I agree with you. It seems like everything people are saying is how it doesn't stack up to all the slick shiney features of PDF. The problem I see is that people are using PDF's far too much for things that don't need to be PDF. I can't count how many times I go to a college athletic website to look at season stats or roster information and almost everything on the site is in PDF. For the same size of page in html the stupid page would be smaller/load faster. I want to puke when I see the acrobat reader splash screen come on when I want to look at a file that would amount to less than a printed page. PDF's may be great for some applications, but most applications I see them used for would be better suited as standard web pages.
On the virtual pet front there's the more recent (and presumably more familiar to the console gaming crowd) inclusion of chao in the Sega Sonic Adventure games. You get to train, feed, and race your chao. The VMU's for the Dreamcast even allowed interacting with the chao away from the console. It's a console game and a portable game all wrapped up in one. Of course Sega blew it and the concept is fading into the obscurity of video game history.
Well the problem we centaurs have is affording 6 controllers to tape to appendages. On the other hand (no pun intended), it does give us an advantage when fighting you homonids.
As fishtop said figure out what you like to do. It's always good to think about how realistic it is. That being said, I say if you have a dream, go for it. If it is completely off the wall, be careful, but some people pay good money for really strange stuff. I recall reading something about the dilemma vegans are in that are into bondage (vegans, leather in case you're not following). It never hurts to follow your dream, just get a good plan together and get in with the right people.
I'm in a semi similar position. I just lost a job that paid about as much as I could expect to make in the industry. I absolutely hated the job, but I was good at it. My passion is volleyball, so I decided to follow that dream. I got a job that paid the bills and volunteer with the local college programs. I'm in the process of applying for a number of coaching positions with some solid recommendations from successful coaches. At first I'll be making less money, but I can make as much or more than I was making not too far down the road. Plus the greatly reduced price graduate degrees will be a nice plus.
It just occurred to me: There are only 4 nucleotide bases in DNA, so they give the ballpark figure of how long the strand of DNA is. That was awful helpful of them. They just pulled back on the trigger of their 9mm and shot themselves in the foot. And I bet someone on the inside just sells the "recipe" to the highest bidder.
my bet is that the odds stated in the article are for guessing the sequence. The tech is cool, but the retards deciding on using the tech could use some work.
Took minutes to develop Gatorade, but I'm spending my lifetime appreciating that little stroke of genius. And Bobby Boucher's coach was actually right, Gatorade is better than water.
You know, if he wasn't so angry, elitist, and condescending, I'd almost enjoy reading his posts. Of course it seems like about half of what he says is RTFA like there is no slashdot effect.
Funny, my experience with Shadowrun usually involved very brief combat. Of course my character knew his limitations and only engaged in combat when the odds were in his favor, usually heavily in his favor. Oh, the fond memories of decapitating sleeping guards with my monofilament whip. The only time there was drawn out combat was when our trigger happy paranoid street samurai thought our smooth talking was STARTING to turn south. We didn't even actually get into trouble and the fool started to empty his magazine.
I never could get my group interested in playing it, but Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay had a pretty good system for realism and complexity, but it seemed (by reading the book anyway) to be pretty fast moving as far as game mechanics. One of the combat elements that I liked was, if memory serves, a percentile to hit and reverse the numbers for hit location. Killing two birds with one stone is pretty handy. Of course I never actually played it, and most of the time my group never did bother with hit location.
You can't make such an overarching statement because your observation is anecdotal and not emperical. Really, did you even weigh the food, measure length, or weigh your test subjects? Really, you creationist nutjobs need to but out of serious scientific dialogue like this. The evolution of King Kong is well documented going back to the old black and white documentary.
After reading gp's recent posts and being made a foe of said slashdot user, I have come to the conclusion that maggard is angry that everyone else on slashdot doesn't/can't RTFA within the first few hours of its appearance on slashdot (I don't try because of slashdot effect and connection speed as I quipped in parent post), AND he doesn't have a sense of humor (he didn't seem to get that I was joking with the ever repeated insensitive clod remark). I just might have to tag him a friend so I can more easily spot his posts in the future.
You made some good points. The question arises (probably answered if I RTFA) of who pays the 100k per potential goldmine (I know it isn't the best term) to seed these babies (I'm on a roll with bad metaphors)? It is implied elsewhere in this story with the laptops vs books approach that the availability of programming books is an issue. Books worked for you and others, but it isn't entirely a good analogy.
The companion to the tire inflator is the flat tire repair kits that you can get for about 2-3 bucks. Sure beats waiting for some greasy tire shop guy to paw you stearing wheel and charge 10-15 for the same service.
Actually I never read a current slashdot article, because everyone else on slashdot is. And no I didn't watch the video; I have dial-up, you insensitive clod.
Your post reminded me of an old news item from a few years back. Some American entity had developed (read geneticly modified) something along the lines of rice with additional nutrients that would greatly improve the nutritional status of people in 3rd world countries. It was manufactured and sent out to countries that could desperately use it and it was turned down for reasons like "We don't want to be America's guinea pigs". I know it's apples and oranges, but I wonder how much of this will happen with the laptops? Are other countries going to say "thanks, but no thanks"?
Govt's like China allocate the equivalent of US$20/year for each kid's printed school books. With these laptops they can offer those gov't text supplied texts, a coupla thousand others, the latest news, access to encyclopedias, etc. all for negligible cost over the laptops.
I have to take issue with that. I'm assuming based on the 5579 after your user name that you've been around slashdot for a while. I would hope that you are aware of the censorship issues that exist with the internet and the benificent government of China. Why would China want to pay five times the amount if all they are likely to provide is the government supplied text books they are already providing. Then there is the emerging Chinese homegrown computer industry.
I also have to disagree about the media. I don't see the existence of cheap laptops creating a demand for the educational media. Yes it is very possible, but I don't think it is very likely. I think a better solution is to create the content first. If the laptops are that important, the content needs to come first so there is a push and demand for the laptops. It's kind of like my car that can run on E85 ethanol fuel. I can do it, but I can't find a place to fuel up with the stuff to see how it treats me.
As much as I love Wikipedia, it isn't ideal for simple explanations. I tried using it to help my 10 year old daughter do a report for school and it took far too much time to read, assimilate and translate for her understanding. I eventually gave up and went for less technical sites.
The part about better education avoiding disease, etc. reminds me of the story that surfaced a while back here about the microbes that inhabit computer keyboards.
Joking aside( and I almost completely agree with you), I don't think $100 laptops are a very good idea at all. I'm assuming you were referring to welfare programs when you said poorly designed systems, but if the laptops are poorly designed then it's a double whammy. I just don't see good laptops coming out of this unless it is driven by the market ( the "grey market" that gp(?) referred to). The old saying "Follow the money" applies here, I think. If there is no money in it for the manufacturers, why will they make quality goods? Sure there are the tax write-offs, but that isn't likely enough to drive the market.
Handing kids laptops is welfare that widens the gap. You have the kids without anyone capable of teaching anything meaningful on their new laptops on one side, and the kids with that mentor on the other side. With teachers fighting teacher testing, I can't put my trust in them to teach kids to use laptops for anything meaningful.
Then there is just the simple fact of how many kids are going to do something meaningful with a computer when left to their own devices. I usually don't, my kids definitely don't, and my bet is that almost across the board kids won't. Sure when they are "in class" they will, but they will also push the envelope and try to screw around during class time. Reminds me of playing dopewars on the old 286 DOS machines in high school computer class.
So a news organization should report what anyone says is fact without, how do they call it, fact checking? I believe that is what got Dan Rather in all the trouble. He saw a story that he wanted to be true, so he reported it without checking the facts.
The stories they should jump on are the ones that I wish they would lay off jumping on so hard. There are times I don't want 24/7 coverage of some breaking story just so I can here yet another eye witness account that doesn't tell me one new iota of information. Like the time I stayed up late to watch olympic volleyball only to see nonstop coverage of the olympic park bombing. Or that other time I wanted to watch a NBA playoff game only to see OJ Simpson drive his car down the freeway at a whopping 25 mph.
Again, you must present BOTH Intelligent Design and Evolution because those qare the two prevailing theories.
Since when has ID become a theory? The thing that really bugs me about all the Creationism/ID people is the use of the word theory. We've got two different people using the same term with different meanings based on perspective. Scientists use the word theory for a hypothesis that has been tested pretty strenuously and it has held up. The hypothesis then becomes a theory when it is pretty widely accepted. Is the testing over? Is the theory complete with no future amendment or correction? Of course not, but a theory is considered the way things happen as far as we understand it. The Creationism/ID crowd, and most other people for that matter, use the term theory to mean what scientists call a hypothesis. To them a theory is any kind of idea that someone comes up with, read ID. To a scientist ID is a hypothesis, an untestable one at that. To the other side ID is a theory. To the ID crowd they think evolution is a hypothesis because of the jargon scientists use. The simple fact that ID is untestable and unproven, and will be until the Intelligence behind it loudly proclaims the fact, makes the teaching of ID a horrible move. Philosophy is a completely different story, but science class absolutely not. And that from a guy that isn't too crazy about evolution and kind of likes ID.
Slashdot Mirror
3) Turning to Ask Slashdot for reliable answers.
I agree with you. It seems like everything people are saying is how it doesn't stack up to all the slick shiney features of PDF. The problem I see is that people are using PDF's far too much for things that don't need to be PDF. I can't count how many times I go to a college athletic website to look at season stats or roster information and almost everything on the site is in PDF. For the same size of page in html the stupid page would be smaller/load faster. I want to puke when I see the acrobat reader splash screen come on when I want to look at a file that would amount to less than a printed page. PDF's may be great for some applications, but most applications I see them used for would be better suited as standard web pages.
On the virtual pet front there's the more recent (and presumably more familiar to the console gaming crowd) inclusion of chao in the Sega Sonic Adventure games. You get to train, feed, and race your chao. The VMU's for the Dreamcast even allowed interacting with the chao away from the console. It's a console game and a portable game all wrapped up in one. Of course Sega blew it and the concept is fading into the obscurity of video game history.
Well the problem we centaurs have is affording 6 controllers to tape to appendages. On the other hand (no pun intended), it does give us an advantage when fighting you homonids.
When do we get Mr. Fusion's to put onto our cars?
As fishtop said figure out what you like to do. It's always good to think about how realistic it is. That being said, I say if you have a dream, go for it. If it is completely off the wall, be careful, but some people pay good money for really strange stuff. I recall reading something about the dilemma vegans are in that are into bondage (vegans, leather in case you're not following). It never hurts to follow your dream, just get a good plan together and get in with the right people.
I'm in a semi similar position. I just lost a job that paid about as much as I could expect to make in the industry. I absolutely hated the job, but I was good at it. My passion is volleyball, so I decided to follow that dream. I got a job that paid the bills and volunteer with the local college programs. I'm in the process of applying for a number of coaching positions with some solid recommendations from successful coaches. At first I'll be making less money, but I can make as much or more than I was making not too far down the road. Plus the greatly reduced price graduate degrees will be a nice plus.
It just occurred to me: There are only 4 nucleotide bases in DNA, so they give the ballpark figure of how long the strand of DNA is. That was awful helpful of them. They just pulled back on the trigger of their 9mm and shot themselves in the foot. And I bet someone on the inside just sells the "recipe" to the highest bidder.
my bet is that the odds stated in the article are for guessing the sequence. The tech is cool, but the retards deciding on using the tech could use some work.
Took minutes to develop Gatorade, but I'm spending my lifetime appreciating that little stroke of genius. And Bobby Boucher's coach was actually right, Gatorade is better than water.
You know, if he wasn't so angry, elitist, and condescending, I'd almost enjoy reading his posts. Of course it seems like about half of what he says is RTFA like there is no slashdot effect.
So where does the eMac fit in?
Funny, my experience with Shadowrun usually involved very brief combat. Of course my character knew his limitations and only engaged in combat when the odds were in his favor, usually heavily in his favor. Oh, the fond memories of decapitating sleeping guards with my monofilament whip. The only time there was drawn out combat was when our trigger happy paranoid street samurai thought our smooth talking was STARTING to turn south. We didn't even actually get into trouble and the fool started to empty his magazine.
I never could get my group interested in playing it, but Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay had a pretty good system for realism and complexity, but it seemed (by reading the book anyway) to be pretty fast moving as far as game mechanics. One of the combat elements that I liked was, if memory serves, a percentile to hit and reverse the numbers for hit location. Killing two birds with one stone is pretty handy. Of course I never actually played it, and most of the time my group never did bother with hit location.
You can't make such an overarching statement because your observation is anecdotal and not emperical. Really, did you even weigh the food, measure length, or weigh your test subjects? Really, you creationist nutjobs need to but out of serious scientific dialogue like this. The evolution of King Kong is well documented going back to the old black and white documentary.
After reading gp's recent posts and being made a foe of said slashdot user, I have come to the conclusion that maggard is angry that everyone else on slashdot doesn't/can't RTFA within the first few hours of its appearance on slashdot (I don't try because of slashdot effect and connection speed as I quipped in parent post), AND he doesn't have a sense of humor (he didn't seem to get that I was joking with the ever repeated insensitive clod remark). I just might have to tag him a friend so I can more easily spot his posts in the future.
You made some good points. The question arises (probably answered if I RTFA) of who pays the 100k per potential goldmine (I know it isn't the best term) to seed these babies (I'm on a roll with bad metaphors)? It is implied elsewhere in this story with the laptops vs books approach that the availability of programming books is an issue. Books worked for you and others, but it isn't entirely a good analogy.
The companion to the tire inflator is the flat tire repair kits that you can get for about 2-3 bucks. Sure beats waiting for some greasy tire shop guy to paw you stearing wheel and charge 10-15 for the same service.
Actually I never read a current slashdot article, because everyone else on slashdot is. And no I didn't watch the video; I have dial-up, you insensitive clod.
Your post reminded me of an old news item from a few years back. Some American entity had developed (read geneticly modified) something along the lines of rice with additional nutrients that would greatly improve the nutritional status of people in 3rd world countries. It was manufactured and sent out to countries that could desperately use it and it was turned down for reasons like "We don't want to be America's guinea pigs". I know it's apples and oranges, but I wonder how much of this will happen with the laptops? Are other countries going to say "thanks, but no thanks"?
I have to take issue with that. I'm assuming based on the 5579 after your user name that you've been around slashdot for a while. I would hope that you are aware of the censorship issues that exist with the internet and the benificent government of China. Why would China want to pay five times the amount if all they are likely to provide is the government supplied text books they are already providing. Then there is the emerging Chinese homegrown computer industry.
I also have to disagree about the media. I don't see the existence of cheap laptops creating a demand for the educational media. Yes it is very possible, but I don't think it is very likely. I think a better solution is to create the content first. If the laptops are that important, the content needs to come first so there is a push and demand for the laptops. It's kind of like my car that can run on E85 ethanol fuel. I can do it, but I can't find a place to fuel up with the stuff to see how it treats me.
As much as I love Wikipedia, it isn't ideal for simple explanations. I tried using it to help my 10 year old daughter do a report for school and it took far too much time to read, assimilate and translate for her understanding. I eventually gave up and went for less technical sites.
The part about better education avoiding disease, etc. reminds me of the story that surfaced a while back here about the microbes that inhabit computer keyboards.
Joking aside( and I almost completely agree with you), I don't think $100 laptops are a very good idea at all. I'm assuming you were referring to welfare programs when you said poorly designed systems, but if the laptops are poorly designed then it's a double whammy. I just don't see good laptops coming out of this unless it is driven by the market ( the "grey market" that gp(?) referred to). The old saying "Follow the money" applies here, I think. If there is no money in it for the manufacturers, why will they make quality goods? Sure there are the tax write-offs, but that isn't likely enough to drive the market.
Handing kids laptops is welfare that widens the gap. You have the kids without anyone capable of teaching anything meaningful on their new laptops on one side, and the kids with that mentor on the other side. With teachers fighting teacher testing, I can't put my trust in them to teach kids to use laptops for anything meaningful.
Then there is just the simple fact of how many kids are going to do something meaningful with a computer when left to their own devices. I usually don't, my kids definitely don't, and my bet is that almost across the board kids won't. Sure when they are "in class" they will, but they will also push the envelope and try to screw around during class time. Reminds me of playing dopewars on the old 286 DOS machines in high school computer class.
And I say thanks for convincing me not to buy a mac.
So a news organization should report what anyone says is fact without, how do they call it, fact checking? I believe that is what got Dan Rather in all the trouble. He saw a story that he wanted to be true, so he reported it without checking the facts.
The stories they should jump on are the ones that I wish they would lay off jumping on so hard. There are times I don't want 24/7 coverage of some breaking story just so I can here yet another eye witness account that doesn't tell me one new iota of information. Like the time I stayed up late to watch olympic volleyball only to see nonstop coverage of the olympic park bombing. Or that other time I wanted to watch a NBA playoff game only to see OJ Simpson drive his car down the freeway at a whopping 25 mph.
Since when has ID become a theory? The thing that really bugs me about all the Creationism/ID people is the use of the word theory. We've got two different people using the same term with different meanings based on perspective. Scientists use the word theory for a hypothesis that has been tested pretty strenuously and it has held up. The hypothesis then becomes a theory when it is pretty widely accepted. Is the testing over? Is the theory complete with no future amendment or correction? Of course not, but a theory is considered the way things happen as far as we understand it. The Creationism/ID crowd, and most other people for that matter, use the term theory to mean what scientists call a hypothesis. To them a theory is any kind of idea that someone comes up with, read ID. To a scientist ID is a hypothesis, an untestable one at that. To the other side ID is a theory. To the ID crowd they think evolution is a hypothesis because of the jargon scientists use. The simple fact that ID is untestable and unproven, and will be until the Intelligence behind it loudly proclaims the fact, makes the teaching of ID a horrible move. Philosophy is a completely different story, but science class absolutely not. And that from a guy that isn't too crazy about evolution and kind of likes ID.