Both of you are correct, that should be factored in, though there are free math ebooks. And of course a countervailing factor is that ebooks don't physically wear out or get marked and unusable, but physical books do.
Ideally one iPad could replace at least several years worth of physical books, so I still think it wouldn't be hard to make it economical in the medium term.
Done right, this could make economic sense. Textbook prices have been rising far faster than inflation, nearly doubling in 20 years. Some math textbooks can cost over $100. Even assuming they cost only $50, an electronic device at a cost 10 textbooks, but which does much more and can be easily updated, could be a bargain. (In theory, that is. I'm assuming the school district plans well and the kids don't trash them.)
Did you read the article? (Or did the people modding you up?) The whole point of the technology is that it's reading knowledge, not emotions.
I think the predictable references to Orwell and precrime are also off-target. This is not about mass surveillance: it requires electrodes and detailed preparation. This is not about convicting people of a crime: it's not admissible. This is a potentially useful (and legal, painless, and humane) interrogation tool, for use when when you have some possible knowledge about a pending attack, and a person in custody who may know about it.
Of course, like anything else, it has the potential for misuse, but I don't see anything inherently evil in it.
It's not my decision, it's the client's. They just want sites to work in all common versions of IE, automatically. I don't like it, but they don't want to hear lectures on web standards and progress.
Unfortunately, it's not going happen any time soon. What client wants a website with a feature that doesn't work in IE? Never mind IE 9, the websites I build still have to support IE 6! So even assuming IE 9 has good SVG support, SVG won't have a chance on a typical corporate site until IE 9 is in the position that IE 6 is now: the minimum that anyone worries about, with IE 6, 7 and 8 just distant memories with a trivial amount of users who can be ignored the way IE 5 users are now. That could easily be another 6-8 years... or more.
Which also begs the question: why would "Chinese" or "North Korean" state-sponsored "hacker gangs" be able to launch attacks with sophistication enough to be considered a threat to national infrastructure, yet simultaneously naive enough to be triangulated back to their supposedly surreptitious origin?
As they say, "Pull the other one, it has bells on it."
Ha ha, but do you think hackers in China or North Korea always get to do what they want? Do you think one-party dictatorships are better at listening to advice from geeks than, say, the average American CEO or politician? You really can't imagine some Asian version of the pointy-haired boss saying: "No, do it with our servers. We need to test them"? If you think the hacker is smart, wouldn't he be smart enough to not argue with the Chinese or North Korean officer who's giving him the order?
History is filled with errors of that sort. The last big German offensive on the Western front in World War I failed in part because it had no real strategic objective. Any green lieutenant could tell you that's a stupid idea, but the boss was the boss. During the Battle of Britain, did the Luftwaffe want to stop attacking the nearly-destroyed RAF and bomb London instead, just because the RAF had raided Berlin? Of course not, but orders are orders, so the RAF had time to recover and ultimately win.
You are also forgetting the possibility that the attacks were intentionally not entirely disguised because they were intended to send a message, the way countries use military exercises to impress opponents, or intentional violations of airspace to test responses.
The US is the only country that has used nuclear weapons on a civilian population.
Aargh, I hate this bit of historical revisionism. Like any city they certainly had civilians in them, but Hiroshima and Nagasaki were both ports, and both had war industries and/or military facilities. They were entirely legitimate military targets by WWII standards and Japan would not have surrendered if they hadn't been atom bombed. (In fact, even after the second bomb there was a failed coup, an attempt to prevent Japan from surrendering.) They only surrendered because we claimed to have more bombs, even though more would not have been ready for months.
Here's a 1976 article on cumulative voting in Illinois. The writer saw it as promoting intraparty strife (creating more competition between candidates of the same party than with the candidates of the other party) and was hard for voters to understand.
OK, I'm going to wipe out my mod points because I can't let this go unchallenged. The GDP per capita in Afghanistan is about $800. The GDP per capita in Canada is about $40,000. So you're saying that the equivalent of raising the GDP per capita from $800 to $40,000 for just a year, even spread out over decades, is trivial? I hope you're not a financial advisor.
This was news to me, but I'm not sure you can blame the ISP. According to this Wired article, it's because ESPN is licensing ISPs rather than users, and it's unclear to me how net neutrality would solve that. Force all ISPs to license all such content, and provide it for free to all users? Forbid ESPN from licensing to ISPs, and instead force them to set up as a pay site for individuals to sign up with? Isn't the current situation basically a pay site that you pay for through your ISP? Other than that, how is it essentially different from any other pay site on the web? Sorry, I'm still not seeing much of a case for federal intervention anytime soon.
Your second example is still only talk, so it doesn't count. As for the first, sure, Comcast was throttling BitTorrent (for a while, at least; I don't know the situation now). Still, I think that's pretty thin grounds for the federal government jumping into broadband regulation.
Prohibition: Meant to improve health and morality, it lead to vastly more organized crime, murder, and health problems from bad liquor.
Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the CRA: Meant to help people buys homes, they helped fuel a housing bubble and subsequent crash which caused many foreclosures. The Fannie/Freddie collapse may cost taxpayers up to a $1 trillion.
Urban renewal: the destruction of poorer neighborhoods of single-family homes and small apartment buildings to build giant housing projects, which quickly turned into much worse places to live.
The Enlarged Homestead Act of 1909, meant to give farmers land, led to massive soil erosion and the Dust Bowl of the 1930s.
The Aswan Dam: To go outside the US, the dam stopped the silt from flowing down the Nile and fertilizing crops. Now much of the electricity produced by the dam goes to making artificial fertilizer now needed by the farmers.
There are many more, but here's a bonus, favorite example: the Trabant. Designed and built by the East German government, this notoriously poor and polluting car holds a special place in economic history. It's not uncommon for business to lose money when the cost of making a product is less than the product is worth. But after the Berlin Wall fell and the books could be examined, something unique was discovered: the value of a Trabant was less than the value of the steel, glass, plastic, rubber, and other raw materials that went into it. AFAIK no other mass-produced product has ever been so "value-subtracted."
But to get more on-topic, here's my problem with the FCC action: what problem, exactly, are they solving? I've read lots here about net neutrality and all the horrible things it's supposed to prevent, but have any of those horrible things actually, you know, happened? If not, what's the rush? Why not wait to see exactly what the abuses are, so that we can know what problems the government is supposed to be fixing?
And as for the success of the App Store, it's probably not popular here to suggest this, but might not it's success (so far) be in part because it's the dreaded walled garden? It's easy, one-stop shopping, with a certain guaranteed level of quality of apps. Sure, the Symbian etc. model is more open, but that doesn't seem to have translated into success in terms of selling lots of smartphone apps. At the iPhone announcement Apple said they've paid out $1 billion to App Store developers. I don't know, but I suspect that might approach or exceed the total amount revenue seen by all Blackberry, Win Mobile, and Symbian app developers put together.
So Google gets into smartphones, browsers and operating systems, and then cries "Foul!" when Apple gets into online advertising? (OK, I know Apple's hardware restrictions are a valid issue, but still....)
I believe the labels' thinking at the time was that this was a test, and experimental roll-out.
Perhaps in part, but I think it's more that they were forced to go with Jobs' plan to sell (not rent) music at a flat price because they all knew that previous attempts to sell music online had failed: the Sony Connect store, Duet, MusicNet, Pressplay, etc. All were so restrictive and user-unfriendly that buying songs on iTunes at a flat $.99 was a breath of fresh air, even with the DRM they had at that time.
In a hilarious twist, most of the people who are saying that it's oppression and taking away our rights were also fully supportive of the Patriot Act.
That works in the other direction as well: many of the people so upset about the Patriot Act are all very pleased right now that the federal government will have more control over the health records and healthcare of all citizens. Apparently they think that has no slippery slopes or potential for abuse.
Slashdot Mirror
All you kids, keep it down in there!
Both of you are correct, that should be factored in, though there are free math ebooks. And of course a countervailing factor is that ebooks don't physically wear out or get marked and unusable, but physical books do.
Ideally one iPad could replace at least several years worth of physical books, so I still think it wouldn't be hard to make it economical in the medium term.
Done right, this could make economic sense. Textbook prices have been rising far faster than inflation, nearly doubling in 20 years. Some math textbooks can cost over $100. Even assuming they cost only $50, an electronic device at a cost 10 textbooks, but which does much more and can be easily updated, could be a bargain. (In theory, that is. I'm assuming the school district plans well and the kids don't trash them.)
The disparity in years is just IE misinterpreting the dimension of time, like the box model bug.
Did you read the article? (Or did the people modding you up?) The whole point of the technology is that it's reading knowledge, not emotions.
I think the predictable references to Orwell and precrime are also off-target. This is not about mass surveillance: it requires electrodes and detailed preparation. This is not about convicting people of a crime: it's not admissible. This is a potentially useful (and legal, painless, and humane) interrogation tool, for use when when you have some possible knowledge about a pending attack, and a person in custody who may know about it.
Of course, like anything else, it has the potential for misuse, but I don't see anything inherently evil in it.
It's not my decision, it's the client's. They just want sites to work in all common versions of IE, automatically. I don't like it, but they don't want to hear lectures on web standards and progress.
Unfortunately, it's not going happen any time soon. What client wants a website with a feature that doesn't work in IE? Never mind IE 9, the websites I build still have to support IE 6! So even assuming IE 9 has good SVG support, SVG won't have a chance on a typical corporate site until IE 9 is in the position that IE 6 is now: the minimum that anyone worries about, with IE 6, 7 and 8 just distant memories with a trivial amount of users who can be ignored the way IE 5 users are now. That could easily be another 6-8 years... or more.
Ha ha, but do you think hackers in China or North Korea always get to do what they want? Do you think one-party dictatorships are better at listening to advice from geeks than, say, the average American CEO or politician? You really can't imagine some Asian version of the pointy-haired boss saying: "No, do it with our servers. We need to test them"? If you think the hacker is smart, wouldn't he be smart enough to not argue with the Chinese or North Korean officer who's giving him the order?
History is filled with errors of that sort. The last big German offensive on the Western front in World War I failed in part because it had no real strategic objective. Any green lieutenant could tell you that's a stupid idea, but the boss was the boss. During the Battle of Britain, did the Luftwaffe want to stop attacking the nearly-destroyed RAF and bomb London instead, just because the RAF had raided Berlin? Of course not, but orders are orders, so the RAF had time to recover and ultimately win.
You are also forgetting the possibility that the attacks were intentionally not entirely disguised because they were intended to send a message, the way countries use military exercises to impress opponents, or intentional violations of airspace to test responses.
Aargh, I hate this bit of historical revisionism. Like any city they certainly had civilians in them, but Hiroshima and Nagasaki were both ports, and both had war industries and/or military facilities. They were entirely legitimate military targets by WWII standards and Japan would not have surrendered if they hadn't been atom bombed. (In fact, even after the second bomb there was a failed coup, an attempt to prevent Japan from surrendering.) They only surrendered because we claimed to have more bombs, even though more would not have been ready for months.
It has been convincingly argued that without the atom bombs, Japan would not have surrendered, and that the bombs actually saved lives because any invasion would have been incredibly bloody. (The US is still using Purple Heart medals made in anticipation of the invasion, and near the end the Japanese were arming women and children with bamboo spears to fight the invaders.)
I had the same issue with my MacBook, but the plastic case meant it was easy to get some fine sandpaper and take the edges down a bit.
Yes, Jobs does stumble sometimes with his design sense. The notorious round mouse of 1998-2000 is another prime example.
They find the male counterpart of Lucy, and nickname him "Big Man"? It would have been much more fun to name him "Ricky."
Here's a 1976 article on cumulative voting in Illinois. The writer saw it as promoting intraparty strife (creating more competition between candidates of the same party than with the candidates of the other party) and was hard for voters to understand.
Not that there weren't other causes, but well-intentioned government mucking about with mortgages was an undeniable factor. See also this.
OK, I'm going to wipe out my mod points because I can't let this go unchallenged. The GDP per capita in Afghanistan is about $800. The GDP per capita in Canada is about $40,000. So you're saying that the equivalent of raising the GDP per capita from $800 to $40,000 for just a year, even spread out over decades, is trivial? I hope you're not a financial advisor.
Jennifer 8. Lee
This was news to me, but I'm not sure you can blame the ISP. According to this Wired article, it's because ESPN is licensing ISPs rather than users, and it's unclear to me how net neutrality would solve that. Force all ISPs to license all such content, and provide it for free to all users? Forbid ESPN from licensing to ISPs, and instead force them to set up as a pay site for individuals to sign up with? Isn't the current situation basically a pay site that you pay for through your ISP? Other than that, how is it essentially different from any other pay site on the web? Sorry, I'm still not seeing much of a case for federal intervention anytime soon.
Your second example is still only talk, so it doesn't count. As for the first, sure, Comcast was throttling BitTorrent (for a while, at least; I don't know the situation now). Still, I think that's pretty thin grounds for the federal government jumping into broadband regulation.
But to get more on-topic, here's my problem with the FCC action: what problem, exactly, are they solving? I've read lots here about net neutrality and all the horrible things it's supposed to prevent, but have any of those horrible things actually, you know, happened? If not, what's the rush? Why not wait to see exactly what the abuses are, so that we can know what problems the government is supposed to be fixing?
No mod points today, so I'll just say: indeed.
And as for the success of the App Store, it's probably not popular here to suggest this, but might not it's success (so far) be in part because it's the dreaded walled garden? It's easy, one-stop shopping, with a certain guaranteed level of quality of apps. Sure, the Symbian etc. model is more open, but that doesn't seem to have translated into success in terms of selling lots of smartphone apps. At the iPhone announcement Apple said they've paid out $1 billion to App Store developers. I don't know, but I suspect that might approach or exceed the total amount revenue seen by all Blackberry, Win Mobile, and Symbian app developers put together.
So Google gets into smartphones, browsers and operating systems, and then cries "Foul!" when Apple gets into online advertising? (OK, I know Apple's hardware restrictions are a valid issue, but still....)
Sorry, this is incorrect. Bush allowed federal funds to be used (for the first time) for research on existing stem cell lines, but not on new ones.
Perhaps in part, but I think it's more that they were forced to go with Jobs' plan to sell (not rent) music at a flat price because they all knew that previous attempts to sell music online had failed: the Sony Connect store, Duet, MusicNet, Pressplay, etc. All were so restrictive and user-unfriendly that buying songs on iTunes at a flat $.99 was a breath of fresh air, even with the DRM they had at that time.
That works in the other direction as well: many of the people so upset about the Patriot Act are all very pleased right now that the federal government will have more control over the health records and healthcare of all citizens. Apparently they think that has no slippery slopes or potential for abuse.
The article summarized and quoted is not linked in the summary. The actual article here.
Here's some recent data about the resources available to the DoT, the parent agency of the NHTSA: When the recession started, the Transportation Department had only one person earning a salary of $170,000 or more. Eighteen months later, 1,690 employees had salaries above $170,000. Plus the juicy benefits and pension plan. I'll bet all those managers and supervisors raking in the big bucks would agree that their agencies are "resource starved" and that if they only had more money and more power, they could hire two or three software engineers (for the cost of one manager).