Education shouldn't have to hurt. Have you ever played with Mathematica or another technical computing platform? It can be quite entertaining making it draw shapes. And you have to use some math to do it.
Honestly if I had Mathematica back in Calculus class I think I would have been much better with that.
Of course, if all the giant iDesks are used for is to pass notes in class via instant messenger then of course it's going to be detrimental. So implementation matters quite a bit. But if they do it right, you may very well create smarter students who actually like learning.
The fact of the matter is education is changing. You now have an unprecedented access to ideas (via sites like TedTalks) and any one of the open online universities. We can take advantage of it and use technology to help kids. Or we can avoid introducing them to technology because we're not sure how it's more effective than traditional teaching methods.
But even if you ban all gadgets from the classroom, kids are still going to go home and use wikipedia to look up answers to their assignments. And then you will create a class of students who can afford technology, and those who can't. Given the amount of technology students are likely to face in the future, I think it's best if we allow kids to explore with these iDesk things.
If you're a geologist then why can't you register your shed / garage as a lab?
I can understand why you may perhaps want to keep potassium cyanide out of the hands of normal people, but it is almost certainly still being used by proper labs.
The thing you're missing out on is timeline. Checking wikipedia, modern cars were invented in 1886. Henry Ford started producing model Ts in the 1910s.
Over the course of the last 130 years patents haven't hurt cars in the slightest.
The key is that patents take a very long view of things. In 100 years your tablet will use technology from Apple that is long expired.
Yes but that's the scary thing about this whole metadata thing. If they tapped every backboned and could archive every packet it would effectively not matter you encrypted it along the way. They'd still know who you're talking to, where you surf online, the whole bit. Also, given how much crap snowden found, the scary question is what is so classified he didn't find it?
Breaking into houses takes time and resources. Much more so then if the NSA can simply watch all your chat, archive it in a huge data center in utah, and then do a search through your histories.
So when spy agencies have to work the old fashioned way, even if they disrespect the need for warrants they still can't spy on everybody. If they can just do a search through your data, they are effectively watching everyone
It's not that simple. Unemployment insurance in Europe, as in the US, is not payable if you quit, only if you get laid off.
If you get offered a job at Amazon, think "hey this sounds great" and it turns out you're working 12 hours a day you're pretty much stuck with the job waiting for something new. But trying to find a new job is difficult because interviews require time off. Even if you piss through all your vacation, it still might not be enough. Because, remember, your vacation is going to be pro rated since you just started.
So you start this nice new job, with hellish conditions, no overtime, and no option of losing it. Who can blame them for striking?
Planned obsolescence is something companies plan. Think of it, creating an exponential process for an updater would accomplish just that. In the beginning years it'd be lightning quick, but after a few years everybody would feel the new Windows is faster (even if it's only faster because it was scheduled to be that way).
In the medical equipment, Windows XP is being used in a closed environment. There's absolutely no need to move from XP to Vista so long as the software continues working.
On the other hand if the same machines start being used for daily work there would indeed be a need to upgrade.
Nah think bigger picture. NASA needs to start filming and selling zero-g porn. They'll have a virtual monopoly on the stuff and the adult industry is worth $10+ billion a year. That's twice what NASA spent on space operations in 2011.
And in case you think it's a joke, and not a commentary on how sad it is people would rather invest in seeing money shots than real science, I haz links :
(although it is cheering to know that the entire NASA budget is bigger than the porn industry, although I must admit I was a little surprised by the 3 billion spent on "cross agency support" -- what's that about?)
You should be more careful. When you realize Skynet actually evovled from google sometime before causing the dot com bust you will want the robots to be friendly to you.
Trade sanctions against china are another sort of Mutually Assured Destruction.
As they're basically the world's factory, trade sanctions would toast our economy as our factories wouldn't be able to replace capacity in China.
China also holds a huge chunk of US Assets and debt. It would be very disruptive to the US ability to finance the government if they decided to dump it.
And there you have it. We can't hurt they unless we hurt ourselves.
Old definitions of monopoly are perfectly fine to describe digital services.
If you can come up with an email service that's better than Gmail, I'd switch. Probably many other users would join me. While I do expect it to be free, i wouldn't rule out paying for something if there was value.
Same for search engines. Build me a search engine that finds stuff I want better than Google and I'll switch (as will others).
At that point, when you have the users, getting the advertisers is easy. Perhaps building such a service might require you to begin by using Google AdSense, but you could eventually switch out your own service.
The key is to get those users, you'd need to innovate. And you can't get around innovating by calling Google a Monopoly.
Are you seriously saying google has a monopoly on Marketing?
Even assuming you're talking about just online media, there are plenty of other places to market than google. If you decided to boycott google you could :
Market directly on websites relevant to your product. Selling viagra? You might consider the AARP site
Market via Facebook and their "social advertising" platform. Analysts in the know are betting whether Facebook might conquer google.
Banner ads on general interest sites people go to to waste time (I'm looking at you slashdot)
That's what I came up with in 30 seconds while taking a coffee break. I'm sure someone in the business of advertising could come up with many many more.
Google is indeed big. Huge actually. And by preventing beacons within mail, they are putting their foot down to say that if you want access to their user base, you have to go through them.
But there are plenty of alternatives to google. They're simply not a monopoly.
And, if you look at all of their initiatives like Google+, it seems they're afraid of losing you as a customers. They're branching out to stay competitive. They're afraid that Facebook is going to drink their milk shake (Facebook had revenues over $5 billion in 2012, and the bulk of it comes from Ads).
And active competition is not something a monopoly has to do.
s a monopoly tightening its grip on the market it monopolizes.
On email? You really should look up the definition of monopoly.
I use gmail because i like it. I use it because it's the best free email service I can find, and I've tried quite a few of them.
I use google search because I like it. Back in the day when new search engines were coming out I used to switch between them quite often. Remember Altavista? Jeeves?
Google is not a monopoly. They play in markets with very very low barriers to entry. And a lot of users choose to use them, despite the numerous choices out there.
If all of a sudden their search results started to suck, or I couldn't get into my email without seeing a big giant flash I'd stop using them in a heart beat. And so would many other users.
and by 'american style', i'll assume you mean 'good'. american coffee culture has, by now, matched and surpassed the european in terms of quality, diversity, and most of all, snobbery, whether you want espresso or drip/french-pressed.
Ummm.. I take it you've never been to Europe?
Espresso diluted with hot water being called an Americano is appropriate from a continental European standpoint.
Over here, an espresso is the basis for coffee. If you want a powerful espresso they use less water, and you get a ristretto. If you want a regular cafe, you get a lungo. The serving of water is done right in the machine, and is whether the barista gives you a long or short "pull" (literally on old style machines you pull a lever to put water in a piston that gets shot out through the coffee).
"Drip" coffee is generally not done. While it is possible to buy a drip set up, if you go into a restaurant or café and ask for a coffee it's a lungo from a coffee machine. And if someone invites you to their home they'll tend to have either an automatically-grind-your-own-bean espresso machine or something like a Nescafé. Or a Moka Express (delicious way to make coffee).
Now this does vary country by country. Some countries (Italy, Spain, Netherlands, France, etc.) have very good coffee cultures. You go into a cafe and you get a real cup of coffee. In these countries, you'll be hard pressed to find a starbucks. Sometimes, like here in the Netherlands, if you do find a starbucks its around a tourist area like the Airport, Central station, or a tourist attraction like the Flower Market.
Other countries like Britain have terrible coffee cultures. That's probably why in London you'll see a Starbucks pop up almost as often as Manhattan.
Either way, once you go European you'll have a hard time accepting American coffee. Even "good" American coffee.
Slashdot Mirror
Dude I've got to agree with the parent.
Education shouldn't have to hurt. Have you ever played with Mathematica or another technical computing platform? It can be quite entertaining making it draw shapes. And you have to use some math to do it.
Honestly if I had Mathematica back in Calculus class I think I would have been much better with that.
Of course, if all the giant iDesks are used for is to pass notes in class via instant messenger then of course it's going to be detrimental. So implementation matters quite a bit. But if they do it right, you may very well create smarter students who actually like learning.
The fact of the matter is education is changing. You now have an unprecedented access to ideas (via sites like TedTalks) and any one of the open online universities. We can take advantage of it and use technology to help kids. Or we can avoid introducing them to technology because we're not sure how it's more effective than traditional teaching methods.
But even if you ban all gadgets from the classroom, kids are still going to go home and use wikipedia to look up answers to their assignments. And then you will create a class of students who can afford technology, and those who can't. Given the amount of technology students are likely to face in the future, I think it's best if we allow kids to explore with these iDesk things.
If you're a geologist then why can't you register your shed / garage as a lab?
I can understand why you may perhaps want to keep potassium cyanide out of the hands of normal people, but it is almost certainly still being used by proper labs.
ARGH! KILLER PENGUINS!
The thing you're missing out on is timeline. Checking wikipedia, modern cars were invented in 1886. Henry Ford started producing model Ts in the 1910s.
Over the course of the last 130 years patents haven't hurt cars in the slightest.
The key is that patents take a very long view of things. In 100 years your tablet will use technology from Apple that is long expired.
I know, if I had known I would have done ramadan this year
...or did Beer help to create Civilization?
Obligatory futurama quote: "Civilization is just an attempt to impress the opposite sex."
Don't give them any bright ideas to justify what they're doing.
Yes but that's the scary thing about this whole metadata thing. If they tapped every backboned and could archive every packet it would effectively not matter you encrypted it along the way. They'd still know who you're talking to, where you surf online, the whole bit. Also, given how much crap snowden found, the scary question is what is so classified he didn't find it?
It's not paranoia when they really are out to get you.
The distance between paranoia and reality has narrowed considerably.
Where's +1 Sad when you need it?
Breaking into houses takes time and resources. Much more so then if the NSA can simply watch all your chat, archive it in a huge data center in utah, and then do a search through your histories.
So when spy agencies have to work the old fashioned way, even if they disrespect the need for warrants they still can't spy on everybody. If they can just do a search through your data, they are effectively watching everyone
links or it didn't happen ! ;P
It's not that simple. Unemployment insurance in Europe, as in the US, is not payable if you quit, only if you get laid off.
If you get offered a job at Amazon, think "hey this sounds great" and it turns out you're working 12 hours a day you're pretty much stuck with the job waiting for something new. But trying to find a new job is difficult because interviews require time off. Even if you piss through all your vacation, it still might not be enough. Because, remember, your vacation is going to be pro rated since you just started.
So you start this nice new job, with hellish conditions, no overtime, and no option of losing it. Who can blame them for striking?
Planned obsolescence is something companies plan. Think of it, creating an exponential process for an updater would accomplish just that. In the beginning years it'd be lightning quick, but after a few years everybody would feel the new Windows is faster (even if it's only faster because it was scheduled to be that way).
Why do you need to upgrade in the first place?
In the medical equipment, Windows XP is being used in a closed environment. There's absolutely no need to move from XP to Vista so long as the software continues working.
On the other hand if the same machines start being used for daily work there would indeed be a need to upgrade.
Nah think bigger picture. NASA needs to start filming and selling zero-g porn. They'll have a virtual monopoly on the stuff and the adult industry is worth $10+ billion a year. That's twice what NASA spent on space operations in 2011.
And in case you think it's a joke, and not a commentary on how sad it is people would rather invest in seeing money shots than real science, I haz links :
http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/659660main_NASA_FY13_Budget_Estimates-508-rev.pdf
http://www.forbes.com/2001/05/25/0524porn.html
(although it is cheering to know that the entire NASA budget is bigger than the porn industry, although I must admit I was a little surprised by the 3 billion spent on "cross agency support" -- what's that about?)
You should be more careful. When you realize Skynet actually evovled from google sometime before causing the dot com bust you will want the robots to be friendly to you.
Trade sanctions against china are another sort of Mutually Assured Destruction.
As they're basically the world's factory, trade sanctions would toast our economy as our factories wouldn't be able to replace capacity in China.
China also holds a huge chunk of US Assets and debt. It would be very disruptive to the US ability to finance the government if they decided to dump it.
And there you have it. We can't hurt they unless we hurt ourselves.
Old definitions of monopoly are perfectly fine to describe digital services.
If you can come up with an email service that's better than Gmail, I'd switch. Probably many other users would join me. While I do expect it to be free, i wouldn't rule out paying for something if there was value.
Same for search engines. Build me a search engine that finds stuff I want better than Google and I'll switch (as will others).
At that point, when you have the users, getting the advertisers is easy. Perhaps building such a service might require you to begin by using Google AdSense, but you could eventually switch out your own service.
The key is to get those users, you'd need to innovate. And you can't get around innovating by calling Google a Monopoly.
You jest but what do you think will happen globally if China starts planting flags and claiming the moon for their own personal use?
Utter rubbish. Are you saying the slashdot ads come from google AdSense? What about other sites like CNN? Where's the google adsense on Strobist?
Come to think of it I can't think of a website I regularly read with AdSense. It may be big, but it's not a monopoly.
Yes it does to maintain its monopoly. Anyone entering the market is either bought out or kicked out by the monopoly.
Maybe you could provide some examples?
Are you seriously saying google has a monopoly on Marketing?
Even assuming you're talking about just online media, there are plenty of other places to market than google. If you decided to boycott google you could :
That's what I came up with in 30 seconds while taking a coffee break. I'm sure someone in the business of advertising could come up with many many more.
Google is indeed big. Huge actually. And by preventing beacons within mail, they are putting their foot down to say that if you want access to their user base, you have to go through them.
But there are plenty of alternatives to google. They're simply not a monopoly.
And, if you look at all of their initiatives like Google+, it seems they're afraid of losing you as a customers. They're branching out to stay competitive. They're afraid that Facebook is going to drink their milk shake (Facebook had revenues over $5 billion in 2012, and the bulk of it comes from Ads).
And active competition is not something a monopoly has to do.
s a monopoly tightening its grip on the market it monopolizes.
On email? You really should look up the definition of monopoly.
I use gmail because i like it. I use it because it's the best free email service I can find, and I've tried quite a few of them.
I use google search because I like it. Back in the day when new search engines were coming out I used to switch between them quite often. Remember Altavista? Jeeves?
Google is not a monopoly. They play in markets with very very low barriers to entry. And a lot of users choose to use them, despite the numerous choices out there.
If all of a sudden their search results started to suck, or I couldn't get into my email without seeing a big giant flash I'd stop using them in a heart beat. And so would many other users.
Ergo, by definition Google is not a monopoly.
Too bad it's not possible to simultaneously mod someone up and down.
Is refusing to eat spam meat snobbery then?
and by 'american style', i'll assume you mean 'good'. american coffee culture has, by now, matched and surpassed the european in terms of quality, diversity, and most of all, snobbery, whether you want espresso or drip/french-pressed.
Ummm.. I take it you've never been to Europe?
Espresso diluted with hot water being called an Americano is appropriate from a continental European standpoint.
Over here, an espresso is the basis for coffee. If you want a powerful espresso they use less water, and you get a ristretto. If you want a regular cafe, you get a lungo. The serving of water is done right in the machine, and is whether the barista gives you a long or short "pull" (literally on old style machines you pull a lever to put water in a piston that gets shot out through the coffee).
"Drip" coffee is generally not done. While it is possible to buy a drip set up, if you go into a restaurant or café and ask for a coffee it's a lungo from a coffee machine. And if someone invites you to their home they'll tend to have either an automatically-grind-your-own-bean espresso machine or something like a Nescafé. Or a Moka Express (delicious way to make coffee).
Now this does vary country by country. Some countries (Italy, Spain, Netherlands, France, etc.) have very good coffee cultures. You go into a cafe and you get a real cup of coffee. In these countries, you'll be hard pressed to find a starbucks. Sometimes, like here in the Netherlands, if you do find a starbucks its around a tourist area like the Airport, Central station, or a tourist attraction like the Flower Market.
Other countries like Britain have terrible coffee cultures. That's probably why in London you'll see a Starbucks pop up almost as often as Manhattan.
Either way, once you go European you'll have a hard time accepting American coffee. Even "good" American coffee.