And be accused again of causing death and destruction to innocent civilians? How about someone else do it this time. China, Russia, France...hell, Sweden, Hungary, Estonia, Peru...you guys go do it this time.
Wasn't the internet supposed to be able to survive a nuclear war? I know Burma is a poor country with few resources; still, this turn of events doesn't give much support to the notion that the 'net is nearly impossible to crash.
The 'internet' hasn't crashed. Any (small) part of it that may have gone through Burma is now simply going around it. Routing around damage, as it were.
WTF do you think there are problems in the place all of a sudden?
All of a sudden? How about a couple of decades...
""In 1988, unrest over economic mismanagement and political oppression by the government led to widespread pro-democracy demonstrations throughout the country known as the 8888 Uprising. Hundreds of demonstrators were massacred by security forces, and General Saw Maung staged a coup d'état and formed the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC)."
What's interesting about Iran is that after 9/11 they seemed to be the only country in that part of the world that felt bad about what happened. I believe they were one of the few countries that held candlelight vigils that night and prayed for the victims of the attacks.
The people of Iran, yes. The government of Iran, not so much.
Clearly, to implement this you'd have to register your SIM card in your phone. I presume that this would be a verifiable process.
And in a country (USA) where 1/2 the federal representatives bitch about a person having to produce a picture ID to be able to vote...not gonna happen.
Try going to a country without any social services sometime and see how things are. (Also, too many social services are a problem... the key is finding the balance)
But that's not what we're talking about. Here in the US, most people that could use 'free' muni broadband (having a roof + elec + a computer) can afford it, if they wanted to. Cut out a couple McD's a month, or drop some of the cable, or don't buy the kid those Nikes. Being 'poor' in the US is far different than being 'poor' elsewhere. Priorities.
Well...THAT was the wrong argument to make. I'm really not thrilled to have some of my money 'taken' to give to slackers. *I* have to go to work, *you* have to go to work...why shouldn't they?
There would be more crime if they didn't give them free money? Maybe so. But if you were out of work, what would you do? Find a job...any job? Or resort to crime? What I'm saying is...these are not noble souls, who would otherwise be gentle, productive members of society. An awful lot of them are on welfare, simply because it's easier than actually 'working'. All? Hell no. But more than enough to cast doubt on the concept.
There's a reason we form communities and do things for the common good: because it benefits _you_.
And I'm not convinced that 'free' (tax paid) wireless broadband rises to that common good. The number of people who would:
be able to use it (have a computer)
make good use of it
and not be able to access it any other way (library, net cafe, dialup) is bound to be vanishingly small.
Electricity, food, transport all come long before surfing the net. And for the nonessentials, cellphone, cable, rims seem to come before surfing the net. Some years ago, I had occasion to be in possession of a stack of old corporate laptops. 10 Toshiba Pentium somethingorothers. Not cutting edge, but usable. I gave them all away...fully functional. Along with some programing disks of JavaScript, C++, MSOffice instruction, etc. 12 months later...all were gone. Pawned, stolen, sold, broken. All of them.
I'm thinking of doing the same this November, with the OLPC thing. Buy one for my granddaughter, pay for another one elsewhere. But subsidizing wireless broadband for people that can actually afford it if they want to? That sticks in my craw.
This is true. But then you run into interoperability issues within the company as well as with outside interests.
A couple of years ago, I started pushing for OpenOffice, instead of MS Office at my old company. Not even switching whole hod to Linux, just going to OOo. Did a whole usability analysis, cost structure, retraining, conversion of existing tools, all that crap. This was a $100M division of a 1/2 billion dollar company.
The reason it got shot down? All our clients/customers were on MS Office, and they expected stuff in Excel, Word, PowerPoint. Period. And these were some of the largest companies in their fields. GM, Toyota, P&G, Visa, etc, etc. Expecting them to bend to our wishes was unreasonable and not gonna happen.
Would you give up your current home or work connection completely and use the muni WiFi for all your needs? Banking, paying bills, etc. Knowing the security issues of WIFi? I don't think I would. So if I'm going to pay for a personal access anyway, tell me why should I be thrilled at paying into the cities 'free' WiFi scheme?
I say put a rifle in the hands of every able-bodied man and woman in Myanmar and see how things change.
See...that's the problem. That would take years, and a lot of individual, personal, risk. This would have had to be done 50 years ago to be effective today.
BigDog by Boston Dynamics is already there. For those who haven't seen it, watch the video. The part where they try to kick it over is pretty impressive.
What would be really great in my opinion is if the two laptops were somehow registered such that the kids can get to know each other.. this would be an astoundingly peaceful action. What modern child wouldn't want to communicate with another kid around the world using their new laptops?
I'd love that concept, except that there is little assurance that the laptop will end up on the desk of another kid. I know thats the intent, but we all know some of these things will find their way to eBay or elsewhere. Having the laptop pre-linked to some other random laptop may give pause to some parents on either end.
Assuming they include 10 minutes of adverts in a one-hour video, and that you will only watch the show once, your time would have worth under $12/hour for them to be better value than the iTunes version.
Of course! Time spent watching TV is billable time. I think we've found the ???? step before PROFIT!
Slashdot Mirror
Doesn't the Internet route around censorship?
Yes. It is currently routing around Burma.
We don't have a single mainstream-known scientist or engineer nowadays. There is no Bell, Wright, Einstein, Tesla...
Hawking, Rutan, Torvalds, Jobs.
why USA doesn't bring democracy also to Myanmar?
And be accused again of causing death and destruction to innocent civilians? How about someone else do it this time. China, Russia, France...hell, Sweden, Hungary, Estonia, Peru...you guys go do it this time.
Wasn't the internet supposed to be able to survive a nuclear war? I know Burma is a poor country with few resources; still, this turn of events doesn't give much support to the notion that the 'net is nearly impossible to crash.
The 'internet' hasn't crashed. Any (small) part of it that may have gone through Burma is now simply going around it.
Routing around damage, as it were.
WTF do you think there are problems in the place all of a sudden?
All of a sudden? How about a couple of decades...
""In 1988, unrest over economic mismanagement and political oppression by the government led to widespread pro-democracy demonstrations throughout the country known as the 8888 Uprising. Hundreds of demonstrators were massacred by security forces, and General Saw Maung staged a coup d'état and formed the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC)."
What's interesting about Iran is that after 9/11 they seemed to be the only country in that part of the world that felt bad about what happened. I believe they were one of the few countries that held candlelight vigils that night and prayed for the victims of the attacks.
The people of Iran, yes. The government of Iran, not so much.
Clearly, to implement this you'd have to register your SIM card in your phone. I presume that this would be a verifiable process.
And in a country (USA) where 1/2 the federal representatives bitch about a person having to produce a picture ID to be able to vote...not gonna happen.
Try going to a country without any social services sometime and see how things are. (Also, too many social services are a problem... the key is finding the balance)
But that's not what we're talking about. Here in the US, most people that could use 'free' muni broadband (having a roof + elec + a computer) can afford it, if they wanted to. Cut out a couple McD's a month, or drop some of the cable, or don't buy the kid those Nikes. Being 'poor' in the US is far different than being 'poor' elsewhere. Priorities.
Cheers.
Any why couldn't your people save to MS Office format from OpenOffice?
It's not just the raw text, but also formulas, graphs, etc. Which do not transfer well between MS & OOo, in either direction.
Why should you be thrilled to pay for welfare?
Well...THAT was the wrong argument to make. I'm really not thrilled to have some of my money 'taken' to give to slackers. *I* have to go to work, *you* have to go to work...why shouldn't they?
There would be more crime if they didn't give them free money? Maybe so. But if you were out of work, what would you do? Find a job...any job? Or resort to crime?
What I'm saying is...these are not noble souls, who would otherwise be gentle, productive members of society. An awful lot of them are on welfare, simply because it's easier than actually 'working'. All? Hell no. But more than enough to cast doubt on the concept.
There's a reason we form communities and do things for the common good: because it benefits _you_.
And I'm not convinced that 'free' (tax paid) wireless broadband rises to that common good. The number of people who would:
be able to use it (have a computer)
make good use of it
and not be able to access it any other way (library, net cafe, dialup)
is bound to be vanishingly small.
Electricity, food, transport all come long before surfing the net. And for the nonessentials, cellphone, cable, rims seem to come before surfing the net.
Some years ago, I had occasion to be in possession of a stack of old corporate laptops. 10 Toshiba Pentium somethingorothers. Not cutting edge, but usable. I gave them all away...fully functional. Along with some programing disks of JavaScript, C++, MSOffice instruction, etc.
12 months later...all were gone. Pawned, stolen, sold, broken. All of them.
I'm thinking of doing the same this November, with the OLPC thing. Buy one for my granddaughter, pay for another one elsewhere.
But subsidizing wireless broadband for people that can actually afford it if they want to? That sticks in my craw.
This is true. But then you run into interoperability issues within the company as well as with outside interests.
A couple of years ago, I started pushing for OpenOffice, instead of MS Office at my old company. Not even switching whole hod to Linux, just going to OOo. Did a whole usability analysis, cost structure, retraining, conversion of existing tools, all that crap. This was a $100M division of a 1/2 billion dollar company.
The reason it got shot down? All our clients/customers were on MS Office, and they expected stuff in Excel, Word, PowerPoint. Period. And these were some of the largest companies in their fields. GM, Toyota, P&G, Visa, etc, etc. Expecting them to bend to our wishes was unreasonable and not gonna happen.
Tack on open source replacements for things like ... AutoCAD
Which would be what product, exactly?
Moscow, Dec 2000 "it is thought support girders on the bridge gave way"
Germany, 1988 'error in construction'
Austria, 1976 'Concrete of the column had never been examined, was internally totally destroyed'
Bridges break. Human construction, on either side of the pond, is not infallible.
Why do you think there are no collapsing bridges or ditches in Europe?
No collapsing bridges in Europe?
Really?
Portugal, 2001
Moscow, 2000
Spain, 2005
Germany, 1998 (train derail, overpass collapses)
etc, etc.
Would you give up your current home or work connection completely and use the muni WiFi for all your needs? Banking, paying bills, etc. Knowing the security issues of WIFi? I don't think I would.
So if I'm going to pay for a personal access anyway, tell me why should I be thrilled at paying into the cities 'free' WiFi scheme?
Apparently, you also didn't see the part where they're still working on it.
I say put a rifle in the hands of every able-bodied man and woman in Myanmar and see how things change.
See...that's the problem. That would take years, and a lot of individual, personal, risk. This would have had to be done 50 years ago to be effective today.
BigDog by Boston Dynamics is already there.
For those who haven't seen it, watch the video. The part where they try to kick it over is pretty impressive.
What would be really great in my opinion is if the two laptops were somehow registered such that the kids can get to know each other .. this would be an astoundingly peaceful action. What modern child wouldn't want to communicate with another kid around the world using their new laptops?
I'd love that concept, except that there is little assurance that the laptop will end up on the desk of another kid. I know thats the intent, but we all know some of these things will find their way to eBay or elsewhere. Having the laptop pre-linked to some other random laptop may give pause to some parents on either end.
Why don't you just move to a place that offers broadband? That is the first requirement I look for whenever I'm looking for a place to live.
Did you miss the part about:
"Move out of the house my wife and I built and lived in for 20 years."
Maybe you just like to complain.
I'm complaining? No. I was just pointing out the error in the previous posters comment.
but with their new model, that they control, you'd have to wait a week?
... will be offered for a week immediately after their initial broadcasts.
Not after a week, for a week.
FTA:
The programs,
Assuming they include 10 minutes of adverts in a one-hour video, and that you will only watch the show once, your time would have worth under $12/hour for them to be better value than the iTunes version.
Of course! Time spent watching TV is billable time. I think we've found the ???? step before PROFIT!
5) share (optional)
If everyone else can get it for free as well, why would you feel the need to 'share' it out?
does anyone know how much the new cables are likely to cost?
No.
FTA: "USB 3.0 products should likely arrive in 2009 or 2010."