"I have a cheap sansa. It plays mp3/ogg/flac. It plays little xvid videos and plays and records FM. What more do I need? Are these damn players becoming like cell phones? Do app stores matter? Makes no sense to me."
wait, people use the iPod Touch to play music?? That's stupid, the device is huge! I use a nano for music and a touch for apps, mostly games. The Touch is actually a pretty decent gaming device, with a wide variety of great little games with lots of free demos and almost every game is less than $10, many less than $5: Sid Meier's Civilization currently $4.99 Need for Speed Undercover currently $4.99 Geared (puzzle game) currently $0.99 SimCity (like SimCity 2000 on PC) currently $4.99 Modern Combat: Sandstorm (FPS) currently $6.99 Kroll (similar to God of War on PS2) currently $0.99 Spore Origins (first level of Spore game for PC) currently $0.99
IMHO I wouldn't use a Touch for music, it's too big and fragile with that giant touchscreen. Nano's are much better for that purpose. And before someone says "so you carry a Nano and Touch everywhere?". No, I usually know before I leave if I'll be bored out of my mind want want to play some quick games (post office, driver's bureau, in-laws, etc) or listen to music (going to gym... that's it).
And I still carry a blackberry as a phone. Why not iPhone? Blackberry is much better for email, checks mail faster and easier to type with a keyboard vs touchscreen.
"I don't particularly like Microsoft, in fact they are still my least favourite company in the world. But do you expect Adobe to keep bringing out patches for 8 year old versions of Photoshop?"
Apples and oranges. Took M$ 5 years to come out with a new OS and that OS was crap, MS even admits Vista is crap. So it comes out with a new OS 3 years later but it's not released yet, no support for it.
So MS is saying "We won't patch XP because it's old, the Vista OS we patched is crap so don't use it, and the new Win7 OS has not been officially released so no support. Good luck!"
"Sales of Win7 are down so low MS isn't even promoting it in most places. "
.... huh? it's not out, so yes the sales would be very low when Windows 7 is not for sale yet. How was this marked Insightful? Should be -1, Citation Needed.
"It's by far the fastest, easiest windows install yet. I was actually quite impressed. Of course, I was doing a clean install, not an upgrade. Upgrading your OS is just asking for trouble IMO. Note: I'm talking about the 64bit install on a 2.67 GHz C2D with 4 GB of RAM and a 10k HDD. "
" Let's say someone puts their Kindle up on eBay, and then after it sells calls Amazon and says that the device got stolen. How is Amazon supposed to know whether the device whether the device was stolen or not? "
Does Amazon really want Kindle's sold on eBay? Doesn't that dip into their sales a bit? Sure more books might be purchased, but do they make more on ebooks or Kindle sales? And just because they're not on eBay doesn't mean people won't just suck it up and pay full price, and it'll add more value to the Kindle since you don't have to worry about going online tomorrow and finding your new Kindle for $200 less on eBay.
"Buy a $10 paperback book. Be kind and leave it for the next person."
LOL. That's what I was thinking. Last paperback book I bought was I Am Legend when the Will Smith movie came out. Before that I hadn't bought a paper book in many years, so I was expecting about $4-$5. Imagine my surprise when it was $8 at retail.
"What *should* happen is that Mr. Borgese files a police report on the stolen Kindle, and can then contact Amazon, with the police report number as evidence that he's not some practical joker."
Actually it shouldn't even go that far. If it's linked with his Amazon account (and it most likely is), then there should be a setting in there to disable the device.
I'll take it one step further: if Amazon was smart, they'd force that feature on customers. Wanna sell your Kindle? You have to disable it on the account and enter the email address you're transferring it to... and we'll charge you $20 for this service. Ta-da! Instant money maker for Amazon. The used Kindle market can no longer go around selling Kindles without Amazon's permission. Game developers have long been whining that they want a piece of the used game market. If Amazon allowed customers to disable their Kindles and charged them $20 to resell them it would give them a revenue stream everyone has been trying to figure out how to profit on: sales of used hardware and software.
I would if I could find a single card that could run them all that didn't cost $$$$$$$$. I get used 19" LCDs for $20 a pop for a local PC recycler. At 1280x1024 I'd have 11.7mp with six 19". More than enough, and not bad for only $80 more (I already have two).
"Like I said they are not actually replacing two nuclear power plants"
I should hope not, after spending billions on building them they better not turn around and decide they really don't need them. Still they're asking customers to pay $7,000+ each so they don't have to build the power plants eventually.
"I don't know any details, but this deal could be pretty attractive if your replacing you'r heating system anyways."
well let's hope they can find 100,000 homes that are all willing to spend $7,000+ on new heating systems.
Why 100,000? Couldn't they start with what they really think is necessary in the next 2-3 yrs and go from there? Because two nuclear power plants would take many years to build so obviously they didn't just wake up one day and think "gee, we're low on power, we need the equivalent of two nuclear power plants ASAP!"
the article makes it sound like they will put these in customers homes, and the customers will pay for it regardless: "In the coming year the program will install 100,000 of the mini plants...Households would pay around $7,250 to have the generators set up along with an appropriate heating system."
" They are simply stating that it will generate power equivalent to two average nuclear power plants."
That's good, so if I'm helping them pay for two nuclear power plants, I'm getting paid for the use of my basement, or at least getting it for free, right?
FTFA: "Households would pay around $7,250 to have the generators set up along with an appropriate heating system."
W...T....F.... so, I save them the billions it costs to build a nuclear power plant, and they want me to pay them to save them money? How stupid does that sound "Hi, I want you to save me money, and I want you to pay me for the privilege to save me money". That's like your boss laying you off and asking you to pay him to do it.
Someone explain how this works, why would anyone sign-up for this?
"What did kill the DC was Sega needed to make 10 million more units and had no money to do it."
Nope, what killed the Dreamcast was the Sony media spin, which went into full swing Spring 1999, touting the next gen Playstation 2 to have "Toy Story" graphics. Everywhere I went I kept seeing reviews and commercials for PS2 and the amazing graphics, so everyone just waited for the PS2. By the time they got a PS2 and found out the graphics were not even close to the movie it was too late for DC. Plus it didn't help that the Playstation already had some excellent PS only series of titles, like Gran Turismo, Final Fantasy, Metal Gear and Castlevania.
That's assuming they get away with it. Soon as someone tries to activate one of those 13 iPhone serial numbers I'm sure alarm bells will go off somewhere and they'll all be spending many years in jail for 5 grand. Even if you're making minimum wage, spending many years in jail just isn't worth 6 months of pay. Epic fail.
"As to the OP's question... whatever happened to using a KVM?"
Still requires a video card.
My question is has he tested the motherboard to see if it'll boot without a video card? I've seen many a board that would error if a card wasn't found. If a card is required then just deal with the $6 a month, or if you really wanna do something get a 9 watt Geforce 7300 for under $20 on ebay which would use $8 in electricity a year at 10 cents/kw-hr.
But according to this chart even the greatest 3D video cards of 2006 only used 30 watts at idle, which is $26 a year, and if this is a old P4 then it's probably not even using a 3D card as modern as that. I'd say just leave the card in there and not worry about it, it's probably costing a dollar or two a month at most.
"Search is a different thing then browsing, as with search you have to know exactly what you are looking for. With a book you can grab it, flip through the pages and just look at random stuff"
Exactly. I also like to browse. I have tons of movies I've never seen stored on a HTPC, yet have no way to browse them as easily as I can at a real Blockbuster store. There's just something different about walking down an aisle and looking at all the books and picking up whatever catches your eye and reading the first page or two.
Until we reach head mounted displays, where i can virtually walk around and pick up books I see and read them, I don't think we should be getting rid of the books. However..... I do like the idea of browsing for the book, then transferring a digital copy to a ereader. There's really no reason carry out 20 lbs of books and no need for a library to order multiple copies or tell people "sorry, we're out. Should be back next month". My local library has formed a partnership with Overdrive.com to provide audio books. I can download and listen to audio books for free. I can only hope that someday they offer ebooks and even movies for free, and I hope all libraries eventually go that route, although that would eliminate late fees.
"I think this is the wrong approach M$. Don't worry about mom & dad getting Linux, you need to worry about the businesses. Long as their job uses M$ they're not going to switch at home, but if they go to work and they're trained on this wonderful OS and they enjoy it then you'll be in trouble. "
since i gave M$ advice, I'll tell Linux how to beat M$: make a app store. I know, stupidly obvious, but there isn't one built into ubuntu. Needs to be as simple as iTunes Store, and everything just needs to just work, no compiling code or anything crazy. Fill it with tons of free software and M$ product equivalents like OpenOffice.
The iPhone is only successful because of it's app store, without a easy way to find guaranteed compatible software no one would buy an iPhone. That's the only reason I'd switch from my Blackberry, because I'm tired of the small selection of programs and the high prices ($10+, compared to $2 or $3 on iphone) of most software
At any rate, does anyone think Microsoft is giving Linux too much publicity? There's people out there that wouldn't dream of running linux, and when they're asking questions wouldn't it be easier to say "I don't know, never heard of it" then have some tech person jump all over them with a barrage of answers?
I'm just thinking, if there was this product I heard of and I asked a Best Buy employee about it and they suddenly go on this huge tirade about how horrible it is and how I should stay away from it, that'd make me more curious than anything. But if they replied "don't know, never heard of it" I'd figure it must be nothing.
I think this is the wrong approach M$. Don't worry about mom & dad getting Linux, you need to worry about the businesses. Long as their job uses M$ they're not going to switch at home, but if they go to work and they're trained on this wonderful OS and they enjoy it then you'll be in trouble.
If I was M$ I would make sure every business, from 3 people up to thousands, switched to Windows 7 ASAP and give them free training (very important!). Once employees have it at work and they're properly trained on it they'll never look at XP or Vista at home the same way, and most people would probably plop down $400+ and get a new laptop or PC rather than spend $200-$300 just to buy the OS.
Hey Dell, get in on this, it'll help you sell computers and laptops too.
"Child A is taught to be inquisitive about everything around him. As he encounters things in his daily life he figures out how they work, rather than accepting them as magical black boxes. Child B sits in a classroom with 40 other students doing multiplication tables until he has them all memorized. Who do you think is going to be a better engineer someday?"
Welcome to society, where you don't get to run around and be inquisitive about everything. Can you imagine Child A as an employee?
Boss: Alright everyone, today we're going to do this thing here *points at chart*
Child A grown-up: Hmm... but boss couldn't we do it this way instead? *marks up chart*
Boss: NO, that's not how we do things, we do it this way *points to chart*
Child A grown-up: Yeah but my way would be better
Boss: I DON'T CARE IF YOU THINK YOUR WAY IS BETTER, WE DO IT MY WAY
Child A grown-up: Why? My way is better
Boss: Meeting over. Child A grown-up, can you see me in my office?
Unless these kids all grow up to take over daddy's CEO position they will never be able to function in the real world.
Not only that, but did you see what a typical "unschooling" day is like?
---"Kids up around 8:30 or so, played Lego til breakfast was ready, dropped off lunch to my mom."
---"Visited Patapsco State Park: Searched for crayfish, tossed different size rocks in water to make big splashes ⦠caught [an amphibian] and skate bug and observed before setting free ⦠found a clam shell in the stream and talked about how it might have ended up there ⦠headed home, had lunch."
---"Made ice cream (we started it the day before) with mint from our garden. When we went out to pick the mint, we found that our parsley plant was being devoured by three giant green and black striped caterpillars, which we caught and observed for a few hours."
---"Picked some squash from the garden and checked on the status of all of our plants ⦠while the ice cream was freezing we watched and noticed that as it froze, it expanded and filled up the freezing bowl more."
---"After dinner we read a few books before bedtime ⦠Marcus played a few computer games after the little boys were in bed (map and strategy games online)."
I don't know about you, but I read their 8 yr old played legos, played at park, picked vegetables, made ice cream and played Starcraft. If he spends every day like this until he's 18 how is he going to keep up with his peers that learned english, biology, chemistry and calculus in high school?
Well, I guess someone has to work fast food, I just can't believe some parents would willing set their children up for disaster.
" A battery that wears out after 1,000 trips and isn't easy to find poses a problem."
Exactly. Costs $5,000 miles, gets 1,000 charges that each go around 6 miles, so $5,000 to go 6,000 miles or 83 cents a mile, and that's just the cost of the bike, not the cost of electricity to charge the thing.
If you drive a hummer and get a horrible 10 miles per gallon and gas is $4 a gallon, that's still only 40 cents a mile. Course that doesn't include the price of the hummer, but if you buy any car or SUV for less than $5,000 it'll be far cheaper than this "Segway Alternative" (put in quotes because it's not) to operate.
Honestly I don't know who would want this. If you have 5 grand either get a car, SUV or get a Segway. If you need something ultra portable get a folding bicycle. At least that won't leave you stranded after 6 miles and it'll do over 13mph.
"It should be apparent that quotas have been scrapped as they cannot actually guarantee you can use the bandwidth speed they sold."
Not only that, but they've been offering "unlimited" bandwidth for at least 10 years, why is this news now? Quick google search reveals hundreds of sites offering "unlimited bandwidth". There's even a website from 2003 that explains what "unlimited bandwidth" really means, which is basically it's unlimited until we notice you and decide to cancel service because our TOS allows us the right to refuse service for any reason.
This sounds more like a press release. I've always stayed away from the "unlimited bandwidth" hosts because it's fake:"If hosting companies truly offered UNLIMITED bandwidth and hard disk space, why wouldn't Google just say, "You know what? Why have our own hosting data centers when we can get UNLIMITED bandwidth and hard disk space for $4.95 a month? We can't lose." It's really a very silly concept."
Slashdot Mirror
except when you try to submit a message not from Oregon it says "You are not in this representative's district."
"Since the water that goes through that tube is clean, and the tube was (probably) clean when you got it, what exactly is this mold eating?"
Take a new plastic cup. Fill it full of hot water. Let it sit out for a month. What do you get? An empty cup, water evaporated, no mold.
I also call bull. If you have anything to worry about it's the dirty crap that goes down the drain.
"I have a cheap sansa. It plays mp3/ogg/flac. It plays little xvid videos and plays and records FM. What more do I need? Are these damn players becoming like cell phones? Do app stores matter? Makes no sense to me."
wait, people use the iPod Touch to play music?? That's stupid, the device is huge! I use a nano for music and a touch for apps, mostly games. The Touch is actually a pretty decent gaming device, with a wide variety of great little games with lots of free demos and almost every game is less than $10, many less than $5:
Sid Meier's Civilization currently $4.99
Need for Speed Undercover currently $4.99
Geared (puzzle game) currently $0.99
SimCity (like SimCity 2000 on PC) currently $4.99
Modern Combat: Sandstorm (FPS) currently $6.99
Kroll (similar to God of War on PS2) currently $0.99
Spore Origins (first level of Spore game for PC) currently $0.99
IMHO I wouldn't use a Touch for music, it's too big and fragile with that giant touchscreen. Nano's are much better for that purpose. And before someone says "so you carry a Nano and Touch everywhere?". No, I usually know before I leave if I'll be bored out of my mind want want to play some quick games (post office, driver's bureau, in-laws, etc) or listen to music (going to gym... that's it).
And I still carry a blackberry as a phone. Why not iPhone? Blackberry is much better for email, checks mail faster and easier to type with a keyboard vs touchscreen.
"I don't particularly like Microsoft, in fact they are still my least favourite company in the world. But do you expect Adobe to keep bringing out patches for 8 year old versions of Photoshop?"
Apples and oranges. Took M$ 5 years to come out with a new OS and that OS was crap, MS even admits Vista is crap. So it comes out with a new OS 3 years later but it's not released yet, no support for it.
So MS is saying "We won't patch XP because it's old, the Vista OS we patched is crap so don't use it, and the new Win7 OS has not been officially released so no support. Good luck!"
"Sales of Win7 are down so low MS isn't even promoting it in most places. "
.... huh? it's not out, so yes the sales would be very low when Windows 7 is not for sale yet. How was this marked Insightful? Should be -1, Citation Needed.
"Sales of Win7 are much higher than Vista; where they are at now, it took Vista weeks to get to."
Score:+1, Funny, since Win7 has not been released so there are no sales
"It's by far the fastest, easiest windows install yet. I was actually quite impressed. Of course, I was doing a clean install, not an upgrade. Upgrading your OS is just asking for trouble IMO. Note: I'm talking about the 64bit install on a 2.67 GHz C2D with 4 GB of RAM and a 10k HDD. "
Agreed, and it doesn't take the fastest hardware, as this video shows Windows 7 64-bit booting in 20 seconds on a 1.5ghz C2D laptop.
" Let's say someone puts their Kindle up on eBay, and then after it sells calls Amazon and says that the device got stolen. How is Amazon supposed to know whether the device whether the device was stolen or not? "
Does Amazon really want Kindle's sold on eBay? Doesn't that dip into their sales a bit? Sure more books might be purchased, but do they make more on ebooks or Kindle sales? And just because they're not on eBay doesn't mean people won't just suck it up and pay full price, and it'll add more value to the Kindle since you don't have to worry about going online tomorrow and finding your new Kindle for $200 less on eBay.
"Buy a $10 paperback book. Be kind and leave it for the next person."
LOL. That's what I was thinking. Last paperback book I bought was I Am Legend when the Will Smith movie came out. Before that I hadn't bought a paper book in many years, so I was expecting about $4-$5. Imagine my surprise when it was $8 at retail.
"What *should* happen is that Mr. Borgese files a police report on the stolen Kindle, and can then contact Amazon, with the police report number as evidence that he's not some practical joker."
Actually it shouldn't even go that far. If it's linked with his Amazon account (and it most likely is), then there should be a setting in there to disable the device.
I'll take it one step further: if Amazon was smart, they'd force that feature on customers. Wanna sell your Kindle? You have to disable it on the account and enter the email address you're transferring it to... and we'll charge you $20 for this service. Ta-da! Instant money maker for Amazon. The used Kindle market can no longer go around selling Kindles without Amazon's permission. Game developers have long been whining that they want a piece of the used game market. If Amazon allowed customers to disable their Kindles and charged them $20 to resell them it would give them a revenue stream everyone has been trying to figure out how to profit on: sales of used hardware and software.
"GPU ram does need to become upgradeable! as 2GB of video ram isn't going to cut it anymore (in 2 years)."
considering how fast video card prices drop it'd probably be cheaper just to buy a new, much faster card then to upgrade the memory.
"Who has this many monitors?"
I would if I could find a single card that could run them all that didn't cost $$$$$$$$. I get used 19" LCDs for $20 a pop for a local PC recycler. At 1280x1024 I'd have 11.7mp with six 19". More than enough, and not bad for only $80 more (I already have two).
"Like I said they are not actually replacing two nuclear power plants"
I should hope not, after spending billions on building them they better not turn around and decide they really don't need them. Still they're asking customers to pay $7,000+ each so they don't have to build the power plants eventually.
"I don't know any details, but this deal could be pretty attractive if your replacing you'r heating system anyways."
well let's hope they can find 100,000 homes that are all willing to spend $7,000+ on new heating systems.
Why 100,000? Couldn't they start with what they really think is necessary in the next 2-3 yrs and go from there? Because two nuclear power plants would take many years to build so obviously they didn't just wake up one day and think "gee, we're low on power, we need the equivalent of two nuclear power plants ASAP!"
the article makes it sound like they will put these in customers homes, and the customers will pay for it regardless: "In the coming year the program will install 100,000 of the mini plants...Households would pay around $7,250 to have the generators set up along with an appropriate heating system."
Here's to hoping they give customers a choice.
" They are simply stating that it will generate power equivalent to two average nuclear power plants."
That's good, so if I'm helping them pay for two nuclear power plants, I'm getting paid for the use of my basement, or at least getting it for free, right?
FTFA: "Households would pay around $7,250 to have the generators set up along with an appropriate heating system."
W...T....F.... so, I save them the billions it costs to build a nuclear power plant, and they want me to pay them to save them money? How stupid does that sound "Hi, I want you to save me money, and I want you to pay me for the privilege to save me money". That's like your boss laying you off and asking you to pay him to do it.
Someone explain how this works, why would anyone sign-up for this?
"What did kill the DC was Sega needed to make 10 million more units and had no money to do it."
Nope, what killed the Dreamcast was the Sony media spin, which went into full swing Spring 1999, touting the next gen Playstation 2 to have "Toy Story" graphics. Everywhere I went I kept seeing reviews and commercials for PS2 and the amazing graphics, so everyone just waited for the PS2. By the time they got a PS2 and found out the graphics were not even close to the movie it was too late for DC. Plus it didn't help that the Playstation already had some excellent PS only series of titles, like Gran Turismo, Final Fantasy, Metal Gear and Castlevania.
It wasn't until 2009 when the PS3 finally did bring Toy Story graphics to consoles.
"There were 5 of them, so that's ~$5k each."
That's assuming they get away with it. Soon as someone tries to activate one of those 13 iPhone serial numbers I'm sure alarm bells will go off somewhere and they'll all be spending many years in jail for 5 grand. Even if you're making minimum wage, spending many years in jail just isn't worth 6 months of pay. Epic fail.
"As to the OP's question... whatever happened to using a KVM?"
Still requires a video card.
My question is has he tested the motherboard to see if it'll boot without a video card? I've seen many a board that would error if a card wasn't found. If a card is required then just deal with the $6 a month, or if you really wanna do something get a 9 watt Geforce 7300 for under $20 on ebay which would use $8 in electricity a year at 10 cents/kw-hr.
But according to this chart even the greatest 3D video cards of 2006 only used 30 watts at idle, which is $26 a year, and if this is a old P4 then it's probably not even using a 3D card as modern as that. I'd say just leave the card in there and not worry about it, it's probably costing a dollar or two a month at most.
"Search is a different thing then browsing, as with search you have to know exactly what you are looking for. With a book you can grab it, flip through the pages and just look at random stuff"
Exactly. I also like to browse. I have tons of movies I've never seen stored on a HTPC, yet have no way to browse them as easily as I can at a real Blockbuster store. There's just something different about walking down an aisle and looking at all the books and picking up whatever catches your eye and reading the first page or two.
Until we reach head mounted displays, where i can virtually walk around and pick up books I see and read them, I don't think we should be getting rid of the books. However..... I do like the idea of browsing for the book, then transferring a digital copy to a ereader. There's really no reason carry out 20 lbs of books and no need for a library to order multiple copies or tell people "sorry, we're out. Should be back next month". My local library has formed a partnership with Overdrive.com to provide audio books. I can download and listen to audio books for free. I can only hope that someday they offer ebooks and even movies for free, and I hope all libraries eventually go that route, although that would eliminate late fees.
"I think this is the wrong approach M$. Don't worry about mom & dad getting Linux, you need to worry about the businesses. Long as their job uses M$ they're not going to switch at home, but if they go to work and they're trained on this wonderful OS and they enjoy it then you'll be in trouble. "
since i gave M$ advice, I'll tell Linux how to beat M$: make a app store. I know, stupidly obvious, but there isn't one built into ubuntu. Needs to be as simple as iTunes Store, and everything just needs to just work, no compiling code or anything crazy. Fill it with tons of free software and M$ product equivalents like OpenOffice.
The iPhone is only successful because of it's app store, without a easy way to find guaranteed compatible software no one would buy an iPhone. That's the only reason I'd switch from my Blackberry, because I'm tired of the small selection of programs and the high prices ($10+, compared to $2 or $3 on iphone) of most software
"I'll take the damn course if it'll get me a $10 copy of Win 7."
should have signed up for the Live Launch event and got a free copy.
At any rate, does anyone think Microsoft is giving Linux too much publicity? There's people out there that wouldn't dream of running linux, and when they're asking questions wouldn't it be easier to say "I don't know, never heard of it" then have some tech person jump all over them with a barrage of answers?
I'm just thinking, if there was this product I heard of and I asked a Best Buy employee about it and they suddenly go on this huge tirade about how horrible it is and how I should stay away from it, that'd make me more curious than anything. But if they replied "don't know, never heard of it" I'd figure it must be nothing.
I think this is the wrong approach M$. Don't worry about mom & dad getting Linux, you need to worry about the businesses. Long as their job uses M$ they're not going to switch at home, but if they go to work and they're trained on this wonderful OS and they enjoy it then you'll be in trouble.
If I was M$ I would make sure every business, from 3 people up to thousands, switched to Windows 7 ASAP and give them free training (very important!). Once employees have it at work and they're properly trained on it they'll never look at XP or Vista at home the same way, and most people would probably plop down $400+ and get a new laptop or PC rather than spend $200-$300 just to buy the OS.
Hey Dell, get in on this, it'll help you sell computers and laptops too.
"So in exactly what way is banging hookers for fun in South America worse than jumping off the 40th floor of some skyscraper?"
he took his money to do it, leaving his wife and kids broke and alone. At least if he committed suicide they'd just be alone
"Child A is taught to be inquisitive about everything around him. As he encounters things in his daily life he figures out how they work, rather than accepting them as magical black boxes. Child B sits in a classroom with 40 other students doing multiplication tables until he has them all memorized. Who do you think is going to be a better engineer someday?"
Welcome to society, where you don't get to run around and be inquisitive about everything. Can you imagine Child A as an employee?
Boss: Alright everyone, today we're going to do this thing here *points at chart*
Child A grown-up: Hmm... but boss couldn't we do it this way instead? *marks up chart*
Boss: NO, that's not how we do things, we do it this way *points to chart*
Child A grown-up: Yeah but my way would be better
Boss: I DON'T CARE IF YOU THINK YOUR WAY IS BETTER, WE DO IT MY WAY
Child A grown-up: Why? My way is better
Boss: Meeting over. Child A grown-up, can you see me in my office?
Unless these kids all grow up to take over daddy's CEO position they will never be able to function in the real world.
Not only that, but did you see what a typical "unschooling" day is like?
---"Kids up around 8:30 or so, played Lego til breakfast was ready, dropped off lunch to my mom."
---"Visited Patapsco State Park: Searched for crayfish, tossed different size rocks in water to make big splashes ⦠caught [an amphibian] and skate bug and observed before setting free ⦠found a clam shell in the stream and talked about how it might have ended up there ⦠headed home, had lunch."
---"Made ice cream (we started it the day before) with mint from our garden. When we went out to pick the mint, we found that our parsley plant was being devoured by three giant green and black striped caterpillars, which we caught and observed for a few hours."
---"Picked some squash from the garden and checked on the status of all of our plants ⦠while the ice cream was freezing we watched and noticed that as it froze, it expanded and filled up the freezing bowl more."
---"After dinner we read a few books before bedtime ⦠Marcus played a few computer games after the little boys were in bed (map and strategy games online)."
I don't know about you, but I read their 8 yr old played legos, played at park, picked vegetables, made ice cream and played Starcraft. If he spends every day like this until he's 18 how is he going to keep up with his peers that learned english, biology, chemistry and calculus in high school?
Well, I guess someone has to work fast food, I just can't believe some parents would willing set their children up for disaster.
Oh and I love the double-talk:
"Not only are they getting into college but they are doing well once they get there. Make no mistake, unschooling works well for college bound teens."
"Because they often lack a diploma from an accredited school, it may be more difficult for unschooled students to get into college or get a job."
" A battery that wears out after 1,000 trips and isn't easy to find poses a problem."
Exactly. Costs $5,000 miles, gets 1,000 charges that each go around 6 miles, so $5,000 to go 6,000 miles or 83 cents a mile, and that's just the cost of the bike, not the cost of electricity to charge the thing.
If you drive a hummer and get a horrible 10 miles per gallon and gas is $4 a gallon, that's still only 40 cents a mile. Course that doesn't include the price of the hummer, but if you buy any car or SUV for less than $5,000 it'll be far cheaper than this "Segway Alternative" (put in quotes because it's not) to operate.
Honestly I don't know who would want this. If you have 5 grand either get a car, SUV or get a Segway. If you need something ultra portable get a folding bicycle. At least that won't leave you stranded after 6 miles and it'll do over 13mph.
"It should be apparent that quotas have been scrapped as they cannot actually guarantee you can use the bandwidth speed they sold."
Not only that, but they've been offering "unlimited" bandwidth for at least 10 years, why is this news now? Quick google search reveals hundreds of sites offering "unlimited bandwidth". There's even a website from 2003 that explains what "unlimited bandwidth" really means, which is basically it's unlimited until we notice you and decide to cancel service because our TOS allows us the right to refuse service for any reason.
This sounds more like a press release. I've always stayed away from the "unlimited bandwidth" hosts because it's fake: "If hosting companies truly offered UNLIMITED bandwidth and hard disk space, why wouldn't Google just say, "You know what? Why have our own hosting data centers when we can get UNLIMITED bandwidth and hard disk space for $4.95 a month? We can't lose." It's really a very silly concept."
too bad he's doing it wrong, should have put it through the frame.
stupid 5 yr olds.