
My thought is that the same programmer hubris that leads a developer to believe something "isn't even worth testing" leads them to not pay enough attention to what they're doing and then make stupid mistakes. Sadly, this doesn't seem to be restricted to junior level programmers who haven't gotten burned before and remembered the lesson. I've seen some fairly senior level people (usually the ones with the worst cases of hubris) continue to do this in spite of all evidence to the contrary.
Funny thing is that I just got forced to put this scheme into action. Apparently, my PCIe video card crapped out so I swapped in an old (not quite Rage/S3/Trident vintage but close) PCI video card. lspci now shows my video as:
01:08.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV5M64 [RIVA TNT2 Model 64/Model 64 Pro] (rev 15) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
Subsystem: nVidia Corporation Device 001f
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 19
Memory at fd000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M]
Memory at fa000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=32M]
Expansion ROM at fe020000 [disabled] [size=64K]
Capabilities: [60] Power Management version 1
Kernel modules: nouveau, rivafb
Time for a run to Microcenter to pick up a new video card.
Even better... I have an ancient S3 2MB PCI video card I use when I just want to see if an old MB will boot. It is passively cooled and, obviously for something of this age, requires no additional power beyond what's available from the PCI bus..
My suggestion to the original poster is to try to find such an old card and realize that it draws so little additional power that the convenience is worth it. As with your suggested Rage Pro 8MB, most servers come with similar embedded graphics because the incremental cost of both including the graphics and running it is so minimal.
Slashdot Mirror
This is just another way to cut down on patient care costs when you have nationalized health care... never admit them.
Cheers,
Dave
I agree with getting rid of laptops for taking notes as long as the prof isn't just reading his or her Power Point slides. This is especially true if the Power Point presentation is just the canned set of slides provided by the author of the textbook. I'm looking for the prof to provide "added value" by emphasizing what's really important and providing connectivity beyond what's in the book.
If all I'm getting in a class is a rehash of the textbook, I don't need the prof or the class and can save my tuition by just reading the book.
Cheers,
Dave
1) Put up a file sharing site with lots of music and movie files.
...
2) Craft a robots.txt to keep out the RIAA and MPAA.
Profit!!!
Robots.txt is a convention that was never intended to restrict checking for illegal content. The idea behind robots.txt is only to keep site indexers such as Google, Yahoo, etc. out of certain directories.
Cheers,
Dave
You don't need a time machine! Just change the units on the salary numbers from dollars to rupees and then hop on a jet to Mumbai.
Cheers,
Dave
Sorry, but I don't see the benefit of floating the cannon in the ocean. You have a very long structure that must be kept really close to perfectly straight that is subject to currents, waves, coriolis effects, etc. Worse, you are stuck with the projectile emerging into the densest part of the earth's atmosphere.
It would make a lot more sense to build a fixed structure on an appropriate, high mountain near the equator. Places like Peru or Ecuador come to mind as well as Mauna Kea on Hawaii. I'm sure there are more places that would be "developable" and logistically acceptable.
Cheers,
Dave
There's always dial up (or you could move to where there's better broadband if it's that important to you).
When I originally upgraded from dial-up, I had choice one of one: ISDN. That's only 128kbs and only if neither channel was being used for voice. I got a deal for the package of around $50 a month (15 years ago, so about your $100 a month now).
Cheers,
Dave
As usual here on slashduh and in quite a few other places, people don't seem to understand the difference between a "Right" and an "Entitlement." A right costs no one anything. An entitlement can only be provided if someone pays for it. Some examples:
Depending on where you live, you may have a right to free speech. You can communicate your views to anyone who can hear what you have to say or who can't escape listening to you. It is an entitlement to demand ink, paper and a printing press, radio or TV time or access to some other medium to spread your views. These all cost someone to provide them to you.
You do not have a right to housing or food (regardless of some UN declaration). These can only be provided by your own work or by someone else's work. Somebody has to produce the materials for the house and build the house and someone has to grow the food. They can only be provided at someone's expense.
In the U.S. (and depending on local law) you have the right to "bear arms" (own a gun). That doesn't mean you automatically get a gun. If you wish to own one, you have to purchase it yourself. The right comes for free but someone has to pay for the gun if you want one.
You don't have a right to health care. It can only be provided to you by paying your own way (savings or insurance), forcing health care professionals to render it on demand (that's known as slavery) or by taxing someone else and forcing them to pay for it.
It's really that simple. What are truly "rights" cost no one anything. If it costs someone something, it's an entitlement and it can only be provided by taking something (taxes, property, labor, etc.) away from someone else. A political entity MAY choose to provide some or all of the above entitlements and may even confuse people by calling them "rights" but the fact remains that rights are free.
Cheers,
Dave
While true in some economically depressed areas, there are quite a few areas in the States where people choose to live to "get away from it all" (noise, pollution, crime, etc.) that are "out in the sticks" but not economically depressed. These seem to be the people who make the most noise about wanting broadband, paved roads, no critters eating their vegetable gardens, rapid emergency response, schools that teach advanced topics and not just agricultural subjects, etc. That is, they want all of the conveniences of city life while living in the country and they want the other rate payers to subsidize their lifestyle choice to make it happen.
I won't argue the merits of government intervention to provide additional services for disadvantaged areas. I will argue against blindly building out broadband given the above. Also, there are options such as satellite services that don't require any build out and are available regardless of location.
BTW, I live in an area (Colorado near Denver) where this debate keeps coming up. People keep moving out into what were once small farming communities to "get away from it all" but then make all sorts of noise because they still want some of the things that they didn't realize that they were also "getting away from." And, of course, they want the other rate payers to help them pay for it.
Cheers,
Dave
Actually, balance of trade calculations have historically ignored payments for intellectual property and services and have only counted raw materials and manufactured goods. This has been pointed out numerous times in the past as people bemoan the balance of trade deficit the the U.S. historically runs. The so called "U.S. balance of trade deficit" really isn't as bad as or doesn't even exist due to all if the money that flows into the U.S. due to IP and services.
Note: this post is based on something I remember from several years ago so it could have changed and I didn't hear about it but I don't think it has. I'd be quite happy if someone were to post a refutation with references since I feel that a number of people use the so-called "balance of trade deficit" for political purposes when, to a large extent, such a deficit only exists in the trade of tangible goods.
Cheers,
Dave
You should have gone for the Rocky Mountain oysters instead.
Cheers,
Dave
Although it should actually be, "blame the people." Back in the 1980s the people of California passed a resolution (Proposition 22?) that required that anything that led to exposure to carcinogens or substances known to cause birth defects had to be labelled. This is one of the reasons wine bottles no longer have lead foil over the cork: some lead atoms could travel from the foil to the glass and then be picked up by the wine when it's poured and then on to the drinker where those one or two lead atoms could then possibly cause a birth defect. Give me a break!
I also remember in the late 1980s that where I was working tried to accommodate smokers by collecting all of the smokers into a single area where they could puff away without exposing anyone else to second hand smoke. That got shot down because the room the smokers moved to would be so contaminated with cigarette smoke that it would be considered carcinogenic to the people who did the cleaning.
Sounds like Apple may have valid legal reasons for not working on equipment that has been contaminated by cigarette smoke.
Only soft of OT plug for my favorite movie: "Thank you for smoking". Absolutely great movie.
Cheers,
Dave
As we all know, absinthe doth make the tart grow fonder.
Cheers,
Dave
"The market" always exists; even under communism. The only question is to what extent has the market been distorted by the politics of pressure?
Talent always seeks opportunity. The problem is that lately the talent in demand has been in proving yourself or your cronies to be multi-billion dollar "victims." You get what you pay for and, go figure, we're now getting a bunch of it. Your and my tax dollars at work.
Cheers,
Dave
The United States is a sort of free society and you are still (for at least the time being) free to choose to do what you love. Just be ready to say, "Do you want fries with that?" if the market doesn't pay squat for doing what you love.
Cheers,
Dave
Excellent question but, unfortunately, it hit the main /. page on a Saturday. Let's just say that the percentage of readers who are IT professionals drops off significantly over the weekend. Go figure.
Most of your responses so far are along the lines of, "You NAZI! Leave your users alone and let the one's who don't learn get what they deserve." Obviously, not the response of an IT type who has to deal with regulatory requirements and wants to keep his job. You might try the same question again but on a weekday on a computer and network security related site.
Good luck with your search.
Cheers,
Dave
The other excellent book on the subject is Richard Frank's book "Downfall."
Cheers,
Dave
Not saying that it didn't take boots on the ground to capture the Marianas bases that the B-29s flew from or Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Just that none of the territorial losses were enough to convince the Japanese military that the war was lost. Quite a few of the Japanese military were fanatically willing to continue fighting even after the atomic bombs to the point of there being several assassination attempts on those associated with attempting to end the war.
Hastings' book is one of several that make the case that the combination of bombings, blockade and mining had brought Japan to the point that resistance was no longer possible. The blockade and mining hadn't just interrupted the flow of war materials; it had also made food imports impossible. Mass starvation was barely averted after the war by massive shipments of food from the U.S. Had the war continued, the deaths due to starvation and diseases associated with malnutrition would have made the casualties from the bombings into a mere drop in the bucket. It took the shock of the atomic bombings plus the Soviet entry into the war (took away their hope for a negotiated peace) to convince the "peace party" to push for and end to the war.
Cheers,
Dave
The bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were nuclear fission bombs. Thermonuclear bombs are fusion bombs. The first fusion bomb wasn't exploded until several years after WWII had ended.
That being said, you'll find Max Hastings book, Retribution, to provide an interesting and well researched take on the factors that led to Japan's surrender. Hastings' position is that the fire raids, mining operations and submarine blockade of Japan were the major factors that led to the surrender. He notes that, at that time and for some time after the war, the Japanese did not consider there to be any significant difference between the atomic raids and the conventional fire raids that were destroying their cities on a regular basis. Finally, he discounts the influence of the Soviet declaration of war and invasion on Manchuria except to the extent that a few, non-military Japanese in the power structure still hoped that the Soviets would help them achieve a negotiated settlement.
Bottom line is that air power and sea power were able to force the Japanese to surrender without "boots on the ground".
Cheers,
Dave
You seem to be under the mistaken impression that the technical merits of the alternative product has something to do with the legality of excluding the product through misuse of copyright law or contract requirements. Silly rabbit. Lexmark's competitor would have had just as valid a complaint regarding misuse of copyright law even if their ink cartridges were filled with coloured water.
The difference here is that everyone is subject to copyright laws while Palm freely agreed to the USB-IF specification contract in order to advertise that their product was USB compatible. The court could and, indeed, did find that Lexmark was abusing copyright law in order to exclude competitors. The question of applicability comes down to whether Apple is abusing the contractual agreement of USB-IF by excluding alternate products that abide by the USB-IF requirements thus forcing Palm (and possibly others) to break the USB-IF contract in order to be compatible with Apple.
Cheers,
Dave
IANAL and I could be wrong but Lexmark tried to do something like this in order to force people to use Lexmark branded ink cartridges. They put something like "(c) Copyright Lexmark yyyy" in the data that the printer checked to see if the ink cartridge was appropriate. If the Lexmark copyright notice wasn't there, the printer wouldn't use the ink cartridge. They then sued someone who had reverse engineered the interface and sold a competing ink cartridge for copyright violation. The courts held that this use of copyright violated the intent of copyright law and did not constitute infringement.
The difference is that Palm is violating a contractual agreement that says they can only call a port "USB" if they abide by the USB consortium's rules which says they have to correctly identify themselves and not claim to be Apple. It will be interesting to see how this sorts out.
Cheers,
Dave
Napoleon's comment as to demonstrators/rioter was the he had, "...dismissed them with a little grapeshot."
The constitution guarantees the right to PEACEFUL assembly and the right of free speech. Free speech does not entitle the speaker to force someone to listen nor does it permit them to cause damage to property if no one cares to listen.
Cheers,
Dave
After being a QA manager for several years, I can promise you that EVERYTHING needs to be unit tested. I got way too many piles of crap from the development group that were dead on arrival because the developer(s) didn't think some change warranted bothering with a unit test. Even worse, the problems were usually trivial errors that even the most minimal level of unit testing would have exposed.
My thought is that the same programmer hubris that leads a developer to believe something "isn't even worth testing" leads them to not pay enough attention to what they're doing and then make stupid mistakes. Sadly, this doesn't seem to be restricted to junior level programmers who haven't gotten burned before and remembered the lesson. I've seen some fairly senior level people (usually the ones with the worst cases of hubris) continue to do this in spite of all evidence to the contrary.
Cheers,
Dave
Funny thing is that I just got forced to put this scheme into action. Apparently, my PCIe video card crapped out so I swapped in an old (not quite Rage/S3/Trident vintage but close) PCI video card. lspci now shows my video as:
01:08.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV5M64 [RIVA TNT2 Model 64/Model 64 Pro] (rev 15) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
Subsystem: nVidia Corporation Device 001f
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 19
Memory at fd000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M]
Memory at fa000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=32M]
Expansion ROM at fe020000 [disabled] [size=64K]
Capabilities: [60] Power Management version 1
Kernel modules: nouveau, rivafb
Time for a run to Microcenter to pick up a new video card.
Cheers,
Dave
WTF?
Cheers,
Dave
Even better... I have an ancient S3 2MB PCI video card I use when I just want to see if an old MB will boot. It is passively cooled and, obviously for something of this age, requires no additional power beyond what's available from the PCI bus..
My suggestion to the original poster is to try to find such an old card and realize that it draws so little additional power that the convenience is worth it. As with your suggested Rage Pro 8MB, most servers come with similar embedded graphics because the incremental cost of both including the graphics and running it is so minimal.
Cheers,
Dave