The deciding factor in whether or not something like this will be successful, is how the courts (and supreme court) interpret the freedom of a state to create and practice law widely different than the 49 other states.
Like Louisiana? They have strong remnants of a roman law system, left over from French rule prior to the Louisiana Purchase. They seem to get by fine. It's not all common law everywhere, either.
Remember that in the constitution, it is stated that no citizen shall be denied equal protection of rights, and importantly, that federal law is supreme when Congress speaks to a question of law (trumping state law).
The federal constitution generally provides a baseline for freedom -- state constitutions can go further and provide additional freedoms. You have stronger 4th amendment-style rules in place in a number of states than you do by default federal law. For a "freedom-loving" state, the real trouble will be in the supremacy clause, which you rightly identified.
Nevertheless, there are some ways around the supremacy clause.
First, just refuse federal funds. This is a huge sword of Damocles that hangs over every state on things like (1) drinking ages (2) DUI BAC limits (3) educational funds, etc. If states simply weaned themselves from the federal tit, it might go a long way to showing other states that it can be done. A small state is in a much better position to do this than a large one. Also, I think a more rural state would be more likely to do well in this way.
Second, make the feds do their own law enforcement. I have sometimes wondered what would happen if state courts and officers refused (by directive of state law) to allow the feds to have access to state courts and state officers (sheriffs) to enforce things like tax liens. Tom some extent I think that this is all pissing in the wind, since it is unlikely to ever happen, but it is an interesting thought experiment.
So citizens have an expectation that states will have a bascially consistent set of laws under which they can live.
I think the reasons for more or less consistent state laws result from the following two factors rather than the reasons you suggest (equal protection or supremacy clause):
I states generate similar bodies of law as a result of two factors: (1) consistency with neighboring states makes a state relatively less unattractive for purposes of business investment (bizarre local laws being a negative qualification) and (2) commissions on uniform laws, which draft model statutes for adoption by various states.
(the supreme court has taken cases which test the ability of states to "pioneer" new kinds of law, and this is contentious I believe)
I'd be interested to hear more about this -- I'm not sure what you mean, but it sounds interesting.
Therefore, while it might be easy to get some measures passed (ones that no one would conceivably object to), other more controversial measures might be quite difficult.
Can you say "natives getting restless?" This is the real political problem -- the locals would truly and greatly resent the carpetbaggers.
Just look at the medical marijuana thing in CA. The state says that it's ok, but the federal government says it isn't. And what happens? People get arrested for using and distributing it. Federal law has supremacy over local/state law, regardless of how charitable or well-intentioned.
This is not even close to being over yet, and it is getting more interesting. I understand that there is a referendum in SF that will authorize either the city or county to grow marijuana for distribution for medical purposes. This is much, much different than having cooperatives or private citizens do this, and it puts the feds and the state directly at odds. There will be an interesting supremacy clause fight which I expect the feds to win, but it will definitely be interesting.
The problem with the supremacy clause is that it is very, very useful and that it has done enormous good in both: (1) creating a huge market in the several states and (2) in protecting individual rights, especially as (most of) the Bill of Rights guarantees were extended from simply being federal vs. individual protections to being federal and state vs. individual protections.
The concept that the Bill of Rights did not protect individuals from actions by their state government against them is alien to most people today, but that is how it was for most of the history of the US. The feds couldn't suppress your 1st amendment rights, but the state you lived in could, for instance. It took an activist Supreme Court and a rather expansive reading of the 14th Amendment during (mostly) the Twenties to get this done. For the first hundred and thirty or so years, the Bill of Rights did nothing to stop the state of Pennsylvania from oppressing its own citizens, for instance. It was only the feds who were so constrained.
We truly had two governments sharing dominion over each citizen - a federal form of government. Now, it is much more Federal-heavy, but that also probably led somewhat to the end of Jim Crow and civil rights abuses against politically unpopular groups (mostly thought of in the popular conciousness as taking place in the south).
Keep in mind that it took a long time for the US to get where it is, and that changing things takes a long time. If things do suddenly change in our political landscape, it is likely to occur in response to some calamity and in great haste. Unfortunately, without time to reflect, the job usually gets botched.
Consider the differences between the Articles of Confederation and the US Constitution. The Articles were written while Continental Congress was in exile in York, Pennsylvania and Philadelphia and New York were occupied. The great thinkers of the time were literally on the run and very unsettled. The document they hammered out lasted about ten years.
By the time the war was over, it became obvious that the Articles were unworkable and that something new was needed. The leading men of the time were brought together to come up with a new plan. They met in Philadelphia and did not have to concern themselves with the war or with their personal safety. Time and reflection were given to the issue, and the Constitution was written. Then it was discussed and haggled over during the ratification period, giving us the Federalist (and the prescient Anti-Federalist) Papers. The Constitution has been much more resilient.
Of course, this is history on the back of a cereal box, but the point remains -- a ship of state is an enormous thing for which the course can be but slowly changed.
In any case, the utopian idea presented is not workable or likely to accomplish much. I think it is useful to contemplate why such an exercise seems to so many to be an attractive idea, however. Then, work locally to try to change attitudes and policies.
It is not an eastern egg. It is not even an easter egg. It is an actual thing that many folks tried doing several years back -- ask MS for refunds for the OEM versions of Windows that were replaced by GNU/Linux or OS/2, etc. The first link shown by Google is a "real" thing.
How do we know that any of Apple's "switch" stories aren't simply made up?
We don't. On an Ellen Feiss fansite, there are allegations that her story was pretty much made up. While the source may be questionable, it is not as if Apple is somehow immune from fudging the facts or "puffing" when marketing.
Marketing is marketing. Most of it is bullshit attempts to get people to buy something by any means necessary. This is usually accomplished by a soft sell that makes you think that you can get or become something you want by using the product or service presented. Drink C00rs Light? Get "the twins". Advertisers never seem to focus on: "Drink C00rs light? Get the shits."
MSFT took the photo of a youngish, attractive, but not overly sexy woman presented as a successful professional (our collective idealized version of a smart, competant, sexy woman), and pimped their product. Surprised? I'm not.
As for overall corporate morals, MSFT got busted for being sleazy. So did Palm (on the screen thing). Apple might be busted sometime, too. Come to think of it, not once by using an Apple product have I thwarted Big Brother.
He's probably looking at "total cost of ownership" numbers. These include support costs, training costs, etc. I've seen some TCO numbers recently that suggest otherwise (that GNU/Linux actually has a cheaper TCO than Windows), but that's part of the nature of this sort of "number".
A number appears to be an objective measurement, but the method of arriving at the number is subject to much fiddling. I don't think that TCO will ever be settled because it's witchcraft. MS would obviously prefer to avoid licensing costs as a measurement of "cost". TCO gives them a chance to claim that GNU/Linux is actually more expensive.
It might be wrong, it might not. Look for the source of TCO studies and try to decide who to trust as an objective judge. Even that has problems.
Basically, the short answer is that MS is touting TCO rather than licensing costs. TCO is a gordian knot. The truth could well go either way for all I know.
As far as our shop goes, we like free software for the beer and the freedom, and since we are GNU/Linux-based, TCO would work against MS anyway. Hard to tell what the case would be if we were MS-based.
I never used to use Macs. I used Another Os (tm). I got rid of it so that I could take advantage of the new, easy modern operating system that Apple has put together with slick-looking, integrated hardware.
But then I decided I wanted to modify it to try to work better by doing a basic hardware upgrade using inexpensive non-proprietary hardware, like I used to do all the time.
Anyway, I was asked by Apple to do this "Switcher" ad, but I decided that I really resented having to stick with the proprietary hardware offerings. I also got worried that they would put Lik-sang or CDW or somebody out of business when I decide to install a non-airport wi-fi card. So I decided not to switch, and I stuck with software that lets me choose the hardware I want to use without having to dick around.
My name is guaf-foo, and I support open hardware and software.
> Over the weekend, I heard analyst say that if > AOL had not purchased Time/Warner, the > Time/Warner stock would be around $40 and AOL > would be around $4. Right now, AOL is at $11.89.
I have always thought that AOL was never in the business of selling internet access. It was in the business of selling AOL stock.
Because I own parts of a couple of various businesses, I get a pile of free magazines, including "Inc." "Inc." is for "growing businesses" and "entrepreneurs". Lovely people, those. Unfortunately, the writers at "Inc." are horribly out of synch with real live american small businesses. One example of this was the Inc article where it was discussed how one whould "market" a company for sale. Lo and behold, the company's products and business weren't the interesting thing anymore, the company itself was being marketed. AOL should have been listed in this article as the ultimate example of this. It made the owners of AOL billions.
AOL shareholders had no way to justify the valuation of their ISP/online service based on revenues or expected future profits (the traditional model of valuation). The ISP business is hard: it is low margin, price-sensitive, the barriers to entry are low, it is basically unregulated, and you're at the mercy of the ILECs. AOL has all these problems -- it's not just other ISPs.
"Ordinary" dial-up ISPs might sell privately today for $100-$150 a subscriber, and maybe $250-$350 during the bubble. AOL was valued at about $2,500. AOL didn't run from that -- it brayed repeatedly about how its size and scale were so valuable and about how controlling the onramps to the internet was so valuable. But they feared that the game would be up before that value could be locked in.
So...faced with the prospect of having all their paper wealth evaporate, Case et al ginned up the idea of using a stock purchase deal to buy some legitimate assets. This made perfect sense, and I argued with some friends that more tech bubble babies should have done this.
AOL could have bought GM or Chrysler or any number of major banks. Instead, they had to buy something with a tenuous connection to an ISP: a media company with a bunch of cable assets. Bingo. Content and a means to deliver (at some as-yet-undetermined date) high speed access and new services.
As with most ill-conceived mergers of large companies, the big thing was "synergy." If you are unfamiliar with it, "synergy" is the modern financial philosopher's stone that auto-magically turns horseshit into honey. (Look for HP/Compaq to have either horseshit or honey coming out of its ears sometime in the next couple of years -- I suspect you know where my bet is).
AOL essentially pimped itself so well that it fooled the stodgy old dorks at Time Warner (who feared and still fear that technology will impoverish them) that not only would AOL save them, it would make everyone filthy rich. It didn't. In essence, AOL gave some (not so) magic beans in exchange for the Time Warner cash cows. Time Warner was fleeced. They probably lost more in the stock market bubble than anyone else in the world.
I wonder if former Time/Warner stock holders feel like idiots for approving the merger.
What do you think?
Note: I have no problems with how any of this went down -- everyone involved had smart advisors and lawyers and accountants. Time Warner people aren't sympathetic victims -- they just made a horrible decision about a business that they just really didn't understand, IMHO. I do not consider this to be an indictment of AOL or Time Warner. It's just an interesting story to me.
Will I be able to jockey files back and forth between my friend's computer and my own?
To do this, why not just get a USB external drive enclosure for IDE drives or for old laptop drives(around $25-$30) and an old el-cheapo laptop hard drive from a computer show? For about $50, you can get several megs of file jockeying. No need to barf up $300 for an audio device to do this. Maybe to kill two birds with one stone, but just for sheer jockeying, it's not worth it.
...part of the fun is doing other stuff with it and the community/culture of hacking it to do other stuff besides just play MP3 files. How much fun will the Nomad provide, and will it be able to generate the same sort of interest?
i wonder what the bastard will smell like.. if it isn't pleasant, might take a while to gain acceptance.
then again, if it smells like garbage, maybe it could attract flies, and maybe the flies could feed it.. ah, that would be funny.
Many people already use home composters and vermiculture (earthworms) as means of disposing of (non-meat) food waste. If taken care of properly, they do not smell and do not attract flies. I do both, and there is no smell and there is little work involved.
I suspect that the jonk-powered battery will similarly work without odor. In fact, I suspect that would be a design requirement.
Let me use my palm with it, or put a USB BT adapter into a clients PC and I'd be consultant from heaven, one little iPod with ALL my needed data!
It looks like you're looking to have your storage, your palm, and your client's computer all able to access everything more or less simultaneously.
I have a suggestion that may be cheaper than what you propose:
1. A firewire or USB laptop drive enclosure ($20-$50) with an el-cheapo old laptop drive (maybe $50.00 for a few gigs) 2. A USB IR port 3. Palm Pilot
If you have to stick something into a client's computer anyway (the aforementioned USB BT card), just plug in the drive to a USB or firewire port and plug in the USB IR card.
Surely, there is an app allowing you to do some "Direct Connect" type stuff with the palm to the client PC, and the data transfers would be from the USB drive to the client computer and vice-versa. The IR port would just handle commands -- it wouldn't do any heavy-lifting.
The software side of this is what I am not sure about, but Pebbles looks promising. FWIW, the Pebbles team suggests the serial port be used rather than IR. Bluetooth support is evidently on the way.
Generally speaking, in today's America, the most wealthy are the least productive.
They're the ones whose forefathers claimed land from the native americans, and profited by default because they were 'first'. Or had a great grandfather that invented something, or filmed something, or wrote something.
Prove it. What data supports your assertion?
Study after study has shown that the US has enormous social mobility. There is some wealth that is inherited, but much, much more is the result of innovation and industry. Look at the Forbes list -- very little "old" money. Most is first or second generation, especially near the top. Why? Risk generates return. Trust funds don't risk, and they fall behind.
Gates, Ballmer, Paul Allen, Dell, Buffett, Ellison, Oprah, Martha Stewart, Omidyar, Trump, Huizenga, the Waltons, Steve Case, McNealy, Leon Levine, the Yahoo! guys... Where are all the Vanderbilts? Quick, somebody Google me the Forbes 500!
If the Forbes 500 list doesn't do it for you (let's assume that all the wealth is actually in the unreported slots of 501 through ??), then show me the citation to a reputable study that cooncludes as you do, that wealth (really raw land and timber) seized from the aboriginal Americans resulted in long-lasting dynastic wealth for a lucky few.
When I read the title to the parent in this thread, I thought to myself, "I can't believe this crap got modded up." Upon further reflection, there is something of a point to be made.
> High school kids coming out with MCSE's, places > you can get a CCNA quick, or A+ certification > that just seems like a joke to any old-school > type. These people are the "new geek chic" and > they're anything but.
After having RTFA, the Standard editorial giving rise to this item on/. can be reduced to the following, IMHO:
"Geeks are now a special interest lobbying group, whereas before they were a cultural phenomenon."
To me, this accounts for the coalescing of what had been a cultural phenomenon around a sort of common themes and political aspirations. There is an established culture. It is primarily anti-capitalist in economics and pro-libertarian vis-a-vis individual rights.
Summarizing the geek culture in general terms of course does not sweep every individual into lockstep with those ideas, but the broad cultural trends are undeniably there. We all know which way the wind blows on/.
As far as the geek chic thing goes, I don't see it as a cultural phenomenon. People look for opportunity and "e" anything seemed like the land of milk and honey for a while. That is going through a natural (and welcome) correction right now through typical economic feedback loops. Hopefully, the wheat will be separated from the chaff. Unfortunately, there are lots of human and political costs that result from the upheaval of a boom/bust cycle like we just had. Sorry if you got laid off, but many IT jobs just shouldn't have existed in the last several years.
The prior poster bemoans certifications as diluting the geek culture that predated and gave rise to what he/she/it termed "geek chic." Let me Cliff Claven that for a minute, too:
Certification is useful as a specialized population of knowledge workers grows -- personal contact no longer serves to differentiate dedication to a craft. Certification provides a rough proxy to the dedication aspect (i.e. "I am willing to spend beaucoup bucks on cram courses and tests") but it does not dictate that one with a certification is qualified for pouring piss out of boots.
In many respects, even a four year college education falls into this category -- you need to have it, but it doesn't mean you can do anything after you get it. It is a exclusionary qualification -- if you don't have it, you're fucked. If you do have it, you have doors opened.
In a general reply to your post, I think your underlying assumption is wrong: geek chic never existed. It was all about the money and trying to avoid looking like a poseur. On the bright side, the reversal of IT's economic fortunes may slow some of the changes you bemoan. Unfortunately, I don't see that genie ever going back into the bottle.
As for myself, when I stopped seeing fat guys with beards, suspenders, and flannel shirts at trade shows, I knew the sharks were in the water and something more pure and carefree had been lost. I'll miss it.
any one that is even allowed to even get near law enforcement in this area show have some kind of technology background, judges and jury included
I think that this is a good idea. There are specialized courts for a number of particular and common legal issues. For instance, Maryland has a court that handles construction disputes (the infamous and all too common "breakfast nook gone bad" scenarios). Bankruptcy courts are likewise set apart from the general court systems in federal courts. I believe that Delaware, and some other states that now escape me, have also set up business courts to handle disputes between businesses.
As a practicing attorney and a founder of a small ISP, I see a fair amount of ignorance among the bar and bench about technology issues. For many attorneys, a basic task such as addressing email, chat room logs, and computer data files in discovery is not done or often overlooked.
It is hard for me to see the benefit of having local jurisdictions set up or to train individual staffers to deal with technology-related issues. The overhead in setting up even a single judge, DA, and PD with these skills would, in many locales where there may be a single judge for an entire county and a part-time DA (as is the case in much of rural PA, for instance) whould be absurd.
I think an ideal approach to this problem may be to set up a federal court coterminous with federal jurisdictions to handle these cases. Local cases could be removed to the federal court when certain criteria are involved, such as a significant issue in the case being technology-related. Being charged with conspiracy to distribute and/or possess child pornography through an eGroups (now Yahoo! Groups) mailing list would, IMHO, certainly qualify. I see no reason not to have criminal and civil cases both being handled by such a court. Perhaps simply appointing a single judge (or more if necessary)with specialized qualifications to an appellate region might do the trick, too. I see this as being a natural extension of the existing specialty area of intellectual property, although criminal matters don't fit in nicely with that.
One of the benefits to a specialized court would be that court rules, discovery, and other issues could be adjusted to cater to the special needs of technology issues. A "technology court" (copyright guacamolefoo, 2002) would also benefit from having lifetime appointed judges, as is the case with the federal bench. Having someone on the job for a while would be very useful, as acquiring practical knowledge of the underlying technological issues would be invaluable to plaintiffs, defendants, and prosecutors. In addition, bar admission guidelines could be set up requiring certain qualifications of attorneys before they would be permitted to practice before the court, a la patent lawyers.
The current court system is poorly equipped to handle technology disputes when the most important participants have so little knowledge. This raises real and serious due process issues in my mind. I wonder whether justice can be served by the blind leading the ignorant.
look for these items for the next 5 yrs...
on
Slashdot Turns 5
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· Score: 0, Flamebait
Congrats. You've outlasted @home, pets.com, and many others. Not as outstanding an accomplishment as that might seem, given their idiocy and hubris, but commendable. A good time for reflection and speculation.
Here's looking forward to five more years of:
1. Trolls: enough said.
2. First post: enough said.
3. Stories run over and over: even if it is not the same "news" item, I know I can look forward to endless stories like "Linux made to run on Potato Clock!" and articles disparaging anything Microsoft, such as "Windows instumental in kidnapping of Lindbergh baby!" I'd post links to the websites, but they'd surely get slashdotted.
4. Techno-lefty anticapitalism whining: "Whhaaaaa!!! I don't like patents ro copyrights!!!! Intellectual property is just a construct of the bourgeosie to keep the man down!!!! I want my warez!!!"
5. Anti-corporate whining: "Whhaaaaaa!!! My company just canned me and sent my job to India!!!" or "That darn RIAA wants to make money from the intellectual property it owns!!! It's so, like, unfair that I have to pay for intellectual property. It should, like, be free or something! Why can't I just steal it and spend the money from my pets.com stock on something else I want?"
6. Anti-Republican whining: "That Ashcroft! He's a white devil! I just know he sodomizes babies after he's done handling snakes for that kooky religious cult he belongs to! He's surely being paid off by big corporate money to put his jack-boot on the neck of the little guys just trying to steal music!" or "That Bush! He's not really the President, you know, he like stole the election or something! All those Republicans are thieves or crooks, I just know it! I read it right here in "Lingusitic Analysis of the Lies and Deviltry of that Moron, George W. Bush" by Noam Chomsky."
7. Whining: "I submitted this article already, but it was rejected!" and "moderation is so, like, unfair and stuff!" and "meta-moderation is so, like, even more unfair and stuff!"
8. Time wasting: see my entire worthless post.
9. Misinformation: "All Republicans are crooks" and "Microsoft is seeking to enslave society".
10. Religious wars: "BSD is dead!" "Nu-uh!" "Is too!" "OS X is BSD, so it's not dead, it's stronger than ever!" "No, OS X is not really BSD, is a BSD-like operating systems with some passing similarities to BSD. It's more like Apple/BSD."
and
"Linux is wayyyyy cooler than NT/2000/XP" "Wait, that should be GNU/linux" "No, It's GNU/Linux" "Well my buddy just calls it Debian" "He must be an apostate or a prostate or prostrate or something...I just read it in the GNU fax on GNU/Linux: 5.2.1(a) subsection 4.33, to wit: "Thou shalt pull from the Holy Hand Grenade one pin and thou shalt count to three, no more and no less, but three, and then thou shalt cast the Holy Hand Grenade at the apostate who referreth to GNU/Linux or its messiah, Richard M. Stallman by any sacreligious name differing from that of the sacred name GNU/Linux and GNU/Christ respectively. Upon the combustion and explosion of the Holy Hand Grenande on or about the person of the apostate, the apostate shall be therefore and henceforth cleansed of all commercial software sin and shall rise again on the third day with the blessing of the GNU/Christ, our savior."
11. Natalie [Portman] Hershlag's tits: Really guys, they aren't all that great anyway. I've seen fuller and more shapely optical mice.
I'm sure that there's more, but I'm already somewhat sick to my stomach. I have work to do, too.
Several issues come to mind, so allow me to hazard some guesses as to why PCs are not obviously the platform of choice:
1) Support costs for consoles are virtually nil. Even if gross revenues for console games are lower, the higher margins can result in higher profits. I am unfamiliar with licensing costs for PC vs. console. Perhaps someone will enlighten me...
2) The console base is huge and largely stable -- new features pop up less frequently. I suspect it is simply easier to plan for game development in the console arena vs. the PC arena.
3) Users like having things work well. PC games, because of system differences and software interactions and conflicts, often are buggy, require patches, blah, blah, blah. From my personal consumer perspective, I think games simply run more reliably on consoles.
4) PCs will not disappear (from the gaming world), but they may become less relevant as consoles get more complex. Right now, I'd hate to play something like Civil War Generals 2 (a personal favorite of mine) on a console. Graphics are not as good. There are lots of problems with consoles. I suspect Sony and MSFT will try to address each of these sorts of concerns going forward, but it will take time.
5) Consoles are cheaper and need less frequent upgrades to play "new" games. My Playstation outlived two computers, and I am not a new computer fanatic.
6) As processing, memory, and storage space become more and more trivial, the age of a general purpose machine that does everything sort of well seems to me to be losing ground to more efficient (smaller, cheaper, quieter, more reliable) machines specifically tailored for a particular purpose.
I don't think this means the end of general purpose hardware, but perhaps the days of being the "top dog" platform are, and should be, over. A caveat is that, from a free as in freedom perspective, this is not something I see as good. Otherwise, it makes sense viewed as a market response to the gaming world of today.
I'd be willing to bet these same people pay for at least extended basic cable--I'm the only person I know who pays for cable and only gets pure basic, and that's because our reception is horrible at my house. Those same people may very well drive newish cars, buy new clothes with a fair frequency, and shell out $40 a month for a 4000 evening minutes that they don't actually use.
The items you listed above each represent some sort of value that the consumer perceives. The cell phone may include free long-distance. The cable is a marked improvement in selection over what is available over the air. Cars are, well, cars. They are status symbols as well as functional things (my Accord has 183,000 iles -- I'm not after style points, but I understand some are so motivated).
Broadband does not, for most people, represent a valuable thing to many people (though the cost of AOL + a dedicated line is not much cheaper where I live). I have a need to downloan ISO files, remotely administer servers, etc. Most people just check their mail and chat. Until ANSI gets grossly larger, narrowband will work fine. Even most web pages are ok -- it isn't really useful to present more than a certain amount of written information on a screen at one time. Pictures likewise are usable enough that I don't see great leaps forward as being more than marginally beneficial.
Some great holy grail of interactive multimedia has always been made out to be the Holy Grail of various kinds of broadband, whether it be movies on demand or interactive TV or something. I think those are red herrings.
Also, watching moving pictures and reading text simultaneously don't really work well together from a biological visual perspective. Try watching the action (talking heads) on CNBC and reading the ticker symbols scrolling at the bottom. It won't work -- we're just not wired that way.
Unless you need to move big files or want to run servers, broadband to the home isn't really a big deal. There is no need.
Technology proponents have to be careful sometimes. There's an enormous "build it and they will come" idea that is just plain wrong. You build it for the people who want it and who are willing to pay premium prices for it, and then you lower prices and add features until it becomes mass market. If the latter doesn't happen, you have a niche product.
One problem is that broadband is a network, and it requires more users to me more useful. There's no way 25 million people today would pay $25.00 a month to connect to an internet of say, 1995.
The only real use I see as being likely to drive broadband today (things will change in the future, as always) is connecting home offices to corporate networks. Businesses will pay for useful services and broadband is one of these for businesses. Companies can lower travel costs and increase productivity with remote employee offices. Telecommuting as a way of life is something I see more people doing, and the ability to do it with broadband vs. narrowband is exponentially better.
In short, my critique of the article is that broadband is not too expensive, it is just that there is no use for it. Who is to say whether a 40-ton dumptruck is too expensive because it isn't being adopted by consumers? Broadband, while nifty and neat-o, simply is not competing effectively for increasingly precious discretionary spending dollars in consumer households.
> So everyone can remove the "dirty bits" of > DVDs. For the right-wingers, that's kissing, > nipples, evolution. For the test of us - Jar > Jar.
After watching the almost completely unwatchable "Attack of the Clones" I decided that Jar Jar, while annoying, was not nearly as annoying as the awful, truly bejeezusly awful, Anakin/Amidala love subplot. The dialogue is laugh out loud awful and that acting either flat (Amidala) or just teen-angst bad (Anakin).
My edit goes to that. Jar Jar is, in comparison, a minor annoyance, on a level with the cackling rat thing in Jabba's throne room in RotJ.
> I'm still using two 20 year old TVs (a 25" > Zenith and a 13" Hitachi with a completely > manual tuner
I didn't realize it until I read your post, but my TV is closer to 20 years old than it is to 15. Yikes. I tremble to think about how many hours of my life I've wasted in front of that fucking thing.
> How is this surprising? That one on one > training works better than mass class training?
Not surprising at all. The significant difference is not the level of attention the teacher can pay to the student, but rather the fact that a teacher can plan for that student rather than trying to hit either (1) the lowest common denominator or (2) the bestest for the mostest. Individualized educational direction and plans seem to me to be the real benefit of extremely small class sizes (of one or two).
> Also lets not just assume the teachers of the > home schooled child are necessarily a lay > person. Many are unusually intelligent. Hence > the decision.
My experience with home schoolers has been that they are largely ordinary people with singular dedication, concern for their children, and involvement in their lives. They are ur-parents, for whom the PTA is a bunch of ineffective pussies. Brain-wise, I can make no real effective generalization.
> My child (and yes, I have one) will not be > taught at school much at school, except the > important things I cannot teach. > Like how to get along with other kids. How to > pull girls hair. When to accept, and when to > challenge. How to be your own person.
(1) I am not sure whether you mean that your child will go to public school or not. Mine will not. (2) You most definitely will be able to teach your child how to be his own person. What that person turns out to be will be less determinable, but teaching critical thinking, logic, self-reliance, and independence are certainly within the scope of things kids learn from parents.
> These lessons are valuable.
I agree.
>I would certainly expect my child to be able to > read long before he hits school.
Ditto. Everyone in my family learned to read before kindergarten. I have a vivid recollection of being asked to read an excerpt from the World Book encyclopedia about Columbus on Columbus Day to my class in first grade. I remember stumbling a lot and being extremely self-consciouus about not being able to read very well. I didn't realize that I was being put on display to show the rest of the class, none of whom were readers, that little kids could read.
> Not by forcing him to learn, or by "teaching" > him.
I've often felt that true "teaching" cannot be "force feeding" -- it is more like being a guide. The absolute best education results from a love or affinity for the subject matter. There are things you must learn which are not enjoyable, but the things you learn the most easily and stick with you the best (other than not to touch hot stoves) are the things that you enjoy.
Learning should also be taught as a process and an end in itself (to an extent) rather than as an obstacle that needs to be overcome. Anyone working in a knowledge business who stops learning these days, at any point, is asking for irrelevance in five years or less. If you are not working in a knowledge business, you are simply betting that you can make a decent living for long enough that your pending irrelevance doesn't cast you into poverty (that sounds sort of biblical in a most anti-biblical manner). Knowledge is power, and that trend is only accelerating.
> But by reading with him.
The most important thing you can do. No question in my mind.
> Watching Discovery channel with him.
Throw out your tv or turn it on only for things you specifically plan to watch. TV is one of the most enormous wastes of life that ever existed. If I had it to do over again, I would, as a kid, have watched Bugs Bunny but I would have passed on pretty much everything else and gone out and played outside. Youth is too precious to waste on TV.
> Talking about things, answering his questions. > That's one of the major roles a parent plays, I > feel.
Ditto, except I "think" that instead of "feeling" it. I really hate that phrase: "I feel..." I'm guilty of it as well, but it just strikes me as anti-intellectual and sort of gooey.
> Teaching should not be the job of schools. It
Teaching should be the job of schools. That's what my taxes pay for. I am not paying for daycare. If those kids have to be under lock and key for 6-8 hours, they'd better be learning something other than how to peck an order, fuck, fight, do drugs, and slither through life doing the minimum.
That schools should teach (what an amazing idea!) does not mean that parents should not teach their kids or that kids will obtain most of their education from attending public school. It simply means that the public school (safety net that it is) should be able to provide some sort of basic fundamental education appropriate on some level to each kid that is compelled by law to serve time there.
Slashdot Mirror
The deciding factor in whether or not something like this will be successful, is how the courts (and supreme court) interpret the freedom of a state to create and practice law widely different than the 49 other states.
Like Louisiana? They have strong remnants of a roman law system, left over from French rule prior to the Louisiana Purchase. They seem to get by fine. It's not all common law everywhere, either.
Remember that in the constitution, it is stated that no citizen shall be denied equal protection of rights, and importantly, that federal law is supreme when Congress speaks to a question of law (trumping state law).
The federal constitution generally provides a baseline for freedom -- state constitutions can go further and provide additional freedoms. You have stronger 4th amendment-style rules in place in a number of states than you do by default federal law. For a "freedom-loving" state, the real trouble will be in the supremacy clause, which you rightly identified.
Nevertheless, there are some ways around the supremacy clause.
First, just refuse federal funds. This is a huge sword of Damocles that hangs over every state on things like (1) drinking ages (2) DUI BAC limits (3) educational funds, etc. If states simply weaned themselves from the federal tit, it might go a long way to showing other states that it can be done. A small state is in a much better position to do this than a large one. Also, I think a more rural state would be more likely to do well in this way.
Second, make the feds do their own law enforcement. I have sometimes wondered what would happen if state courts and officers refused (by directive of state law) to allow the feds to have access to state courts and state officers (sheriffs) to enforce things like tax liens. Tom some extent I think that this is all pissing in the wind, since it is unlikely to ever happen, but it is an interesting thought experiment.
So citizens have an expectation that states will have a bascially consistent set of laws under which they can live.
I think the reasons for more or less consistent state laws result from the following two factors rather than the reasons you suggest (equal protection or supremacy clause):
I states generate similar bodies of law as a result of two factors:
(1) consistency with neighboring states makes a state relatively less unattractive for purposes of business investment (bizarre local laws being a negative qualification) and (2) commissions on uniform laws, which draft model statutes for adoption by various states.
(the supreme court has taken cases which test the ability of states to "pioneer" new kinds of law, and this is contentious I believe)
I'd be interested to hear more about this -- I'm not sure what you mean, but it sounds interesting.
Therefore, while it might be easy to get some measures passed (ones that no one would conceivably object to), other more controversial measures might be quite difficult.
Can you say "natives getting restless?" This is the real political problem -- the locals would truly and greatly resent the carpetbaggers.
Just look at the medical marijuana thing in CA. The state says that it's ok, but the federal government says it isn't. And what happens? People get arrested for using and distributing it. Federal law has supremacy over local/state law, regardless of how charitable or well-intentioned.
This is not even close to being over yet, and it is getting more interesting. I understand that there is a referendum in SF that will authorize either the city or county to grow marijuana for distribution for medical purposes. This is much, much different than having cooperatives or private citizens do this, and it puts the feds and the state directly at odds. There will be an interesting supremacy clause fight which I expect the feds to win, but it will definitely be interesting.
The problem with the supremacy clause is that it is very, very useful and that it has done enormous good in both: (1) creating a huge market in the several states and (2) in protecting individual rights, especially as (most of) the Bill of Rights guarantees were extended from simply being federal vs. individual protections to being federal and state vs. individual protections.
The concept that the Bill of Rights did not protect individuals from actions by their state government against them is alien to most people today, but that is how it was for most of the history of the US. The feds couldn't suppress your 1st amendment rights, but the state you lived in could, for instance. It took an activist Supreme Court and a rather expansive reading of the 14th Amendment during (mostly) the Twenties to get this done. For the first hundred and thirty or so years, the Bill of Rights did nothing to stop the state of Pennsylvania from oppressing its own citizens, for instance. It was only the feds who were so constrained.
We truly had two governments sharing dominion over each citizen - a federal form of government. Now, it is much more Federal-heavy, but that also probably led somewhat to the end of Jim Crow and civil rights abuses against politically unpopular groups (mostly thought of in the popular conciousness as taking place in the south).
Keep in mind that it took a long time for the US to get where it is, and that changing things takes a long time. If things do suddenly change in our political landscape, it is likely to occur in response to some calamity and in great haste. Unfortunately, without time to reflect, the job usually gets botched.
Consider the differences between the Articles of Confederation and the US Constitution. The Articles were written while Continental Congress was in exile in York, Pennsylvania and Philadelphia and New York were occupied. The great thinkers of the time were literally on the run and very unsettled. The document they hammered out lasted about ten years.
By the time the war was over, it became obvious that the Articles were unworkable and that something new was needed. The leading men of the time were brought together to come up with a new plan. They met in Philadelphia and did not have to concern themselves with the war or with their personal safety. Time and reflection were given to the issue, and the Constitution was written. Then it was discussed and haggled over during the ratification period, giving us the Federalist (and the prescient Anti-Federalist) Papers. The Constitution has been much more resilient.
Of course, this is history on the back of a cereal box, but the point remains -- a ship of state is an enormous thing for which the course can be but slowly changed.
In any case, the utopian idea presented is not workable or likely to accomplish much. I think it is useful to contemplate why such an exercise seems to so many to be an attractive idea, however. Then, work locally to try to change attitudes and policies.
Just my $.02.
guac-foo.
It is not an eastern egg. It is not even an easter egg. It is an actual thing that many folks tried doing several years back -- ask MS for refunds for the OEM versions of Windows that were replaced by GNU/Linux or OS/2, etc. The first link shown by Google is a "real" thing.
Guac-foo
How do we know that any of Apple's "switch" stories aren't simply made up?
We don't. On an Ellen Feiss fansite, there are allegations that her story was pretty much made up. While the source may be questionable, it is not as if Apple is somehow immune from fudging the facts or "puffing" when marketing.
Marketing is marketing. Most of it is bullshit attempts to get people to buy something by any means necessary. This is usually accomplished by a soft sell that makes you think that you can get or become something you want by using the product or service presented. Drink C00rs Light? Get "the twins". Advertisers never seem to focus on: "Drink C00rs light? Get the shits."
MSFT took the photo of a youngish, attractive, but not overly sexy woman presented as a successful professional (our collective idealized version of a smart, competant, sexy woman), and pimped their product. Surprised? I'm not.
As for overall corporate morals, MSFT got busted for being sleazy. So did Palm (on the screen thing). Apple might be busted sometime, too. Come to think of it, not once by using an Apple product have I thwarted Big Brother.
guac-foo
Start a software embargo against one person?
Penalties:
First offense: 1 year MS software embargo
Second offense: 1 week MS software embargo
Third offense: Compelled to use MS software for life.
guac-foo
He's probably looking at "total cost of ownership" numbers. These include support costs, training costs, etc. I've seen some TCO numbers recently that suggest otherwise (that GNU/Linux actually has a cheaper TCO than Windows), but that's part of the nature of this sort of "number".
A number appears to be an objective measurement, but the method of arriving at the number is subject to much fiddling. I don't think that TCO will ever be settled because it's witchcraft. MS would obviously prefer to avoid licensing costs as a measurement of "cost". TCO gives them a chance to claim that GNU/Linux is actually more expensive.
It might be wrong, it might not. Look for the source of TCO studies and try to decide who to trust as an objective judge. Even that has problems.
Basically, the short answer is that MS is touting TCO rather than licensing costs. TCO is a gordian knot. The truth could well go either way for all I know.
As far as our shop goes, we like free software for the beer and the freedom, and since we are GNU/Linux-based, TCO would work against MS anyway. Hard to tell what the case would be if we were MS-based.
guac-foo
I never used to use Macs. I used Another Os (tm). I got rid of it so that I could take advantage of the new, easy modern operating system that Apple has put together with slick-looking, integrated hardware.
But then I decided I wanted to modify it to try to work better by doing a basic hardware upgrade using inexpensive non-proprietary hardware, like I used to do all the time.
Anyway, I was asked by Apple to do this "Switcher" ad, but I decided that I really resented having to stick with the proprietary hardware offerings. I also got worried that they would put Lik-sang or CDW or somebody out of business when I decide to install a non-airport wi-fi card. So I decided not to switch, and I stuck with software that lets me choose the hardware I want to use without having to dick around.
My name is guaf-foo, and I support open hardware and software.
> Over the weekend, I heard analyst say that if
> AOL had not purchased Time/Warner, the
> Time/Warner stock would be around $40 and AOL
> would be around $4. Right now, AOL is at $11.89.
I have always thought that AOL was never in the business of selling internet access. It was in the business of selling AOL stock.
Because I own parts of a couple of various businesses, I get a pile of free magazines, including "Inc." "Inc." is for "growing businesses" and "entrepreneurs". Lovely people, those. Unfortunately, the writers at "Inc." are horribly out of synch with real live american small businesses. One example of this was the Inc article where it was discussed how one whould "market" a company for sale. Lo and behold, the company's products and business weren't the interesting thing anymore, the company itself was being marketed. AOL should have been listed in this article as the ultimate example of this. It made the owners of AOL billions.
AOL shareholders had no way to justify the valuation of their ISP/online service based on revenues or expected future profits (the traditional model of valuation). The ISP business is hard: it is low margin, price-sensitive, the barriers to entry are low, it is basically unregulated, and you're at the mercy of the ILECs. AOL has all these problems -- it's not just other ISPs.
"Ordinary" dial-up ISPs might sell privately today for $100-$150 a subscriber, and maybe $250-$350 during the bubble. AOL was valued at about $2,500. AOL didn't run from that -- it brayed repeatedly about how its size and scale were so valuable and about how controlling the onramps to the internet was so valuable. But they feared that the game would be up before that value could be locked in.
So...faced with the prospect of having all their paper wealth evaporate, Case et al ginned up the idea of using a stock purchase deal to buy some legitimate assets. This made perfect sense, and I argued with some friends that more tech bubble babies should have done this.
AOL could have bought GM or Chrysler or any number of major banks. Instead, they had to buy something with a tenuous connection to an ISP: a media company with a bunch of cable assets. Bingo. Content and a means to deliver (at some as-yet-undetermined date) high speed access and new services.
As with most ill-conceived mergers of large companies, the big thing was "synergy." If you are unfamiliar with it, "synergy" is the modern financial philosopher's stone that auto-magically turns horseshit into honey. (Look for HP/Compaq to have either horseshit or honey coming out of its ears sometime in the next couple of years -- I suspect you know where my bet is).
AOL essentially pimped itself so well that it fooled the stodgy old dorks at Time Warner (who feared and still fear that technology will impoverish them) that not only would AOL save them, it would make everyone filthy rich. It didn't. In essence, AOL gave some (not so) magic beans in exchange for the Time Warner cash cows. Time Warner was fleeced. They probably lost more in the stock market bubble than anyone else in the world.
I wonder if former Time/Warner stock holders feel like idiots for approving the merger.
What do you think?
Note: I have no problems with how any of this went down -- everyone involved had smart advisors and lawyers and accountants. Time Warner people aren't sympathetic victims -- they just made a horrible decision about a business that they just really didn't understand, IMHO. I do not consider this to be an indictment of AOL or Time Warner. It's just an interesting story to me.
guac-foo
For about $50, you can get several megs of file jockeying.
Heck, maybe even several gigs. Damn. My age is showing.
guac-foo.
Will I be able to jockey files back and forth between my friend's computer and my own?
To do this, why not just get a USB external drive enclosure for IDE drives or for old laptop drives(around $25-$30) and an old el-cheapo laptop hard drive from a computer show? For about $50, you can get several megs of file jockeying. No need to barf up $300 for an audio device to do this. Maybe to kill two birds with one stone, but just for sheer jockeying, it's not worth it.
guac-foo
Price from Creative is $299+s/h after rebate.
guac-foo.
per Creative, it is $299+s/h after a rebate.
The price info is pretty well buried. Had to "find a retailer" to get it.
guac-foo
...part of the fun is doing other stuff with it and the community/culture of hacking it to do other stuff besides just play MP3 files. How much fun will the Nomad provide, and will it be able to generate the same sort of interest?
And oh yeah...what about ogg? (sheesh)
guac-foo
i wonder what the bastard will smell like.. if it isn't pleasant, might take a while to gain acceptance.
then again, if it smells like garbage, maybe it could attract flies, and maybe the flies could feed it.. ah, that would be funny.
Many people already use home composters and vermiculture (earthworms) as means of disposing of (non-meat) food waste. If taken care of properly, they do not smell and do not attract flies. I do both, and there is no smell and there is little work involved.
I suspect that the jonk-powered battery will similarly work without odor. In fact, I suspect that would be a design requirement.
guac-foo.
Let me use my palm with it, or put a USB BT adapter into a clients PC and I'd be consultant from heaven, one little iPod with ALL my needed data!
It looks like you're looking to have your storage, your palm, and your client's computer all able to access everything more or less simultaneously.
I have a suggestion that may be cheaper than what you propose:
1. A firewire or USB laptop drive enclosure ($20-$50) with an el-cheapo old laptop drive (maybe $50.00 for a few gigs)
2. A USB IR port
3. Palm Pilot
If you have to stick something into a client's computer anyway (the aforementioned USB BT card), just plug in the drive to a USB or firewire port and plug in the USB IR card.
Surely, there is an app allowing you to do some "Direct Connect" type stuff with the palm to the client PC, and the data transfers would be from the USB drive to the client computer and vice-versa. The IR port would just handle commands -- it wouldn't do any heavy-lifting.
The software side of this is what I am not sure about, but Pebbles looks promising. FWIW, the Pebbles team suggests the serial port be used rather than IR. Bluetooth support is evidently on the way.
Hope this helps.
Guac-foo
Wow, talk about fallacy.
Generally speaking, in today's America, the most wealthy are the least productive.
They're the ones whose forefathers claimed land from the native americans, and profited by default because they were 'first'. Or had a great grandfather that invented something, or filmed something, or wrote something.
Prove it. What data supports your assertion?
Study after study has shown that the US has enormous social mobility. There is some wealth that is inherited, but much, much more is the result of innovation and industry. Look at the Forbes list -- very little "old" money. Most is first or second generation, especially near the top. Why? Risk generates return. Trust funds don't risk, and they fall behind.
Gates, Ballmer, Paul Allen, Dell, Buffett, Ellison, Oprah, Martha Stewart, Omidyar, Trump, Huizenga, the Waltons, Steve Case, McNealy, Leon Levine, the Yahoo! guys... Where are all the Vanderbilts? Quick, somebody Google me the Forbes 500!
If the Forbes 500 list doesn't do it for you (let's assume that all the wealth is actually in the unreported slots of 501 through ??), then show me the citation to a reputable study that cooncludes as you do, that wealth (really raw land and timber) seized from the aboriginal Americans resulted in long-lasting dynastic wealth for a lucky few.
guac-foo
If the pond was 1000 liters in volume and had a pH of 7 (unlikely) the pH would rise to approximately 12 (1000 liters ~= 275 gallons.)
To hell with liters. This is a job for acre-feet!
When I read the title to the parent in this thread, I thought to myself, "I can't believe this crap got modded up." Upon further reflection, there is something of a point to be made.
/. can be reduced to the following, IMHO:
/.
> High school kids coming out with MCSE's, places
> you can get a CCNA quick, or A+ certification
> that just seems like a joke to any old-school
> type. These people are the "new geek chic" and
> they're anything but.
After having RTFA, the Standard editorial giving rise to this item on
"Geeks are now a special interest lobbying group, whereas before they were a cultural phenomenon."
To me, this accounts for the coalescing of what had been a cultural phenomenon around a sort of common themes and political aspirations. There is an established culture. It is primarily anti-capitalist in economics and pro-libertarian vis-a-vis individual rights.
Summarizing the geek culture in general terms of course does not sweep every individual into lockstep with those ideas, but the broad cultural trends are undeniably there. We all know which way the wind blows on
As far as the geek chic thing goes, I don't see it as a cultural phenomenon. People look for opportunity and "e" anything seemed like the land of milk and honey for a while. That is going through a natural (and welcome) correction right now through typical economic feedback loops. Hopefully, the wheat will be separated from the chaff. Unfortunately, there are lots of human and political costs that result from the upheaval of a boom/bust cycle like we just had. Sorry if you got laid off, but many IT jobs just shouldn't have existed in the last several years.
The prior poster bemoans certifications as diluting the geek culture that predated and gave rise to what he/she/it termed "geek chic." Let me Cliff Claven that for a minute, too:
Certification is useful as a specialized population of knowledge workers grows -- personal contact no longer serves to differentiate dedication to a craft. Certification provides a rough proxy to the dedication aspect (i.e. "I am willing to spend beaucoup bucks on cram courses and tests") but it does not dictate that one with a certification is qualified for pouring piss out of boots.
In many respects, even a four year college education falls into this category -- you need to have it, but it doesn't mean you can do anything after you get it. It is a exclusionary qualification -- if you don't have it, you're fucked. If you do have it, you have doors opened.
In a general reply to your post, I think your underlying assumption is wrong: geek chic never existed. It was all about the money and trying to avoid looking like a poseur. On the bright side, the reversal of IT's economic fortunes may slow some of the changes you bemoan. Unfortunately, I don't see that genie ever going back into the bottle.
As for myself, when I stopped seeing fat guys with beards, suspenders, and flannel shirts at trade shows, I knew the sharks were in the water and something more pure and carefree had been lost. I'll miss it.
guac-foo.
any one that is even allowed to even get near law enforcement in this area show have some kind of technology background, judges and jury included
I think that this is a good idea. There are specialized courts for a number of particular and common legal issues. For instance, Maryland has a court that handles construction disputes (the infamous and all too common "breakfast nook gone bad" scenarios). Bankruptcy courts are likewise set apart from the general court systems in federal courts. I believe that Delaware, and some other states that now escape me, have also set up business courts to handle disputes between businesses.
As a practicing attorney and a founder of a small ISP, I see a fair amount of ignorance among the bar and bench about technology issues. For many attorneys, a basic task such as addressing email, chat room logs, and computer data files in discovery is not done or often overlooked.
It is hard for me to see the benefit of having local jurisdictions set up or to train individual staffers to deal with technology-related issues. The overhead in setting up even a single judge, DA, and PD with these skills would, in many locales where there may be a single judge for an entire county and a part-time DA (as is the case in much of rural PA, for instance) whould be absurd.
I think an ideal approach to this problem may be to set up a federal court coterminous with federal jurisdictions to handle these cases. Local cases could be removed to the federal court when certain criteria are involved, such as a significant issue in the case being technology-related. Being charged with conspiracy to distribute and/or possess child pornography through an eGroups (now Yahoo! Groups) mailing list would, IMHO, certainly qualify. I see no reason not to have criminal and civil cases both being handled by such a court. Perhaps simply appointing a single judge (or more if necessary)with specialized qualifications to an appellate region might do the trick, too. I see this as being a natural extension of the existing specialty area of intellectual property, although criminal matters don't fit in nicely with that.
One of the benefits to a specialized court would be that court rules, discovery, and other issues could be adjusted to cater to the special needs of technology issues. A "technology court" (copyright guacamolefoo, 2002) would also benefit from having lifetime appointed judges, as is the case with the federal bench. Having someone on the job for a while would be very useful, as acquiring practical knowledge of the underlying technological issues would be invaluable to plaintiffs, defendants, and prosecutors. In addition, bar admission guidelines could be set up requiring certain qualifications of attorneys before they would be permitted to practice before the court, a la patent lawyers.
The current court system is poorly equipped to handle technology disputes when the most important participants have so little knowledge. This raises real and serious due process issues in my mind. I wonder whether justice can be served by the blind leading the ignorant.
guac-foo
...until service pack 3.
Heh.
guac-foo
Congrats. You've outlasted @home, pets.com, and many others. Not as outstanding an accomplishment as that might seem, given their idiocy and hubris, but commendable. A good time for reflection and speculation.
Here's looking forward to five more years of:
1. Trolls: enough said.
2. First post: enough said.
3. Stories run over and over: even if it is not the same "news" item, I know I can look forward to endless stories like "Linux made to run on Potato Clock!" and articles disparaging anything Microsoft, such as "Windows instumental in kidnapping of Lindbergh baby!" I'd post links to the websites, but they'd surely get slashdotted.
4. Techno-lefty anticapitalism whining: "Whhaaaaa!!! I don't like patents ro copyrights!!!! Intellectual property is just a construct of the bourgeosie to keep the man down!!!! I want my warez!!!"
5. Anti-corporate whining: "Whhaaaaaa!!! My company just canned me and sent my job to India!!!" or "That darn RIAA wants to make money from the intellectual property it owns!!! It's so, like, unfair that I have to pay for intellectual property. It should, like, be free or something! Why can't I just steal it and spend the money from my pets.com stock on something else I want?"
6. Anti-Republican whining: "That Ashcroft! He's a white devil! I just know he sodomizes babies after he's done handling snakes for that kooky religious cult he belongs to! He's surely being paid off by big corporate money to put his jack-boot on the neck of the little guys just trying to steal music!" or "That Bush! He's not really the President, you know, he like stole the election or something! All those Republicans are thieves or crooks, I just know it! I read it right here in "Lingusitic Analysis of the Lies and Deviltry of that Moron, George W. Bush" by Noam Chomsky."
7. Whining: "I submitted this article already, but it was rejected!" and "moderation is so, like, unfair and stuff!" and "meta-moderation is so, like, even more unfair and stuff!"
8. Time wasting: see my entire worthless post.
9. Misinformation: "All Republicans are crooks" and "Microsoft is seeking to enslave society".
10. Religious wars: "BSD is dead!" "Nu-uh!" "Is too!" "OS X is BSD, so it's not dead, it's stronger than ever!" "No, OS X is not really BSD, is a BSD-like operating systems with some passing similarities to BSD. It's more like Apple/BSD."
and
"Linux is wayyyyy cooler than NT/2000/XP" "Wait, that should be GNU/linux" "No, It's GNU/Linux" "Well my buddy just calls it Debian" "He must be an apostate or a prostate or prostrate or something...I just read it in the GNU fax on GNU/Linux: 5.2.1(a) subsection 4.33, to wit: "Thou shalt pull from the Holy Hand Grenade one pin and thou shalt count to three, no more and no less, but three, and then thou shalt cast the Holy Hand Grenade at the apostate who referreth to GNU/Linux or its messiah, Richard M. Stallman by any sacreligious name differing from that of the sacred name GNU/Linux and GNU/Christ respectively. Upon the combustion and explosion of the Holy Hand Grenande on or about the person of the apostate, the apostate shall be therefore and henceforth cleansed of all commercial software sin and shall rise again on the third day with the blessing of the GNU/Christ, our savior."
11. Natalie [Portman] Hershlag's tits: Really guys, they aren't all that great anyway. I've seen fuller and more shapely optical mice.
I'm sure that there's more, but I'm already somewhat sick to my stomach. I have work to do, too.
guac-foo or guac-fu or script-fu or something
Several issues come to mind, so allow me to hazard some guesses as to why PCs are not obviously the platform of choice:
1) Support costs for consoles are virtually nil. Even if gross revenues for console games are lower, the higher margins can result in higher profits. I am unfamiliar with licensing costs for PC vs. console. Perhaps someone will enlighten me...
2) The console base is huge and largely stable -- new features pop up less frequently. I suspect it is simply easier to plan for game development in the console arena vs. the PC arena.
3) Users like having things work well. PC games, because of system differences and software interactions and conflicts, often are buggy, require patches, blah, blah, blah. From my personal consumer perspective, I think games simply run more reliably on consoles.
4) PCs will not disappear (from the gaming world), but they may become less relevant as consoles get more complex. Right now, I'd hate to play something like Civil War Generals 2 (a personal favorite of mine) on a console. Graphics are not as good. There are lots of problems with consoles. I suspect Sony and MSFT will try to address each of these sorts of concerns going forward, but it will take time.
5) Consoles are cheaper and need less frequent upgrades to play "new" games. My Playstation outlived two computers, and I am not a new computer fanatic.
6) As processing, memory, and storage space become more and more trivial, the age of a general purpose machine that does everything sort of well seems to me to be losing ground to more efficient (smaller, cheaper, quieter, more reliable) machines specifically tailored for a particular purpose.
I don't think this means the end of general purpose hardware, but perhaps the days of being the "top dog" platform are, and should be, over. A caveat is that, from a free as in freedom perspective, this is not something I see as good. Otherwise, it makes sense viewed as a market response to the gaming world of today.
guac-foo
I'd be willing to bet these same people pay for at least extended basic cable--I'm the only person I know who pays for cable and only gets pure basic, and that's because our reception is horrible at my house. Those same people may very well drive newish cars, buy new clothes with a fair frequency, and shell out $40 a month for a 4000 evening minutes that they don't actually use.
The items you listed above each represent some sort of value that the consumer perceives. The cell phone may include free long-distance. The cable is a marked improvement in selection over what is available over the air. Cars are, well, cars. They are status symbols as well as functional things (my Accord has 183,000 iles -- I'm not after style points, but I understand some are so motivated).
Broadband does not, for most people, represent a valuable thing to many people (though the cost of AOL + a dedicated line is not much cheaper where I live). I have a need to downloan ISO files, remotely administer servers, etc. Most people just check their mail and chat. Until ANSI gets grossly larger, narrowband will work fine. Even most web pages are ok -- it isn't really useful to present more than a certain amount of written information on a screen at one time. Pictures likewise are usable enough that I don't see great leaps forward as being more than marginally beneficial.
Some great holy grail of interactive multimedia has always been made out to be the Holy Grail of various kinds of broadband, whether it be movies on demand or interactive TV or something. I think those are red herrings.
Also, watching moving pictures and reading text simultaneously don't really work well together from a biological visual perspective. Try watching the action (talking heads) on CNBC and reading the ticker symbols scrolling at the bottom. It won't work -- we're just not wired that way.
Unless you need to move big files or want to run servers, broadband to the home isn't really a big deal. There is no need.
Technology proponents have to be careful sometimes. There's an enormous "build it and they will come" idea that is just plain wrong. You build it for the people who want it and who are willing to pay premium prices for it, and then you lower prices and add features until it becomes mass market. If the latter doesn't happen, you have a niche product.
One problem is that broadband is a network, and it requires more users to me more useful. There's no way 25 million people today would pay $25.00 a month to connect to an internet of say, 1995.
The only real use I see as being likely to drive broadband today (things will change in the future, as always) is connecting home offices to corporate networks. Businesses will pay for useful services and broadband is one of these for businesses. Companies can lower travel costs and increase productivity with remote employee offices. Telecommuting as a way of life is something I see more people doing, and the ability to do it with broadband vs. narrowband is exponentially better.
In short, my critique of the article is that broadband is not too expensive, it is just that there is no use for it. Who is to say whether a 40-ton dumptruck is too expensive because it isn't being adopted by consumers? Broadband, while nifty and neat-o, simply is not competing effectively for increasingly precious discretionary spending dollars in consumer households.
I am not the least bit surprised.
guac-foo
> So everyone can remove the "dirty bits" of
> DVDs. For the right-wingers, that's kissing,
> nipples, evolution. For the test of us - Jar
> Jar.
After watching the almost completely unwatchable "Attack of the Clones" I decided that Jar Jar, while annoying, was not nearly as annoying as the awful, truly bejeezusly awful, Anakin/Amidala love subplot. The dialogue is laugh out loud awful and that acting either flat (Amidala) or just teen-angst bad (Anakin).
My edit goes to that. Jar Jar is, in comparison, a minor annoyance, on a level with the cackling rat thing in Jabba's throne room in RotJ.
guac-foo
> I'm still using two 20 year old TVs (a 25"
> Zenith and a 13" Hitachi with a completely
> manual tuner
I didn't realize it until I read your post, but my TV is closer to 20 years old than it is to 15. Yikes. I tremble to think about how many hours of my life I've wasted in front of that fucking thing.
guac-foo
> How is this surprising? That one on one
> training works better than mass class training?
Not surprising at all. The significant difference is not the level of attention the teacher can pay to the student, but rather the fact that a teacher can plan for that student rather than trying to hit either (1) the lowest common denominator or (2) the bestest for the mostest. Individualized educational direction and plans seem to me to be the real benefit of extremely small class sizes (of one or two).
> Also lets not just assume the teachers of the
> home schooled child are necessarily a lay
> person. Many are unusually intelligent. Hence
> the decision.
My experience with home schoolers has been that they are largely ordinary people with singular dedication, concern for their children, and involvement in their lives. They are ur-parents, for whom the PTA is a bunch of ineffective pussies. Brain-wise, I can make no real effective generalization.
> My child (and yes, I have one) will not be
> taught at school much at school, except the
> important things I cannot teach.
> Like how to get along with other kids. How to
> pull girls hair. When to accept, and when to
> challenge. How to be your own person.
(1) I am not sure whether you mean that your child will go to public school or not. Mine will not.
(2) You most definitely will be able to teach your child how to be his own person. What that person turns out to be will be less determinable, but teaching critical thinking, logic, self-reliance, and independence are certainly within the scope of things kids learn from parents.
> These lessons are valuable.
I agree.
>I would certainly expect my child to be able to
> read long before he hits school.
Ditto. Everyone in my family learned to read before kindergarten. I have a vivid recollection of being asked to read an excerpt from the World Book encyclopedia about Columbus on Columbus Day to my class in first grade. I remember stumbling a lot and being extremely self-consciouus about not being able to read very well. I didn't realize that I was being put on display to show the rest of the class, none of whom were readers, that little kids could read.
> Not by forcing him to learn, or by "teaching"
> him.
I've often felt that true "teaching" cannot be "force feeding" -- it is more like being a guide. The absolute best education results from a love or affinity for the subject matter. There are things you must learn which are not enjoyable, but the things you learn the most easily and stick with you the best (other than not to touch hot stoves) are the things that you enjoy.
Learning should also be taught as a process and an end in itself (to an extent) rather than as an obstacle that needs to be overcome. Anyone working in a knowledge business who stops learning these days, at any point, is asking for irrelevance in five years or less. If you are not working in a knowledge business, you are simply betting that you can make a decent living for long enough that your pending irrelevance doesn't cast you into poverty (that sounds sort of biblical in a most anti-biblical manner). Knowledge is power, and that trend is only accelerating.
> But by reading with him.
The most important thing you can do. No question in my mind.
> Watching Discovery channel with him.
Throw out your tv or turn it on only for things you specifically plan to watch. TV is one of the most enormous wastes of life that ever existed. If I had it to do over again, I would, as a kid, have watched Bugs Bunny but I would have passed on pretty much everything else and gone out and played outside. Youth is too precious to waste on TV.
> Talking about things, answering his questions.
> That's one of the major roles a parent plays, I
> feel.
Ditto, except I "think" that instead of "feeling" it. I really hate that phrase: "I feel..." I'm guilty of it as well, but it just strikes me as anti-intellectual and sort of gooey.
> Teaching should not be the job of schools. It
Teaching should be the job of schools. That's what my taxes pay for. I am not paying for daycare. If those kids have to be under lock and key for 6-8 hours, they'd better be learning something other than how to peck an order, fuck, fight, do drugs, and slither through life doing the minimum.
That schools should teach (what an amazing idea!) does not mean that parents should not teach their kids or that kids will obtain most of their education from attending public school. It simply means that the public school (safety net that it is) should be able to provide some sort of basic fundamental education appropriate on some level to each kid that is compelled by law to serve time there.
Bleh.
guac-foo