I think it's implicit that this would go hand in hand with a training program for teachers. Worst case scenario, it gets used like a textbook (actually, that might be best case...). Shouldn't require *that* much training. Ever see a kid introduced to a computer for the first time? I'm not worried.
Right, but I'm fearing that integration of such a device into the mobo and BIOS might jack up the costs, though I could be wrong. I'm thinking the integration cost will be higher than that of the parts.
Of course, there is not really a low-tech equivalent. The big difference between the situation we have now and The Diamond Age is that in Stephenson's fictional universe, the cost of manufacturing the gadgets is almost zero. Right now, even at $100, they're expensive enough that we need to weigh their relative usefulness quite carefully.
Right, but if there is no "relative usefulness" because there is currently no education, then even textbooks on CDs is a total winner. To me, that would be the easy and obvious initial implementation.
Hell, the only reason this probably doesn't happen now is due to the cabal of textbook publishers in the US (for instance) - in a country without such problems, this thing should be a winner.
If they can't afford one per kid, at least they can share, possibly.
Two things: 1) There are ranges of poverty. If people are literally starving, they probably don't give a crap about computers. But in many other countries, who aren't at the level you suggested but have average incomes of perhaps a few thousand dollars per year, this could help. Also, people in remote areas particularly can probably use this. 2)One $100 computer and some textbooks on CDs is cheaper than than actual textbooks. I think the design for this thing is different than the typical "computers in American education" scenario. This could be a good way for most American schools to operate, quite frankly. Even some of the wealthier districts can't afford to give each student a personal copy of all the textbooks they need. 3)If you've read Neal Stephenson, I'm thinking of this as a low-tech "A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer." Computer + CDs is better than no education.
Yeah, because that band-aid solution's been working incredibly, right? That's the first thing. Second thing is it's a lot easier to solve this problem since it requires a lot less infrastructure. Food is big and perishable. It's hard to get to the source. Most of it doesn't make it.
And the third thing - what, the entire world has such tunnelvision that it can only work on one thing at a time? Should I be berating the crew fixing potholes outside my apartment because they're not solving world hunger?
Charity is about applying the skills you have. I doubt the people involved know crap about solving world hunger.
Also, that assumes that the entire third world is starving. It's not, mostly. Many need education more than anything. This helps solve that.
How much expense would be added if biometrics were incorporated into the design so that once a laptop is "mated" to a child, only that child can operate it, thus rendering its worth on the black market so much less?
Sadly, almost certainly more than the cost of the laptop.
And a supercomputer, programmed differently, could run all sorts of high-power simulations and could correlate all sorts of sensory data.
"Could" is irrelevant. The processing power is a lot cheaper and easier to come by than the people necessary to do the science. I'm really not feeling this one.
Then there is the fact that Google is so adaptable that simply having them on the team gives NASA a boost.
In PR, maybe, which seems to be what they need most. It's almost like the NASA PHB's were sitting around, and one said "What can we do to be cool again like 1969?" and one thought for a while before the light bulb illuminated, and said "You know who's cool? Google! Let's have them run the place!" Hmmmm....maybe not.
Google has done pretty much everything Internet related in the last few years, and that requires organizational flexibility
That's the kind of PHB thinking that takes you down the crapper. So why not let them build a new medical institute, since they've done so well with the internet? Why not let them solve the problem of global warming, they've done so well with the internet? I'll tell you - because they're not qualified, and success in one field doesn't imply success in another.
Maybe NASA wants to get an idea of how they work?
Then they should hire Page as a consultant, not let them take half the place over.
I love this with the ad hominem attacks on the guys who switched (you're about the 10th so far). It's evidently been decided a priori that linux can absolutely do no wrong. That's not true.
What you have described is already how the government funding agencies work. Even for emergency funds, there are still procedures that are still followed to get the money.
They were suggesting using the thing to burrow into a body and then detonate, so you would certainly form some sort of cavity on the interior - sort of like a full-sphere crater, I imagine.
I think the crux of the matter is sony has spent alot developing HD-DVD in the ame way that the developers of HD-DVD cost quite a bit in R&D. To the victors go the spoils and this is the real drive by each party to re-coupe costs and (step 3) profit!
That's true - but by that point, it's too late, as you allude to...
This could of been avoided if everyone had got together at the begining and worked as one team but with politics (both office and national) this can realy happen so there will always be conflicting standards.
Well, the thing is, a number of other companies did, and the result is HD-DVD. Sony *always* insists on splitting off on their own. If it were always a different company screwing everything up I'd agree with you, but it always seems to be Sony.
I beleave this will get worse not better as nations like china start to assert themself in the world, after all if 2bn Chinese decide to use there own format it is a sizable market.
In the absence of a pressure-conducting medium, explosives (even with their own oxidizers) will basically just burn in a vacuum. There's no explosion, because there's nothing to carry the shock wave.
As usual, Sony will fight to establish their own "standard" instead of working with other groups, everyone else will choose the other standard, and Sony will make sure that all their products only work with their format. Interoperability between devices will only work if you only buy Sony.
That's why I don't buy Sony, but we'll see how this one plays out.
Please explain, (Under Clinton the tax income rose creating more money.
I'll put this very simply - the problem is not one of the actual money possessed by this country, but of red tape preventing the money getting from who is in charge of it to who needs it. These problems specifically have nothing to do with the deficit/surplus.
Sure there are going to be lots of things that want a slice of the cake, just like there are all the pretty things in the shops I would like to buy, and it's all about prioritizing. Instead of borrowing money to support natural disasters isn't it better to save a little, so that unexpected things like the Mars rovers lasting a little longer can be take account of more easily.
Again, the problem is the system. You speak of government and finances like there's one person in control who writes a check. This does not occur. There is a massively complicated bureaucracy in charge, and the proper procedures need to be followed. In this case, the proper thing to do was for the researchers to submit the proper paperwork and such when they realized the rover would last longer than they expected. I expect that's what happened - so what's the problem? The money got there, the program still runs.
Not really, but isn't anarchy supposed to be the ideal form of Government?
I'll assume that's a joke. And yes, what you're describing is anarchy. The way it works - and has to - is that Congress makes high-level appropriations to organizations, who make appropriations to smaller organizations, etc. until eventually it makes its way to the people who need it. If those people need more money, they work the chain back up. However, it's not possible for a central group to make every decision regarding fincances. There's just too many - the Soviet Union proved that strong centralized planning doesn't work. It doesn't meet the needs of the people using the money/goods.
Yes, but with a fund it would take less time
No it wouldn't, because using a single fund to run the entire government would be a complete disaster. They have a fund now. They have many funds. That's how government works.
Hmm.. not so true, some companies make large expenditures from time to time and then amortize the debt so that the tax breaks come across a number of years as a way of saving / budgeting.
That's not the same thing as the budget requesting process. How they amortize the money is irrelevant.
Bottom line is I think you have dramatically confused the processes of budget balancing and money distribution. The bureaucratic quagmire faced here is largely one of money distribution, not acquisition. All of what you're suggesting - the establishment of special funds, etc - is already done, or else government would move much more slowly than it already does. But in the end, there are a ton of special funds, because you certainly can't run the entire US government like you would your household checkbook.
Maybe, maybe not. That will only work if the entire body is hard and dense throughout. If any of the material is loose or porous, you'll just compress it a bit.
Nope. The reason they won't work in a vacuum is that any blast is minimized by the fact that there is no means of conducting the pressure changes. The air isn't needed for the explosion.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes it is. It's a normed metric - 15 points/sigma.
I think it's implicit that this would go hand in hand with a training program for teachers. Worst case scenario, it gets used like a textbook (actually, that might be best case...). Shouldn't require *that* much training. Ever see a kid introduced to a computer for the first time? I'm not worried.
Hell, that's what NK is doing now. Kim's holding his people hostage.
Right, but I'm fearing that integration of such a device into the mobo and BIOS might jack up the costs, though I could be wrong. I'm thinking the integration cost will be higher than that of the parts.
Right, but if there is no "relative usefulness" because there is currently no education, then even textbooks on CDs is a total winner. To me, that would be the easy and obvious initial implementation.
Hell, the only reason this probably doesn't happen now is due to the cabal of textbook publishers in the US (for instance) - in a country without such problems, this thing should be a winner.
If they can't afford one per kid, at least they can share, possibly.
Two things:
1) There are ranges of poverty. If people are literally starving, they probably don't give a crap about computers. But in many other countries, who aren't at the level you suggested but have average incomes of perhaps a few thousand dollars per year, this could help. Also, people in remote areas particularly can probably use this.
2)One $100 computer and some textbooks on CDs is cheaper than than actual textbooks. I think the design for this thing is different than the typical "computers in American education" scenario. This could be a good way for most American schools to operate, quite frankly. Even some of the wealthier districts can't afford to give each student a personal copy of all the textbooks they need.
3)If you've read Neal Stephenson, I'm thinking of this as a low-tech "A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer." Computer + CDs is better than no education.
Yeah, because that band-aid solution's been working incredibly, right? That's the first thing. Second thing is it's a lot easier to solve this problem since it requires a lot less infrastructure. Food is big and perishable. It's hard to get to the source. Most of it doesn't make it.
And the third thing - what, the entire world has such tunnelvision that it can only work on one thing at a time? Should I be berating the crew fixing potholes outside my apartment because they're not solving world hunger?
Charity is about applying the skills you have. I doubt the people involved know crap about solving world hunger.
Also, that assumes that the entire third world is starving. It's not, mostly. Many need education more than anything. This helps solve that.
Sadly, almost certainly more than the cost of the laptop.
"Could" is irrelevant. The processing power is a lot cheaper and easier to come by than the people necessary to do the science. I'm really not feeling this one.
Then there is the fact that Google is so adaptable that simply having them on the team gives NASA a boost.
In PR, maybe, which seems to be what they need most. It's almost like the NASA PHB's were sitting around, and one said "What can we do to be cool again like 1969?" and one thought for a while before the light bulb illuminated, and said "You know who's cool? Google! Let's have them run the place!" Hmmmm....maybe not.
Google has done pretty much everything Internet related in the last few years, and that requires organizational flexibility
That's the kind of PHB thinking that takes you down the crapper. So why not let them build a new medical institute, since they've done so well with the internet? Why not let them solve the problem of global warming, they've done so well with the internet? I'll tell you - because they're not qualified, and success in one field doesn't imply success in another.
Maybe NASA wants to get an idea of how they work?
Then they should hire Page as a consultant, not let them take half the place over.
I love this with the ad hominem attacks on the guys who switched (you're about the 10th so far). It's evidently been decided a priori that linux can absolutely do no wrong. That's not true.
Old English 800
Blotto box. ;)
1. It was a joke, not a statement. 2. You're right about the groupthink.
So that's why OpenBSD is so secure - nothing runs on it. ;)
No, if this were 10 years ago, they would have gotten 100 times what they did.
What you have described is already how the government funding agencies work. Even for emergency funds, there are still procedures that are still followed to get the money.
They were suggesting using the thing to burrow into a body and then detonate, so you would certainly form some sort of cavity on the interior - sort of like a full-sphere crater, I imagine.
That's true - but by that point, it's too late, as you allude to...
This could of been avoided if everyone had got together at the begining and worked as one team but with politics (both office and national) this can realy happen so there will always be conflicting standards.
Well, the thing is, a number of other companies did, and the result is HD-DVD. Sony *always* insists on splitting off on their own. If it were always a different company screwing everything up I'd agree with you, but it always seems to be Sony.
I beleave this will get worse not better as nations like china start to assert themself in the world, after all if 2bn Chinese decide to use there own format it is a sizable market.
That's a scary notion for sure.
I'm not sure an asshat is imposing for a villian, though.
In the absence of a pressure-conducting medium, explosives (even with their own oxidizers) will basically just burn in a vacuum. There's no explosion, because there's nothing to carry the shock wave.
That's why I don't buy Sony, but we'll see how this one plays out.
I'll put this very simply - the problem is not one of the actual money possessed by this country, but of red tape preventing the money getting from who is in charge of it to who needs it. These problems specifically have nothing to do with the deficit/surplus.
Sure there are going to be lots of things that want a slice of the cake, just like there are all the pretty things in the shops I would like to buy, and it's all about prioritizing. Instead of borrowing money to support natural disasters isn't it better to save a little, so that unexpected things like the Mars rovers lasting a little longer can be take account of more easily.
Again, the problem is the system. You speak of government and finances like there's one person in control who writes a check. This does not occur. There is a massively complicated bureaucracy in charge, and the proper procedures need to be followed. In this case, the proper thing to do was for the researchers to submit the proper paperwork and such when they realized the rover would last longer than they expected. I expect that's what happened - so what's the problem? The money got there, the program still runs.
Not really, but isn't anarchy supposed to be the ideal form of Government?
I'll assume that's a joke. And yes, what you're describing is anarchy. The way it works - and has to - is that Congress makes high-level appropriations to organizations, who make appropriations to smaller organizations, etc. until eventually it makes its way to the people who need it. If those people need more money, they work the chain back up. However, it's not possible for a central group to make every decision regarding fincances. There's just too many - the Soviet Union proved that strong centralized planning doesn't work. It doesn't meet the needs of the people using the money/goods.
Yes, but with a fund it would take less time
No it wouldn't, because using a single fund to run the entire government would be a complete disaster. They have a fund now. They have many funds. That's how government works.
Hmm.. not so true, some companies make large expenditures from time to time and then amortize the debt so that the tax breaks come across a number of years as a way of saving / budgeting.
That's not the same thing as the budget requesting process. How they amortize the money is irrelevant.
Bottom line is I think you have dramatically confused the processes of budget balancing and money distribution. The bureaucratic quagmire faced here is largely one of money distribution, not acquisition. All of what you're suggesting - the establishment of special funds, etc - is already done, or else government would move much more slowly than it already does. But in the end, there are a ton of special funds, because you certainly can't run the entire US government like you would your household checkbook.
Don't believe what you see in movies.
Nope. The reason they won't work in a vacuum is that any blast is minimized by the fact that there is no means of conducting the pressure changes. The air isn't needed for the explosion.
Explosions don't work so hot in a vacuum.