You can judge a society by how many laws it has. With enough laws, everyone is a criminal and the government has free reign via selective enforcement.
I live in a small southern city, and I see it happening allready. If you are a black male and you get arrested, you are never, ever, ever, getting off of parole, they'll add a year for tossing a cigarette out of your car.
Thankfully, I'm a white kid with middle-class parents. The police let me get away with a quarter ounce sack of marijuana with only a warning. God bless America.
"First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists, but I was neither, so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew so I did not speak out. And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me."
- Martin Niemoeller
"Those who would trade freedom for a little temporary security deserve neither freedom nor security.".
- Ben Franklin
The question is not why are they watching you now. The question is why they will be watching you in 10, 20, 50 years. The simple fact is, no government avoids tyranny for a very long time, and our founding fathers knew it. With this kind of precedent set, a future, less nice, government basically has free reign over your data.
It's funny, the American revolution was fought over far smaller violations than the current American government commits every single day. I always find questions like "what would Thomas Jefferson do" in regards to current political questions. Thomas Jefferson would overthrow the US government with armed force. Thomas Jefferson was a terrorist / patriot / freedom-fighter.
Meanwhile, Larry Ponemon, the CEO of Privacy Council, says that since September 11 he's been hired by at least one major supermarket chain to oversee the handing over to law enforcement agencies of the buying records of customers with specific ethnic backgrounds. The authorities requested the data, Ponemon says, because they were trying to compile a profile of "terrorist eating habits."
If you liked "Play" can I suggest DJ Shadow's "Endtroducing?"
Less gospel, more atmospheric old horror-movie soundtracks. It's widely considered one of the most brilliant techno (er electronica... er ambient... er music that doesn't involve mainly guitar and drums) albums of the 90s.
After that, we can sit down and discuss Aphex Twin, Fourtet, and the Boards of Canada.
oh and I don't think Moby is complaining about sales. He has *not* sided with the RIAA on piracy issues. Besides, Moby's money comes from advertising and licensing, which isn't affected one iota by online trading.
I think the phrase "selling out" is a bit overused in music criticism. There's nothing wrong with trying to market your sound to get a larger audience. I mean, hell, the Beatles did it better than anyone else.
But Moby has sold out. His liner notes are filled with diatribes against eating meat, polluting, human rights abuses etc. etc. and yet he peddles his songs to huge corporate advertising campaigns and idiotic TV shows. Moby doesn't drink and hates cars, yet his songs help sell cars and hard liquor. While I think it's unfair to criticize people with strong beliefs for slight hypocracy (it's far more noble to have somewhat compromised beliefs than to have no beliefs at all) Moby has gone a bit too far in his attempts to be a ubiquitous cute little media icon.
Besides, DJ Shadow is far far far better.
... and "Everything is Wrong" was better than "Play"
It would be cooler if someone would design a disk that could display a picture in the area where data is stored (perhaps store data on a lower level, like on double-density DVDs) so you could have art on the underside of a full-length album.
Frankly I think all of this is a little bit cheesy, and while cool every once in a while, would get old fast if put into general use.
But early versions have already been installed at U.S. Army Intelligence headquarters and are under consideration for New York City's three airports--perhaps bringing us all a step closer to living inside the Matrix.
If by "living inside the Matrix" you mean living in a world where our every action is monitored by technology then, yes, we are getting closer to that.
I don't doubt that this thing has legitimate uses, but I'm not about to jump up and praise every single development in survelance technology. I think Big Brother's eyes are allready a little too sharp, and I'd rather see them make improvements on how they apply their technology. There was no technical reason for intellegence to miss plans for Sept. 11th, and no array of videocameras etc. would have helped. The problems were organizational, and I don't think sufficient improvements have been made in that area.
Bottom line: you get watched, the terrorists go unnoticed.
network of radios, sounds like a ...
on
Field Day 2002
·
· Score: 4, Funny
so we have all these small, relatively cheap, devices operating together to provide a greater service.
Yes they can do all of these things, but they can also play snood without the teacher knowing.
If computers were used the way their starry-eyed promotors claim, I'd have no problem with them in the school.
But with 30 students infront of an overworked teacher, it'll probably just be a powerpoint presentation or other waste of time.
It sickens me to see students who don't know how to write a half decent essay putting together a webpage for a class.
Technology is not the solution to America's failing educational system. A budget that keeps pace with growth and an end to local funding (rich schools for rich kids, poor schools for poor kids) is.
Frankly I just don't get it. There are two good ways to learn about something: do it or discuss it. Hands-on learning is really only useful in some subjects (chemistry, CS, etc.) so that leaves discussion for most school subjects. The best discussions occur in small classrooms where everyone has done the reading. I don't see where computers fit in here. Sure, it's nice to have access for online articles etc. but usually computer projects in highschool involve making a webpage or powerpoint presentation, neither of which have *anything to do with the subject at hand* I dislike the idea that schools are corporate training. I don't want my tax dollars teaching tenth graders to be entry level HTML authors.
Don't get me wrong. I love computers. But I've yet to see an application in the classroom beyond simple word-processing and document search that makes them anything more that $1000 time wasting devices. Computers are the worksheets and posters of a new generation, a busywork tool for lazy teachers. I'd rather see that money going to increased teacher salaries, building new schools, or buying more textbooks.
My highschool started purchasing laptops for the students (and increasing tuition by fifteen hundred dollars) the year after I graduated. My sister's still there though and she tells me the laptops do nothing but help students not pay attention. The class sits, computers open, not listening because they're talking on AIM and someone will post the notes online anyway. Every once in a while they'll do a "research" project online that involves little more than cutting and pasting from online encyclopedias.
I do approve of Computer Science (if taught well and not just as job training) in the schools, and I do think that computers can be useful in the classroom, even if they aren't often put to good use. But with the sad state of American education being as it is, I think we're a *long* way away from the point that a laptop is the best way to spend $1500 of the education budget (not to mention additional hires and resources)
I've no experience with Pocket PC devices in the classroom, but I'd imagine it would be worse. The Pocket PC fails in the two areas that school computers are actually worthwhile - word processing and internet search. They're totally inadequate for word processing and not quite there on internet search (small (lo-res) screen doesn't support many pages, awkward interface, wireless concerns). So this initiative seems to only make classroom technology more useless.
I guess they make school more fun, but unless you're the type of student for whom learning really is a pleasure, in which case you'll do just fine regardless, school being more fun probably means you're learning less.
in 1900 you weren't considered educated without fluency in Greek, Latin, French and German...
Re:Are you kidding?
on
Version Fatigue
·
· Score: 0, Offtopic
desktop market share != usage
check server statistics
check scientific and technical applications
check movie studio render farms
check outside of america
just because joe and sue consumer aren't using Linux, doesn't mean that linux isn't being used. in fact, the home desktop market pales before the corporate market, where linux is doing quite well.
Adobe is aweful for this. I dread every photoshop release, I just no they're going to do something complicated and pointless to the interface.
The problem is, interface design is still an art and not a science. What little research that has gone into interfaces has gone completely unnoticed by the industry at large. I suppose there isn't vocal demand for improvement, so it won't happen.
yeah but buying things that only pay the workers (less than) subsistance wages won't really improve much. the trick is to locate big-ticket items that actually get money in the hands of working chinese and buy those over american things. of course, i'm a big fan of american manufacturing too, so as always, knowing all sides of an issue leaves me paralyzed with responsibility.
it's not like when say, a company is dumping toxic waste so you stop buying their products in hopes that they'll maybe go out of business or have to shut down polluting factories.
the problem with sweatshops is that, the locals in those countries are so poor they *choose* to work in sweatshops (or send their kids) and if walmart shut down the shops then they would just be poorer. now walmart could voluntarily elect to pay their workers more, but in a free market, that's not likely to happen. what really needs to occur is for the economy of china to improve. if the workers there had more and better options, walmart et. al. would HAVE to pay more. boycotting a store because of sweatshops doesn't really work.
now how joe consumer goes about improving china's economy, i'm not sure, but boycotting walmart isn't going to help the people it employs, no matter how mistreated they are.
Slashdot Mirror
UHF/VHF is free
You can judge a society by how many laws it has. With enough laws, everyone is a criminal and the government has free reign via selective enforcement.
I live in a small southern city, and I see it happening allready. If you are a black male and you get arrested, you are never, ever, ever, getting off of parole, they'll add a year for tossing a cigarette out of your car.
Thankfully, I'm a white kid with middle-class parents. The police let me get away with a quarter ounce sack of marijuana with only a warning. God bless America.
"First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists, but I was neither, so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew so I did not speak out. And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me."
- Martin Niemoeller
"Those who would trade freedom for a little temporary security
deserve neither freedom nor security.".
- Ben Franklin
The question is not why are they watching you now. The question is why they will be watching you in 10, 20, 50 years. The simple fact is, no government avoids tyranny for a very long time, and our founding fathers knew it. With this kind of precedent set, a future, less nice, government basically has free reign over your data.
It's funny, the American revolution was fought over far smaller violations than the current American government commits every single day. I always find questions like "what would Thomas Jefferson do" in regards to current political questions. Thomas Jefferson would overthrow the US government with armed force. Thomas Jefferson was a terrorist / patriot / freedom-fighter.
Hell if it wasn't for Uncle Sam and a few private scholarships, I'd be paying Columbia $35k a year.
Or rather, my parents would...
Or rather, I'd be going to a state school for free.
hey, that's a 25% increase in only a year!
jesus man, we've gotta triple the number of cops on the streets, this is an epidemic!
From the article:
Meanwhile, Larry Ponemon, the CEO of Privacy Council, says that since September 11 he's been hired by at least one major supermarket chain to oversee the handing over to law enforcement agencies of the buying records of customers with specific ethnic backgrounds. The authorities requested the data, Ponemon says, because they were trying to compile a profile of "terrorist eating habits."
There is nothing that can be added to that.
I've heard that the move from 200 to 400 MHz on these devices has barely changed noticable speed, while adding a good $200 to the pricetag.
I'll wait for reviews to cement the decision, but I'll probably be going with an older, not that much slower, 200 MHz device.
Should future phases of this experiment require hanging out for a few months in the Space Station, then someone tell these guys to give me a call.
actually, Moby does devote a *lot* of time and effort and money to charities, and he did before he was an A-List celeb.
I just think he could find different advertisers to lease his songs out to.
If you liked "Play" can I suggest DJ Shadow's "Endtroducing?"
Less gospel, more atmospheric old horror-movie soundtracks. It's widely considered one of the most brilliant techno (er electronica... er ambient... er music that doesn't involve mainly guitar and drums) albums of the 90s.
After that, we can sit down and discuss Aphex Twin, Fourtet, and the Boards of Canada.
oh and I don't think Moby is complaining about sales. He has *not* sided with the RIAA on piracy issues. Besides, Moby's money comes from advertising and licensing, which isn't affected one iota by online trading.
I think the phrase "selling out" is a bit overused in music criticism. There's nothing wrong with trying to market your sound to get a larger audience. I mean, hell, the Beatles did it better than anyone else.
But Moby has sold out. His liner notes are filled with diatribes against eating meat, polluting, human rights abuses etc. etc. and yet he peddles his songs to huge corporate advertising campaigns and idiotic TV shows. Moby doesn't drink and hates cars, yet his songs help sell cars and hard liquor. While I think it's unfair to criticize people with strong beliefs for slight hypocracy (it's far more noble to have somewhat compromised beliefs than to have no beliefs at all) Moby has gone a bit too far in his attempts to be a ubiquitous cute little media icon.
Besides, DJ Shadow is far far far better.
... and "Everything is Wrong" was better than "Play"
Ahhh cool non-musical tricks for music.
It would be cooler if someone would design a disk that could display a picture in the area where data is stored (perhaps store data on a lower level, like on double-density DVDs) so you could have art on the underside of a full-length album.
Frankly I think all of this is a little bit cheesy, and while cool every once in a while, would get old fast if put into general use.
Ok, it can keep a calendar, it can leave messages, it can play MP3s, etc. etc
but thanks to the titanium finish:
YOU CAN'T PUT MAGNETS ON IT!!!!
what kind of world is this?
From the last paragraph of the article:
But early versions have already been installed at U.S. Army Intelligence headquarters and are under consideration for New York City's three airports--perhaps bringing us all a step closer to living inside the Matrix.
If by "living inside the Matrix" you mean living in a world where our every action is monitored by technology then, yes, we are getting closer to that.
I don't doubt that this thing has legitimate uses, but I'm not about to jump up and praise every single development in survelance technology. I think Big Brother's eyes are allready a little too sharp, and I'd rather see them make improvements on how they apply their technology. There was no technical reason for intellegence to miss plans for Sept. 11th, and no array of videocameras etc. would have helped. The problems were organizational, and I don't think sufficient improvements have been made in that area.
Bottom line: you get watched, the terrorists go unnoticed.
so we have all these small, relatively cheap, devices operating together to provide a greater service.
it almost reminds one of some sort of cluster...
Yes they can do all of these things, but they can also play snood without the teacher knowing.
If computers were used the way their starry-eyed promotors claim, I'd have no problem with them in the school.
But with 30 students infront of an overworked teacher, it'll probably just be a powerpoint presentation or other waste of time.
It sickens me to see students who don't know how to write a half decent essay putting together a webpage for a class.
Technology is not the solution to America's failing educational system. A budget that keeps pace with growth and an end to local funding (rich schools for rich kids, poor schools for poor kids) is.
you restrict yourself to finite dimensional inner-product spaces?
peon.
I remember the advice my grandfather gave my mother:
"honey, never learn to type, it's beneath you. if you do, then for god sakes, don't tell anyone"
Frankly I just don't get it. There are two good ways to learn about something: do it or discuss it. Hands-on learning is really only useful in some subjects (chemistry, CS, etc.) so that leaves discussion for most school subjects. The best discussions occur in small classrooms where everyone has done the reading. I don't see where computers fit in here. Sure, it's nice to have access for online articles etc. but usually computer projects in highschool involve making a webpage or powerpoint presentation, neither of which have *anything to do with the subject at hand* I dislike the idea that schools are corporate training. I don't want my tax dollars teaching tenth graders to be entry level HTML authors.
Don't get me wrong. I love computers. But I've yet to see an application in the classroom beyond simple word-processing and document search that makes them anything more that $1000 time wasting devices. Computers are the worksheets and posters of a new generation, a busywork tool for lazy teachers. I'd rather see that money going to increased teacher salaries, building new schools, or buying more textbooks.
My highschool started purchasing laptops for the students (and increasing tuition by fifteen hundred dollars) the year after I graduated. My sister's still there though and she tells me the laptops do nothing but help students not pay attention. The class sits, computers open, not listening because they're talking on AIM and someone will post the notes online anyway. Every once in a while they'll do a "research" project online that involves little more than cutting and pasting from online encyclopedias.
I do approve of Computer Science (if taught well and not just as job training) in the schools, and I do think that computers can be useful in the classroom, even if they aren't often put to good use. But with the sad state of American education being as it is, I think we're a *long* way away from the point that a laptop is the best way to spend $1500 of the education budget (not to mention additional hires and resources)
I've no experience with Pocket PC devices in the classroom, but I'd imagine it would be worse. The Pocket PC fails in the two areas that school computers are actually worthwhile - word processing and internet search. They're totally inadequate for word processing and not quite there on internet search (small (lo-res) screen doesn't support many pages, awkward interface, wireless concerns). So this initiative seems to only make classroom technology more useless.
I guess they make school more fun, but unless you're the type of student for whom learning really is a pleasure, in which case you'll do just fine regardless, school being more fun probably means you're learning less.
in 1900 you weren't considered educated without fluency in Greek, Latin, French and German...
It's from a song by the band Neutral Milk Hotel.
desktop market share != usage
check server statistics
check scientific and technical applications
check movie studio render farms
check outside of america
just because joe and sue consumer aren't using Linux, doesn't mean that linux isn't being used. in fact, the home desktop market pales before the corporate market, where linux is doing quite well.
Adobe is aweful for this. I dread every photoshop release, I just no they're going to do something complicated and pointless to the interface.
The problem is, interface design is still an art and not a science. What little research that has gone into interfaces has gone completely unnoticed by the industry at large. I suppose there isn't vocal demand for improvement, so it won't happen.
yeah, it's a bit premature to be handing out ribbons, but it should be tight.
anyway, i'm holding off any video card purchases until this beast is released.
yeah but buying things that only pay the workers (less than) subsistance wages won't really improve much. the trick is to locate big-ticket items that actually get money in the hands of working chinese and buy those over american things. of course, i'm a big fan of american manufacturing too, so as always, knowing all sides of an issue leaves me paralyzed with responsibility.
sweatshops are a tricky issue.
it's not like when say, a company is dumping toxic waste so you stop buying their products in hopes that they'll maybe go out of business or have to shut down polluting factories.
the problem with sweatshops is that, the locals in those countries are so poor they *choose* to work in sweatshops (or send their kids) and if walmart shut down the shops then they would just be poorer. now walmart could voluntarily elect to pay their workers more, but in a free market, that's not likely to happen. what really needs to occur is for the economy of china to improve. if the workers there had more and better options, walmart et. al. would HAVE to pay more. boycotting a store because of sweatshops doesn't really work.
now how joe consumer goes about improving china's economy, i'm not sure, but boycotting walmart isn't going to help the people it employs, no matter how mistreated they are.