Even if you're not very religious, if you sat down and tried to imagine what God could possibly be, or what function He/She/It could possibly have, I think this one would be rather high on the list. I would like to say that you will probably be modded troll or offtopic for that comment even though I don't think it is warranted in this case. While I'm not sure about your particular viewpoint of what "God" constitutes, because you used a capitol letter in the word "God" I will assume you mean the Christian humanoid man in the sky (I clarify this because the term has had its use in nearly every religion and even by non-religious people to.) Religion has indeed been the explanation for many unknowns in the past and a good number of people do indeed turn to religion to explain forces, however (as the dissenting non-religious viewpoint) I find it equally likely (if not moreso) that instead of this humanoid man always existing, instead the properties which curve space-time and generate magnetic fields always existed. It simply depends if you want to turn to Science or Religion for a response.
NPD's report, Expanding the Games Market, said that 63 percent of the US population plays videogames on console, PC, handhelds, mobile, iPods, kids systems or other devices. The survey included over 5,000 online participants. I would like to point out that the data will be slightly skewed as this was an online survey and those with the ability to take an online survey have a wider exposure to video games already as they need a computer with browser. (i.e. I guarantee my grandmother who has never played a video game in her life and also doesn't have an internet connection or computer took this survey).
With that out of the way, is this really surprising anyways? With Nintendo making games appeal to a much broader audience than ever before, we literally have a wide selection of video games for every market. Whether it's the sims on PC, soduku on hand-held, bowling on the Wii, or educational and learning games for the kids, I think that the US has learned to embrace the entertainment value and tailor it to everything from learning to leisure.
The only real barrier to entry is getting used to a specific UI and there are a stubborn few that will refuse to learn something new, but there are plenty willing to learn as the market adapts to them, and thus I think that adaptation will only continue to grow too.
I also think it makes sense that the hours played is flattening off. While I formerly was bad at putting a game down to go to (work / class / social interactions), I slowly realized there was a time and place for video games and began to play responsibly (although WOW is still pretty friggin addictive). I think most (we'll say 'normal') people already have this internal regulation, recovering addicts like myself that threw off the "hours played" curve are slowly coming out of the darkness.
I won't say this is a good change as educational video games are not a substitute for good parenting, only a supplement, and I see some people forget this. Additionally (and I still refuse to say this in certain terms) things like video games could be a cause of ADD and other attention disorders.
I will say that it is good to kick back and relax as long as it doesn't interfere with your life and some games can be good teaching tools if used properly.
I suppose it comes down to your definition of patent troll. Before I respond I'll re-quote what I said earlier and clarify what I meant:
I don't like that he did (as far as I can tell) nothing to advance the technology, but I don't think this patent is without some merit. It seemed that many people in the above threads were referring to the applicant as a patent troll because his original patent does not have merit. That is the reason why the title of the post was "!patent troll."
Some people don't have the money to invest back in their ideas and (honestly) if you make the extended effort to get your invention licensed I don't feel personally that is trolling. I don't like patent holders that are sneaky and don't open their mouths about a patent until it is widely implemented. I feel that simple ethics should allow for a warning or two before legal action is taken, but I honestly don't know and the article didn't say whether he did that first.
I don't want to say that his invention has enough merit to gain or loose a patent, but it seems many people are crying "patent troll" without knowing the specifics of the case.
this is the patent in question which specifically is an improvement of current voicemail systems which provides visual information. To add to that it was issued over a decade ago and was filed for in 1994. Priority may go back further. The claims specifically show the intended improvement of the voicemail system, and right off the top of my head I don't recall anything that complex regarding voicemail in 1994. Now it's pretty common because we have more than Pentium 133Mhz computers at the bleeding edge to power equipment, but back then something like this (while it maybe somebody did dream it up) was unheard of. I don't like that he did (as far as I can tell) nothing to advance the technology, but I don't think this patent is without some merit.
The point of the article is not that we're learning specific tidbits of information from them, but instead we're learning how to learn from them. The mindset of a young child allows them to learn things at an immense pace and if this were copied as a computer algorithm it further advances AI technology.
If you dig into the article it's a pretty interesting read about how the Stair robot is slowly learning small tasks. While it is currently not that impressive what tasks it is capable of, it is a staple of advancing AI.
Wow, hopefully this isn't shot down in the court system, and honestly if there's any common sense left in the courts (which there seems to be a slowly increasing amount of) it won't be. There have been far too many cases of snooping going unchecked, be it RIAA, NSA, FBI, etc.
It honestly depends on your definition of good and evil. They are a corporation founded upon bringing information to you be it ads or otherwise. They make their money off of insane amounts of ad revenue so in that sense they're "bad," but at the same time, they do make very sure to only bring things to you that you may be interested in and this careful filtering is "good."
It really just comes down to viewpoint. If you like finding things for yourself and don't want anyone telling you anything about where and how to spend your money then google is "evil." If you like having them point out deals and lead you to companies that are selling what you want (similar to an errand boy doing some of your shopping and looking around for you) then they're "good."
The only potentially frightening thing about google is the power they have if some of their information gets into the wrong hands (i.e. Government Subpoena).
While it can be hurtful to be removed from a friend list, usually there's a reason behind it. Two popular reasons are interaction has slowed to a halt for quite a time between you and someone else, or something has been done to offend one party. In the first case, I hope many will accept the fact that people sometimes move on. There are plenty of people I know from high school or college that I talked to routinely while in attendance, but we never shared a truly meaningful relationship. In the case that you have done something to offend another person, many times this is spawned from a misunderstanding the person who removes you as a friend without thinking it through is generally a more non-confrontational person. Sometimes you being removed as a friend may be the only way you have to know you've pissed them off so in that way it can be a tool.
Additionally and as for the top friends application seen on facebook, it is just that... an application. You can choose to add this if you want to which I have opted out of. In many ways it seems the target use for such an ap is either to add almost everyone to it, or to selectively use it to spawn jealousy. Because I choose to take part in neither of those activities, that component can be entirely avoided. On most social networking sites such a feature is also optional, and while some people opt-in, if jealousy is to be avoided - so should the application.
Actually, on the contrary this may be a move by Verizon to put a hurt on AT&T's monopoly over the iPhone. I wouldn't be surprised if they designed this with the iPhone specifically in mind.
I'm not sure whether I should rejoice that more games will be getting competent writers, or weep that gaming is going to be degraded to sitcom quality. Looking at some voice acting done even today, "sitcom quality" may very well still be a step up.
The sad reality is that many shops judge contribution simply by sacrifice and hours, and lots of face time presence, using that as a surrogate for any meaningful metrics at all. This is the root reason why most shops despise telecommuting, and why it's often a negative career step for a worker to undertake: Telecommute and you have to do double, triple, or more what your coworkers are doing to get the same respect, whereas showing up early each day and staying late is often a blanket immunity from any sort of real responsibilities or deliverables.
With rising energy costs, shops will have to start to become accustomed to telecommuting. As others have said, it's particularly hilarious that a company that is a foundational facilitator of telecommuting is the one going against the trend to decentralize. Right with you on that one. A worker is much quicker to gain professional and personal relationships by physically going into work. I do think it depends on how fond the business you're working for is of telecommuting regarding how good/bad that is as a career move, but you are VERY correct in pointing out the irony in a telecommunications company suddenly frowning on their own workers telecommuting.
I'm sure that in that case, the telecommuting workers probably didn't do much better either way (at least if they were "problem" employees overall and not just when at work and under pressure)
I'm sure if AT&T were doing the same thing because problem workers were sent telecommuting, then the layoff would be more deserved, but as the GGP post said, this probably is just a way to layoff employees easily and without accountability.
The unfortunate thing is businesses like this don't realize that while teleworkers can be distracted at home easier, many tend to do more and better work because they are comfortable at home and don't have anyone looking over their shoulder. Additionally, they don't have to waste a ton of time commuting and thus have more hours in the day to work. This does depend on the type of person working from home as some are more capable than others and some need the pressure of a boss looking over their shoulder to work, but I bet you're absolutely correct in assuming this is their "simple" way of laying off some of their workers.
I have a big gripe with saying the "medical community" or stereotyping the entire medical field as saying diet and exercise is the only component to obesity.
FTA:
For the last thirty years, medical advice on obesity has been very clear. Eat less and exercise. But what if that was all wrong, a big fat lie, as Gary Taubes would put it? or
In fact, according to Mr. Taubes, everything the medical profession advocates, in terms of eating and exercise, is at best a waste of time, and at worst, may actually be killing us. Of course medical advice is clear. Exercise does make you healthier and stronger. It helps your immune system and metabolism. It is true that you should only exercise the amount you are able, and that over-exercising can put added and unnecessary strain on important organs which can be dangerous. One thing that the medical field is learning though is that a good portion of your body shape is due simply to genetics. The "medical community" has not been caught up and derailed by the "diet and exercise" bandwagon. They are currently doing more and more research into the amount we are affected by our own genes.
There are some doctors who do not have the absolute latest information and they will sometimes claim that diet and exercise are the only thing that is making someone larger and there are (of course) a few scam artists trying to make a buck off the "simple little pill" or "this is the only piece of equipment you need to be thin" commercials and insatiably people will fall for it.
The point is, the medical field is right in giving this person that advice. He should eat less, he should exercise. It WILL make him healthier. It may not make him look like Brad Pitt, and he (probably) always be larger than normal, but just because a component of obesity is genetics does not mean everything to do with obesity is genetics. It also does not mean the "medical community" is stuck in the stone age with "non science."
Yes, the RIAA is trying to modify copyright law a bit to squeeze more money out of music they "own" at the expense of the creator of the music, and while that is a problem, most of the time it is not the issue that comes to the front when individuals are confronted with copyright infringement lawsuits.
The big issue that has come into play is the RIAA's tactics in gathering evidence. Many times an IP address was proxied and the wrong person ends up on trial. The RIAA's biggest misstep comes into play when they search/seize without proof that the questionable internet activity came from the household they are searching.
There have been many trials which have gone very poorly for the individual even though the RIAA gathered evidence at an incorrect location and *happened* to stumble upon something questionable.
Don't get me wrong, it's still great that an individual has more resources when fighting an RIAA lawsuit, but many problems come up not because of the RIAA's loose definition of copyright, but because the individual defending them self doesn't know their rights.
The point of TFA is that Nuclear power has vastly improved since those days. Additionally Chernobyl was a product of a bad set of safety procedures and fail safes. an entire account of what happened that day can be found on Wikipedia which is as follows:
The workers were performing an experiment with the reactor's safety systems. Problems occurred during the tests, the reactor did not receive enough coolant, had built up too much heat in the core and had fully withdrawn control rods, all of which contributed to a very unstable and unpredictable reactor operation. When the control rods were reinserted in an attempt to regain control of the unstable reactor, there was a sudden increase in reactivity, caused by the design of the RBMK reactor and its control rods, and an uncontrollable runaway reaction occurred. The reactor produced tremendous amounts of steam, eventually causing a steam break/explosion, which destroyed part of the reactor. Graphite fires broke out, due to the high temperatures of the reactor and that the graphite was exposed to oxygen, causing it to burn, which occurred after the reactor was damaged from the steam explosion. While it's true Nuclear has been overlooked and underdeveloped for the last couple of decades in the US, we are to the point where it would be highly (if not completely) unlikely that a disaster of even a fraction that size would occur.
TFA points out there hasn't been a Nuclear disaster on US soil since 1979's Three Mile Island and while yes, it could theoretically happen, We've also gained much knowledge to either stop or prevent such a disaster
Yes there were failures in the past... bad failures, but with that comes the knowledge to fix the problem.
Please, before you post something like this, consider Slashdot's FAQ
From the FAQ:
Why did you post story X?
Slashdot is many things to many people. Some people think it's a Linux site. To others, it's a geek hangout. I've always worked very hard to make sure that Slashdot matches up with my interests and the interests of my authors. We think we're pretty typical Slashdot readers... but that does mean that occasionally one of us might post something that you think is inappropriate. You might be interested in my Omelette rant.
Personally, I have a pet peeve when people post comments saying things like "That's not News For Nerds!" and "That's not Stuff that Matters!" Slashdot has been running for almost 5 years, and over that time, I have always been the final decision maker on what ends up on the homepage. It turns out that a lot of people agree with me: Linux, Legos, Penguins, Sci (both real and fiction). If you've been reading Slashdot, you know what the subjects commonly are, but we might deviate occasionally. It's just more fun that way. Variety Is The Spice Of Life and all that, right? We've been running Slashdot for a long time, and if we occasionally want to post something that someone doesn't think is right for Slashdot, well, we're the ones who get to make the call. It's the mix of stories that makes Slashdot the fun place that it is.
What's sad is the mainstream media will probably make it sound like Youtube's fault (or at least suggest it) even though Youtube simply acted as an outlet for a deranged individual.
I personally think it's great that Youtube is around and can potentially help prevent incidents exactly like this one.
Let us postulate what would have happened in a world without Youtube: Generally people like this are reaching for some sort of attention from a world that has "turned its back on them." They would go through the same practicing and preparing routine similar to what the article describes in an effort to gain attention. Most likely he would have eventually carried through with the plan regardless. With an entire video library at public disposal, a wider chance is given that someone will notice something out of the ordinary and report it.
It is terrible that tragedies like this happen, but we are becoming more aware of the "warning signs" and I think sites like Youtube will help in picking up on these.
Do they come with free internet? Or a low cost internet option? yes
From that article: However, the latest twist in the story is nothing but positive. T-Mobile is now offering a year of free Hot Spot Wi-Fi access, good at nearly 8,500 public T-Mobile Hot Spot locations throughout the country, including Starbucks coffee shops, Borders bookstores, and more than 70 major airports across the United States.
The offer is only good from November 12 to 26, and considering a 12-month T-Mobile Hot Spot plan would cost $359 on its own, we can see how this could lead to a lot of OLPC purchases. OLPC has set up a Web site, laptopgiving.org, which has more details.
Slashdot Mirror
Gee, great, because you know most geeks only love computers and don't have diverse interests.
This is a dumb article written solely for the purpose of generating traffic, and by getting on /. they've succeeded in spades.
Of course us nerds have diverse interests:
a) Computers
b) Watching Computers
I simply do not see what makes the article dumb!
He could, but as you said that was only mentioned "in passing"
If Tolkien was still around to write books about those adventures and Peter Jackson was around to adapt it to film I may trust it a bit more.
With that out of the way, is this really surprising anyways? With Nintendo making games appeal to a much broader audience than ever before, we literally have a wide selection of video games for every market. Whether it's the sims on PC, soduku on hand-held, bowling on the Wii, or educational and learning games for the kids, I think that the US has learned to embrace the entertainment value and tailor it to everything from learning to leisure.
The only real barrier to entry is getting used to a specific UI and there are a stubborn few that will refuse to learn something new, but there are plenty willing to learn as the market adapts to them, and thus I think that adaptation will only continue to grow too.
I also think it makes sense that the hours played is flattening off. While I formerly was bad at putting a game down to go to (work / class / social interactions), I slowly realized there was a time and place for video games and began to play responsibly (although WOW is still pretty friggin addictive). I think most (we'll say 'normal') people already have this internal regulation, recovering addicts like myself that threw off the "hours played" curve are slowly coming out of the darkness.
I won't say this is a good change as educational video games are not a substitute for good parenting, only a supplement, and I see some people forget this. Additionally (and I still refuse to say this in certain terms) things like video games could be a cause of ADD and other attention disorders.
I will say that it is good to kick back and relax as long as it doesn't interfere with your life and some games can be good teaching tools if used properly.
Some people don't have the money to invest back in their ideas and (honestly) if you make the extended effort to get your invention licensed I don't feel personally that is trolling. I don't like patent holders that are sneaky and don't open their mouths about a patent until it is widely implemented. I feel that simple ethics should allow for a warning or two before legal action is taken, but I honestly don't know and the article didn't say whether he did that first.
I don't want to say that his invention has enough merit to gain or loose a patent, but it seems many people are crying "patent troll" without knowing the specifics of the case.
this is the patent in question which specifically is an improvement of current voicemail systems which provides visual information. To add to that it was issued over a decade ago and was filed for in 1994. Priority may go back further. The claims specifically show the intended improvement of the voicemail system, and right off the top of my head I don't recall anything that complex regarding voicemail in 1994. Now it's pretty common because we have more than Pentium 133Mhz computers at the bleeding edge to power equipment, but back then something like this (while it maybe somebody did dream it up) was unheard of. I don't like that he did (as far as I can tell) nothing to advance the technology, but I don't think this patent is without some merit.
The point of the article is not that we're learning specific tidbits of information from them, but instead we're learning how to learn from them. The mindset of a young child allows them to learn things at an immense pace and if this were copied as a computer algorithm it further advances AI technology.
If you dig into the article it's a pretty interesting read about how the Stair robot is slowly learning small tasks. While it is currently not that impressive what tasks it is capable of, it is a staple of advancing AI.
Wow, hopefully this isn't shot down in the court system, and honestly if there's any common sense left in the courts (which there seems to be a slowly increasing amount of) it won't be. There have been far too many cases of snooping going unchecked, be it RIAA, NSA, FBI, etc.
Can't wait for updates to this one.
It honestly depends on your definition of good and evil. They are a corporation founded upon bringing information to you be it ads or otherwise. They make their money off of insane amounts of ad revenue so in that sense they're "bad," but at the same time, they do make very sure to only bring things to you that you may be interested in and this careful filtering is "good."
It really just comes down to viewpoint. If you like finding things for yourself and don't want anyone telling you anything about where and how to spend your money then google is "evil." If you like having them point out deals and lead you to companies that are selling what you want (similar to an errand boy doing some of your shopping and looking around for you) then they're "good."
The only potentially frightening thing about google is the power they have if some of their information gets into the wrong hands (i.e. Government Subpoena).
While it can be hurtful to be removed from a friend list, usually there's a reason behind it. Two popular reasons are interaction has slowed to a halt for quite a time between you and someone else, or something has been done to offend one party. In the first case, I hope many will accept the fact that people sometimes move on. There are plenty of people I know from high school or college that I talked to routinely while in attendance, but we never shared a truly meaningful relationship. In the case that you have done something to offend another person, many times this is spawned from a misunderstanding the person who removes you as a friend without thinking it through is generally a more non-confrontational person. Sometimes you being removed as a friend may be the only way you have to know you've pissed them off so in that way it can be a tool.
Additionally and as for the top friends application seen on facebook, it is just that... an application. You can choose to add this if you want to which I have opted out of. In many ways it seems the target use for such an ap is either to add almost everyone to it, or to selectively use it to spawn jealousy. Because I choose to take part in neither of those activities, that component can be entirely avoided. On most social networking sites such a feature is also optional, and while some people opt-in, if jealousy is to be avoided - so should the application.
Actually, on the contrary this may be a move by Verizon to put a hurt on AT&T's monopoly over the iPhone. I wouldn't be surprised if they designed this with the iPhone specifically in mind.
*cough* Resident Evil Outbreak *cough*
With rising energy costs, shops will have to start to become accustomed to telecommuting. As others have said, it's particularly hilarious that a company that is a foundational facilitator of telecommuting is the one going against the trend to decentralize. Right with you on that one. A worker is much quicker to gain professional and personal relationships by physically going into work. I do think it depends on how fond the business you're working for is of telecommuting regarding how good/bad that is as a career move, but you are VERY correct in pointing out the irony in a telecommunications company suddenly frowning on their own workers telecommuting.
I'm sure that in that case, the telecommuting workers probably didn't do much better either way (at least if they were "problem" employees overall and not just when at work and under pressure)
I'm sure if AT&T were doing the same thing because problem workers were sent telecommuting, then the layoff would be more deserved, but as the GGP post said, this probably is just a way to layoff employees easily and without accountability.
The unfortunate thing is businesses like this don't realize that while teleworkers can be distracted at home easier, many tend to do more and better work because they are comfortable at home and don't have anyone looking over their shoulder. Additionally, they don't have to waste a ton of time commuting and thus have more hours in the day to work. This does depend on the type of person working from home as some are more capable than others and some need the pressure of a boss looking over their shoulder to work, but I bet you're absolutely correct in assuming this is their "simple" way of laying off some of their workers.
FTA:
For the last thirty years, medical advice on obesity has been very clear. Eat less and exercise. But what if that was all wrong, a big fat lie, as Gary Taubes would put it? or In fact, according to Mr. Taubes, everything the medical profession advocates, in terms of eating and exercise, is at best a waste of time, and at worst, may actually be killing us. Of course medical advice is clear. Exercise does make you healthier and stronger. It helps your immune system and metabolism. It is true that you should only exercise the amount you are able, and that over-exercising can put added and unnecessary strain on important organs which can be dangerous. One thing that the medical field is learning though is that a good portion of your body shape is due simply to genetics. The "medical community" has not been caught up and derailed by the "diet and exercise" bandwagon. They are currently doing more and more research into the amount we are affected by our own genes.
There are some doctors who do not have the absolute latest information and they will sometimes claim that diet and exercise are the only thing that is making someone larger and there are (of course) a few scam artists trying to make a buck off the "simple little pill" or "this is the only piece of equipment you need to be thin" commercials and insatiably people will fall for it.
The point is, the medical field is right in giving this person that advice. He should eat less, he should exercise. It WILL make him healthier. It may not make him look like Brad Pitt, and he (probably) always be larger than normal, but just because a component of obesity is genetics does not mean everything to do with obesity is genetics. It also does not mean the "medical community" is stuck in the stone age with "non science."
Yes, the RIAA is trying to modify copyright law a bit to squeeze more money out of music they "own" at the expense of the creator of the music, and while that is a problem, most of the time it is not the issue that comes to the front when individuals are confronted with copyright infringement lawsuits.
The big issue that has come into play is the RIAA's tactics in gathering evidence. Many times an IP address was proxied and the wrong person ends up on trial. The RIAA's biggest misstep comes into play when they search/seize without proof that the questionable internet activity came from the household they are searching.
There have been many trials which have gone very poorly for the individual even though the RIAA gathered evidence at an incorrect location and *happened* to stumble upon something questionable.
Don't get me wrong, it's still great that an individual has more resources when fighting an RIAA lawsuit, but many problems come up not because of the RIAA's loose definition of copyright, but because the individual defending them self doesn't know their rights.
what
are
you
talking
about?
The point of TFA is that Nuclear power has vastly improved since those days. Additionally Chernobyl was a product of a bad set of safety procedures and fail safes. an entire account of what happened that day can be found on Wikipedia which is as follows: The workers were performing an experiment with the reactor's safety systems. Problems occurred during the tests, the reactor did not receive enough coolant, had built up too much heat in the core and had fully withdrawn control rods, all of which contributed to a very unstable and unpredictable reactor operation. When the control rods were reinserted in an attempt to regain control of the unstable reactor, there was a sudden increase in reactivity, caused by the design of the RBMK reactor and its control rods, and an uncontrollable runaway reaction occurred. The reactor produced tremendous amounts of steam, eventually causing a steam break/explosion, which destroyed part of the reactor. Graphite fires broke out, due to the high temperatures of the reactor and that the graphite was exposed to oxygen, causing it to burn, which occurred after the reactor was damaged from the steam explosion. While it's true Nuclear has been overlooked and underdeveloped for the last couple of decades in the US, we are to the point where it would be highly (if not completely) unlikely that a disaster of even a fraction that size would occur.
TFA points out there hasn't been a Nuclear disaster on US soil since 1979's Three Mile Island and while yes, it could theoretically happen, We've also gained much knowledge to either stop or prevent such a disaster
Yes there were failures in the past... bad failures, but with that comes the knowledge to fix the problem.
Please refer to my point above.
What do you mean?
From the FAQ: Why did you post story X?
Slashdot is many things to many people. Some people think it's a Linux site. To others, it's a geek hangout. I've always worked very hard to make sure that Slashdot matches up with my interests and the interests of my authors. We think we're pretty typical Slashdot readers... but that does mean that occasionally one of us might post something that you think is inappropriate. You might be interested in my Omelette rant.
Personally, I have a pet peeve when people post comments saying things like "That's not News For Nerds!" and "That's not Stuff that Matters!" Slashdot has been running for almost 5 years, and over that time, I have always been the final decision maker on what ends up on the homepage. It turns out that a lot of people agree with me: Linux, Legos, Penguins, Sci (both real and fiction). If you've been reading Slashdot, you know what the subjects commonly are, but we might deviate occasionally. It's just more fun that way. Variety Is The Spice Of Life and all that, right? We've been running Slashdot for a long time, and if we occasionally want to post something that someone doesn't think is right for Slashdot, well, we're the ones who get to make the call. It's the mix of stories that makes Slashdot the fun place that it is.
What's sad is the mainstream media will probably make it sound like Youtube's fault (or at least suggest it) even though Youtube simply acted as an outlet for a deranged individual.
I personally think it's great that Youtube is around and can potentially help prevent incidents exactly like this one.
Let us postulate what would have happened in a world without Youtube: Generally people like this are reaching for some sort of attention from a world that has "turned its back on them." They would go through the same practicing and preparing routine similar to what the article describes in an effort to gain attention. Most likely he would have eventually carried through with the plan regardless. With an entire video library at public disposal, a wider chance is given that someone will notice something out of the ordinary and report it.
It is terrible that tragedies like this happen, but we are becoming more aware of the "warning signs" and I think sites like Youtube will help in picking up on these.
From that article:
However, the latest twist in the story is nothing but positive. T-Mobile is now offering a year of free Hot Spot Wi-Fi access, good at nearly 8,500 public T-Mobile Hot Spot locations throughout the country, including Starbucks coffee shops, Borders bookstores, and more than 70 major airports across the United States.
The offer is only good from November 12 to 26, and considering a 12-month T-Mobile Hot Spot plan would cost $359 on its own, we can see how this could lead to a lot of OLPC purchases. OLPC has set up a Web site, laptopgiving.org, which has more details.